Alice Zimmern

Alice Zimmern Plaque in London

Alice Louisa Theodora Zimmern(22 September 1855 – 22 March 1939) was an English writer, translator and suffragist. Her books made a significant contribution to debate on the education and rights of women.

Early years and education

Zimmern was born at Postern Street,Nottingham,the youngest of three daughters of the lace merchant Hermann Theodore Zimmern, a German Jewish immigrant, and his wife Antonia Marie Therese Regina Zimmern,néeLeo, sister of Carl Leo, a syndic of Hamburg.Alice collaborated with her elder sisterHelen Zimmernon two volumes of translated excerpts from European novels (1880 and 1884). The scholar and political scientistAlfred Eckhard Zimmernwas a cousin of hers.

Alice Zimmern was educated at a private school and atBedford College, London,before enteringGirton College, Cambridgein 1881 to readClassics.She and Janet Case organized a society for classical drama that performed a 1883 college production ofElektra,"breaking down", asVirginia Woolfnoted, "the tradition that only men acted in the Greek play."Zimmern left Girton in 1885 with honours in both parts of the Cambridge classical tripos.In 1888–1894, she taught Classics at English girls' schools, includingTunbridge Wells High School(1888–1891).

Career

While teaching, Zimmern produced a school edition of theMeditationsofMarcus Aureliusin 1887, a translation of Hugo Bluemner'sThe Home Life of the Ancient Greeks(1893), and a translation ofPorphyry:The Philosopher to his Wife Marcella(1896). She later wrote children's books on ancient Greece (Greek History for Young Readers,1895,Old Tales from Greece,1897) and Rome (Old Tales from Rome,1906), all of which were reprinted several times.Greek History for Young Readerswas still being praised in theParents' Reviewsix years later.

In 1893, she and four other women were awardedGilchrist scholarshipsto study the US education system. They were: Miss A. Bramwell, B.Sc., Lecturer at the Cambridge Training College; Miss S. A. Burstall, B.A., Mistress at the North London Collegiate School for Girls;Miss H. M. Hughes,Lecturer on Education at University College, Cardiff; Miss Mary Hannah Page, Head Mistress of theSkinners Company's School for Girls,Stamford Hill. Each woman received £100 to pursue their studies in the US for two months.

This resulted in her bookMethods of Education in America(1894), in which she praised the articulacy of American school students and their enthusiasm for classic English literature, but noted that their written work and their textbooks were of a poor standard and the teaching of American history ludicrously patriotic.

Zimmern ceased to teach in schools in 1894, but continued to tutor private students in Classics. She regularly wrote journal articles on comparative education and the education of women. Her bookWomen's Suffrage in Many Lands(1909) appeared to coincide with the Fourth Congress of theInternational Women's Suffrage Alliance.This book andThe Renaissance of Girls' Education(1898) made big contributions to the debate on the education and rights of women in Zimmern's time. In the former she noted an "intimate... connexion between enfranchisement and the just treatment of women." While most of her arguments are moderate and pragmatic, she acknowledges the militant tactics of British suffragettes as effective in making women's suffrage "the question of the day".

Much of Zimmern's research was done in theBritish Museum Reading Room,where she associated with suffragists and Fabians such asEdith Bland,Eleanor Marx,andBeatrice Potter.Other works by Zimmern includeDemand and Achievement. The International Women's Suffrage Movement(1912), a translation of Paul Kajus von Hoesbroech'sFourteen Years a Jesuit(1911), andGods and Heroes of the North(1907).

Resident inHampsteadin her later years, Zimmern was limited in her capacity to travel in the last decades of her life, although she remained interested in the rights of women and in pacifism, and continued to entertain many visitors from abroad.Her last work was a translation ofThe Origins of the War(1917) byTake Ionescu.She was unmarried and died at her home, 45 Clevedon Mansions, Highgate Road, London, on 22 March 1939.She was buried on 25 March at Kentish Town parish church.She left £150 to Girton College to establish the Alice Zimmern Memorial Prize in Classics.