Hedwig Dransfeld

Her father, Clemens Dransfeld, was a senior forester, and her mother, Elise Fleischhauer, was a doctor's daughter and a Catholic.

[citation needed] At the age of sixteen she began to train at the Königlichen Katholischen Lehrerinnen-Seminar ("German Catholic Teachers' Seminar") in Paderborn.

Despite this she passed her exams with distinction in 1890 and began a teaching career that culminated in her appointment as headmistress of the Ursuline School in Werl.

The Berlin Vorwärts (a Social-Democratic newspaper) described her as "the most important woman alive today", and in October 1912 she gave up her work as a teacher to become full-time chairman of the KDF.

She played a major part of the new social legislation, and from 1920 until her death was a senior member of the Rheinischen Zentrumspartei ("Rhenish Centre Party").