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German History in Documents and Images
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Female University Students (1908)
In the 1890s, women were granted the right to attend lectures as auditors [Gasthörerin] at universities in Berlin and Leipzig, but they were not permitted to earn degrees. They were first granted the right to matriculate at universities in Baden in 1900, and the first regular female students enrolled in the universities of Heidelberg and Freiburg that same year. During the next nine years, universities in other states granted women the right to study as well. Mecklenburg was the last to do so, allowing women university admission in 1909. This photograph shows three female university students in 1908. Female students came almost exclusivlely from upper-middle-class backgrounds.