User:RogoPD/S/Wil van Gogh

Willemina Jacoba van Gogh (March 16, 1862 - May 17 1941), called Wil and commonly known as the youngest sister of the artist Vincent van Gogh and the art dealer Theo van Gogh, was above all amongst the earliest feminists claiming their rights.

Biography
During the first part of her life, Willemina served her family and others nursing the sick. Only after the death of her brothers she got a modest job in a hospital. Then she engaged in the committee to organise the "National exhibition of women's work" (Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid), 1898 - a highly successful enterprise: funds raised with this exhibition - 20.000 Dutch Guilders - served to establish the Dutch National bureau for women's work.

No sources record what happened afterwards. December 4, 1902, Wil was interned and later transferred to House Veldwijk, a psychiatric institution at Ermelo. The diagnosis on which this measure was based - dementia praecox - was in these years equal to a sentence of death. Wil dwelt there for almost four decades, before she passed away.

Rehabilitation
Whether Wil was mentally ill or not, is nowadays difficult to prove. At least, Renate Berger has established that Wil shared the fate of many "sisters of wellknown men" of these decades.