Jeanne Schmahl

Jeanne Elizabeth Schmahl
Jeanne Schmal in 1909
Born	Jeanne Elizabeth Archer 1846
Died	1916
Nationality	British, French
Occupation	Midwife
Known for	1907 Married Women's Property Act

Jeanne Elizabeth Schmahl (1846–1916) was a French feminist, born in Britain. She married a well-off husband who supported her while she worked as a midwife's assistant. She became involved in successful campaign to change the laws so women could bear witness and could control their own earnings. She launched the French Union for Women's Suffrage to campaign for women's suffrage, but that was not achieved in her lifetime.

Early years

Jeanne Elizabeth Archer was born in Great Britain in 1846. Her father was English and her mother French. Schmahl was a friend of Sophia Jex-Blake, and in contact with the feminist movement in England. She went to France to study medicine, since the British did not allow women to study this subject at the time. She interrupted her medical studies when she married Henri Schmahl, a Frenchman from Alsace, and took the name of Jeanne Schmahl. However, she acted as an assistant to professional midwifes until 1893. She became a French citizen in 1873 through her marriage. She was supported by her husband and lived in comfort beside the Parc Montsouris.

Women's rights to witness and dispose of income

By 1878 Jeanne Schmahl had become active in groups led by Maria Deraismes and the pastor Tommy Fallot. She joined the League for Raising Public Morality (Ligue pour le relèvement de la moralité publique), which was mainly concerned with abolition of alcohol and pornography, then became interested in women's civil rights and joined Léon Richer's group for that cause. Schmahl joined the Society for the Amelioration of Woman's Condition founded by Maria Deraismes. She became more passionate about this cause when a patient of hers was fired after asking employer not to give her wages to her husband, an abusive alcoholic.

Schmahl saw the need for a French equivalent to the Married Women's Property Act 1882. Schmahl thought that the anticlerical and Republican groups led by Richer and Deraismes were wrong to mix religion and politics with women's issues, and this was "one of the great reasons for the movement's lack of success in France." She decided to follow the strategy of focusing on specific issues for reform. In January 1893 Schmahl founded the Avant-Courrière (Forerunner) association, which called for the right of women to be witnesses in public and private acts, and for the right of married women to take the product of their labor and dispose of it freely. As Schmahl wrote in 1896,

Taking into consideration that the Civil Code is the one great obstacle to the emancipation of women in France, we decided to attack it. Not, however, in its entirety, as had previously been attempted, but piecemeal, beginning by what appeared to be least defended by our opponents and therefore easiest of conquest; at the same time choosing the point which should logically come first, as the foundation of women's freedom. We were not long in coming to the conclusion that, financial freedom being the root of all liberty, we must first set to work to obtain for married women the right to their own earnings.

The campaign was at first limited in scope, aiming to rally middle- and upper-class women to the cause with moderate and conservative views. Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart (1847–1933), Duchess of Uzès and Juliette Adam (1836–1936) soon joined the Avant-Courrière, and Schmahl found support from Jane Misme (1865–1935), who later founded the journal La Française and Jeanne Chauvin, the first woman to become a doctor of law. Schmahl published a journal, L'Avant-Courrière. The society grew to 200 members. The Avant-Courrière managed to get the support of printing houses, who printed posters at no charge for display across Paris and in major provincial cities. The law to allow women to bear witness passed the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate in 1897. The Chamber of Deputies passed the earnings bill in 1896. The Senate stalled on this bill, and it was not until July 1907 that it finally approved the act. Schmahl then dissolved the l’Avant-Courrière, which had achieved its goals. The 1907 Married Woman's Property Act was often called the "Schmahl Law".

Women's suffrage

From 1901 Schmahl had belonged to the Women's Suffrage (Suffrage des femmes) association led by Hubertine Auclert (1848–1914). The French Union for Women's Suffrage (UFSF: Union française pour le suffrage des femmes) was founded by a group of feminists who had attended a national congress of French feminists in Paris in 1908. Most of them were from bourgeois or intellectual backgrounds. The leaders were Jane Misme and Jeanne Schmahl. The UFSF provided a less militant and more widely acceptable alternative to Auclert's Suffrage des femmes organization. The sole objective, as published in La Française early in 1909, was to obtain women's suffrage through legal approaches. The founding meeting of 300 women was held in February 1909. Cécile Brunschvicg (1877–1946) was made secretary-general. Eliska Vincent accepted the position of honorary vice-president. The UFSF was formally recognized by the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWFA) congress in London in April 1909 as representing the French suffrage movement. Although national in scope, the UFSF was very much Paris-based.

Jeanne Schmahl resigned from the UFSF in 1911 due to disputes with Cécile Brunschvicg, the secretary-general, although the reason given was health problems. Jane Misme remained with the UFSF, which had 12,000 members by 1914. Jeanne Schmahl died in 1915. Her obituary said, "Mme. Jeanne Schmahl was before her day—a pioneer who did not claim to be a prophetess. She reasoned and persuaded... It was her deliberate intention and in kindness of heart that she wished to improve us [men] by improving the condition of women... She kept her foot on solid earth. She did not forget reality—that was her strength; that and the gentle but firm obstinacy with which she cultivated her garden..."

Selected publications

• Jeanne-E. Schmahl (Mme Henri) (1894). La Question de la femme, par Mme Henri Schmahl. May et Motteroz.
• Jeanne-E. Schmahl (Mme Henri) (1895). Le Préjugé de sexe, par Mme Henri Schmahl...
• Jeanne-E. Schmah (1896). L'avenir Du Mariage. l'Avant-Courriere.
• Jeanne-E. Schmahl (September 1896). "Progress of the Women's Rights Movement in France". Forum (22). Philadelphia and New York: 88–89.
• Jeanne E. Schmahl (1898). Deux petits discours: L'historique d'une loi [et] Le foyer français. L'Avant-Courière.
• Jeanne-E. Schmah (1901). Économie domestique. C. Lamy.
• Jeanne E. Schmahl (1905). Raisons biologiques et économiques de l'inégalité de la femme dans le travail. l'Avant-Courrière.

Sources

• Bell, Susan G.; Offen, Karen M. (1983). Women, the Family, and Freedom: 1880-1950. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-1173-9. Retrieved 2015-03-23. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Charles, Ernest (1915-11-01). "Obituary: Mme. Jeanne Schmahl". Jus Suffragii. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-415-25738-1. Retrieved 2015-03-23. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hause, Steven C. (2002). "Union Française Pour Le Suffrage Des Femmes (UFSF)". In Helen Tierney (ed.). Women's Studies Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press. Retrieved 2015-03-13. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• McMillan, James (2002-01-08). France and Women, 1789-1914: Gender, Society and Politics. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-58958-6. Retrieved 2015-03-23. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Metz, Annie (December 2007). "Jeanne Schmahl et la loi sur le libre salaire de la femme". Bulletin du Archives du Féminisme (13). Retrieved 2015-03-22. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Rappaport, Helen (2001). Encyclopedia of Women Social Reformers. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-57607-101-4. Retrieved 2013-09-14. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Rudd, Jill; Gough, Val (1999-04-01). Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Optimist Reformer. University of Iowa Press. ISBN 978-1-58729-310-8. Retrieved 2015-03-23. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "Schmahl, Jeanne (1846–1916)". Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. 2002-01-01. Retrieved 2015-03-22.
• Tartakowsky, Danielle (2015). "Les françaises veulent voter". L’Histoire par l’image (in French). Retrieved 2015-03-13. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)