Ellen Karolina Sofia Key (; 11 December 1849 – 25 April 1926) was a Swedish difference feminist writer on many subjects in the fields of family life, ethics and education and was an important figure in the Modern Breakthrough movement. She was an early advocate of a child-centered approach to education and parenting, and was also a suffragist.

She is best known for her book on education (1900), which was translated into English in 1909 as The Century of the Child.

Biography

Early life

Ellen Key was born at Sundsholm mansion in Småland, Sweden, on 11 December 1849. Her father was Emil Key, the founder of the Swedish Agrarian Party and a frequent contributor to the Swedish newspaper Aftonposten. Her mother was Sophie Posse Key, who was born into an aristocratic family from the southernmost part of Skåne County. Emil bought Sundsholm at the time of his wedding; twenty years later he sold it for financial reasons.

Key was mostly educated at home, where her mother taught her grammar and arithmetic and her foreign-born governess taught her foreign languages. She cited reading (The Official's Daughters, 1855) by Camilla Collett and Henrik Ibsen's plays (Love's Comedy, 1862), Brand (1865), and Peer Gynt (1867) as her childhood influences. When she was twenty years old, her father was elected to the Riksdag and they moved to Stockholm, where she would capitalize on the access to libraries.

1870s

After a correspondence with , who wrote (The Protestant Cult of Mary, 1874), she had written a review of the book for a periodical, under the pseudonym Robinson. His book gave her thoughts structure, helping to define her beliefs concerning the role of women as mothers and nurturers. Key hoped Feilitzen would leave his wife, as they did not share similar interests, but he refused. She also spoke at Curman's "Curman receptions", salons held several times a year which featured a number of the intellectuals of the day.

Even though Key did share a lot of similar beliefs with the members of the Fredrika Bremer Association, two main issues made her oppose the group in the mid-1880s: the importance of sexuality and the social significance of the biological differences between women and men. 1886 saw Key publishing (On the Reaction against the Woman Question) which was highly critical and argued against the egalitarian tendencies of the Swedish women's movement. The piece was published in Gustaf af Geijerstam's journal (Review of Literary and Social Issues).

The Cambridge Chronicle of Cambridge, Massachusetts on October 19, 1912 noted that in The Atlantic Monthly, Ellen Key, the Swedish writer, who has had such immense influence over the woman movement throughout Europe, makes her first appearance in an American periodical with her article on "Motherliness". The Woman Movement by Key was published in Swedish in 1909, and in an English translation in 1912 by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

After she retired from teaching, she met and helped the young poet Rainer Maria Rilke. She was later painted by Hanna Pauli. Die Antifeministen (The Antifeminists, 1902) by Hedwig Dohm cited both Key and Lou Andreas-Salomé as anti-feminists.

Several of Key's writings were translated into English by Mamah Borthwick, during the period of her affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Among her best-known works published in English:

  • The Morality of Woman (1911)
  • Love and Marriage (1911, repr. with critical and biographical notes by Havelock Ellis, 1931)
  • The Century of the Child (1909)
  • The Woman Movement (1912)
  • The Younger Generation (1914)
  • War, Peace, and the Future (1916).

Legacy

She has inspired writers such as Selma Lagerlöf, Marika Stjernstedt, Waka Yamada and Elin Wägner. Maria Montessori wrote that she predicted the 20th century would be the century of the child.

Havelock Ellis wrote positively on her studies of human sexuality.

Key maintained that motherhood is so crucial to society that the government, rather than their husbands, should support mothers and their children. These ideas regarding state child support influenced social legislation in several countries. In the 1890s, it was "a centre for the politically radical intellectual and artistic avant-garde of Stockholm". Key's house has become a foundation and tourist spot.

Notes

Further reading

  • Lindholm, Elena; Åkerström, Ulla (eds.) (2020). Collective Motherliness in Europe (1890-1939): the Reception and Reformulation of Ellen Key's Ideas on Motherhood and Female Sexuality. Berlin: Peter Lang. ISBN 9783631819432
  • UNESCO paper on Ellen Key
  • Ronny Ambjörnsson (2014) Ellen Key and the concept of Bildung