Reifenstein schools

The Reifenstein schools (German: Reifensteiner Schulen) were the various schools of higher education for women associated with the Reifensteiner Verband.

The concept was initiated by Ida von Kortzfleisch, a Prussian noble woman and early German feminist. Reifenstein refers to Reifenstein in Eichsfeld, a municipality in Thuringia and site of the first permanent school. From 1897 to 1990 the Reifensteiner Verband operated about 15 of its own schools and cooperated with further operators. About 40 wirtschaftliche Frauenschulen, rural women economy schools were connected to the Reifenstein concept and movement. The association and its journals served as alumni network, provided a job placement service, strengthened home economics (Ekotrophology) as an academic discipline and were important for consumer advice and rural social services over all. About 90,000 women took the higher education courses. Some of the alumni, like Käthe Delius, Marie-Elisabeth Lüders und Freya von Moltke had an important role in German higher education and German society overall.

Under the German Empire until the early 20th century, household services played a central role for the employment of women. Instead of a systematic training as in the dual system of vocational education, the education of women in the countryside happened often along a training on the job principle. Young men at this time often gained skils from winter schools and various professional educational institutions. The rural women's education (or their shortcomings) was being deemed a troubled sector and a main topic of the early women's movement.

Already a 1913 doctorate, Joachim Kramer's thesis about the household education in Germany refers to the ongoing reform aspects. The 1870s saw some progress; the first winter schools had been founded by the Badische Frauenverein, founded by Princess Louise of Prussia in the state of Baden. While the winter schools lost their impact to permanent schools in Baden already before World War I, they gained importance in Bavaria in the 1920s. Kramer compared the German situation and the state of household education abroad. Switzerland, Belgium and Austria had winter schools. The Austrian education for rural women was comparably backward, and Switzerland took a leading position. In France, housekeeping was a topic in primary schools, but not part of higher education. According to Kramer, Iowa and the state of New York in the United States were then leading in the field.

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