JACOBS, ALETTA HENRIETTE

(1854–1929)

Feminist. In 1871, Jacobs was admitted as the first woman student to a Dutch univer sity(Groningen). She was also the first woman in the country to earn her doctoral degree (in medicine), in 1879. Jacobs became an advo cate of radical liberal ideas on reforming society. She was a cham pion of universal suffrage, equal rights for men and women, and birth control. She supported the international suffragette movement, together with Carry Chapman Catt. Jacobs’s memoirs (Herinnerin gen) were published in 1924.