Alma Söderhjelm (10 May 1870 in Vyborg – 16 March 1949 in Saltsjöbaden, Sweden^[1]) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish historian and the first female professor in Finland. She was the daughter of the procurator Werner Woldemar Söderhjelm and Amanda Olivia Clouberg.^[1]

After gaining an M.A. in history from the University of Helsinki in 1894^[1], Söderhjelm spent three years in Paris, preparing her doctoral thesis under the supervision of Alphonse Aulard. This was a study of journalism during the French Revolution and it was published as Le Régime de la presse pendant la Révolution française.^[2] She was awarded a doctorate in 1900.

On the basis of this thesis, the university unanimously proposed to award her a lectureship. This appointment was delayed until 1906, because of political concern over her father, the procurator Werner Woldemar Söderhjelm^[1], and her brother. The Emperor was also concerned that if a woman became a lecturer in Finland, the same demand would be made in Russia.^{[citation needed]}

In 1906, she finally became the first female lecturer (Docent of General History) in Finland, a position she held until 1926. In 1927, she became chair and Extraordinary Professor of General History at Åbo Akademi University, and thus the first female professor in Finland, a role she held until 1938.^[3][1]

Her major academic works on the revolutionary period include Sverige och den franska revolutionen (Sweden and the French Revolution, 1920–24)^[1]. Her academic work also involved editing the correspondence of the French Queen Marie Antoinette with the Swedish nobleman von Fersen, published as Fersen et Marie-Antoinette (1930), and with some French revolutionaries, such as the correspondence with Antoine Barnave published in Marie-Antoinette et Barnave. Correspondance secrete (1934). She also edited and published the diary of Axel von Fersen in three volumes (1925–28).^[4][1] Later in her career, she co-authored a biography of Oscar I with Carl-Fredrik Palmstierna (1944) and wrote biographies of Georg Carl von Döbeln (1937) and Carl Johan (1939).^[1]

Söderhjelm worked as a journalist, contributing to several newspapers^[1] and writing a column for the newspaper Åbo Underrättelser. She also wrote novels such as Unga träd (Young Trees, 1925), poetry, including the collection Tjugu små dikter (Twenty Small Poems, 1920), and a five-volume memoir which included the titles Min värld (My World, 1929–31) and Minä sju magra är (My Seven Lean Years, 1932).^[1][5] She co-wrote the screenplay for The Blizzard (1923), directed by Mauritz Stiller. She was awarded the Granberg Prize in 1919, 1928, 1932, 1935, and 1942.^[1]

Söderhjelm was politically active. She smuggled journals into Finland from Sweden, and helped military volunteers to move from Sweden into Germany.^[6]

• Works by or about Alma Söderhjelm at the Internet Archive
• Alma Söderhjelm in 375 humanists – 27 April 2015. Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki.

• Alma Söderhjelm at Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon
• Alma Söderhjelm (1921), Det främmande ögat : utfall och infall / Alma Söderhjelm., Skrifter utgivna av Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland (in Swedish), Helsinki: Society of Swedish Literature in Finland, ISSN 0039-6842, Wikidata Q113518935