Saga - 2012, Page 76

Abstract
auður s t yrkársdótt i r
INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION DURING THE FIRST DECADES OF
THE ICELANDIC WOMEN’S RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Among 19th- and 20th-century social movements, the women’s movement is
probably the one which has succeeded best in gradually achieving its goals and
surviving international turbulence. This article investigates the relations of
Icelandic women with foreign feminists and women’s organisations of the late
19th and early 20th centuries. Iceland’s liberal voting laws of 1882, granting wid-
ows and independent unmarried women the right to vote in municipal elections,
became known among foreign feminists and attracted attention to Iceland. Based
in part on documents never before investigated, the present study of the interac-
tions of Icelandic women with the international women’s movement reveals that
contact began earlier than previously realised. Camilla Bjarnarson, who in
Denmark became the first Icelandic woman to complete an upper-secondary
school diploma, gave a speech on Iceland and the political status of women at the
Nordic Women’s Congress in Copenhagen in 1888. Sigríður Einarsdóttir, who
was married to Eiríkur Magnússon, a librarian at Cambridge University, attended
several international feminist meetings on both sides of the Atlantic during the
last two decades of the 19th century. While she was attending on behalf of British
organisations, she was everywhere introduced as an Icelander, and drew consid-
erable attention to Iceland in her speeches and papers for such meetings.
It was however not until 1894 that a formal women’s rights movement arose
in Iceland, with the establishment of the Icelandic Women’s Association. The fol-
lowing year, this movement made another important stride through the found-
ing of two women’s magazines: Framsókn (‘Progress’) at Seyðisfjörður and
Kvennablaðið (‘the Women’s Magazine’) in Reykjavík. The same year that these
two publications appeared, Reykjavík was visited by emissaries from the
International Women’s Christian Temperance Union, or Hvítabandið (‘the White
Ribbon’), as the Icelandic women’s temperance society later became known when
it joined forces with the Temperance Union. The Icelandic organisation was the
first ever on the island to build ties with an association overseas.
Nonetheless, the impact of foreign relations on the Icelandic women’s move-
ment remained insubstantial until the early 20th century. Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir
was in the vanguard as the editor of Kvennablaðið, and in 1906 was invited to
attend the congress of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in Copenhagen.
The president of the Alliance, Carrie Chapmann Catt, and the foremost speaker
for Danish women’s rights organisations, Johanna Münter, strongly encouraged
Bríet to work towards founding an Icelandic organisation which could act as a
member of the international alliance. Bríet spearheaded the founding of the
Icelandic Women’s Rights Association, with only one issue on its platform: to
work for female political rights in harmony with the aims of overseas organisa-
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