The “World-Embracing” Hanna Rydh: An International Feminist (c.1945–1964)

ABSTRACT

How and why does one become an international feminist, and how does one convince others to join in one’s effort to try to improve the status of women all over the world? Through the life and work of the Swedish feminist Hanna Rydh (1891–1964), president of the International Alliance of Women (1946–52) and the Fredrika Bremer Association (1937–49), this article explores the transnational entanglements within the international women’s movement during the early Cold War. It shows how Rydh convinced both her Swedish and her Nordic sisters that international understanding and co-operation was key if lasting world peace was to be achieved. Described as citizens of the world’s most progressive societies, both in terms of modernity and women’s status in society, Nordic women were said to have a special responsibility towards women in so-called developing countries, to help and guide them over the threshold of modernity.

KEYWORDS:

• Biography
• transnational history
• internationalism
• feminism
• peace
• postwar

It was [in] 1911 when I met Carry [sic] Chapman Catt and saw her as the president during the International [Woman] Suffrage Alliance’s Congress in Stockholm. I must confess that it was a most intense impression of a great personality she gave to young Hanna Rydh […] and I thought it perfectly grand that she [Chapman Catt] did not care only for the women of her own country but was embracing women of the whole world.¹

With these introductory remarks, the Swedish feminist² Hanna Rydh, president of the International Alliance of Women, which Carrie Chapman Catt once led, introduced herself to the American League of Women Voters’ convention, held in April 1950. Between these events (the congress in 1911 and the convention in 1950) occurred two world wars that ravaged the world, but also a progressive wave that eventually secured women’s suffrage in most of the Western world. Yet much work remained for the Alliance, Rydh declared. Only through international understanding and co-operation could they hope to secure a lasting world peace, and she felt “that it is most important that we do every kind of work we can in the Orient […] and those who turn their new awakened faces to the world. […] [C]ountries where we are ready to meet many prejudices and much darkness, but also open arms.”³ This was emblematic of Hanna Rydh’s international outlook and work, as the Alliance expanded eastwards under her presidency (1946–52) during the early Cold War. The Fredrika Bremer Association (FBF), one of the oldest women’s associations in Sweden, also engaged more with international feminism under her presidency (1937–49).⁴

While the historian Leila J. Rupp, among others, has detailed the crosscurrents of international feminism up to the Second World War, “which marked the end of the first wave [of feminism] and the lull before the swell of the second,“ in the 1960s, a noticeable gap intervenes.⁵ However, as the historians of ideas Mats Andrén and Ettore Costa write, “the 1950s [w]as an era of both national renewal and transnational beginnings,” noting further that “[n]ot all exchanges were about the bipolar conflict, but the Cold War influenced most things at [the] local and global level.”⁶ The concepts of democracy, equality, freedom, and peace were highly contested on the international stage, which in turn affected the work of national and international women’s organizations.⁷ Competing for influence, partly by claiming to speak for the women of the whole world, the global sisterhood envisaged by these organizations was increasingly challenged by decolonization.⁸ To paraphrase the historian Jessica Reinisch, what motivated the agents of international feminism?⁹ How did they navigate the international Cold War? In short, and more specifically: how and why did an individual from a small and neutral nation at the northern periphery, like Sweden, become an agent of internationalism during the early Cold War?

Exploring these questions through the life and work of Hanna Rydh, following the transnational turn in women’s history, I aim to illustrate the entanglements of people and ideas between the national and international.¹⁰ My approach is reminiscent of a life-and-times biography, which aims, according to historian Birgitte Possing “to understand and explain how a notable individual could become both ‘carrier’ of and ‘redeemer’ of a major need in his/her day—and by doing so became a figure worthy of remembrance.”¹¹ The article does not represent the lone and true version of who or what Rydh was, but rather explores one important yet neglected aspect of her life: her international outlook.¹²

The many lives of Hanna Rydh: becoming (an international) feminist

Upon being asked during an interview when and why she became a women’s rights advocate [kvinnosakskvinna], Hanna Rydh answered spontaneously: “I was born to do it!”¹³ Born into a wealthy, middle-class Stockholm family in 1891, and into a social milieu that encouraged education, Hanna Rydh’s life coincided with the women’s movement’s high tide during its so-called first wave.¹⁴ The international women’s congress, held in Stockholm in 1911, had a deep impact on the young Hanna, who later attended the congress held in Geneva, in 1920, where the women from the East piqued her interest and made a particular impression on her.¹⁵ Encouraged by the prominent archaeologist Oscar Montelius, whose wife, Agda, was then president (1903–1920) of the FBF, Rydh became the first woman to earn a doctorate in archaeology in Sweden, doing so in 1919, the same year that the Swedish parliament passed a law granting universal suffrage. Rydh went on to popularize both history and archaeology through articles, books, lectures, and guided tours.¹⁶

Hanna Rydh became increasingly involved with domestic social and political affairs during the 1930s.¹⁷ Education was key, and the elite within the women’s movement, such as Rydh, tasked themselves with raising and rousing the still “sleeping” masses of women into action. The passive citizen, indifferent to politics and the government of society, was denounced in an editorial of the FBF’s journal Hertha as a non-being.¹⁸ Women would never accomplish their goals, whatever they may be, without political power, and Rydh held lectures throughout Sweden on the need for more women in governing bodies. She also presided over a joint committee, uniting several Swedish women’s organizations, which fought for greater political representation of women.¹⁹ During her travels and lectures throughout Sweden in the 1930s, Hanna also inspired the creation of several local branches of the FBF.²⁰

