Hedwig Bleuler-Waser

Sophie Hedwig Bleuler-Waser (née Sophie Hedwig Waser; born 29 December 1869 in Zurich – 1 February 1940 in Zollikon) was a Swiss suffragette who founded the Swiss Federation of Abstinent Women.

Hedwig Bleuler–Waser
Born	29 December 1869 Zurich
Died	1 February 1940 (aged 70) Zollikon, Switzerland
Education	University of Zurich
Spouse(s)	Eugen Bleuler ​ (m. 1901)​
Children	2

Personal life

Bleuler-Waser was born on 29 December 1869 in Zurich.[1] Bleuler-Wase married Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler.[2] The two met while campaigning for the abstinence movement.[3] The couple did not frequent Church and followed the ideas of the Enlightenment.[4]

Education and career

In 1901 she met Auguste Forel, a Swiss myrmecologist, neuroanatomist, psychiatrist and eugenicist, and at his suggestion, she founded the Swiss Federation of Abstinent Women.[1][5] She chaired the Federation as president until October 1921.[6] Together with her five children, she ran social events at the hospital her husband worked at, including serving afternoon tea.[7]

In 1907, Bleuler-Waser graduated from the University of Zurich, becoming one of the few women to receive her doctorate.[8] While at the University of Zurich she established lasting friendships with Marie Baum, Ricarda Huch and Marianne Plehn.[9] After completing her doctorate, she taught at the Höhere Töchterschule in Zürich.[6]

During World War 1, Bleuler-Waser and Else Züblin were involved in the construction of alcohol-free soldiers' offices.[10] In the winter of 1917, she started women's education courses in Zurich.[1] For most of the time Bleuler was working in Burghölzli, between 1898 and 1927, the family lived together in an apartment outside the clinic. The apartment was also home to a secretary and junior doctor.[4] From 1919 until 1937, she led the German-Swiss Ortsgruppenvereinigung (Local chapter of Association).[1]

Selected publications

The following is a list of selected publications:[11]

• J.G. Lavater (1894)
• Ulrich Hegner: ein Schweizer Kultur- und Charakterbild (1901)
• Weihnachtsspiele (1910)
• Die Dichterschwestern Regula Keller und Betsy Meyer (1919)
• Lenzbub kommt (1920)
• Engelchens Erdenjahr : Weihnachtsspiel in fünf Bildern (1926)

References

1. "Hedwig Bleuler-Waser". hls-dhs-dss.ch. Historical Dictionary of Switzerland. 6 November 2002. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
2. Yoker, Ümit (28 December 2013). "Zerrissen zwischen innen und aussen". Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
3. "Paul Eugen Bleuler (1857–1939)". embryo.asu.edu. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
4. Joos-Bleuler, Tina (November 2011). "Being a Member of the Bleuler Family". Schizophr Bull. 37 (6): 1115–1117. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbr135. PMC 3196944. PMID 22013083.
5. Heidi Thomann Tewarson (29 August 2018). Die ersten Zürcher Ärztinnen: Humanitäres Engagement und wissenschaftliche Arbeit zur Zeit der Eugenik. Schwabe AG. p. 134. ISBN 9783796538766. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
6. "Der Briefwechsel zwischen Ludwig Binswanger und Eugen Bleuler". d-nb.info (in German). 2009. pp. 33–35. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
7. Coline Covington; Barbara Wharton (8 May 2015). Sabina Spielrein:Forgotten Pioneer of Psychoanalysis, Revised Edition. Routledge. p. 87. ISBN 9781317458609. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
8. Herrmann, Anne (15 April 2014). Coming Out Swiss: In Search of Heidi, Chocolate, and My Other Life. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 143. ISBN 9780299298432. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
9. James Martin Skidmore (2005). The Trauma of Defeat: Ricarda Huch's Historiography During the Weimar Republic. Peter Lang. pp. 22. ISBN 9783039107605.
10. Schweizer Kriegsnothilfe im Ersten Weltkrieg: Eine Mikrogeschichte des materiellen Überlebens mit besonderer Sicht auf Stadt und Kanton Zürich. Vandenhoeck & Ruprech. 3 December 2018. p. 278. ISBN 9783412512699. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
11. "Au:Bleuler-Waser, Hedwig". worldcat.org. Retrieved 16 October 2019.

External links

• Find a Grave