Aline Valette
| Aline Valette | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Alphonsine-Eulalie Goudeman 5 October 1850 Lille, France |
| Died | 21 March 1899 (aged 48) Arcachon, Gironde, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | School teacher |
| Known for | Feminism, socialism |
Aline Valette (née Alphonsine Goudeman, 5 October 1850 – 21 March 1899) was a French feminist and socialist. She believed that society should provide support to women engaged in motherhood, the most important of all occupations.
Alphonsine-Eulalie Goudeman was born in Lille on 5 October 1850. She was the daughter of a railroad worker, trained as a teacher, and was employed by a private school in the working-class district of Montmartre, Paris. From 1873 to 1878 she taught at a municipal vocational school for young girls at 26 rue Ganneron, and she then taught young girls at 12 rue Saint-Lazare until 1880. In 1878 at the founding congress of the teacher's union led by Marie Bonnevial she was elected secretary. She held this position until 1880.
In 1880 Aline married M. Valette, a prosperous lawyer, and left work. She separated from her husband around 1885. While a single mother raising two sons, she wrote a handbook for homemakers that conveyed very traditional values about a woman's work at home. For many years La journée de la petite ménagère was used by schools in Paris. The guide ran through many editions in the years that followed. Valette belonged to the Charity of Women Discharged from Saint-Lazare Prison, which attempted to reform prostitutes, and wrote a pamphlet for the charity.
In the 1880s Valette worked as an unpaid volunteer labor inspector in the Paris region. At the age of forty she became a socialist in response to what she had seen of factory conditions. She became a member of a Guesdist study group and in 1889 represented this group at the International Socialist Congress. She attended the 1891 international congress in Brussels as a confirmed Guesdist. On 29 June 1891 a judicial separation from her husband was pending. She was earning about 2,000 francs a year from la Journée de la petit menagere and from teaching. Her husband, who lived in Algeria, had been ordered to pay her alimony of 200 francs a month, but had not sent her anything. She had two children aged eight and ten who, in accordance with a court order, were living with the family of her lawyer at Sèvres.
Valette was among the women such as Marie Guillot, Séverine, Maria Vérone and Marie Bonnevial who campaigned for women's right to vote, for reform of the civil code (which treated a woman as a minor) and for access by women to all topics of study and all professions. In January 1892 Eugénie Potonié-Pierre brought together eight feminist groups in Paris into the Fédération Française des Sociétés Féministes (French Federation of Feminist Societies). Valette joined the committee that organized the first congress in May 1892, and represented a short-lived union of seamstresses at the congress. On 17 June 1892, due to a dispute about control of the Federation, Potonié-Pierre resigned from her position as secretary and was replaced by Valette.
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