According to Rydh, the main tasks of the Swedish women’s movement were to educate women into active citizens, to obtain greater representation of women in governing bodies, to have equal opportunities and equal pay for equal work, and, lastly, to improve the living conditions of housewives and professional women.²¹ The home, in particular, became a political battleground, as the FBF demanded the funding of a government agency focused solely on questions of the home and household work, and Rydh even suggested an obligatory education for girls in household work.²²

This leads to what archaeologist Elisabeth Arwill-Nordbladh calls the “paradox” of Hanna Rydh’s feminism, where the association of women with the domestic sphere “gave rise to an irony: that she presented an image of women, the gender-ideological content of which probably ran counter to female emancipation.”²³ Indeed, the idea of “societal motherhood” (samhällsmoderlighet), both prominent within and promoted by the FBF, emphasized women’s unique qualities as complementary to those of men for the better governing of society, which Rydh tellingly likened to a “happy marriage”.²⁴

During the IAW’s congress in Copenhagen, in 1939, under the looming threat of war, Rydh declared the Nordic people’s age-old desire for peace and freedom, as well as their deep-rooted democratic tradition.²⁵ When its Nordic neighbours were dragged into war, however, Sweden remained on the side-lines, waving the banner of neutrality.²⁶ As the war neared its end, plans for a postwar world were drawn. The FBF argued that including women in governing bodies, on both the national and international levels, was vital to secure a lasting peace, as women possessed a “peaceful nature”.²⁷ Rydh moreover emphasized that, since Sweden had escaped the horrors and destruction of war, it was their duty to help during postwar reconstruction.²⁸ This, she explained after a journey through war-torn Europe in late 1945, “must happen if the world shall be brought into equilibrium, that the people may live in peace without fear of war.”²⁹ The lesson learned from the war was “that we cannot live alone in peace and prosperity in a world teeming with unresolved problems.”³⁰ International co-operation was key.

On the threshold of a new world

Because the Second World War had, in Rupp’s words, “nearly severed international connections among women,” the members of the Alliance had to decide during its first postwar congress, held in 1946, whether it was “to live or die.”³¹ They chose revival and elected Hanna Rydh as the Alliance’s new president.³²

One immediate task for the Alliance in the postwar era was to reconnect or connect with both old and new potential affiliates. Soon after her election as president, Rydh went on a tour of “the East,” visiting Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Greece, and Ethiopia. Through her many journeys, Rydh became convinced that it was both the duty of and a necessity for the West to aid easterners through a “help to self-help”.³³ Notably, 19 new associations affiliated themselves with the Alliance between 1946 and 1952, most of them based in countries Rydh visited.³⁴ This provides context for the praise given by her predecessor, Margery Corbett Ashby: “From Stockholm to Addis Ababa, you have made the alliance real.”³⁵

While wary of the West being perceived as interfering, Rydh nevertheless thought that “we women of the West cannot say we should not interfere in the way of life of our Eastern sisters, because we know how industrialisation is changing the life of women.”³⁶ However, she also pointed out the difficulty of comparing countries and cultures, stating: “There is no use of declaring that we are in the right, that we are superior, and they have to learn from us. We may be all right, but we do not obtain any positive result by acting in a high-brow way.”³⁷ That is, the West may be the best, but it needs to get off its high horse when helping others. Moreover, Rydh emphasized the responsibility of Eastern women in becoming active citizens, writing: “You are on the threshold to a new world and it is now you have to decide whether you will partake in the work [to develop society] or slip back again in mere leisure.”³⁸ The necessity of development furthermore made Rydh, a staunch liberal and a democrat, praise seemingly modernizing and progressive autocrats, such as Mustapha Kemal (Atatürk) and Haile Selassie.³⁹

The need for education and eradication of poverty in so-called underdeveloped areas appeared as an urgent mission for the West, since the poor and ignorant masses were suspected to be potential breeding grounds for communism.⁴⁰ Speaking at the congress for West German women, held in Bad Pyrmont in 1949, Rydh explained her outlook:

It is also important for us all today, when countries have been brought closer together through technological advances, to raise the standard of living in those countries, where the great masses still live in such poverty, as they do in the Orient. Otherwise, there is a great fear of a growth of communism in these countries.⁴¹

The anti-communist stance of the Alliance, as historian Francisca de Haan notes, was prominent. In a letter from 1947 to her husband, Corbett Ashby wrote: ”It was us or the communist women who would organize the Near East.”⁴² Rydh even supported a proposal to merge the Alliance with the International Council of Women, in order to “counterbalance the communistic spirit in the Women’s International Democratic Federation [WIDF]”, which was castigated as a Soviet front.⁴³

While Rydh was once cautiously positive about the Soviet Union, in particular the status of and rights it afforded to women, the onset of the Cold War made the Soviet Union appear to be the greatest threat to western democracy and world peace.⁴⁴ In a heated debate on democracy among Swedish women’s organizations, Rydh conceded that although one can sympathize with the communist idea in theory, one must acknowledge that, in practice, there was nothing of its lofty ideals present in the repressive dictatorship of the Soviet Union.⁴⁵ The debate highlighted the organizations’ diverging views regarding what democracy entailed (politically, economically, and socially), but ended with a quarrel regarding who was the real warmonger, threatening world peace, the USA or the USSR.⁴⁶

The problems of peace and international understanding

In an editorial of the special congress number of the International Women’s News, from 1946, it was succinctly stated: “Peace, the support of UNO, and democracy, remain in the forefront of our programme, for without them all else is meaningless.”⁴⁷ The end of the Second World War had reinvigorated the liberal internationalists who wanted to secure a lasting peace. Their hopes were interrupted by a political rupture that split the world between West and East, and the decolonization movements in so-called underdeveloped areas.⁴⁸ Nevertheless, peace was paramount and remained a guiding principle of the Alliance in the immediate postwar years.

