Fredrika Bremer

August 17, 1801 - December 31, 1865

Occupation: novelist, feminist, socialist, mystic. Literary genre: realism or liberalism

About Fredrika Bremer:

Fredrika Bremer was born in what was then Swedish Finland to a wealthy family which moved to Sweden when Fredrika was three years old. She was well educated and traveled widely, though her family limited her activities because she was a woman.

Fredrika Bremer was, under the laws of her time, unable to make her own decisions about the money that she inherited from her family. The only funds under her own control were what she earned from her writing. She published her first novels anonymously. Her writing earned her a gold medal from the Swedish Academy.

In the 1830s Fredrika Bremer studied philosophy and theology under the tutelage of a young Christianstad minister, Boeklin. She developed into both a sort of Christian mystic and, on earthly matters, a Christian socialist. Their relationship was interrupted when Boeklin proposed marriage. Bremer removed herself from direct contact with him for fifteen years, communicating only through letters.

In 1849-51, Fredrika Bremer traveled to the United States to study culture and the position of women. She found herself trying to understand the issues around slavery and developed an anti-slavery position.On this trip, Fredrika Bremer met and became acquainted with such American writers as Catharine Sedgwick, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Washington Irving, James Russell Lowell, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. She met with Native Americans, slaveowners, slaves, Quakers, Shakers, prostitutes. She became the first woman to observe the US Congress in session, from the public gallery of the Capitol. After her return to Sweden, she published her impressions in the form of letters.

In the 1850s, Bremer became involved in an international peace movement, and in pressing for civic democracy at home.

Later, Fredrika Bremer traveled to Europe and the Middle East for five years, once again writing her impressions, this time publishing it as a diary in six volumes.