Alice Salomon

German social reformer and pioneer of social work as an academic discipline

Alice Salomon was the third of eight children, and the second daughter, of Albert and Anna Salomon. Like many girls from affluent families in this period, she was denied further education, despite her ambition to become a teacher. This ended in 1893 when she was 21, and she recorded in her autobiography that this was "when her life began".

In 1900 she joined the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine ("Federation of German Women's Associations" - BDF hereinafter). In due course she was elected deputy chairman, and kept this role until 1920. (The Chairman was Gertrud Bäumer). The organisation supported destitute, abandoned, or single mothers and aimed to prevent their children being neglected.

From 1902 to 1906 she studied economics at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, though she had no relevant qualification. Her publications were sufficient for university entrance. She earned her doctorate in 1908. Also in this year she founded a Soziale Frauenschule ("Social Women's School") in Berlin, which was renamed "Alice Salomon School" in 1932 and is now called Alice-Salomon-Fachhochschule für Sozialarbeit und Sozialpädagogik Berlin ("Alice Salomon College of Further Education for Social Work and Social Sciences of Berlin").

In 1909 she became secretary of the Internationalen Frauenbund ("International Women's Federation"). She converted from Judaism to the Lutheran Church in 1914. In 1917 she was made chairman of the Konferenz sozialer Frauenschulen Deutschlands ("Conference of German Women's Social Schools") that she herself had founded; by 1919 sixteen schools belonged to it.

In 1920 she resigned from the BDF from fear of anti-semitic propaganda. Five years later, she founded theDeutsche Akademie für soziale und pädagogische Frauenarbeit ("German Academy for Women's Social and Educational Work") which was directed by Hilde Lion.