Ottilie Franziska Hoffmann was a German educationalist and social reformer who came to prominence as a pioneering temperance activist.
Life
Ottilie Hoffmann was born in the central quarter of Bremen. Ludwig Otto Hoffmann, her father, was a successful grain merchant. She received a "sound" schooling. From her childhood diary entries it is apparent that she was keen that her life should make a difference in society. She was never attracted by the idea of marriage and family life. She studied to become a teacher, embarking on her teaching career in 1851. As a young woman she was in particular influenced by the radical feminist writer. Hoffmann's own pupils during these early years included another daughter of Bremen who would emerge as a prominent feminist social reformer,. Hoffmann taught at a private school between 1852 and 1857: there is mention of her having taught on a British or English island around this time. In 1862 she returned to Bremen to look after her parents who were in failing health. In 1867 she teamed up with and Henny Sattler to set up the "League for expanding work opportunities for women", later renamed as the "Women's Prosperity and Training League". However, Hoffmann was obliged to pull back from this initiative in order to look after her parents. The parents died in 1870 and 1871 which opened the way for a new phase in Ottilie's life. She returned to England and took on responsibility for the education of two daughters of the 9th Earl of Carlisle. The girls' mother, Rosalind, Countess of Carlisle, was an energetic campaigner for women's rights, and even more passionate as an advocate of temperance. Through working for Rosalind Carlisle she was confronted with the results of alcohol abuse, notably among the working population. Alcohol abuse among the workers led to social misery and family violence against women and children. In England Ottilie Hoffmann was impressed by her aristocratic employers' social commitment against alcohol dependency: she experienced for herself how former hostelries might be transformed into reading rooms and tea shops. That was the background to a personal commitment to total abstinance that she made on 24 November 1882, an anniversary of her mother's death. All her energies were now directed towards the fight against alcohol abuse. In 1874 the "World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union" was launched, initially in Ohio. The WWCTU's objectives and approach ensured that the temperance movement effectively became a part of the Women's suffrage movement that emerged in Europe and North America during the second half of the nineteenth century. Early in 1890 Ottilie Hoffmann returned to Bremen, where a rapidly unfolding social crisis was under way to the north of the main station in the :de:Bürgerpark und Stadtwald|city's main park. The construction work for that year's prestigious was being plagued with accidents caused by drunkenness. At once she built a coffee shop on the site. On 12 February 1891 she set up the "Bremer Mäßigkeitsverein", renamed in 1915 "League for alcohol-free eating establishments". Hoffmann chaired both organisation. Back in 1891 she still was not able to set up an organisation devoted purely to women's rights. That followed only on 17 June 1900 with the establishment of the "German League of Abstinent Women", renamed in 1924 "German Women's League for an Alcohol-free Society". By at least one reckoning by 1894 she had become the leading representative in Bremen of the
Celebration
In 1970 the "Bremer Mäßigkeitsverein" was renamed "Bremen Ottilie Hoffmann Association", the name under which it continues to exist. In the quarter of Bremen, Busestraße and Emmastraße are connected by Ottilie-Hoffmann-Straße. The street sign carries the additional inscription: "Ottilie Hoffmann Founder of the 'German Women's League for an Alcohol-free Society' and of the Ottilie Hoffmann houses in Bremen". Since 1987 there has been a by the local sculptor in the Urich Place on the edge of the quarter.
