The Fatherland’s Stepdaughters into its Daughters: Rhetoric of Patriotism and Expansion of Women's Education in Austria-Hungary

The article analyzes the expansion of vocational, secondary and higher education opportunities for women in Cisleithania, that is, the Austrian half of Austria-Hungary. Access to education that would enable women to be employed in a profession and earn a decent income was the initial goal of the Austrian women’s movement that was developing against the backdrop of large-scale industrialization, Austria’s military defeats in 1859 and 1866, and the desire of government to ensure loyalty of the multi-ethnic population in the face of national movements. During the Austro-Hungarian period the law on compulsory eight-year education was adopted, which included girls. A network of state teacher training colleges and private professional schools for girls was expanded. By the late nineteenth century, a network of girls’ lyceums was developed, which provided elite secondary education with a right to obtain a matriculation certificate. Later on, an access to universities was opened for women. The article pays particular attention to the ideas of citizenship and patriotism, which, according to the author, became one of the factors that contributed to revision of traditional ideas about the place of a woman in society, and recognition of her independent social roles and her need to receive an expanded education. The educational programs necessarily provided compulsory civic and patriotic education in order that girls, regardless of their national and confessional affiliation, would first and foremost become conscious Austrian citizens and patriots of the “great” Fatherland. The author concludes that ideas of citizenship and patriotism being developed in the rhetoric of the Austrian women’s movement contributed to achieving the goals of reforming women’s education.