Baroness of Adlersparre

Writer, debater, and co-founder of Sweden’s first wave of feminism, aristocrat Sophie Adlersparre launched and edited the journal Tidskrift för Hemmet (Journal of Domestic Life) in 1859 as a forum for women’s literature. Encouraged by the Modern Breakthrough, Sweden’s naturalistic movement in arts and letters, in 1884 Adlersparre and her colleagues established the Fredrike Bremer Førbundet (Association), dedicated to women’s intellectual and economic development. As the editor of Dagny, the Førbundet’s house organ, Adlersparre promoted a feminist agenda, but opposed the sexual emancipation—which she termed “false emancipation”—advocated by proponents of philosophical naturalism.