ForCatherine Wesdock Test,Eileen Test Dollard,and Lynne Dollard Mowery
CONTENTS
Introduction: Single Women in Imperial Germany
PART I Der Frauenüberschuß—The Female Surplus
2 Sexology and the Single Woman
PART II Alleinstehende Frauen—Women Standing Alone
5 Moderate Activism: Helene Lange and Alice Salomon
6 Radical Reform: Helene Stöcker, Ruth Bré, and Lily Braun
7 Socialism and Singleness: Clara Zetkin
8 Spiritual Salvation: Elisabeth Gnauck-Kühne
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
After many years of research, contemplation, and writing, the publication of this book is a most welcome event. I am happy to have the opportunity to thank those who provided the considerable intellectual, financial, and emotional support that has sustained me throughout this process. It is a genuine pleasure to acknowledge so many debts of gratitude. My time spent in Chapel Hill provided the foundation for The Surplus Woman. Konrad Jarausch helped me to formulate the questions that inspired this book and provided a model of scholarly excellence and professional engagement. At the University of North Carolina, Melissa Bullard, Donald Reid, and Gerhard Weinberg were important mentors who offered critical insights on this project. At Duke University, Claudia Koonz proved willing to traverse Highway 15-501 in repeated support of my scholarship. I am grateful for the encouragement of these teachers and fellow scholars.
I was fortunate to have received considerable financial assistance during the life of this project. Generous funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation supported a year spent as a Bundeskanzler scholar as well as a return research trip. I will be forever thankful to the Humboldt family, including Georg Schütte, Robert Grathwol, Donita Moorhus, and Bernard Stein, for their continued engagement with my work. Research has also been supported by the Junior Faculty Leave program at Denison University and by the Department of History at the University of North Carolina in the form of Mowry and Quinn grants.
I am indebted to numerous archivists and librarians, including the staffs of the Landesarchiv Berlin (Helene Lange Archiv), the Bundesarchiv (Koblenz), and the Archiv der deutschen Frauenbewegung in Kassel. Anna Marquardt at the archives of Cologne's Katholischer deutscher Frauenbewegung was very patient in helping me wade through the papers of Elisabeth Gnauck-Kühne. The William Howard Doane Library at Denison University has been endlessly accommodating. I offer special thanks to Pamela Magelaner for her skill in tracking down obscure titles via interlibrary loan.
This book has benefited from the insights of colleagues in history and German studies. James Albisetti, Ann Taylor Allen, Stephen Berry, Elisabeth Heineman, Dagmar Herzog, Lisabeth Hock, Elizabeth Peifer, Nancy Reagin, and Raffael Scheck each have given helpful feedback at various stages of the project. Lisabeth Hock introduced me to important source material for chapter 2. Stephen Berry's writing has been particularly inspirational; I hope that a few notes of his poetic song resound in the present work. I am indebted to Ann Taylor Allen both for the model her work has provided and for her very helpful comments on the manuscript. I am also grateful to the anonymous readers of Berghahn Books for their thoughtful review of the text and I wish to thank Marion Berghahn for her support of The Surplus Woman.
Denison University has been a most collegial environment in which to write this book. Conversations with my colleagues in the history department have helped me to think through the complexity of the past in general and this project in particular. Adam Davis, Jack Kirby, Margaret Meriwether, and Donald Schilling have provided advice and encouragement at critical moments. Mitchell Snay read the full manuscript and offered valuable comments. I owe a special debt of gratitude to my mentors Amy and Michael Gordon, both of whom first showed me the promise of the historian within. I wish to thank my colleagues Gary Baker, Gabriele Dillmann, Barbara Fultner, John Kessler, and Jonathan Maskit for their willingness to discuss the nuances of translation (unless otherwise indicated, all translations herein are mine). David Anderson and Keith Boone of the Office of the Provost helped me to arrange a leave schedule that contributed greatly to the completion of this book. Mary Jane Dennison and Deborah Bennett have given significant assistance over the life of this project; I am most grateful for their help.
The greatest debts are personal. My sons Jack and George are inspirational beyond words. To paraphrase Ruth Bré, they are my happiness and my future. My husband, Ted Burczak, has been a model of good discipline, intellectual accomplishment, and life balance. He has created an environment in which I could complete this book; it would not exist without him. I thank the Burczaks, Kratkys, and Mowerys for their faith in me. I have been fortunate to have the sustaining friendship of Larry Murdock, Dave Bussan, Laura Moller, Mark Moller, and the women of PWG. My father and brother, the two Jerry Dollards, have been the source of limitless encouragement and laughter. Finally, the women in my family have provided me with a legacy of strength, warmth, and resilience. I am most grateful to Jane Fustini, Jean Owens, Shirley Dollard, Carol Greer, and the late Leota Dollard and Joan Morrison for providing