Hertha, 1914-1935

About Hertha

hen Rösträtt för kvinnor (Votes for Women) was first published in 1912, Dagny was confronted with a serious competitor. Subscribers were drastically reduced in numbers at the beginning of the 1910s, and in 1913 it was clear that the economic association was no longer able to continue publishing the periodical. The Fredrika-Bremer-Förbundet (Fredrika-Bremer-Association) thus stood without a press mouthpiece, which was experienced as a great loss. The board of the Association decided to publish a new magazine, Hertha, the first issue of which appeared in 1914. Hertha became, as Dagny had been during its first years, exclusively the mouthpiece of the Fredrika-Bremer-Förbundet. Ellen Kleman was its first editor.

The periodical came out between 1914 and 1999. Between 2001 and 2005 it was only published on Internet. Two jubileum issues have appeared, in 2009 and 2011. Like its predecessors Tidskrift för hemmet and Dagny, Hertha contained the Association’s messages, articles on current social, economic and ethical matters as well as articles connected to The Woman Question.

In the foreword to the first issue, one can read that the main goal of the periodical is to ”… constitute an upwards-bearing and forward-pointing factor in future development, as well as having an educational role for women”. The beginning of the 1900s was a time when important questions concerning the status of women were on the agenda of Parliament. The right to vote, and regulations and legal matters to do with women’s status in the family and within marriage were under debate. Furthermore, another aim of the periodical was that it should constitute a forum in which one took up ”…ethical and intellectual as well as social and economic questions”. Fiction also had its given place in the magazine. To start with, the periodical was published twice monthly and its first editor was Ellen Kleman.