Inge von Bönninghausen

This biography is not yet available in English.

You can find the German version here.

Victoria Claflin Woodhull Martin

This biography is not yet available in English.

You can find the German version here.

Florence Griffith-Joyner

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You can find the German version here.

Mary Eliza Church Terrell

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You can find the German version here.

Ida Noddack

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You can find the German version here.

Gertrud Arndt

born on September 20, 1903 in Ratibor/Upper Silesia (today: Racibórz/Poland)
died on July 10, 2000 in Darmstadt/Germany

German textile artist, designer and photographer
120th birthday on September 20, 2023

“All these threads” – she really didn’t like them (Gertrud Arndt, quoted in Müller p. 56). Only half-heartedly did Gertrud Arndt begin her training as a weaver at the Bauhaus in Weimar. After completing the prep course, most of the female students at the coveted art school had had no choice but to study weaving "whether they wanted to or not" (Gertrud Arndt, quoted in Leßmann, Zwischen Sachlichkeit ..., p. 9). Arndt had originally planned to build ultra-modern houses; yet it was a blue-and-yellow-checkered carpet that brought her widespread admiration. Titled Carpet 2 and showcased on the floor in the office of Bauhaus director Walter Gropius, it was a stunning debut for a woman who had just turned 22. Nevertheless, it was in the field of photography where Gertrud Arndt made art history: her 43 Mask Portraits (Maskenphotos), self-portraits in which she drifts back and forth between multiple roles, are included in almost every volume on the photography of the Weimar Republic.…read more

Romy Schneider

Austrian-German-French actress

born September 23, 1938 in Vienna
died May 29, 1982 in Paris

85th birthday, September 23, 2023

"If it were up to me, I would become an actress right away. Just like Mommy," confided the fourteen-year-old Rosemarie Magdalena Albach to her diary in 1952. One year later she did appear in her first role in Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht (When the White Lilac Blooms Again), together with her mother, Magda Schneider. Thereupon she left school. Between 1954 and 1957 she appeared in four films in the role that would stick with her for the rest of her life: "Sissi sticks to me just like oatmeal." [Sissi (originally Sisi), the wife of 19th-century Austrian Emperor Franz Josef, was made into the romantic heroine of a series of sentimental and immensely popular German "Sissi-films" in the 1950's]. Romy's career was cleverly managed and marketed by her stepfather, the gastronomical entrepreneur Hans-Herbert Blatzheim. And at every public appearance, "Mom stands behind one and whispers: Smile now, smile…." It would be twenty years before she could articulate that "Daddy" was…read more

Marie Blanc

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You can find the German version here.

Mary Wigman

born on November 13, 1886 in Hannover
died on September 18, 1973 in Berlin

German dancer, choreographer and dance educator
50th anniversary of her death, September 18, 2023

In the fall of 1919, Mary Wigman (whose actual name was Karoline Sofie Marie Wiegmann) was celebrated in Hamburg for the first time by a German audience as a new and truly great dancer. She was nearly 33 years old, and in the subsequent years she would establish herself internationally as the creator and agent of an original form of art: expressionist dance. In 1910 she left Hannover, where she had grown up, hoping to be able to fulfill a part of her hitherto vague desire for independence and artistry at the School of Rhythmic Gymnastics in Hellerau near Dresden. She successfully completed her training, however she was dissatisfied with visions of a grand art of movement originating in one's own rhythm and impulse. She finally experienced the truth at Rudolf von Laban's "School of Art" on Monte Verità in 1913: "It was as if I had come home! […] this wonderful feeling I stood there with, suddenly happy and blissful to be under the dictatorship of a drum rhythm." Her entire…read more

Annie Besant

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You can find the German version here.

Mary Roberts Rinehart

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Ida Arenhold

Born 11 November 1798 in Herzberg/Harz
Died 24 September 1863 in Hanover

German pioneer of social work; founder of the Friederikenstift in Hanover, Germany
160th anniversary of her death on September 24, 2023

Ida Arenhold was 42 years old when she, together with seven other well-to-do women, founded the “Frauenverein für Armen- und Krankenpflege” (Women’s Association for the Care of the Poor and Sick) in 1840. Unmarried, she still lived with and kept house for her father, who had not remarried after the death of his wife in 1822. Ida had taken on the role of lady of the house and accompanied her father at social events. Born on 11 November 1798 in Herzberg, she moved in 1799 to Hanover, the royal residential city to which her father, a high official at court, had been transferred. After the early death of her mother it fell to her as the oldest daughter to care for her seven younger siblings and take on the responsibility of running the large household. Since the end of the 18th century charity for the poor had increasingly become a public concern. With the impact of industrialization and urbanization the problems associated with poverty intensified in the cities. In many towns,…read more

Ilse Essers

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You can find the German version here.