Eva Madsen

Eva Marie Madsen née Braae (1884–1972) was a Danish municipal politician. She became Denmark's first female mayor in January 1950 when she was elected Mayor of Stege on the island of Møn.

Biography Born on 4 March 1884 in Næstved, Eva Marie Braae was the daughter of the paper merchant Hans Frederik Braae (1851–1924) and Augusta Margrethe Jørgensen (1863–1940). She had hoped to become a physician but after covering the cost of her four brothers' education, her parents could not afford to send their two daughters to university. After completing her basic schooling, from 1901 Eva Braae worked for a number of years as a teacher in a Næstved private school. After persuading her father to send her to high school, she matriculated from N. Zahle's School in 1907. She then began to read medicine but abandoned her studies when in 1912 she married the lawyer Rudolph Madsen who was the town clerk of Stege on the island of Møn.