For Rydh, peace required international understanding, and she therefore stressed that it was vital “to get to know each other, attempt to delve into each other’s problems and understand each other’s mentality.”⁴⁹ For example, she thought it would be better to rehabilitate and integrate rather than severely punish and alienate the German people. With Swedish donations, Rydh therefore helped fund an international “study-home” for women in West Berlin, “Europe’s very frontier between East and West”.⁵⁰

But tensions and recurring conflicts with the women outside of Europe, mainly the Middle Eastern affiliates who were concerned by the plight of Palestine, increasingly made peace a distant dream. During her journeys throughout the Middle East, Rydh became disheartened, feeling that it was nearly impossible to discuss anything but Palestine with Arabic women.⁵¹ The Alliance increasingly found itself hard-pressed to take a stand between national affiliates, which forced Corbett Ashby, chairman of the IAW’s Peace Committee, to declare that all ”[p]olitical and religious questions of a controversial nature affecting the inter-relationship of two or more countries are excluded”.⁵² The Dane Ester Graff, Rydh’s successor, openly questioned why a feminist organization should have peace on its agenda.⁵³

During the 1950s, peace moreover became a controversial term, partly due to the so-called Soviet peace offensive. In the late 1940s, the Cominform laid the foundations for what would become the World Peace Council, which called for peace and nuclear disarmament. The Stockholm Appeal of 1950, issued by the council, was denounced by the US as “a propaganda trick in the spurious peace offensive of the Soviet Union.”⁵⁴ Accusations of American war crimes in Korea, detailed in a report sponsored by the WIDF, was similarly denounced as Soviet propaganda. Organizations and individuals in the West who championed peace were increasingly suspected as a “fifth column”.⁵⁵

The politicization of peace, combined with recurring conflicts among affiliates, led some to suggest that the Alliance Peace Committee should be dissolved. Instead, it found itself rebranded as the Committee for International Understanding, echoing Rydh’s notion that ”[w]e must educate ourselves in international understanding—the only way to Peace.”⁵⁶ With the exception of the word itself, peace remained on the organization’s agenda, and was indirectly pursued.

The world looks towards Nordic women

In 1946, Hanna Rydh was invited, along with several prominent international women, to the International Assembly of Women, held in South Kortright, New York, sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt and several American women’s organizations. Although the emerging divisions of the world were noticeable, for Rydh the lasting impression was the need for international co-operation and understanding among women all over the world. Somewhat disheartened to find most American women to be uninterested in world politics, Rydh believed that Nordic women could assume the burden of leadership and help other women in the world.⁵⁷ This was strengthened by the fact that, as others noted, “the Nordic countries are, on the whole, well ahead in most fields.”⁵⁸ An article in Hertha, from 1948, outlining “the modern woman’s issues” (modern kvinnosak), forthrightly concluded:

The Nordic women have in particular, therefore, a duty to spearhead the modern women’s movement in order to lend their support to millions of oppressed sisters all over the globe, who still lack almost any ability to use the weapons handed to them by the UN [e.g. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights] for the attainment of their human dignity. As long as these million-headed groups of women are backwards, illiterate, and lacking in the conditions required for cultural [andlig] growth and maturity, the development of womankind as a whole is hindered.⁵⁹

Hanna Rydh convinced the FBF to lift their gaze from their national work, important as it may be, to the international level, where their assistance was most needed. At her suggestion, they organized, in co-operation with the Alliance, a so-called social study course for those “Eastern women”, who needed “to study our social work and feel the atmosphere in a small country where one has a democratic mind-set.”⁶⁰ The first course in Sweden was held in 1948, and subsequent courses were held in 1950 and 1956, with one more of a similar nature in 1962.

The courses’ promotional materials described Sweden as a model of Western modernity.⁶¹ The Nordic states, as historian Klaus Petersen points out, used images of the Nordic welfare states, and of a “middle way”, to navigate between the two blocs on the international stage. The welfare state-concept was moreover believed to be an alluring alternative for emerging nations in the “Third world”, who did not want to be tied to any bloc.⁶² Sweden was therefore portrayed as a bridge-builder and mediator on the international stage, or as Rydh reportedly declared: “We Swedes, who stand on the sidelines in the struggle between the Great Powers, possess a certain advantage which can bridge the gaps that separate the people in the East from the people in the West. It is our duty to do our best in this regard.”⁶³

However, none of this meant that the women’s movement in Sweden, or any Nordic country, had accomplished its task. As the Norwegian feminist Margarete Bonnevie remarked: “The stage we have reached, even in the most advanced countries, is an embarrassing transitional stage in which women have apparently been given full freedom and equality, while in reality there is a great lack thereof.”⁶⁴ In an attempt to unite the different prominent Nordic women’s organizations, Rydh suggested that a working committee, tasked with outlining common goals and a strategy on how to achieve them, should be appointed.⁶⁵ The idea was met with approval and resulted in the so-called Åbo Committee, whose first meeting was held in Stockholm in November 1957. The main issues outlined there included the joint taxation of married couples (sambeskattning), equal pay for equal work, part-time work, and improving the conditions of women’s double roles within and without the household.⁶⁶ In the proposed joint plan for the Nordic women’s organizations, and echoing a familiar sentiment, Bonnevie wrote:

