Germaine Dulac was born in Amiens, France into an upper-middle-class family of a career military officer. Since her father's job required the family to frequently move between small garrison towns, Germaine was sent to live with her grandmother in Paris. She soon became interested in art and studied music, painting, and theater. Following the death of her parents, Dulac moved to Paris and combined her growing interests in socialism and feminism with a career in journalism. In 1905 she married Louis-Albert Dulac, an agricultural engineer who also came from an upper-class family. Four years later she began writing for "La Française", a feminist magazine edited by Jane Misme where she eventually became the drama critic. Dulac also found time to work on the editorial staff of "La Fronde", a radical feminist journal of the time. She also began to pursue her interest in still photography, which preceded her initial entry into filmmaking.