Marie Tůmová (12 June 1866 – 1 May 1925) was a Czechwomen's suffragist and a teacher. In 1908, using a legal loophole, Tůmová was among the first three women to unsuccessfully run to be elected to the Bohemian Diet.
Career
Teaching
Marie Tůmová worked as a teacher and, during World War I, became the principal of a municipal girls' school in Žižkov – a first woman to helm a municipal school in Bohemia.[1] In 1919–1925, she worked on behalf of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Education in Carpathian Ruthenia and Slovakia, but malnutrition and bad living conditions led to a fatal illness.[1]
Tůmová advocated for women's rights and was a member of Czech women's and teachers' associations, such as Women's National Council[1] She was friends with a fellow teacher and suffragist Františka Plamínková, with whom she worked in the Committee for Women's Suffrage.[2] Tůmová represented the committee abroad, traveling to Stockholm, Rome, Bucharest, Budapest and London.[1]
In 1908, using a legal loophole, the Committee for Women's Suffrage nominated Tůmová in the elections for the Bohemian assembly.[2] Thus, together with Karla Máchová and Božena Zelinková, Tůmová was among the first three women to run for the Bohemian Diet.[3] She ran in the Vysoké Mýto-Skuteč-Hlinsko voting district and received around 200 votes.[4] None of the women candidates secured a seat in the assembly, but the general public was shocked by how many votes had been cast in their favour.[3] The committee ran Tůmová for the next elections as well, but with similar results.[2] Eventually, it was Božena Viková-Kunětická who became the first woman elected to the Bohemian Diet.[3]
Personal life
Marie Tůmová was born in Prague in 1866.[5] Her parents were the journalist, writer and politician Karel Tůma[6] and Marie Čelakovská, whose father was the poet František Čelakovský.[1]
