Dr. Irmgard Rathgen

Title: Dr.
Prename: Irmgard
Surname: Rathgen
Profession: Economist
Birthday: 1897
Date of death: 1985
Place of death: Leipzig
Education: 1917 final high school examinations (*Abitur*); 1917–20 trains as a welfare worker at the Women’s School of Social Work in Hamburg and the Institute of Social Pedagogy, Hamburg, majoring in general and commercial welfare; 1922–26 university studies (economics); 1926 doctorate
Career: 1921–22 executive director, Standing Committee on Advancing the Interests of Women Workers, Berlin; works on the journal *Soziale Praxis*; 1922–24 assistant in a finance company; 1925–26 secretary to the German Democratic Party (DDP) Reichstag deputy Anton Erkelenz, edits the DDP journal *Die Hilfe*, and heads DDP cultural committee; 1926–33 runs the Hannover municipal family welfare office; from 1933 senior teacher (*Studiendirektorin*) at the Women’s Seminar for Social Pedagogy in Leipzig
Memberships: German Federation of University Women (DAB); 1924 unofficial German representative at the International Federation of University Women (IFUW) convention in Christiania; advocate of the international networking of women academics within the IFUW
Biographical literature: Gunda Rohbeck, *Verzicht auf Dank und Anerkennung. Berufsentwicklung hannoverscher Fürsorgerinnen* (Münster: LIT, 2005), 466
Major works: *Dritte Generation: Für Gertrud Bäumer, September 1923* (ed. with Hilde Lion and Else Ulig-Beil; Berlin: Herbig, 1923); *Die Beziehungen des Kleinaktionärs zur Aktiengesellschaft in Deutschland* (diss.; Hamburg, 1926); *Der Wert der vorbeugenden Fürsorge als Sparmaßnahme und die Möglichkeiten zu ihrer Ausgestaltung* (Berlin: Dt. Archiv f. Jugendwohlfahrt, 1931)