This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. Th e Surplus Woman This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. Monographs in German History Volume 1 Volume 16 Osthandel and Ostpolitik: German Foreign Trade Sex,Th ugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll. Teenage Rebels in Policies in Eastern Europe from Bismarck to Adenauer Cold-War East Germany Mark Spaulding Mark Fenemore Volume 2 Volume 17 A Question of Priorities: Democratic Reform and Cultures of Abortion in Weimar Germany Economic Recovery in Postwar Germany Cornelie Usborne Rebecca Boehling Volume 18 Volume 3 Selling the Economic Miracle: Economic Reconstruction From Recovery to Catastrophe: Municipal Stabilization and Politics In West Germany, 1949–1957 and Political Crisis in Weimar Germany Mark E. Spicka Ben Lieberman Volume 19 Volume 4 Between Tradition and Modernity: Aby Warburg and Nazism in Central Germany: Th e Brownshirts in Art in Hamburg’s Public Realm 1896-1918 ‘Red’ Saxony Mark A. Russell Christian W. Szejnmann Volume 20 Volume 5 A Single Communal Faith? Th e German Right from Citizens and Aliens: Foreigners and the Law in Conservatism to National Socialism Britain and the German States, 1789–1870 Th omas Rohrämer Andreas Fahrmeir Volume 21 Volume 6 Environmental Organizations in Modern Germany: Poems in Steel: National Socialism and the Politics of Hardy Survivors in the Twentieth Century and Beyond Inventing from Weimar to Bonn William T. Markham Kees Gispen Volume 22 Volume 7 Crime Stories: Criminalistic Fantasy and the Culture of “Aryanisation” in Hamburg Crisis in Weimar Germany Frank Bajohr Todd Herzog Volume 8 Volume 23 Th e Politics of Education: Teachers and School Reform Liberal Imperialism in Germany: Expansionism and in Weimar Germany Nationalism, 1848–1884 Marjorie Lamberti Matthew P. Fitzpatrick Volume 9 Volume 24 Th e Ambivalent Alliance: Konrad Adenauer, the Bringing Culture to the Masses: Control, Compromise CDU/CSU, and the West, 1949–1966 and Participation in the GDR Ronald J. Granieri Esther von Richthofen Volume 10 Volume 25 Th e Price of Exclusion: Ethnicity, National Identity, Banned in Berlin: Literary Censorship in Imperial and the Decline of German Liberalism, 1898–1933 Germany, 1871–1918 E. Kurlander Gary D. Stark Volume 11 Volume 26 Recasting West German Elites: Higher Civil Servants, After the ‘Socialist Spring’: Collectivisation and Business Leaders, and Physicians in Hesse between Economic Transformation in the GDR Nazism and Democracy, 1945–1955 George Last Michael R. Hayse Volume 27 Volume 12 Learning Democracy: Education Reform in West Th e Creation of the Modern German Army: General Germany, 1945–1965 Walther Reinhardt and the Weimar Republic, Brian M. Puaca 1914–1930 Volume 28 William Mulligan Weimar Radicals: Nazis and Communists between Volume 13 Authenticity and Performance Th e Crisis of the German Left: Th e PDS, Stalinism Timothy S. Brown and the Global Economy Volume 29 Peter Th ompson Th e Political Economy of Germany under Chancellors Volume 14 Kohl and Schröder: Decline of the German Model? “Conservative Revolutionaries”: Protestant and Jeremy Leaman Catholic Churches in Germany After Radical Political Volume 30 Change in the 1990s Th e Surplus Woman: Unmarried in Imperial Germany, Barbara Th ériault 1871–1918 Volume 15 Catherine L. Dollard Modernizing Bavaria: Th e Politics of Franz Josef Strauss and the CSU, 1949–1969 This openMark Milosch access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. THE SURPLUS WOMAN Unmarried in Imperial Germany, 1871–1918 Catherine L. Dollard Berghahn Books New York • Oxford This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. Published in 2009 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com ©2009, 2012, 2018 Catherine L. Dollard First paperback edition published in 2012 Open access ebook edition published in 2018 All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dollard, Catherine Leota. e surplus woman : unmarried in Imperial Germany, 1871/1918 / Catherine L. Dollard. — 1st ed. p. cm. — (Monographs in German history ; v. 30) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-84545-480-7 (hbk.)—ISBN 978-0-85745-313-6 (pbk.) 1. Women—Germany—History. I. Title. HQ1623.D64 2009 306.8153094309034—dc22 2009015697 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-84545-480-7 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-85745-313-6 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-78533-662-1 (open access ebook) An electronic version of this book is freely available thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. More information about the initia- tive and links to the Open Access version can be found at knowledgeunlatched.org. This work is published subject to a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial No Derivatives 4.0 International licence. The terms of the licence can be found at https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. For uses beyond those covered in the li- cence contact Berghahn Books. This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. For Catherine Wesdock Test, Eileen Test Dollard, and Lynne Dollard Mowery This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. CONTENTS Acknowledgements viii Abbreviations xi Introduction: Single Women in Imperial Germany 1 PART I Der Frauenüberschuß—Th e Female Surplus 21 1 Th e Alte Jungfer 23 2 Sexology and the Single Woman 43 3 Imagined Demography 66 4 Th e Maternal Spirit 93 PART II Alleinstehende Frauen—Women Standing Alone 117 5 Moderate Activism: Helene Lange and Alice Salomon 119 6 Radical Reform: Helene Stöcker, Ruth Bré, and Lily Braun 143 7 Socialism and Singleness: Clara Zetkin 164 8 Spiritual Salvation: Elisabeth Gnauck-Kühne 176 Conclusion: Th e Surplus Woman 199 Appendix: Tables & Figures 219 Bibliography 247 Index 265 This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. 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, fi nancial, and emotional sup- port 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 Th e Surplus Woman. Konrad Jarausch helped me to formulate the questions that inspired this book and provided a model of scholarly excel- lence and professional engagement. At the University of North Carolina, Melissa Bullard, Donald Reid, and Gerhard Weinberg were important mentors who of- fered 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 fi nancial assistance during the life of this project. Generous funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Founda- tion 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 en- gagement 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 staff s 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. Th e William Howard Doane Library at Denison University has been endlessly accommodating. I off er special thanks to Pamela Magelaner for her skill in tracking down obscure titles via interlibrary loan. Th is book has benefi ted 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 Raff ael Scheck each have given helpful feedback at various stages of the project. Lisabeth This open access library edition is supported by Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. Acknowledgements | ix 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 Th e 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 Schil- ling have provided advice and encouragement at critical moments. Mitchell Snay read the full manuscript and off ered valuable comments.