Brita Bjørgum

This article or section is in a state of significant expansion or restructuring. You are welcome to assist in its construction by editing it as well. If this article or section has not been edited in several days, please remove this template. If you are the editor who added this template and you are actively editing, please be sure to replace this template with {{in use}} during the active editing session. Click on the link for template parameters to use. This article was last edited by Spiderpig662 (talk | contribs) 5 hours ago. (Update timer)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Norwegian. (September 2024) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Norwegian article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Norwegian Wikipedia article at [[:no:Brita Bjørgum]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|no|Brita Bjørgum}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Brita Josefsdotter Bjørgum (11 March 1858 – 16 January 1906) was a Norwegian writer, teacher and women's rights activist. She was one of the first feminist writers to write in Nynorsk.

Brita Bjørgum was born on 11 March 1858 in Voss to farmer and freeholder Josef Tollefson and Brita Larsdotter. She was the sister of painter Nils Bjørgum. She never married.^[1]

In 1879, Bjørgum took the lower teacher test at the teacher training school at Ølve in Sunnhordland. She then worked as a substitute teacher in Voss.^[1]

Bjørgum wrote poems and short fiction in publications such as the Unge Skud/Unglyden and Den 17de Mai, often just under the name Brita. In the latter magazine she published a serial, which was published as a book in 1895, titled Kari Lidi. The book is considered to be the first longer story written by a woman in Nynorsk.^[2][3]

Bjørgum was an active member of the Noregs Ungdomslag. She was an active feminist who was fought for women's suffrage and the right for women to smoke, and she is considered a pioneer among female Nynorsk writers. She also advocated for a republic as a form of government.^[1]

Despite her political work, Bjørgum was concerned with tradition and held a Christian outlook on life. She also interested in bunad clothing and she sought out old patterns and sewing techniques.^[1] In 1892, she was the first to contribute money to the charitable orphanage in Voss.^[4]

Bjørgum died on 16 January 1906, at the age of 47.^[1]

• 1895: Kari Lidi