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Book Review
Comparative/World
| Anja Schüler. Frauenbewegung und soziale Reform: Jane Addams und Alice Salomon im transatlantischen Dialog, 1889–1933. (Transatlantische Historische Studien, number 16.) Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. 2004. Pp. 391. €44.00.
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| This comparative study of feminist social activism in the United States and Germany focuses on Jane Addams and Alice Salomon, two key figures in the development of social work in the period before World War I, and assesses their influence up until their deaths. Anja Schïler thereby uses social-biographical comparison to indicate "the differing life worlds of American and German women" (p. 12) and to evaluate the roles of Addams and Salomon as leading feminists and as arbiters of social welfare policies. In addition, Schüler explicitly sets out to participate in key debates among historians and sociologists, both those who study women and gender and those concerned with the expansion of social welfare in twentieth-century industrial states. Here she presents valuable information about international feminist networks after 1890, changes wrought by World War I, and new directions undertaken by feminist social activists, particularly their work in aid of pacifism. Her study is thus important to scholars of the United States as well as those researching Germany, and it deserves to reach a wide audience. |
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Presenting each woman's life and activities chronologically, beginning with Addams, the author compares her and Salomon and the two countries in which they lived. Schüler emphasizes that each woman felt that she could learn from the other's country, and that each worked actively in the field of social work and social policy development, with both seeking "social justice" across class lines. Each fought against the limits imposed on women's independence and activism, and each drew strength from local, national, and international networks of feminist and activist women. From the 1890s, Addams was a member of the National American Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA), while Salomon became an important figure in the German Alliance of German Women's Associations (BDF). Finally, the author argues that each woman was significantly affected by World War I and its aftermath, as were their countries and the women's movements in them. Addams turned largely to work on pacifism, becoming a leader in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Salomon played an important role in the war work undertaken by German feminist groups but then had to deal with international suspicion owing to that work. She, too, participated in the WILPF, but she left the BDF and in Germany devoted herself to the expansion of schooling to train social workers. Schüler also offers a sensitive portrayal of the changing circumstances of the late 1920s and the 1930s, when Salomon became increasingly isolated as a "racial" Jew, despite her sincere conversion to Protestantism during the war. Finally forced to leave Germany in 1937, she fled to the United States, becoming a citizen before her death. |
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In evaluating her two subjects' effectiveness in social activism, in particular in social welfare work, Schüler affirms the work of scholars who have argued that the United States was more receptive to feminist involvement because, unlike Germany, with its long-established and effective bureaucracies, the United States was a "weak state" more open to grass-roots initiatives, which gave women entrée despite their lack of suffrage. She is also sympathetic to the view that feminists might emphasize "social housekeeping" or "motherliness" as a means to assert their credentials in welfare, especially with regard to women's and children's issues. |
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