Helene Scheu-Riesz

Helene Scheu-Riesz (18 September 1880 – 8 January 1970) was an Austrian women's rights activist, pacifist, children's writer and publisher. In addition to supporting the Austrian women's movement, in November 1900 together with Yella Hertzka and three others she founded the Viennese Women's Club (Erster Wiener Frauenklub). She later became active in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, representing Austria at the organization's 1919 international congress in Zurich, the 1921 congress in Vienna and the 1924 congress in Washington, D.C. Scheu-Riesz took a special interest in children's literature, translating and writing books herself and founding the publishing house Sesam-Verlag in 1923. After the death of her husband, the Austrian intellectual and social democrat politician Gustav Scheu, as she was of Jewish heritage, in 1937 she moved to the United States. There she created the publishing house Island Press on the remote Ocracoke Island. She founded Open Sesame Inc. New York in 1949 to continue her philanthropic work of distributing world literature as a means of promoting internationalism and peace. In 1954, she returned to her house in the Hietzing district of Vienna where she spent the remainder of her life.

Early life and family

Born on 18 September 1880 in Olomouc, Moravia, Austria-Hungary (now in the Czech Republic), Helene Riesz was the only child of Susanne (née Beer) and the Jewish wine merchant Adolf Riesz. During her infancy, the family settled in Klosterneuburg, just north of Vienna. She attended the Mädchengymnasium des Vereins für Erweiterte Frauenbildung, a private high school established to allow girls to take the matura examination which was required for university entrance. She took law courses at Vienna University but did not graduate. Around the age of eighteen, she traveled to England and studied literature. She became fascinated with penny booklets which published literature for children in an inexpensive format that was accessible to even the poorest families. She also became interested in the settlement movement, which focused on providing housing, employment assistance, language instruction, and medical care for urban poor and immigrant residents.

Returning to Austria, Riesz became active in the women's movement, publishing articles in support of women's rights and taking a special interest in opportunities for children. As early as 1900, together with Yella Hertzka, Margarethe Jodl, Marie Lang and Dora von Stockert-Meynert she founded the Viennese Women's Club (Erster Wiener Frauenklub). In 1904, she left the Jewish faith and married the lawyer Gustav Scheu (1875–1935) with whom she had two children: Friedrich (1905) and Elisabeth (1912). She joined the Religious Society of Friends, becoming one of Austria's first Quakers. Scheu-Riesz and her husband gained a central position in Viennese society thanks to their salon, to which they invited local and international celebrities, including the composers Alban Berg, Anton Webern and Arnold Schönberg, the painter Oskar Kokoschka, the actresses Elisabeth Neumann-Viertel and Helene Weigel, the architect Adolf Loos, who designed her house in Hietzing, and the educational innovator Eugenie Schwarzwald.

Career

Activism

Inspired by the cheap yet attractive booklets with short stories for children which had become popular in England, in 1905 Scheu-Riesz established a committee, along with Eugenie Hottmann and another activist, to organize the publication in German of similar little books for children at affordable prices in Austria. The beautifully illustrated collection focused on fairy tales and children's stories in German which cost far less than the poorly presented editions which were appearing in the shops for Christmas at horrendous prices. Most of the stories were rewritten by women with attractive new titles. Families were invited to purchase books for children, instead of or along with toys. Subscriptions were also available, allowing the committee to print large volumes of the stories for children's hospitals and humanitarian associations. Scheu-Riesz saw books as a means of creating better understanding between peoples and improving international relationships. Over the years, frequently traveling to England, she collected children's stories from various countries and assembled a collection of over 300 volumes, which also included French stories. Under the influence of her friend Eugenie Schwarzwald, Scheu-Riesz became active in educational reform. From the time of her teenage visit to London, she had tried to find a publisher interested in producing inexpensive, high-quality literature for children and young people. She was able to realize these plans in 1923 when she founded her own publishing house, Sesam-Verlag. The name was a play on the phrase "open sesame" from the tale "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" which magically opened the door (to knowledge), and its philanthropic mission took prevalence over earning a profit. At the time, the two leading children's publishers were Gerlachs Jugendbücherei (Gerlach's Youth Library) and Konegens Kinderbücher (Konegen's Children's Books) and she took over the market share of Konegen.

Scheu-Riesz campaigned for women's suffrage and worked in the international settlement movement. She wrote articles which appeared in the October 1913 issue of Zeitschrift für Frauen-Stimmrecht on both issues. She urged women to join the Austrian Voting Rights Committee to fight for their rights as citizens. After attending the 10th International Housing Congress in The Hague, she encouraged women to get involved in housing reforms. In the Netherlands, she reported she had met a woman housing inspector who focused on improving housing legislation and actively encouraged women and girls to participate in elevating the lives of apartment dwellers through social and artistic programs. Scheu-Riesz linked housing initiatives and education as meeting points for new ideas and after World War I, was involved in a government housing program which constructed homes for 50,000 people. She also pressed authorities to eliminate nationalist curricula from schools and focus on more practical learning. In addition to updating the materials used in schools, she wrote articles urging that teaching staff and teaching methods should be modernized and professionalized, moving away from the military model, which had been in use prior to the war.

After writing several poems about peace, Scheu-Riesz was invited to attend the 1915 Women at the Hague congress, which resulted in the founding of the Committee of Women for Permanent Peace, subsequently known as the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). She represented Austria at the organization's 1919 international congress in Zurich, at the 1921 congress in Vienna, and the 1924 congress in Washington, D.C. Although not an official delegate, she also participated in the International Congress of Women, held in Vienna in July 1921. In 1931, Scheu-Riesz became a vice-president of the Austrian chapter of the WILPF. After moving to the United States, she continued to work with WILPF, through the North Carolina branch, giving lectures to women's groups.