In the effort to make a decisive push for the achievement of women’s full human rights, the Nordic countries identify themselves as the natural choice to take the initiative. Nowhere have the leading principles of democracy, with its demand for equal rights for all to the free expression of life [fri livsutfoldelse], taken root as firmly as here. Nowhere is the soil more prepared for the implementation of one of the indispensable components of a true democracy: the equal position of women with men in society.⁶⁷

An (elite) agent of internationalism: concluding thoughts

In an article on Rydh, the last of four in a series about “the Great Women” of the Swedish women’s movement, the feminist author Eva Moberg remarked that “people here at home [in Sweden] do not appear to realise how much Hanna mattered and matters abroad. […] She acquainted herself with several heads of state and other key figures, and imparted on them a more positive view of the women’s movement.”⁶⁸ Hanna also made a difference by lifting the gaze of the FBF from the national to the international. As the organization’s then-president, Elin Lauritzen, commented in 1957, the FBF continued in the international track paved by Hanna Rydh.⁶⁹ It was not for naught that Rydh was called “world-wanderer” or described as “our world-embracing president”.⁷⁰ Even after her tenure as president of the FBF and the Alliance ended, she continued, as Honorary President, to promote international understanding and co-operation among women of the world. It is telling that Rydh left her sickbed to attend a meeting of the board of the IAW, held in Stockholm, in late January 1964.⁷¹ After her death later that year, a fund was started in honour of her memory. The fund contributed to two large-scale seminars arranged by the Alliance, the Hanna Rydh Memorial Seminars, intended for the advancement of women in developing countries.⁷²

The threat of war, the plight of women, and the promise of democracy and modernity motivated Rydh, and convinced her of the necessity of an international approach. Just like a national citizen, the modern world citizen had rights and responsibilities, and must be active and engaged with world events.⁷³ Reforging the international bonds of sisterhood and expanding the Alliance, even as the Cold War began to divide the world, Rydh kept the internationalist spirit alive. Her efforts also enabled the FBF to form friendships, through the Alliance, with women all over the world. Rydh truly was an agent of internationalism who thought and acted internationally.⁷⁴ However, it was comparatively easy to become such an agent for those who had the time, the money, and the language proficiency to travel the international stage. In addition, Rydh shared her sensibilities and values with the leading women of the IAW, all of whom were shaped by an upper-middle class background that transcended colour or creed. Most held similar views of society and societal change, which assumed a top-down approach, where the elite were cast as the true agents of development.⁷⁵

Alluding to Nordic exceptionalism, Rydh called for her Nordic sisters to assume the burden of leadership in the international women’s movement, and to guide their less fortunate sisters in developing countries towards emancipation and true democracy. Although it was important not to appear superior in meetings with women from developing countries, it was nevertheless implicit that the West is the best, and that it served as a model for modernity. Their blind faith in modernity furthermore made democrats, like Rydh, accept modernizing autocrats in the developing world, believing that these states would later evolve into Western-style liberal democracies. The fact that such autocrats often served as bulwarks against communism most likely made compromising one’s liberal ideology easier.⁷⁶

Rising tensions and conflicts in the world during the early Cold War made peace a contested term and a distant dream. Yet the conflicts highlighted how the national was embedded in the international. If anything, it revealed the need for more international understanding and co-operation in an increasingly interdependent world. “[W]e have to cooperate or perish together”, Rydh explained to American women in 1950.⁷⁷ Of her Swedish sisters, she simply asked rhetorically: “Can we afford to be internationally interested? Can we afford not to?” ⁷⁸

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christian Gerdov

Christian Gerdov is a PhD student in history at the department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Mid Sweden University. His current research revolves around the interplay between the national and the international, with particular focus on representations of modernity, development, and “the Other” within the Fredrika Bremer Association during the early Cold War (c. 1945–65).

Notes

1. Göteborgs Universitetsbibliotek, KvinnSam [Gothenburg University Library] (hereafter GUBK): Hanna Rydhs samling (A:12): II:18 Manuscript for a speech held at the League of Women Voters’ Convention, April 24, 1950, 1.

2. Rather than using the term ‘feminist’ one spoke of being a kvinnosakskvinna in Swedish, i.e. women’s rights advocate. The meaning of feminism was contested among the members of the IAW, but entailed in its broadest sense a belief in democracy, individual freedom, social justice, human rights, and equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities for men and women. Rupp 1997, 130-135; Offen, K., “Women’s rights or human rights?: International feminism between the wars” In Women’s rights and human rights: international historical perspectives. eds, Grimshaw, P., Holmes, K. and M. Lake (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001) 245-249; Kinnunen, T., “The National and International in Making a Feminist: the case of Alexandra Gripenberg”, Women’s History Review, 25(4), 2016, 667 note 16.

3. GUBK: A:12: II:18 Manuscript for a speech held at the League of Women Voters’ Convention, April 24, 1950, 4.

4. International feminism denotes “interactions between feminist activists from diverse homelands, the organizations they formed to facilitate these interactions, and even the imaginings they nurtured of innovative boundary crossings and alternative political identities.” DuBois, E.C. and K. Oliviero “Circling the globe: International feminism reconsidered, 1920 to 1975.” Women’s Studies International Forum 32(1), 2009, 1; On the ”early Cold War” see Petersen, K., “The early Cold War and the Western welfare state.” Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy, 29(3), 2013, 236-237 note 1.

