Adelheid Popp

Adelheid Popp
Adelheid Popp, 1892
Born	Adelheid Dworschak (1869-02-11)11 February 1869 Inzersdorf, Austria
Died	7 March 1939(1939-03-07) Vienna, Austria
Nationality	Austrian
Occupation	Politician journalist activist
Known for	Leader of the women's movement of Austria Served in the Parliament of Austria

Adelheid Popp (11 February 1869 – 7 March 1939) was an Austrian feminist and socialist who worked as a journalist and politician.

Adelheid Popp, born Adelheid Dworschak, was born 11 February 1869, into a poor working-class family in Inzersdorf, Vienna, Austria (now part of Liesing). Out of 15 children, only five survived in the family, and Popp was the youngest of the five. Her father, Adalbert, was a weaver and an abusive alcoholic. Popp grew up in a violent environment, and at six years old her father died, leaving the family more impoverished than before. She received three years of formal education, only to have to leave school at the age of 10 to help support her family. She worked briefly as a domestic worker, as a seamstress' apprentice crocheting handkerchiefs, and finally as a factory worker.

In the mid-1880s she became interested in politics. A friend of her brother introduced her to the working class social movement and social democratic newspapers and literature. She read reports about the living conditions of working-class families and related to their struggles, having grown up impoverished herself, and realised that it was not just her: poverty was universal and a product of an unjust society. In 1889 she attended her first public meeting for the Social Democratic Workers Party, with her brother. She was the only woman at the meeting.

Popp became active in the Social Democratic Workers Party, and in 1891 she became the party's first female public speaker and official delegate. In 1891, Popp joined the Working Women's Educational Association, which was founded by women active in the social democratic movement in 1890. She would give her first speech at a meeting for the association, inspired by a speaker describing women's working conditions. Popp stood up and shared her own experiences and demanded the need for women's education. After her impromptu speech, the audience, mainly men, applauded and requested written copies of the speech. She became the editor-in-chief of the social women's newspaper, Die Arbeiterinnenzeitung, in October 1892. In 1893 she organized the first strike for women's clothing workers in Vienna. In 1894 she would marry Julius Popp.