Concept

Anna Edinger

Summary
Anna Edinger (nee Goldschmidt; 17 May 1863 – 21 December 1929) was a German social activist, women's rights campaigner and peace activist. She received a large inheritance in 1906 and became, in addition to her own campaigning, significant as a benefactress to the Neurology Institute set up by her husband, and a few years later integrated into the newly established University of Frankfurt. Anna Goldschmidt was born at Frankfurt am Main, at that time a free city within the German Confederation. However, she was still only 7 when the city lost its independence, becoming instead part of what came to be known in English language sources as the German empire. Moritz Benedict Goldschmidt (1831-1906), her father, was co-owner of a successful banking business and a notable art collector: Anna and her siblings underwent a childhood conditioned by her father's significant wealth. Her mother, born Pauline Jacobsen (1836-1901), came from a Jewish mercantile family with close family links to Hamburg. It was as a member of the city's Jewish haute bourgeoisie that Anna grew up in a large lively family home in which guests were always welcomed. As a result of her parents' sociability, Anna Goldschmidt came into frequent contact with artists and art collectors, without ever needing to leave the house. Regular visitors also included academics, journalist and social philanthropists. Two of these were the pioneering gynecologist Elisabeth Winterhalter (whose patient she later became) and Winterhalter's partner, the artist Ottilie Roederstein, both of whom became personal friends and allies in respect of shared objectives that included securing, for women, access to university-level education and the improvement of social living conditions. She also acquired a particular interest in what sources of the time term the "natural sciences", and might have wished to study science at a university level, but the opportunities to do so in Germany did not exist.
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