5. Rupp 1997, 3; Cf. Ferree, M.M. and A.M. Tripp, eds. Global feminism: transnational women´s activism, organizing, and human rights. (New York: University Press, 2006); de Haan, F., “Writing inter/transnational history: the case of women’s movements and feminisms.“ In Internationale Geschichte in Theorie und Praxis: International history in theory and practice. eds, Haider-Wilson, B., Godsey, W. D., Mueller, W. and M. Gehler (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2017).

6. Andrén, M. and E. Costa, “Introduction: transnationalism in the 1950s Europe, ideas, debates and politics.” History of European Ideas 46(1), 2020, 2, 6.

7. For example, Laville, H., “The Memorial Day Statement: Women’s Organizations in the ‘Peace Offensive’” Intelligence and National Security 18(2), 2003; Skelton, S., From peace to development: a re-constitution of British women’s international politics, c. 1945-1975. PhD thesis (University of Birmingham, 2014).

8. For example, de Haan 2017; Gradskova Y. The Women’s International Democratic Federation, the Global South and the Cold War: Defending the Rights of Women of the ‘Whole World’? (London: Routledge, 2021).

9. According to Reinisch, an agent of internationalism is someone who thinks and acts internationally. Reinisch, J., “Introduction: Agents of internationalism.” Contemporary European History 25(2) 2016, 200.

10. For example DuBois and Oliviero 2009; Janz, O. and D. Schönpflug, eds. Gender history in a transnational perspective: networks, biographies, gender orders. (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014); de Haan 2017.

11. Possing, B., Understanding biographies: on biographies in history and stories in biography. (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2017), 22-28 (quote 81, cursive in the original text).

12. Earlier (biographical) research focus on Hanna Rydh’s historical- and archaeological work. For example, Arwill-Nordbladh, E., ”’Landshövdingskans Kofond’, tvätten och hushållens rationalisering: om Hanna Rydh och modernitetens materialiteter.” In Personligt talat: biografiska perspektiv i humaniora. ed. Sjöberg, M. (Göteborg: Makadam, 2014); Eikeland, K.S., ”Oscar Montelius, Hanna Rydh och kvinnofrågan.” In Allvarligt talat: berättelser om livet. ed. Sjöberg, M. (Göteborg: Makadam, 2018).

13. Moberg, E., “Hon var före NIB“, Idun-Veckojournalen, 1(16), 1964, 32 [All translations in this article from the Scandinavian languages and German into English are made by the author.].

14. The following biographical account largely draws from an entry in Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon. Arwill-Nordbladh, E., ”Hanna Rydh”, www.skbl.se/sv/artikel/HannaRydh, (accessed on November 1, 2020).

15. Rydh, H., ”Österns och västerns kvinnor sida vid sida i kvinnosaken” Svenska Dagbladet June 25, 1920.

16. Ryberg, E., ”Hanna Rydh – förmedlare av förhistorien.” Fornvännen 85, 1990; Rodéhn, C., ”Dr Hanna Rydh: En feminist på äventyr bland Medelhavsvärldens fornlämningar.” Medusa 35(2), 2014.

17. Hanna’s first marriage ended tragically in 1924 when her husband suddenly died. She remarried in 1929 and became a governors’ wife (landshövdingefru) of a northern county. Some people wanted Hanna to succeed her husband, who retired in 1938, but the law stated that only men could hold such offices. A state inquiry, wherein Hanna partook, was initiated shortly thereafter, and the law was reformed. Hanna briefly represented Folkpartiet (the liberal People’s Party) as a stand-in in the second chamber of the Swedish Parliament (1943-44). After unsuccessful attempts to ‘get in’ during the general elections of 1944 and 1948, Hanna withdrew from party-politics. Drangel, L., ”Folkpartiet och jämställdhetsfrågan.” In Liberal ideologi och politik 1934-1984 (Stockholm: Folk & samhälle, 1984), 384-385; Lundström, C., Fruars makt och omakt: kön, klass och kulturarv 1900-1940, Dissertation (Institutionen för historiska studier, Umeå universitet, 2005), chap.5.

18. Rydh, H., ”Valberedskap.” Hertha 31(2), 1944, 26; Editorial ”Skall kvinnorna vakna först när det är för sent?” Hertha 33(10) 1946, 172; Cf. Rönnbäck, C., Politikens genusgränser: den kvinnliga rösträttsrörelsen och kampen för kvinnors politiska medborgarskap 1902-1921. Dissertation. (Stockholm: Atlas, 2004), 149.

19. Åkerman, B., “Möten mellan kvinnor” In Kvinnans plats i det tidiga välfärdssamhället: en antologi. eds. Runnström, C. and A. Baude (Stockholm: Carlsson, 1994), 127; Rönnbäck, J., ”’Utan kvinnor – inget folkstyre’: En historisk exposé över kampen för ökad kvinnorepresentation i Sverige.” Tidskrift för genusvetenskap 31(3), 2010, 71-75.

20. Rydh was active in the local FBF-branch in Östersund during her time as governor’s wife. She was also active in the Stockholm-branch. It is said that close to 40 new local FBF-branches were established throughout Sweden during the 1930s, most of which were accredited to Rydh’s travels and lectures on women’s political rights and responsibilities, which seemingly roused the local women into action. See Lundström 2005, 52.

