When the centenary of the foundation of the new University of Cologne is celebrated in summer 2019, most people will not remember how different men and women perceived this event back then. For centuries, universities had been reserved for men. Not until 1908, Prussia admitted women to higher education. In Cologne, Mathilde von Mevissen and other men and women established a privately founded grammar school for girls in 1903. After World War I, von Mevissen played  a key role in founding a university that opened the doors to female students from the start. In the same year, the new Weimarer Republic provided women with suffrage, and eventually made them citizens.

This double novelty was the starting point for a student’s project supervised by Prof. Dr. Ute Planert. With the helpful support of Cologne archivists, students explore the everyday life of their female ancestors, look at postwar hardships, career opportunities, and a spirit of optimism as well as impediments and prejudices. The book project “Alberts Töchter. Kölner Frauen zwischen Universität, Stadt und Republik” aims not only at a professional audience but will be of interest for the general reader, too.