Carolin Aichholz
22.10.2013
Research questions:
1. Dealing with Women’s Movement/Frauenalltag; research question: What was
the role of women in Wilhelmine society? Comment on politics, education, labour and
family.
2. Linking it to Week 11 - Literature (Realismus, Theodor Fontane: Irrungen,
Wirrungen); research question: Compare these views with the depiction of Lene
(Magdalene) Nimptsch and other women within the novel.
Essay plan:
1. The essay wants to deal with the life of women in Wilhelmine society with
special interest to politics, education, labour and family. Women and men in
the German Empire didn’t have equal rights. It was a patriarchal society in
which the man or husband was the head of the family. He was the breadwinner and was part of the world of work/working life. In contrast, the woman
had the role of the mother; she was responsible for the household, the
children and the family. As a woman it was not allowed to vote (not until the
collapse of the German Empire in 1918) or to take part in politics. It was also
not allowed to study and most of the women didn’t have a higher educational
achievement. However, this changed in the beginning of the 20th century.
With this essay I want to present the concept of marriage (and also
Mesalliancen) in the German Empire and the differences in family life between
the upper classes (Bürgertum) and the lower classes (Arbeiterschicht). The
women/mothers of the lower classes were often forced to work because the
income wasn’t enough and the living situation was often lousy. If women had
to work (those women were mostly part of the lower classes or unmaried
women) they worked as housemaids or in factories.
Bibliography:
Berghahn, Volker R., Imperial Germany, 1871-1914: Economy, Society, Culture, and
Politics (Providence: Berghahn Books, 1994)
Deutsche Geschichte in Quellen und Darstellungen: Band 8 Kaiserreich und Erster
Weltkrieg 1871-1918, ed. by Rüdiger vom Bruch, Björn Hofmeister (Stuttgart:
Reclam, 2000)
Fontane, Theodor, Irrungen, Wirrungen, ed. by Walter Keitel, Helmuth Nürnberger,
2nd edn (Frankfurt a.M.: Fontane Bibliothek, 1982)
Fontane, Theodor, Irrungen, Wirrungen: Mit Materialien, (Leipzig: Ernst Klett
Schulbuchverlag, 2004)
Garland, Henry, The Berlin Novels of Theodor Fontane (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1980).
German History since 1800, ed. by Mary Fulbrook (London: Arnold, 1997)
Harrigan, Renny, 'The Limits of Female Emancipation: A Study of Theodor Fontane's
Lower Class Women', Monatshefte, Vol. 70. No. 2, (Summer 1978), pp. 117-128
Nienhaus, Ursula, 'Von Töchtern und Schwestern: Zur vergessenen Geschichte der
weiblichen Angestellten im deutschen Kaiserreich', Geschichte und Gesellschaft
Sonderheft, 7, (1981), pp. 309-330
Sagarra, Eda, An Introduction to Nineteenth Century Germany (Harlow: Longman,
1980).
Tenfelde, Klaus, 'Arbeiterfamilie und Geschlechterbeziehungen im Deutschen
Kaiserreich', Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 18. H. 2, Klasse und Geschlecht, (1992),
pp. 179-203
Ullrich, Volker, Die nervöse Grossmacht: Aufstieg und Untergang des deutschen
Kaiserreichs 1871-1918, 2nd edn (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 2013)
Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, Das Deutsche Kaiserreich, 1871-1918, ed. by Joachim
Leuschner, 7th edn (Göttingen: Vandenhoek und Ruprecht, 1994)