Publications and Laws
On this site you find entries on important publications and laws that influenced modern European women’s history
The publications and laws were selected by the students. We cover the period from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century and mainly focus on texts and laws from Britain, France and Germany. The entries are organized chronologically by the three centuries and the year the text was published or the law implemented.
Eighteenth Century (1760-1815)
Publications
Émile or Treatise on Education (Émile, ou De l’éducation) (1862) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Déclaration des Droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne (Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen) (1791) by Olympe de Gouge
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft
Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Weiber (On the Civic Advancement of Women) (1792) by Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel
Nineteenth Century (1815-1914)
Publications
L’Union Ouvrière (The Workers’ Union) (1843) by Flora Tristan
A Doll’s House (1879) by Henrik Ibsen
Die Frau und der Sozialismus (Women and Socialism) (1879) by August Bebel
Der Ursprung der Familie, des States und des Privateigentums (The Origin of the Family, the State and Private Property) (1884) by Friedrich Engels
Die Waffen nieder! (Down with Weapons!) (1889) by Bertha von Suttner
Die Gleichheit (Equality) (1892-1923)
Vote for Women / The Suffragette / Britannia (1907-1918)
Laws
The British Contagious Diseases Acts (1864, 1866, 1869)
The British Married Women’s Property Acts (1870 and 1882)
The German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, BGB) (1900)
Twentieth Century (1914-1970)
Publications
Call to the Women of All Nations (1915)
Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex) (1949) by Simone de Beauvoir
Laws
The British Representation of the People Act (1918)