Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Thorvald Stauning
Summary
Thorvald August Marinus Stauning (ˈtshɒːˌvælˀ ˈstɑwne̝ŋ; 26 October 1873 in Copenhagen – 3 May 1942) was the first social democratic Prime Minister of Denmark. He served as Prime Minister from 1924 to 1926 and again from 1929 until his death in 1942.
Under Stauning's leadership, Denmark, like some other Western European countries, developed a social welfare state, and though many of his ambitions for Social Democracy were ultimately thwarted in his lifetime by events beyond his control, his leadership through grave times places Stauning among the most admired of twentieth-century Danish statesmen.
The Stauning Alps, a large mountain range in Greenland, were named after him.
Stauning was trained as a cigar sorter and soon became involved with trade union activity. From 1896 to 1908 he was leader of the Cigar Sorters' Union (part of the Danish Tobacco Workers' Union, in 1898 – 1904 also editor of the magazine Samarbejdet (Co-operation) of the Federation of Trade Unions, and elected Member of Parliament (Folketinget) in 1906. In 1910 he was elected chairman of the Social Democratic Party (Socialdemokratiet), a position he retained for almost thirty years, until 1939. He participated as Minister without Portfolio in the Cabinet of Zahle II from 1916 to 1920.
He was elected to government as prime minister in 1924 for the minority cabinet Cabinet of Thorvald Stauning I which would survive until 1926. His cabinet was considered ground-breaking not only as it was the first purely Social Democratic cabinet, but also because a woman, Nina Bang, was appointed Minister of Education, which attracted some international attention, as she was one of the first female ministers in the world.
From 1929 he led the successful coalition cabinet Cabinet of Thorvald Stauning II with the social liberal Det Radikale Venstre party that would steer Denmark out of the Great Depression, shaping a major political compromise that greatly improved the Danish economy, and also transformed the Social Democratic Party from a class party to a popular party.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.