Minna Cauer

A leader of the left wing of the German bourgeois women’s movement, Minna Cauer promoted radical democratic causes through the feminist newspaper Die Frauenbewegung (The Women’s Movement), where she worked from 1895 to 1919. She is responsible for founding the society Frauenwohl (Women’s Welfare) in Berlin in 1888, which she directed until 1919, campaigning for women’s rights and abortion rights. In 1895, she co-drafted a petition for the abolition of the Law of Association, which prohibited women from joining political organizations (the law would not be overturned until 1908). Cauer was also an organizer of the Union of Progressive Women’s Associations, established in 1899.