Helene von Forster was a Germanwomen's rights activist and author. She is considered the most important representative of the feminist movement's moderate "bourgois" wing in Nuremberg.
Life
Helene Schmidmer was born in Nuremberg, the eldest of her parents' four recorded children. Christian Schmidmer, her father, was a prominent member of the city's business community and the owner of a factory producing wires and cables. Her mother, born Nanette Lotz, was the daughter of a top civil servant from the nearby Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. She attended the :de:Labenwolf-Gymnasium Nürnberg |"Portsche Institut zur Städtischen Höheren Mädchenschule", a prestigious school in the city's centre, and then, as was not unusual for daughters of the well-to-do at that time, concluded her formal education at a boarding school in Lausanne. From an early age she was exceptionally interested in literature. On 20 September 1882 Helene Schmidmer married the leading Nuremberg eye doctor, Dr. Sigmund von Forster whom she had met at literary events. They made their home in Nuremberg. She helped him with his work: her humour and warm heartedness were appreciated by patients. The couple's daughter was born in 1894. While still a young woman she began to write lyric poems, as well as more light-hearted poetry, volumes of which she published. She donated the proceeds to charitable causes. She contributed a short comedy to a celebration of the Pegnesischer Blumenorden. Further stage pieces followed, such as "Das Burgweiblein" in 1902, "Im Hause Martin Behaims" in 1907 and "Historie einer Urne" in 1913, a "Festspiel" written to celebrate the 44th congress of the :de:Deutsche Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte |German Society of Anthropology, Ethnology and Early History. Von Forster also deployed her literary talent and reputation in the service of the women's movement in which she engaged during or by 1893. That was when she teamed up with :de:Bertha Kipfmüller|Bertha Kipfmüller and set up, formally on 16 November, the Nuremberg section of the :de:Verein Frauenwohl|Women's Welfare Association, committed to improving conditions for women in the city and surrounding region. Helene von Forster became the association's the first chairwoman. Membrship soon reached 2,000. The association oprganised evening classes covering matters such as home economics and budgeting, handcrafts and languages. They founded and ran the "New Nuremberg Women's Labour School" and, from 1898, Bavaria's first post-natal women's hostel alongside the newly built city hospital in the :de:St. Johannis |St. Johannis quarter. This had what was seen as the important practical benefit of enabling working woman the chance to bring their babies into the world under medical supervision. In 1894 she also organised a Nuremberg group of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenvereinliterally, "General German Women's Association", a national umbrella organisation that had been in place since the 1860s, but which was undergoing major expansion nationally during the 1890s. She became a long standing member of the regional executive. This organisation took an interest in various issues associated with the evolving women's movement, but its principal focus was on women's training and education. Van Forster became the first chairwoman of the Nuremberg group. In her committee work she was commended for her nimble use of words and also for the human intuition and warmth with which she guided the meetings she chaired. Meanwhile her book "Die Frau, die Gehilfin des Mannes", which had been published the previous year, was finding a growing resonance. Between 1895 and 1909 she founded or co-founded several further organisations with the purpose of improving the condition of women. In 1908 the old ban on women's participation in politics, which for some years had been interpreted with varying levels of vigour in different parts of Germany, :de:Reichsvereinsgesetz|finally disappeared. Helene von Forster joined the "Fortschrittliche Volkspartei", remaining a member after 1918 when, following a party merger, the FVP became part of the new "Deutsche Demokratische Partei". During the 1914/18 war she ran her organisation's own Red Cross hospital in Nuremberg. She also set up a women's education institution in the city. With many of the men away at war women were now expected to take a more prominent role in organising matters at home, and like many, by the end of the war she was convinced that women should be entitled to vote in national and local elections on the same basis as men. In the event, the new constitution introduced during the 1918/19 revolution, delivered :de:Frauenstimmrechtsbewegung in Deutschland|equal voting rights for women, and in 1919 von Forster became a DDP city councillor. Membership of the city council in 1919 made her one of the first women in the new republican Germany to hold political office. Working with her party colleague and fellow councillor :de:Agnes Gerlach|Agnes Gerlach she energetically promoted welfare measures, support for the blind, schooling for girls and women's health, along with measures in support of the arts and education more generally. According to one source it was the level of energy that Helene von Forster applied to her role as a campaigning city councillor that hastened her death. She died in Nuremberg on 21 March 1923, predeceasing her husband and survived, also, by the couple's daughter.
