Sara Wacklin

Sara Elizabeth Wacklin (26 May 1790 in Uleåborg – 28 January 1846 i ), was a Swedish-speaking Finnish educator and writer. She was a pioneer in educating girls, and can be regarded as the first female academic in Finland. She can be regarded as the first female writer in Finland.

Sara Wacklin was the daughter of the district attorney Zacharias Wacklin (1754–1793) and Katarina Uhlander (1759–1847). After her father died, the economy of the family deteriorated, and after her three brothers left Finland to tend their own careers, Sara Wacklin was left to support their mother. She is described as independent, self-sufficient and intelligent and with a strong will. Due to the reduced fortune of the family, she could not be sent to be educated in Sweden, as was the custom among the Swedish speaking upper classes in Finland, but was forced to be content with an education in a common children's elementary school. To support her mother and earn money to travel to Sweden, she started to work as a teacher in a children's school in Uleåborg in her teens, which was about the only socially acceptable profession for a female not belonging to the working class. Her plans were crushed by the Finnish War of 1808–1809.

In 1813, Wacklin moved to Åbo where she studied French and music while being active as a governess. Between 1815 and 1819, she worked as a governess in several families in Southern Finland, notably at the Governor of Tavastaland Gustaf Hjärne. In 1819, she finally made her study trip to Sweden, and upon her return, she settled in Uleåborg, where she opened her first school for girls. Her school was a success among the burgher class of Uleåborg, but burned down in the great Uleåborg fire of 1822.

Between 1823 and 1827, Sara Wacklin managed her second school in Åbo together with her business partner Amalia Ertman. While their school was a traditional girls pension with focus on accomplishments similar to that of Christina Krook, of which there were many in contemporary Finland, it was somewhat more progressive than most, as it had a two-year course and tutored in other languages than French as well as several subject tutored also to boys, rather than exclusively accomplishments and household tasks. Her second school burnt down at the Åbo fire of 1827. The following three years, she managed her 4th school for girls in Helsinki, before she closed it and opened her 5th school in Uleåborg in 1830. She is described as an energetic teacher with the writer's talent to give life to her education. She had a strong Christian tone in her school, but in parallel, she kept informed of contemporary ideas and believed in the ideas of Rousseau.

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