Aletta Jacobs

Aletta Jacobs (1854–1929) was a Dutch physician and women’s rights activist, the first woman to graduate from a Dutch university and practice medicine in the Netherlands. She campaigned for women’s suffrage and international peace.

Wilhelmina Drucker: A Dutch feminist and political activist who founded the Vrije Vrouwen Vereeniging in 1889. Drucker and Jacobs helped organize Dutch women’s suffrage activism.
Women’s suffrage in the Netherlands: The movement that secured Dutch women’s right to vote in national elections in 1919. Jacobs was a leading organizer in the campaign that won this right.
Birth control: Methods and practices used to prevent pregnancy. Jacobs provided contraceptive information to women through her medical practice.
University of Groningen: A Dutch public research university founded in 1614 in the city of Groningen. Jacobs studied medicine there after receiving special permission to attend.
Carrie Chapman Catt: An American women’s suffrage leader who led the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. Catt worked with Jacobs in international campaigns for women’s voting rights.
Dutch women’s voting rights: The legal rights of women in the Netherlands to vote and stand for election. The campaign Jacobs led helped make these rights law.
Pessary: A device inserted into the vagina to support pelvic organs or, historically, to prevent pregnancy. Jacobs advised women about contraceptive pessaries in her clinic.
Women’s education: The provision and pursuit of formal education by women and girls. Jacobs’s university admission challenged restrictions that shaped this wider history.
Rosa Manus: A Dutch feminist and pacifist who organized international women’s movements in the early twentieth century. Manus continued the international feminist organizing Jacobs helped build.
Women in medicine: The participation of women in medical education, research, and clinical practice. Jacobs’s admission and practice made her a Dutch pioneer in this broader history.

Linked from 2 pages

Emily Greene BalchRelated: Jacobs and Balch worked together in the international women’s peace movement.