Betsy Perk

Christina Elizabeth (Betsy) Perk (Delft, March 26, 1833 - Nijmegen, March 30, 1906), was a Dutch author of novels and plays, and a pioneer of the Dutch women's movement,

Early years and education Perk grew up in a fairly wealthy and large family; her parents were Adrianus Perk and Lessina Elizabeth Visser. Her father, a merchant, married three times and she was the third daughter of the second marriage. As a result, Perk had three brothers, three half-sisters and five half-brothers. She lived with her step-mother Theodora Veeren until 1876. One of her brothers was the father of the poet Jacques Perk.

Career From an early age she was interested in writing: she published some stories at age 19, and her first novel, Een kruis met rozen, was published in 1864.

She started Ons Streven ("Our Striving") in 1870, the country's first women's periodical, but left the magazine after the first edition since the publisher had placed two male editors on equal footing with her, and she feared the magazine would publish anti-emancipatory articles. In response she founded another magazine, Onze Roeping ("Our Calling"),

Her last attempt to make her ideas known and simultaneously earn a living was in 1873, when she became a lecturer and went on tour with fellow-feminist Mina Kruseman, and while both women also published their ideas in the same magazines, the flamboyancy of Kruseman was compared in the press with Perk's modesty. When the tour ended, so did Perk's public work in feminism. These years had asked a lot of her weak physique, and she withdrew to Valkenburg, where she toured the area on a donkey, and wrote an autobiography, Mijn ezeltje en ik. Een boek voor vriend en vijand ("My donkey and I: A book for friend and enemy", 1874), in which she settled her accounts with the world of literature and feminism. It was clear, though, that she may have been finished with the feminist movement, but she remained a firm proponent of emancipation.

Later years

Perk had been a proponent of women's right to vote, and in 1894 joined the newly founded Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht. The women's movement seemed to have forgotten her: she was not invited to attend the large National Exhibition of Women's Labor in 1898. By then, she was back in the Netherlands, having moved to Arnhem in 1890 and to Nijmegen in 1903. She devoted her last years to art.

Selected works

Een kruis met rozen, 1864 Wenken voor jonge dames ter bevordering van huiselijk geluk, 1868 Elisabeth van Frankrijk, 1870 Mijn ezeltje en ik. Een boek voor vriend en vijand, 1874 De sterren liegen niet!, 1875 Elisabeth de Jonkvrouw van 't kasteel te Valkenburg. Drama in voetmaat en vijf bedrijven uit 1355, 1878 Valse schaamte, 1880 Mejonkvrouw de Laval onder de keizers Alexander I en Nikolaas van Rusland, 1883 De laatste der Bourgondiërs in Gent en Brugge 1477-1481, 1885 Yline, prinses Daschkoff-Worenzoff. Uit de geschiedenis van Rusland, in de laatste helft der vorige eeuw, 1885 Een recruut op Corsica onder luitenant Napoleon Bonaparte, 1887 De wees van Averilo, 1888 Kijkjes in België, 1888 In het paleis der Bourgondiërs te Brussel, 1889 Kapitein Flahol, 1890 Een moederhart, 1896 Jacques Perk, 1902