A Meeting on the Rhine

An intriguing studio portrait of a group of serious minded young women, on the reverse is a pencilled date of January 1894.  They are soberly dressed with padded shoulders and smocking to the fore and have the appearance of educated middle class women but there are no obvious clues as to the reason for their gathering. Some  look out of the photo with impressive self-assurance, others look more diffident or apprehensive. Perhaps it was a social event - a reunion of a sort - but there’s no evidence of frivolity. The studio responsible was located in Neuwied, a small town on the banks of the Rhine near Koblenz.  Germany in 1894 was a rapidly expanding industrial and military power and it may be no more than a coincidence but the nation’s first major group to campaign for the rights of women, the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine (BDF) was founded in March of 1894. Needless to say, it ceased to exist in 1933.