Dorothea von Rodde-Schlözer (née Schlözer), (18 August 1770 - 12 July 1825), was a talented German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 scholar and the first woman to receive a doctor of philosophy degree in Germany.

Life

Dorothea was born in Göttingen

Göttingen

Göttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...

 the daughter of professor August Ludwig Schlozer a prominent historian and theorist on matters of education. Schlozer believed that women's intelligence was equal to that of men. To settle a dispute with another professor on the effectiveness of Johann Bernard Basedow's method of education they agreed to educate their first born children by different methods to see how the results differed. Both children turned out to be girls. Dorothea Schlözer was given a non Basedow regime , she had the best private tutors, and a rigorous curriculum made it possible for her to read at aged four. She was also educated in several languages from an early age, and by the age of 16 she had mastered 9 languages; French, English, Dutch , Swedish, Italian, Latin, Spanish, Hebrew and Greek. She studied mathematics under professor Kasner who was amazed at her abilities. She later studied botany , zoology, optics, religion, mining and mineralogy . In addition, she was given instruction in areas then thought to be typically female such as playing the piano, singing, sewing, knitting and cooking.

Women were not permitted to study at Göttingen University at that time ,and Schlözer followed an extensive private examination by a faculty committee in the subjects of modern languages, mathematics, architecture, logic and metaphysics, classics, geography, and literature. She obtained her degree in the late 1780s.

Dorothea Schlozer differed from most learned women of the time who were thought of as neurotic and unfashionable. Schlozer was much more presentable. She knew how to sew and knit and understood how to run a household well.

She married a wealthy established merchant, Senator Mattheus Rodde in Luebeck in 1792 by whom she had three children. Henceforth, she wrote under the name of Rodde-Schlözer, the first use of the double surname in German. Their home became a centre for social and intellectual life attracting visitors from all over Germany and France.

Later in life she studied art in Paris and achieved a high standard. She was commissioned to paint a portrait of Kaiser Franz

Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor

Francis II was the last Holy Roman Emperor, ruling from 1792 until 6 August 1806, when he dissolved the Empire after the disastrous defeat of the Third Coalition by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz...

. She entered into a relationship with the French writer Charles Villers (1765–1815), in 1794 and lived semi publicly in a ménage à trois

Ménage à trois

Ménage à trois is a French term which originally described a domestic arrangement in which three people having sexual relations occupy the same household – the phrase literally translates as "household of three"...

 with her husband and Villers.

In 1810 her husband's business was declared bankrupt and he went into premature senility. This blow was followed by the death of Villers and two of her children. Weak with disease herself she moved to Avignon

Avignon

Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, seeking a mider climate and hoping to save the life of her only surviving daughter. She died there of pneumonia in 1825 aged fiftyfive.

External links

• Dorothea Schlozer scholarships Doctoral and research fellowships for women scientists at the University of Göttingen which bear her name. Accessed January 2010.