Ernestine von Fürth


Ernestine von Fürth, née Kisch was an Austrian-Jewish women's activist, a founding member of the "Neuen Wiener Frauenklub", chairwoman of the Austrian women's suffrage committee, and editor for the "" in Austria.

Life

Although she was an important activist in Austrian history, relatively little is known about Ernestine von Fürth's private life. Born Ernestine Kisch to a wealthy Prague family, she married the court lawyer, who was at that time a member of the Viennese Sozialpolitische Partei. Both converted from Judaism in 1905. in 1906, Ernestine von Fürth founded the Austrian women's suffrage committee alongside Leopoldine Glöckel. The establishment of a legal women's suffrage association was not initially possible because the law barred women from membership in legal associations. Fürth was also a leading participant in the convening of the first Austrian women's suffrage conference in Vienna in March, 1912, which was intended to unite the Cisleithanien women's suffrage associations under one umbrella organization.
Her son was the lawyer and economist Herbert Furth, a member of the same circle as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich August von Hayek. The two of them fled together to the United States in 1938 to avoid persecution under the rise of National Socialism.

Literature