User:Kronhjorten/Anna Ahlström

Anna Ahlström (19 July 1863 - 12 October 1943) was a Swedish schoolteacher and rector. In 1902 she founded the Ahlström School in Stockholm.

Biography
In 1885 Anna Ahlström graduated from the Wallin School, the first gymnasium-level shool for girls in Sweden. She continued her studies at Uppsala University, graduating in 1891. Ahlström then traveled in Italy and France and lived in Paris for a year before studying modern languages in Paris, London and Berlin. Ahlström graduated with a Ph.D from Uppsala University in 1899, with a French-language thesis about the language of Gustave Flaubert. She was one of the first women to obtain a Ph.D in Sweden, and Sweden's first female doctor of Romance languages.

Beginning in 1893, Ahlström taught at several girls' schools in Stockholm before completing her Ph.D. Not allowed to apply for higher teaching position of lector, Ahlström decided to found her own girls' school. After completing her doctoral studies, she founded Nya Elementarskolan för flickor ("The New Elementary School for girls") in Stockholm in 1902. The new school opened in autumn 1903, first housed in Ahlström's own flat and later several schoolhouses.