21. For example, Rydh, H. ”En ny tids krav.” Hertha 24(7) 1937, 167-168; Rydh, H., “Problem som måste lösas.” Hertha 30(2), 1943, 24; Rydh, H., “Vår fortsatta uppgift.” Hertha 31(11), 1944, 192.

22. These proposals angered both Karin Kock and Alva Myrdal, two prominent Swedish feminists, who strongly objected to what they perceived as Rydh’s maternalistic approach. Niskanen K. Karriär i männens värld: nationalekonomen och feministen Karin Kock. (Stockholm: SNS förlag: 2007), 170-173; Cf. Lövgren B. Hemarbete som politik: diskussioner om hemarbete, Sverige 1930-40-talen, och tillkomsten av Hemmens forskningsinstitut. Dissertation. (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1993), 37-49.

23. Although Rydh saw it as mainly social in origin, “the effect, to associate women with the domestic sphere, was the same as if biology had been the cause.” Arwill-Nordbladh, E., “Archaeology, gender and emancipation: The paradox of Hanna Rydh.” In Excavating women: A history of women in European archaeology. eds. Díaz-Andreu, M. and M.L.S. Sørensen (London: Routledge, 1998), 168, 170; However, as historian Gisela Bock points out: “[w]hat nowadays might seem contradictory to some was perfectly consistent for the protagonists.” Moreover, rather than either/or, feminists often espoused both equal and difference feminist arguments. See Bock, G., Women in European history (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002) 141-142; Cf. Carlsson Wetterberg, C., ”Equal or different? thats not the question: Women’s political strategies in historical perspective.” In Is there a Nordic feminism?: Nordic feminist thought on culture and society. eds. Jónasdóttir, A. G., Carlsson Wetterberg, C., von der Fehr, D., Shands, K. W. and B. Rosenbeck (London: UCL Press, 1998) 22.

24. Rydh, H., “Kvinnorna och samhället.” Astra 21(2), 1939, 26-27, 48; Manns, U., Den sanna frigörelsen: Fredrika-Bremer-förbundet 1884-1921. Dissertation. (Eslöv: Brutus Östlings bokförlag, Symposion, 1997), 242-250; Cf. Bock 2002, 137-145,

25. Rydh, H., ”De nordiska folkens vilja till fred.” Hertha 26(8-9), 1939, 215-216; She developed her thesis in a pamphlet, later distributed together with Hertha. Rydh, H., Frihet och demokrati. (Stockholm) 1940.

26. Rydh, however, was not neutral. She strongly criticized both the Soviet and Nazi aggression against her Nordic neighbours. For example Rydh, H., ”Svensk självrannsakan.” Idun 54(41) 1941, 12.

27. Editorial ”Freden, friheten, framtiden.” Hertha 32(5), 1945, 102; Cf. Andersson, I., Kvinnor mot krig: aktioner och nätverk för fred 1914-1940. Dissertation (Historiska institutionen: Lund Universitet, 2001), 120-132, 295-298; Rupp, L. J., “Constructing internationalism: The case of transnational women’s organizations, 1888-1945.” In Globalizing feminisms, 1789-1945. ed. Offen, K. M. (London: Routledge, 2010), 142-143.

28. Rydh, H., ”Sviker Sverige?” Hertha 30(8-9) 1943, 152; Rydh, H., ”Fredsplanering.” Hertha 30(11) 1943, 198-199; Rydh, H., ”Inför storkvinnornas möte.” Hertha 32(4) 1945, 76.

29. Rydh, H., ”Internationellt: Stockholm – Genève – Paris – Bryssel och åter.” Hertha 32(11) 1945, 212.

30. Rydh, H., “När fredens nya värld planeras.” Hertha 30(5) 1943, 102.

31. Schreiber, A. and M. Mathieson, Journey towards freedom: written for the Golden Jubilee of the International Alliance of Women. (London: William Clowes and Sons Ltd, 1955), 58; Rupp 1997, 3.

32. Whittick A., Woman into citizen (London: Athenaeum, 1979), chap.15; Cf. Schreiber and Mathieson 1955, chap.14.

33. For example GUBK: A:12: II:15 Rydh, H., “What kind of social order should we strive to achieve?” [manuscript] (1946), 7-8; Rydh, H., Brytningstid i Orienten. (Stockholm: Natur och Kultur, 1952a), 7-11; Cf. Rydh, H., Min resa till Indien. (Stockholm: Natur och kultur, 1946).

34. Schreiber and Mathieson 1955, 70.

35. GUBK: A12: I:7: Letter from M. Corbett Ashby to Rydh December 19, 1949; Notably, the Dane Ester Graff continued the expansion of the Alliance into so-called developing areas when she assumed the presidency in 1952. sign. Bell (Bellander, S.) “I dag.” Svenska Dagbladet July 11, 1953; Rimmen Nielsen, H., ”Ester Graff.” https://www.kvinfo.dk/side/597/bio/950/origin/170/ (accessed on November 1, 2020).

36. Rydh, H., “Flight of the President.” IWN, 41(12) 1947, 161; Cf. Weber, C. E., “Unveiling Scheherazade: Feminist Orientalism in the International Alliance of Women, 1911-1950.”, Feminist Studies, 27(1), 2001, 139-142.

