Franz Michael Felder
Franz Michael Felder (13 May 1839 – 26 April 1869) was a social reformer, author and farmer from Vorarlberg (Austria). Life Born in Schoppernau, Vorarlberg Franz Michael Felder grew up in very simple mountain farming circumstances. Having lost his father early on, he and his mother eked out a meagre existence on the small family farm. Felder was faced with a series of fateful setbacks (including the loss of vision in one eye as a result of medical malpractice). During his short life he was astonishingly productive and left behind a rich legacy of social projects and literary works. Already in his younger years he became critically aware of the two main social and economic evils facing the farmers of the Bregenzerwald: Their abject dependence on those who controlled the sales and pricing of dairy products – specifically cheese products – and the ideological conditioning of a church bent on keeping its parishioners uneducated. His socially critical novels and stories, written in the tradition of Jeremias Gotthelf, centered largely around village life, with strong tendencies towards literary and poetic realism. Felder achieved fame and recognition when the publishing house Hirzel in Leipzig brought out his novels "Sonderlinge" and "Reich und