Dora Benjamin

Dora Benjamin (30 April 1901 – 1 June 1946) was a German economist, feminist, educational psychologist and child advocate. She was the younger sister of the doctor Georg Benjamin and the philosopher Walter Benjamin, and the best friend of Georg's wife Hilde, later East German Minister of Justice.

Life Dora Benjamin was born into a bourgeois Jewish family on 30 April 1901 in Berlin, the daughter of Emil Benjamin, an antiques dealer, and Pauline Schönflies, from a wealthy agriculturalist family. Together with her older brothers, Walter and Georg, she enjoyed a culturally rich upper-middle-class childhood. She finished high school in 1918 and attended courses by the feminist Helene Lange. After studying economics at the University of Greifswald, she gained a doctorate in 1924 with a thesis 'The social situation of Berlin women garment workers, with special reference to children.'. She recommended regulation to ensure women worked in factories rather than at home, with enforced provision of daycare centers and kindergartens.

In 1929, she collaborated with Georg and Walter on a 'Healthy Nerves' exhibition at the hospital in Wedding, Berlin, using the occasion to campaign against child labor. She began to research the educational and psychological needs of working-class women and children and wrote essays in social criticism for German periodicals.

Works Die soziale Lage der Berliner Konfektionsheimarbeiterinnen mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Kinderaufzucht. Versuch einer Wertung der Heimarbeit im Vergleich mit der Fabrikarbeit unter dem Gesichtspunkt der bestmöglichen Aufzucht des Kindes.. Dissertation, Greifswald, 1924. 'Der Stand der Heimarbeit in Deutschland', Soziale Praxis, Vol. 34 (1925) Der Stand der Heimarbeit in Deutschland. Ergebnisse der Deutschen Heimarbeitausstellung, 1925. Schriften der Gesellschaft für sociale Reform, 77. Jena: G. Fischer, 1928. 'Verbreitung und Auswirkung der Frauenerwerbsarbeit' [The spread and impact of women's employment], in Schmidt-Beil, Ada (ed.), Die Kultur der Frau. Eine Lebenssymphonie der Frau des XX. Jahrhunderts [The culture of women. A life symphony of the women of the 20th century]v. Berlin, 1931.