37. GUBK: A12: II:18 Manuscript for a speech held at the League of Women’s Voter’s Convention April 24, 1950, 6; Cf. Rydh 1952a, 11, 36; On Rydh’s ambivalent attitudes towards “the Other” see Gerdov, C., ”Hanna Rydh och den onämnbare Andre”, Tidskrift för genusvetenskap, 40(2), 2019.

38. GUBK: A12: II:18 In the porch to a new time (First outline for a booklet meant for Oriental women), n.d., 2; Rydh held a lecture on the same theme as the booklet during an IAW regional meeting in Beirut in 1949, which was translated into Arabic and broadcasted. Rydh, H., “The Alliance regional meeting in Beirut.” IWN 43(7) 1949, 103; Cf. Rydh 1952a, 96.

39. Hanna was reported as saying about Atatürk: “If all dictators were like him, dictatorship would not be so dangerous [farlig]”. sign. Voilà [unknown signature] “Många årsdagar firades vid Fredrikornas möte” Västerbottens-Kuriren June 19, 1947; Cf. Rydh 1952a, 12-15, 198.

40. Latham M.E. Modernization as ideology: American social science and “nation-building” in the Kennedy era. (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), chaps.1-3; Cf. Lorenzini S. Global development: a Cold War history. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), chaps.2-4.

41. GUBK: A2: II:18 Manuscript for a speech held at Bad Pyrmont, October 1949, 3; During this meeting the German women’s association (Deutscher Frauenring) ‘restarted’. Rydh, H., ”German association restarts.” IWN 44(2) 1949.

42. Corbett Ashby tellingly named the chapter on WIDF in her memoirs “Anti-Communist crusade”. Ashby’s letter quoted from de Haan, F., “Continuing Cold War paradigms in Western historiography of transnational women’s organisations: the case of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF).” Women’s History Review 19(4) 2010, 551-553 (quote 552).

43. Riksarkivet [Swedish National Archives] (hereafter RA): Fredrika Bremer-Förbundet (huvudarkivet) [FBF]: A3:12 Protokoll hållet vid FU 11/1 1948, §12; For more about WIDF see Gradskova 2021.

44. Hanna visited Leningrad and Moscow during an archaeology congress held in 1935. She notably had a similar rather positive view of communist China after visiting it in 1958 and 1960. Her accounts display a certain naïveté about these societies, in particular as one notes that Hanna visited the Soviet Union during the stalinist purges of the 1930s and China during The Great Leap Forward. Rydh, H., “Ryskornas rätt att arbeta.” Hertha 22(9) 1935, 228-230; Rydh, H., ”Svårt att överblicka vad röda regimen uträttat” Barometern June 13, 1958; Rydh, H., ”Kvinnorna bakom bamburidån” Helsingborgs Dagblad November 8, 1960.

45. In particular Rydh criticized the WIDF and Swedish communists for being silent on Soviet rule and aggression in the Baltic and Eastern Europe. GUBK: A12: II:15 Nameless manuscript, n.d., 2-6.

46. Her main opponents were members of the WIDF-affiliated Svenska Kvinnors Vänsterförbund (Swedish Women’s Leftist Association), Andrea Andreen and Gunhild Tegen. NN ”Debatt om demokrati blev gräl om Sovjet” Dagens Nyheter May 8, 1948; Cf. Gradskova 2021, 66-67.

47. Editorial ”Dreams and visions.” IWN 41(1) 1946, 2.

48. Mazower M. Governing the world: the history of an idea. (New York: Penguin, 2012), chaps.7-9; Sluga, G., Internationalism in the age of nationalism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013a), chap.2.

49. Rydh, H., ”Internationellt samarbete.” Hertha 33(8-9), 1946, 150; Cf. Rydh, H. ”To Rome.” IWN 42(10) 1948, 145; Rydh, H., ”We must educate ourselves for peace.” IWN 46(12), 1952b, 127-128.

50. Rydh, H., “The Alliance’s international study home in Berlin.” IWN 45(3) 1951, 27; Cf. Rydh, H., “Europe is not gay” IWN 41(8) 1947, 97-98.

51. Rydh 1952a, 49-50; Cf. Weber, C. E., Making a Common Cause?: Western and Middle Eastern Feminists in the International Women’s Movement, 1911-1948. PhD Thesis. (The Ohio State University, 2003), 211-215.

52. sign. M.I.C.A. (Corbett Ashby, M.) ”Peace and Neutrality.” IWN 50(10) 1956, 570.

53. Graff, E., “President’s new year message.” IWN 47(3) 1953, 28.

54. Quoted from Cowherd, R.G., “The Soviet Peace Offensive” Current History 19(109), 1950, 129; Cf. sign. M.I.C.A. (Corbett Ashby, M.), “Peace petition.” IWN 44(11) 1950, 135.

55. Cowherd 1950; Laville 2003; Skelton 2014, 87-94, 105-106, 129-136; Gradskova 2021, 63-67.

56. Rydh 1952b, 128; See Skelton 2014, 136-137, 142-150.

57. Nordic/Scandinavian was often used interchangeably with Sweden to signify the northern, small, peaceful, progressive, and democratic welfare states, where women had achieved equal rights and a high status in society. See Rydh, H., ”Den värld vi lever i – den värld vi önskar oss.” Hertha 33(11), 1946, 204; NN “Amerikanska kvinnor är föga världspolitiskt intresserade” Nordvästra Skånes Tidningar December 4, 1946; Rydh, H., “Kvinnornas ställning i yrkes- och samhällsliv: en världsfråga.” Utlandssvenskarna 10(1), 1948, 28; See also NN ”Enhver kvinne bærer ansvaret for sitt lands framtid” Aftenposten June 30, 1945; sign. Bell ”I Dag” Svenska Dagbladet May 4, 1952; On the international assembly of women held at South Kortright, see Rupp 1997, 46-47.

