Hainisch, Marianne (1839–1936)

Austrian feminist, founder and doyenne of the Austrian women's movement, who was a champion of higher education for women and a leader of the world peace movement. Born Marianne Perger in Baden bei Wien, Lower Austria, on March 25, 1839; died in Vienna on May 5, 1936; daughter of Josef Perger; married Michael Hainisch; children: Marie Hainisch ; Michael Hainisch (1858–1940, who served as the first president of the Republic of Austria, 1920–28); Wolfgang Hainisch.

Marianne Perger was born in 1839 into a financially comfortable middle-class family in Baden bei Wien, a town from which one could visit nearby Vienna by rail. First tutored at home, in 1855 she completed her education at a finishing school for elite young women, Vienna's Institut Betty Fröhlich. In September 1857, Marianne married Michael Hainisch, a successful textile factory owner. Few clouds appeared on her horizon in the early years of her marriage. Shielded from material worries, she was able to concentrate on the domestic sphere, giving birth to three children. By the early 1860s, however, Marianne Hainisch became involved in concerns beyond her home and family. As a result of the Civil War in the United States, the import of cotton into Austria virtually ceased and a deep economic depression hit the textile industry. As a result, factory workers and their families found themselves thrown into conditions of extreme poverty. Hainisch organized charitable activities that enabled a significant number of working-class families to survive the immediate economic crisis, which ended in the mid-1860s. Now sensitive to working-class conditions, she began to view the issue of the economic and social advancement of women in terms of more basic reforms, particularly in the area of women's education.

In an address delivered on March 12, 1870, to the Women's Employment Association of Vienna (Wiener Frauenerwerbsverein), Hainisch called for the creation of grammar schools for girls. Such a reform, she argued, would profoundly change the role of women by enabling them to break down barriers that had until that time kept them from entering professions traditionally reserved for males. Although seen as radical by many contemporary observers, Hainisch's reform proposals were meant to stabilize society, not destroy it. Just as the aim of vocational schools for women of the lower-middle class was to train them for the skilled professions to prevent them from slipping into the proletariat, so too the aim of girls' grammar schools would be to prevent women of the upper-middle class from falling into the lower-middle class.

Hainisch's campaign to create equal opportunities for Austrian women in both secondary and higher education met with vehement opposition from the start. Determined to achieve her goals, she emphasized their apolitical nature. With secondary educations, she noted, women would not only become more economically independent, but would also become more intellectually autonomous. They would then reject the vacuous lifestyles prevalent in the upper-middle class.

Hainisch believed that the new era of higher moral ideals would be inaugurated by women but that its spirit would in time be diffused throughout society. Positive signs of change for Austrian women began to appear before the end of the 19th century, including the inauguration in 1892 of Vienna's Gymnasiale Mädchenschule, a girls' secondary school in all but official designation, located in the Rahlgasse. By 1897, a major victory was won for Austrian women when the philosophical faculty of the flagship University of Vienna admitted them on a basis of unrestricted matriculation, a reform which was also conceded in 1900 by the same institution's medical faculty. In 1899, as Hainisch represented Austrian women at the international women's conference in London, she could report significant progress in her homeland.

By the dawn of the 20th century, Hainisch was the acknowledged leader of the Austrian women's movement. Always a political moderate, she rejected radical feminism as well as the class warfare ideology and Marxist militancy of the emerging Social Democratic movement. Radicals within the women's movement called for a fundamental restructuring of societal and gender relations, but Hainisch remained convinced that the goal of the movement should continue to be the transformation of women as individuals. In May 1902, she became president of the League of Austrian Women's Associations (Bund österreichischer Frauenvereine), an umbrella organization that by 1914 could boast of 90 constituent groups with 40,000 members. The League's goals, which remained moderate because of Hainisch's guiding hand, included the achievement of equal educational opportunities and enhanced employment opportunities.

As a pacifist and friend of Bertha von Suttner , Hainisch saw World War I as a failure of civilization. She called on the members of the League's constituent organizations to render humanitarian assistance on all levels. "We women cannot change the war," she said, "but nonetheless we can make contributions to ameliorate at least some of the misery and suffering of this conflict." As head of the peace commission of the League, she worked tirelessly to further the agenda of its previous chair, Bertha von Suttner.

The end of the war in November 1918 led to the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and the emergence of an unstable Austrian Republic. Many of Vienna's citizens were close to starvation in the immediate postwar years; Hainisch organized relief work, appealing to the outside world for humanitarian assistance. In 1918, she retired from fulltime leadership of the League of Austrian Women's Associations, accepting a less demanding role.

Despite the immense upheavals, there were also victories to celebrate after 1918, including

the granting of suffrage to Austria's women. Her son Michael Hainisch (1858–1940) was the first president of the Republic of Austria (1920–28). In 1926, Marianne was rewarded when Mother's Day, another of her advocacies, became an official holiday in Austria. In 1929, still active at age of 90, Hainisch announced the founding of the Austrian Women's Party (Österreichische Frauenpartei). The universally respected Grand Old Lady of the Austrian women's movement died in Vienna on May 5, 1936. Austria honored Marianne Hainisch by depicting her on a commemorative postage stamp issued on March 24, 1989.

sources:

Anderson, Harriet. Utopian Feminism: Women's Movements in fin-de-siecle Vienna. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992.

Eltz-Hoffmann, Lieselotte. "Bedeutende Vorkämpferin für die Sache der Frau: 150. Geburtstag von Marianne Hainisch am 25. März," in Salzburger Nachrichten. March 25, 1989.

Fellner, Günter. "Athenäum: Die Geschichte einer Frauenhochschule in Wien," in Zeitgeschichte. Vol. 14, no. 3. December 1986, pp. 99–115.

Hacker, Hanna. "Frauenbiografien: Eine Annäherung an vier Lebensläufe 'prominenter' Österreicherinnen," in Mitteilungen des Instituts für Wissenschaft und Kunst. Vol. 38, no. 4, 1983, pp. 90–94.

Hainisch, Marianne. "Geschichte der österreichischen Frauenbewegung," in Marianne Hainisch, ed., Frauenbewegung, Frauenbildung und Frauenarbeit in Österreich. Vienna: Selbstverlag des Bundes österreichischer Frauenvereine, 1930, pp. 13–24.

Kern, Elga, ed. Führende Frauen Europas: Neue Folge, in fünfundzwanzig Selbstschilderungen. Munich: Ernst Reinhardt Verlag, 1930.

Richter, Elise. "Marianne Hainisch und das akademische Studium der Frauen," in Die Österreicherin. No. 3. March 1, 1929, pp. 4–5.

Wagner, Renate. Heimat bist Du grosser Töchter: Österreicherinnen im Laufe der Jahrhunderte. Vienna: Edition S/Verlag der Österreichischen Staatsdruckerei, 1992.

——. "Marianne Hainisch: Eine Pionierin der Frauenbewegung," in Volksblatt-Magazin [Vienna]. May 12, 1989, pp. 2–3.

John Haag , Associate Professor, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia