She will be at the Center on Halksted Thursday, Aug. 28, 6 pm, 3656 N. Halsted. There is a $5 suggested donation.
During the German Empire the dentists Margarete Herz and Helene Wolff were founding members of the local Women’s Suffrage Association in Bonn in 1909, in which they were active together with the publicist and fighter for women’s suffrage Johanna Elberskirchen (1864-1943).
The lifestyles of the newly discovered women’s couple aimed at economic and achieving personal independence, on democratic right to vote for all people and healthy lifestyles. After Helene’s death in 1917, Margarete Herz opened a vegetarian restaurant in the East of Germany. In 1938, she was forced to flee Germany because she was of Jewish decent, and lost all her belongings to the Nazi Regime. She made her first home in Chicago, on Paulina Street above the Herz General Store with her relatives.
With the help of American relatives, Ingeborg’s lecture includes information and photos of these early suffragettes in Germany.
Software-Trainer Ingeborg Boxhammer (M. A.) works as a freelance in Bonn, Germany. She is co-administrator of the website www.lesbengeschichte.org (since 2005), which is presenting “lesbian-like” (Judith M. Bennett) publicists and activists from before 1933 until after 1945 as well as critiques and filmlists with regard to lesbian-like representation in German-speaking films from 1911 till this day. Boxhammer published a book about lesbian film history (2007) and is doing research on biography research and local lesbian history.