Women's Activism in the Revolution of 1848/49: Statutes of the Viennese Democratic Women's Association (1848); Report on their Activities (1850); Petition to the Austrian Constituent Assembly (October 16, 1848)

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§ 33
For the public’s greater convenience, every active member may receive donations of every kind in her home, provide receipts for them, and then hand them over to the treasurer. – To that end, every member shall be given a subscription sheet and a certain number of cards embossed with the association’s seal.

§ 34
Every member is free to leave the association. Only members of the committee must provide notice eight days ahead of time.

Admission location: Kärtnerstr. 1073, third floor, back stairway
Carolin Prin
President
To be reached in the office of the newspaper The Radical, Dorotheergasse 1119.



II. Actions, activity, and composition of the association (1850)

Like the workers’ associations, a democratic women’s association also joined the democratic association. That association was set up around the beginning of September by the Baroness von Perin, née Baroness von Pasqualati. I estimate that it had 40 ladies as members, which were of the middle class. This association made it its task to support the poor and promote the diffusion of democratic ideas. I had little influence, really none at all. The ladies always participated in the torchlight parades of the democratic club and on several occasions they presented flower garlands to Tausenau* as signs of respect. During the October Revolution this ladies’ association, which was joined by about 300 young women, went to the Reichstag and handed the members meeting in permanent session a petition to call out the militia. Other than that I don’t know anything about this association. I must note, though, that it is a lie that is being disseminated that the members of this ladies’ association are prostitutes and that they took part in the fighting at the barricades with utter abandon. The women who fought on the barricades were from the working population. After the occupation of Vienna, the president, a fanatical elderly lady, was arrested, though it is said that she was released a short time later after having been caned.


* Tausenau was a prominent Viennese leftist and editor of the newspaper The Radical – ed.