From the Heroism of Woman: Fredrika Bremer

At this time, when there is so much talk of woman and her rights, and of her influence in realizing man's higher ideals and impelling him to set forth to build a great new world, it behooves us, the women of this country — before we demand a political right that we imagine to be the whole of our right in life — to acquaint ourselves with the great figures in woman's history, those figures in which shone the many colors of heroism and sacrifice, who created for themselves a new world worthy of reverence and respect, and opened before man himself doors of good that would have stayed closed in his face but for their tenderness.

It is fitting for us, at this stage of our life, men and women alike, to come to know woman in the various stages of her human life. The woman of whom I speak today is one of those whose lives were an unbroken chain of struggle, until the right she sought was established for her, and until, after her, there was established for her society the free life in which woman stands with man, both of them on one plane, working with mind and heart for a single common goal: to build the nation and the people anew.

...This was about a hundred years ago — in the days when ventures by girls were an idea regarded with much suspicion and doubt — when there broke with tradition, and leaped over society's barriers, a Swedish girl who had suffered in herself every color of oppression as she watched these heavy fetters drag woman's humanity down to the depths. She resolved upon something — upon something that would deliver woman from all these fetters, so that she might be freed once and for all from society's odious chains... She undertook several journeys, and by the time her wanderings ended, the volcanoes of revolt and rebellion had flared up in her head, and her blood was ablaze and clamorous with protests and questions of every kind...

And she returned to Sweden as heroes return from the field of victory: in her hand the torch of liberty, lighting the road before her; on her lips a smile of dewy, fertile hope; her heart brimming with strong, deep faith and with that fierce, unbending resolve that will not be denied!

Who, do you suppose, is this Swedish girl in revolt against tradition, crying out and calling, demanding woman's rights, demanding her equality with man, while the echo of her clear, warm voice rings on?

And “Fredrika Bremer,” the fair-haired Swedish girl, marches on, and behind her march the massed women of Sweden — crying out one to another, banding together, demanding wherever demand may rightly be made.

Fredrika Bremer takes up the problem of the Swedish woman's emancipation by positive means, and asks with much indignation: why should man alone possess honorable work and material independence, while the girl remains listless and idle, her hands tied, her livelihood entrusted to man alone?

The bugle sounds, and the Swedish girl wakes from her deep sleep; fathers' brows knit, and their glances turn fierce with anger — it was no light thing to them that their traditions should be flouted and their sheltered daughters pass out from under their authority... Fredrika stands in the vanguard of those who incite to work, who war upon laziness and idleness... People wonder in perplexity: what need has this girl of work, when her father has his eminent position and his vast fortune? She does not answer their questioning; she pays no mind to her mother's reproaches, and takes no heed of her objections, founded as they are on shortsightedness and bigotry — that beast which Fredrika resolved to wrestle down and destroy; for it had become plain to her that there could be no life for the Swedish woman unless she put an end to this bigotry and tore down its thick walls, which had shut the windows of light and knowledge in her face...

With her fine instinct Fredrika understands that her enemy is stubborn and not to be fought with violence and force; so she turns to writing and authorship, and does so in secret — even from her parents. The first of her books to appear, under an assumed name, is “Everyday Life in Sweden.” The book meets with esteem and wide sale, and its proceeds go to the poor of Sweden...

The idea of study, of going deeper into learning, revives in Fredrika's head, and she returns to the famous university of “Uppsala,” resuming her studies in literature and philosophy, two fields to which the girl was strongly drawn. And there... there she stands face to face with her professor of philosophy, and her heart beats for the first time; in her radiant eyes gleams a heavenly spark that floats over her young face, lending it brilliance and splendor... But Fredrika, with her strong, conquering will, smothers this feeling that had formed in her breast unawares... This intelligent young woman stands at the crossroads: whether to declare her love for her professor, or to hide it forever and continue on the road of her sacred national struggle until she fulfills the mission to which she has devoted her life... She withdraws into herself to search her soul, while the battle within her rages at its fiercest between mind and heart, between feeling and duty... At last, in this mighty, struggling girl, the mind wins; she sacrifices her love and her feeling on the altar of her duty and her work, buries her heart while it is still a tender child, keeps its secret even from her beloved himself, and lets fall over this luminous page of her striving life a heavy curtain in which the spiders of forgetfulness make their nests...

Fredrika throws herself into writing and authorship; by now people's eyes have discovered her and turned toward her with admiration and esteem. Several books appear, chief among them “The New World,” a design for Swedish life and how she would have it be; the whole Swedish people reads it, and the English and the Americans vie in translating her books, most of which are rendered into English and other languages.

Fredrika Bremer's principles spread and embrace all Swedish circles; ladies and girls march in their processions, their first aim the liberation of the girl by way of learning and enlightenment, and her preparation for every profession and occupation... and then the demand for her equality with man in all the rights he exercises...

In the year 1882 the Swedish woman gained equality with man in inheritance, and two years after this date, which recorded a great victory for the Swedish woman, the cornerstone was laid of the first official Fredrika Bremer organization in Sweden.

Sixty-four years have passed over that day, and now most Swedish women belong to the Fredrika Bremer organizations... and in Sweden today there are 87 different organizations, with a total membership of nearly 13 thousand. And at the head of each of these organizations is a likeness of Fredrika Bremer's head as she was in her last years: fair hair crowned with white; clear eyes whose warmth the years never dimmed; and thin lips pressed together — the very symbol of resolve and steadfastness.