Blackwell Reference Online

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Margarethe Hardegger (also Margarethe Faas-Hardegger) was a Swiss socialist worker activist with a multifaceted career involving the labor movement, communes, free love, women's rights, and the peace movement. In 1903 she co-founded the Berner Textilverein (Bern Textile Union). From 1905 to 1909 she served as the secretary of the Schweizerischer Gewerkschaftsbund (Swiss Trade Union, or SGB). She spent much of this time agitating for the cause by organizing new sections of the union, giving speeches, and publishing the periodicals Die Vorkämpferin ( The Female Protagonist ) from 1906 to 1909 and L'Exploitée from 1907 to 1908. She was forced from her position because of her radical tendencies. After her divorce from August Faas, she became romantically involved with the German anarchist Gustav Landauer . Hardegger worked with him on the Sozialistische Bund (Socialist Federation) and its publication, Der Sozialist ( The Socialist ), marking an expansion of her political activities beyond labor unions and syndicalism. They split over philosophical and political differences, among them her public support of free love and women's rights, including electoral enfranchisement and maternity insurance. Hardegger often gave her radical friends tangible assistance during their legal troubles, even providing a false alibi for the Swiss anarchist and painter Ernst Frick, a crime for which ... log in or subscribe to read full text