Alma Söderhjelm (10 May 1870 in Vyborg – 16 March 1949 in Saltsjöbaden, Sweden) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish historian and the first woman to hold a professorship in Finland. She was the daughter of the district judge and procurator Werner Woldemar Söderhjelm and Amanda Olivia Clouberg.
Academic career
After gaining an M.A. in history from the University of Helsinki in 1894, Söderhjelm spent three years in Paris, encouraged by her family, her elder brother Professor Werner Söderhjelm, and her teacher J. R. Danielson-Kalmari. There she collected material for a doctoral dissertation on the French Revolution under the supervision of Alphonse Aulard, the leading scholar of the Revolution at the time. The dissertation examined journalism during the French Revolution and was published as Le Régime de la presse pendant la Révolution française.
She was awarded a doctorate in 1900.
On the basis of this thesis, the university unanimously proposed to award her a lectureship. This appointment was delayed until 1906, because of political concern over her father, the procurator Werner Woldemar Söderhjelm, and her brother. The Emperor was also concerned that if a woman became a lecturer in Finland, the same demand would be made in Russia. Before the appointment came through, she published an essay collection on the cultural history of the Revolution and a selection of letters by Manon Roland. The appointment was eventually approved in spring 1906, when the acting chancellor August Langhoff submitted a new proposal that the Emperor accepted.
