Partner Clara Willdenow
Queer Places:
Kreuzstrasse 44, 8008 Zürich, Switzerland
Friedhof Baumschulenweg, Kiefholzstraße 208-221, 12437 Berlin, Germany
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Mentona Moser (19 October 1874–10 April 1971) was a Swiss social
worker, communist functionary, and writer. Though born of wealth, Moser became
convinced based on her family history that the idle social life led by nobles
was unhealthy. After studying in London and being involved in the
settlement movement, Moser returned to Switzerland and founded an
Association for the Blind, a service to help tubercular patients, a women's
school to teach social work practices and helped the city of
Zürich found
workers' cooperatives. When her mother, cut off the stipends from her
inheritance, Moser helped found the Swiss Communist Party and began working at
Pro Juventute as a manager of maternal and infant care. She was a
suffragist and established one of the first
birth control clinics in Zürich.
In 1903 Moser moved into a student apartment in Zürich and began giving
lectures on public welfare. She also began publishing, with such works as
Contributions to the Charity and Social Assistance in Their Practical
Application
Feminine Youth of the Upper Classes: Considerations and Recommendations.
Founding an association for the blind, she arranged chauffeurs, pamphlets and
helpers and then also founded the first social welfare office to assist
tubercular patients.
By 1904, she had moved into an apartment with the Dr.
Clara Willdenow and her friend,
Pauline Bindschedler, at Kreuzstrasse 44.
She and Willdenow became lovers, and in Moser's later biography, she described
their relationship as "lesbian love", a phrase not in common use at the time.
Soon she had submitted design plans to the city council for laborer
settlements in Zürich, which led to the construction of such settlements near
St. Jacob's Church
and in
Zürichberg.
After coming in to her inheritance in 1925, Moser worked to establish an
international children's home in Russia. She moved to Berlin and participated
in communist opposition to both the National
Socialist Party and
fascism.
When Hitler rose to power, her remaining inheritance was confiscated and she
fled back to Switzerland where she worked until the end of
World War II as a writer. In 1950, she was invited to become an honorary
citizen of the
German Democratic Republic because of her dedication to communism and
development of social programs. She was awarded both the
Clara Zetkin Medal and the
Patriotic Order of Merit by East Germany.
My published books:
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentona_Moser