Born on a small farm in Iceland, Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir had to shoulder the responsibilities of a household at an early age when her mother fell ill. The oldest of four siblings, Bríet helped put her two brothers to school but received no education herself apart from learning to read and write before her confirmation, as was required of all children. With the help of kind relatives, Bríet entered a women’s gymnasium for one year at the age of 24. As with other young women in Iceland at that time, this was Bríet’s only chance at further education.

Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir became a teacher of children in private households and moved to Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland. In 1887 Bríet gave a public lecture on the status of women, the first Icelandic woman to do so. She married a journalist and publisher, and in 1895 they started a monthly magazine, Kvennablaðið (The Women’s Magazine), with Bríet as editress.

Bríet’s husband died in 1902. She continued to run the publishing company for a while and let out rooms in her house to provide for herself and her two young children. In 1904 Bríet sailed to Scandinavia where she made personal contact with leading feminists. In 1906 she attended the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) conference in Copenhagen at the invitation of the president, Carrie Chapman Catt. In 1907 Bríet founded the Icelandic Women’s Rights Organization, which promptly joined the IWSA, and Kvennablaðið became a leading voice in the suffrage campaign.

Biographies in Scandinavian magazines:

Dagny , nr. 45, 2 Dec. 1909, pp. 534-535

Kvindestemmerets-bladet , årgang 3, nr. 9, 1909

Article by Bríet's daughter, Laufey Vilhjálmsdóttir, in Jus Suffragii, June-July, 1929, pp. 144-146»

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