Amalia Holst

Amalia Holst (née Amalia von Justi; 10 February 1758 – 6 January 1829) was a German writer, intellectual, and feminist. Her work examined traditional pedagogy and challenged Enlightenment writers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. She is often called the German counterpart to Mary Wollstonecraft.[1] There is still little known about Amalia Holst's life. She rose to prominence in the late 1700s through her works as a teacher. In the 1970s, she became more widely recognized after her work was rediscovered and published.[2]

Amalia Holst
Born	Amalia von Justi 1758 Mecklenburg, Germany
Died	January 6, 1829 (aged 70–71) Groß-Timkenberg, Germany
Occupation	Writer, teacher
Language	German
Period	1791-1802
Notable works	Über die Bestimmung des Weibes zur höhern Geistesbildung (On the Purpose of Women's Advanced Intellectual Development), Bemerkungen über die Fehler unserer modernen Erziehung von einer praktischen Erzieherin (Observations on the Errors of Our Modern Education by a Practical Teacher)
Spouse	Ludolf Holst

Life

Early life

Amalia Holst was born in 1758 in Mecklenburg. She is the daughter of Johanna Maria Magdalena Marchand and Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi[3] and the oldest of six children from her father's second marriage.[2] Her father was a well-known political economist and the Prussian chief inspector of mines. He was also a feminist, who published pieces advocating for improved women's education.[2] When Holst was 10 years old, he was accused of embezzling funds and imprisoned in Küstrin where he died several years later.[3]

After her father's death, the family was split up. Their possessions had to be dissolved. Holst's mother went to live with her brother, who was a pastor in Brunswick. Her younger sisters were lodged into a monastery in Potsdam, and her brother was admitted into a Danish cadet school. It is unknown what happened to Holst during this time.[2]

In large part due to Justi's progressive beliefs, Holst was one of only very few women to receive a college education during this time.[1] She is also said to have received a doctorate in philosophy[2] from the University of Kiel.[3]

Marriage and children

Her name appeared again 20 years later in 1791 when at the age of 33, she married Ludolf Holst, a lawyer as well as the director of the Pedagogical Institute in Hamburg-St Georg. They had three children together, one son and two daughters.[3]

Career

That same year she published her first work, Observations on the Errors of our Modern Education by a Practical Teacher (German: Bemerkungen über die Fehler unserer Modernen Erziehung von einer Praktischen Erzieherin),[2] after having supported herself through teaching from a young age.[4]

From about 1792–1802, Holst was the headmistress of the preschool that her husband oversaw.[3] During this time, she also opened several small schools in Hamburg, Wittenberg and Boizenburg. These schools were short-lived however, and the reason for their closings is not known.[1]

Holst published "Letters on Elisa, or Women as they Ought to be" (German: “Breife über Elisa, oder das Weib wie es seyn sollte"), the second of her three known works, in 1799. It was written in response to the novel, which according to Holst dangerously extolled the marital oppression of the title character. In it she also strongly advocated for marital equality and female autonomy. She argued that women should be defined as human beings first and wives second. This was the beginning of her involvement in a larger debate about feminism occurring during this time.[1]

In 1802, Holst published her final work: On the Purpose of Women’s Advanced Intellectual Development (German: Über die Bestimmung des Weibes zur höhern Geistesbildung).[1]

Death and afterward

Holst passed away in Groß-Timkenberg on January 6, 1829.[3] She is memorialized in Judy Chicago's installation art piece The Dinner Party, which features a triangular table with 39 place settings, each commemorating important women in history. While she is not given a place setting, her name, along with the names of 998 other feminist icons, is inscribed in gold on the white tile floor below the table.[5]

Work

Observations on the Errors of Our Modern Education by a Practical Teacher

Published in 1791, it criticizes widely accepted conservative pedagogical theories, specifically those of Campe and Basedow.[1] Holst analyzes their ideas from the perspective of an educator, and points out the flaws and contradictions within them. She also calls attention to the impractical nature of their ideas.[2]

Letters on Elisa

In 1799, Holst responded to the success of the novel Elisa, which appeared in its fifth edition. She wrote four letters to the title character criticizing the self-sacrificing and submissive role of women. This seems to be her first public push for gender equality.[2] According to Holst, a woman's attachment to her spouse did not detract from her autonomy. However, she also emphasized a woman's responsibility to her domestic duty and referred to her own marriage as "a domestic bliss."

On the Purpose of Women’s Advanced Intellectual Development

In this work, Holst makes the case for higher, ungendered education for males and females alike. This notion was very radical: unlike many of the prominent female-education advocates before her such as La Roche, Herder and Goethe, Holst rejected the idea of separate curriculums for each gender, believing that women could and should learn the same things men do. This was not an accepted idea at the time. Her ideas diverged from most her contemporary equal education advocates as well, including the likes of Hippel, Wollstonecraft and Condorcet: while they were in favor of an advanced public coeducation system, Holst insisted on a professional maternal educator who would instruct her children in all academic disciplines from early childhood through adolescence. Only women who were thoroughly educated themselves were fit to educate the next generation, and thus Holst reasoned that every woman was to be educated. She advocated for an in depth knowledge of history, the sciences, philosophy, geography and the arts. Holst stressed that the most important quality of an effective maternal educator was the ability to draw meaningful connections among all disciplines. She also placed an emphasis on individual perfection, urging women to continually engage in intellectual pursuits throughout the course of their lives.[1]

She made several demands for female education:

• Women were to have complete freedom to study every subject.
• They were to be given access to original sources, as opposed to those specifically written for women, which she claimed offered “superficial knowledge” and which “treat [women] like overgrown children.”
• Exceptionally intelligent women were to have access to a formal university education. They were also to be free of the pressure to have children. She used the philosophers Kant and Leibniz as examples, noting that both were celibate but their “immortal works, the offspring of their minds, have enriched the world.” Why then, Holst argued, shouldn't the same apply to women?
• It was to be accepted that women were capable of achieving in the most advanced fields of thought. Holst asserts “there exists no proof that a woman’s mind cannot comprehend the higher sciences.”[1]

References

1. Sotiropoulos, Carol Strauss (2004). "Scandal Writ Large in the Wake of the French Revolution: The Case of Amalia Holst". Women in German Yearbook. 20: 98–121. doi:10.1353/wgy.2004.0006. JSTOR 20688974. S2CID 143668967.
2. Spitzer, Elke (2001). Emanzipationsprüche zwischen der Querelle des Femmes und der modernen Frauenbewegung. Kassel University Press. pp. 163–181.
3. Klemme, Heiner; Kuehn, Manfred (2016). The Bloomsbury Dictionary of 18th Century German Philosophers. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 358. ISBN 978-1474255981.
4. Gray, Marion W. (2000). Productive Men, Reproductive Women: The Agrarian Household and the Emergence of Separate Spheres During the German Enlightenment. New York: Berghahn Books. p. 224. ISBN 1571811729.
5. "Amelia Holst". The Dinner Party: Heritage Floor. Brooklyn Museum. Retrieved 4 June 2012.