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Education and the Emancipation of Jewish Girls in the Nineteenth Century: The Case of the Netherlands
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
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In the Netherlands the first girl admitted to a qualifying secondary education and the first female university student were sisters, Frederika and Aletta Jacobs. These girls, twelve- and seventeen-years old, entered the respective institutions in 1871 after the father and Aletta had made successful requests. In each case the admission brought an end to a long-standing male privilege. And in each case contemporaries conceived of these ambitious girls as exceptional and therefore raised hardly any objections. In reality however, the arrival of the Jacobs sisters initiated what amounted to a revolution in girls' education, as Dutch girls and women began to follow their examples in unexpected numbers.
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References
1 Aletta made the request, but the prime minister's answer was sent to her father, as she was still a minor: Wilde, Inge de, Nieuwe deelgenoten in de wetenschap: Vrouwelijke studenten en docenten aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen 1871–1919 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1998), 56. In her Memories Aletta claimed to have been the first girl admitted to a qualifying secondary school. There is no evidence that she ever attended the local high school: Jacobs, Aletta Memories. My Life as an International Leader in Health, Suffrage, and Peace (New York: The Feminist Press, 1976, edited by Harriet Feinberg, originally 1924), 11.Google Scholar
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