Alma Åkermark
1853–1933 · Swedish editor, journalist and feminist activist
Alma Åkermark (Forshälla, 1853 – Oscar Fredriks, 1933) was a Swedish editor, journalist and writer, and a prominent figure in the radical wing of the Swedish women's rights movement. She studied music and drawing and later taught both subjects, but she is remembered above all for her work in the press and for her campaigning. The daughter of a Gothenburg merchant and sister of the painter Isak Åkermark, she received financial support from the Hedlund family to study in Neuchâtel, and on her return she taught at a girls' school.
In 1886 she co-founded the women's paper Framåt with Hilma Angered-Strandberg and Mathilda Hedlund, and edited it for its entire run. In the Sedlighetsdebatten she argued that women should enjoy the same sexual freedom as men, and her publication of the novel Pyrrhussegrar caused a scandal that cost the paper the backing of the women's association. The paper closed in 1889 after an advertising boycott deprived it of funds.
Her later years were unsettled. After her husband died in 1891 she suffered from depression, was committed to an asylum in 1892 and later emigrated to the United States, where she worked in Chicago. She went blind in 1909 and returned to Sweden, where relatives cared for her. She is remembered mainly for Framåt and for her role in Swedish feminism.