Born: 1857, Finland
Died: 24 December 1913
Country most active: Finland
Also known as: Alexandra van Grippenberg
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
Authoress, leader of feminist movement, Alexandra Gripenberg, daughter of Senator, Baron J. U. S. Gripenberg, was born in Kurkijoki in 1857. She received a very good education and early showed literary talent. In the eighties she published, in the Swedish language, several collections of tales, advocating temperance, morality and woman’s rights. During a journey to England in 1887 she received a powerful impulse from the feminist movement there, and the next year she took part in a women’s congress in Washington, D. C. From then on, she devoted all her energy to this movement. For twenty years she was president of the oldest Finnish society for the promotion of women’s rights, and established, in Finland, a national branch of the International Council of Women. When the woman’s suffrage was introduced in Finland in 1906, Alexandra Gripenberg became a member of the Diet, continuing to work for the ideas close to her heart. She also took effective part in the international feminist movement, appearing at several international congresses. She is the author, in the Finnish and Swedish languages, of an extensive history of the feminist movement. Alexandra Gripenberg died in 1911.