Heidi Witzig

Heidi Witzig (born 1944), formerly known as Heidi Schäppi-Witzig and now as Heidi Witzig Vetterli,^[1] is a Swiss historian with a focus on women's history. She published pioneering works on women's history, and is a co-initiator of the Grandmother's Revolution. In 2021 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Lausanne.

Biography

Witzig was born in 1944 in Zürich.^[2] She is the daughter of an office furniture manufacturer.^[3] She grew up in Frauenfeld in the canton of Thurgau.^[3] She studied history and art history at the universities of Zurich and Florence and earned a doctorate in Zürich with a work about the early Italian Renaissance in 1978.^[2] She subsequently worked as a documentalist at Schweizer Fernsehen DSR.^[4] She has been a freelance historian since 1986, with a focus on Alltagsgeschichte and women's history.^[2] Her works were "motivated for a long time by the anger against the unequal treatment of women".^[3] Witzig co-wrote a pioneering source book about women's history in Switzerland alongside historian Elisabeth Joris, which was published in 1986.^[5] Witzig's 2000 book Polenta and Paradeplatz: Regional Everyday Life on the Way to Modern Switzerland 1880-1914 was also considered pioneering.^[6] Witzig was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Lausanne in 2021.^[7]

Around 1982, she became a Socialist municipality councillor in Uster, canton of Zürich.^[8][9]

As a co-initiator of the GrossmütterRevolution ("Grandmothers' Revolution"), she engages in favour of "women in retiring age for a maturity in dignity and social protection for all".^[10]

Heidi Witzig is a widowed mother of a daughter.^[2]

Publications (selection)

As an author

• Heidi Schäppi-Witzig: Die Florentiner Bürger und ihre Stadt: Eine kulturgeschichtliche Analyse des 15. Jahrhunderts. Zürich: Reihe W, 1978 (dissertation).
• with Elisabeth Joris: Brave Frauen – aufmüpfige Weiber: Wie sich die Industrialisierung auf Alltag und Lebenszusammenhänge von Frauen auswirkte (1820–1940). Zürich: Chronos, 1992; 3rd edition in 2001.
• Polenta und Paradeplatz: Regionales Alltagsleben auf dem Weg zur modernen Schweiz 1880–1914. Zürich: Chronos, 2000; 2nd edition in 2001.
• Wie kluge Frauen alt werden: Was sie tun und was sie lassen. Mit Porträts von Sabine Bobst. Xanthippe, Zürich 2007; 3rd edition in 2008; pocket book edition in 2012.

As an editor

• with Elisabeth Joris: Frauengeschichte(n): Dokumente aus zwei Jahrhunderten zur Situation der Frauen in der Schweiz. Zürich: Limmat, 1986; 4th edition in 2001.
• with Felix Müller and Kathrin Arioli: Unruhige Verhältnisse: Frauen und Männer im Zeitalter der Gleichberechtigung. 15 Porträts aus dem Kanton Zürich. Zürich: Limmat, 2002.