Eugénie Weill

Origins and early life

Eugénie Weill was born in Paris on 15 June 1860 and died at Sarcelles on 28 December 1941, at the age of eighty-one; the sources describe her as a French Jewish philanthropist and feminist.

Work and career

She married Isaac Weill in 1879 and was widowed in 1896, and she then gave the rest of her life to organised charity. In 1891 she founded the Société amicale de bienfaisance, which distributed relief and clothing, helped the poor to find work and provided free medical care at a time when the French state did almost none of this. In 1901 she was among the founders of the Conseil national des femmes françaises, the federation that united the French women's associations, and she served as its treasurer.

For some thirty years she led its section on assistance and social welfare, arguing that women should have a recognised place in public assistance and pressing for reform of the prisons. During the First World War she created three workshops in the ninth arrondissement of Paris to give work to refugees.

Recognition

She was made an officier d'académie, received the silver medal of the Assistance publique in 1909, and was appointed a knight of the Legion of Honour by a decree of 19 February 1922.