58. Heckscher, A.B., ”Intryck från Interlaken.” Hertha 33(8-9) 1946, 152; Cf. Hagen, E., ”Hanna Rydh enhälligt omvald på IKA-kongress i Amsterdam.” Dagens Nyheter July 31 1949.

59. NN ”Modern kvinnosak.” Hertha 35(7-8), 1948, 17. [While andlig can be translated as ”spiritual” it should not be conflated with religious spirituality, but rather culture and/or intellect.].

60. GUBK: A12: II:18 Sammandrag av föredrag hållet vid FBF årsmöte i Skellefteå Juni 1947 av fil dr Hanna Rydh, 4; Cf. Rydh, H. ”Är vi svenskar ett ytligt folk?” Hertha 34(5) 1947a, 95.

61. RA: FBF: F:4:C:5 Sweden of today: Course for women from the East for the study of Swedish life, institutions, social welfare, industries and education. August 24 – October 9, 1948 [Pamphlet].

62. Petersen 2013, 232-233.

63. NN ”Fem års barn knyta mattor i Persien” Skaraborgs Tidningen October 10, 1947; Cf. Petersen 2013, 232-233.

64. GUBK: A12: II:23: sign. B. M., “Forslag til plan for Nordens ledende kvinner i arbeidet for kvinnenes fulle frigjøring.” [manuscript] November 11, 1957 (Stockholm), 1; It was likely written after a meeting at Rydh’s flat with members of the so-called Åbo Committee in November 1957. Bonnevie spoke of the unanimity during the meeting as “too good to be true.” GUBK: A12: I:5: Letter from M. Bonnevie to Rydh, n.d.; Cf. Rydh, H., “Nordic women meet.” IWN 50(9) 1956.

65. NN ”Realism i debatt och skär lyrik vid kvinnokongressen.” Åbo Underrättelser June 4, 1956; Cf. Rydh 1956.

66. RA: FBF: A2:10: Protokoll hållet vid sammanträde med FBF:s styrelse (November 24, 1957), §15, appendix 3; RA: FBF: B1:3 Fredrika-Bremer-Förbundet 1957 (Verksamhetsberättelse), 24.

67. GUBK: A12: II:23: Bonnevie, M., “Forslag til plan for Nordens ledende kvinner i arbeidet for kvinnenes fulle frigjøring.” [manuscript] 1957, 5.

68. The article was published shortly before Rydh’s death in June of 1964. Moberg 1964, 61.

69. RA: FBF: F1C:2 Lauritzen, E., ”Vart syftar vi?” [manuscript] 1957, 12-13; Cf. NN ”FBF:s kontakter.” Hertha 36(7-8) 1949, 39.

70. NN ”En bok om en ordförande.” Hertha 36(7-8), 1949, 23; Bellander, S., ”Världensvandraren Hanna Rydh sammanför Österns och Västerns kvinnor.” Hertha, 39(3), 1952.

71. sign. YING (Toijer-Nilsson, Y.) “Från öst och väst.” Hertha 51(2) 1964, 29.

72. The first seminar was arranged in Sierra Leone (1966) and the second in Ethiopia (1969). Anrep, E., ”Hanna Rydh: Fredrika-Bremerförbundet hedersledamot avled den 29 juni 1964.” Hertha 51(4) 1964, 18-19, 30; Anrep, E. “Kvinnor i samhällsarbetet.” Hertha 56(6), 1969, 5; NN “The Hanna Rydh Memorial: Project for the advancement of women in developing countries.” IWN 59(12) 1964, 106.

73. Rydh 1940, 13-16; Rydh, H., ”From the President.” IWN 43(9-10) 1949, 135; Rydh 1952b, 127-128; Cf. Sluga 2013a, 86-87; Sluga, G., “’Spectacular Feminism’: The international history of women, world citizenship and human rights.” In Women’s activism: global perspectives from the 1890s to the present. eds. De Haan, F., Allen, M., Purvis, J. and K. Dasklova (London: Routledge, 2013), 54.

74. Reinisch 2016, 200.

75. As Rydh explained in her booklet intended for Eastern women: “It must be created in every country an élite of women who could be able to pull the big mass of women with them.” GUBK: A12: II:18 In the porch to a new time (First outline for a booklet meant for Oriental women), n.d., 6; See also Rupp 1997, 52-55; Rupp 2010, 141-143; Sandell 2015, 8-10, 65, 217-218; Cf. Dejung C, Motadel D, and J. Osterhammel ”Worlds of the Bourgeoisie.” In The global bourgeoisie: the rise of the middle classes in the age of empire., eds. Dejung C, Motadel D, and J. Osterhammel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), 2, 8-13.

76. For example, Rydh 1952a, 12-15, 16-17, 132-135, 198-201; Cf. Mazower 2012, chap.10.

77. GUBK: A:12: II:18 Manuscript for a speech held at the League of Women Voters’ Convention, April 24, 1950, 3.

78. Rydh 1947a, 95; Cf. NN ”100 artiklar i Hertha. Herthas tack till Hanna Rydh.” Hertha 36(7-8) 1949, 27.