Examining the German Ledigenheim

Examining the German Ledigenheim:

Development of a Housing Type, Position in the Urban Fabric and Impact on

Central European Housing Reform

Erin Eckhold Sassin

B.A., The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2000

M.A., The University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2004

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of

Philosophy in the Program in the History of Art and Architecture at Brown University

Providence, Rhode Island

May 2012

This dissertation by Erin Eckhold Sassin is accepted in its present form by the Department of History of Art and Architecture as satisfying the dissertation

requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Date ______

Dietrich Neumann, Advisor

Recommended to the Graduate Council

Date ______

Carol Poore, Reader

Date ______

Eve Blau, Reader

Approved by the Graduate Council

Date ______

Peter Weber, Dean of the Graduate School

iii Erin Eckhold Sassin 6 Lincoln Avenue, Pawcatuck, CT 02790 [email protected] EDUCATION

Ph.D. Filing Dec. 2011 History of Art and Architecture Department, Brown University Providence, Rhode Island

Dissertation: Examining the German Ledigenheim: Development of a Housing Type, Position in the Urban Fabric and Impact on Central European Housing Reform

Dissertation Director: Dietrich Neumann

Colloquium Committee: Dietrich Neumann (Brown), Carol Poore (Brown), Eve Blau (Harvard/GSD)

Oral Examination Fields: (Major) European and American Architecture and Urbanism, 1850-1950 (Minor) German Reform Architecture and Design, 1870-1914 (Minor) German History 1870-1993, with a Focus on the City and its Discontents

A.M. 2004 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts Concentrations: (1) Nineteenth Century Architecture (2) Northern and Italian Renaissance Art

B.A. 2000 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan Summa cum Laude Phi Beta Kappa, 1998 Majors: (1) History of Art (2) German Language and Literature

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

INSTRUCTOR

Connecticut College Department of Art History and Architectural Studies As a visiting lecturer within the Art History and Architectural Studies department, beginning in September of 2011, I have created and implemented lecture and seminar courses to serve the needs of the

iv architectural studies program at Connecticut College, in addition to advising senior thesis and independent study projects: (Fall 2011) Seminar on Reform and Identity Politics in Central European Architecture and Design Architecture and Design in the Long Nineteenth Century (Spring 2012) Seminar on Artistic and Architectural Utopias The American Home Survey of Architecture and Urbanism 1400-Present

University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth College of Visual and Performing Arts, Art History Department As a full-time lecturer, devised and implemented courses geared towards art and design students in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, as well as the general student body: (Fall 2010) History of Design: 1850-Present Studies in Visual Culture (Methodologies) (Spring 2011) Studies in Visual Culture (Methodologies) Art, Architecture, Design and Urbanism in Berlin Home: The Why Behind the Way We Live Nationalism and Identity: Art, Design and Architecture (Summer 2011) History of Illustration (fully online)

Rhode Island School of Design, Department of Continuing Education (Fall 2009) Devised and implemented a course for Continuing Education students: Survey of Renaissance to Modern Art and Architecture

Brown University, Department of Summer Studies and Continuing Education (Summer 2009 and 2010) Devised and implemented a course for pre-college students: Architecture and the City: Berlin

TEACHING ASSISTANT Brown University, Department of the History of Art and Architecture (September 2005-May 2010) Taught sections and graded exams/papers for the following courses: 19th Century Architecture Modern Architecture (Head Teaching Assistant) Contemporary Architecture The Age of Rubens and Rembrandt Florence and Tuscany in the Quattrocento Ancient to Modern Art

v University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Department of Art and Art History (September 2002-May 2004) Taught sections and graded exams/papers for the following courses: Survey of Art: Ancient to Renaissance Survey of Art: Renaissance to Modern Introduction to the Visual Arts

PEDAGOGICAL TRAINING

Class of ’57 Teaching Seminar Series for New Faculty Joy Shechtman Mankoff Center for Teaching and Learning Connecticut College, 2011-2012 Certificate I in Higher Education, Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, Brown University, Spring 2007 Certificate III in Higher Education, Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, Brown University, Spring 2010

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE and CONFERENCES

Models of Reform: Protestant Resort Communities and Loeb Farm Panel: Design Reform in the Great Lakes Society of Architectural Historians, Annual Conference Detroit, MI (Upcoming-April 18-22, 2012)

Extra-Urban Settlements and Identity in World War One Panel: Representations of German Identity in Visual Culture Visual Culture Network, German Studies Association Annual Conference Louisville, KY (September 22-25, 2011)

Space, Class and Luxury in Early Twentieth Century Housing Panel: Women and the Privileges of Space New England Women’s Studies Association Conference University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth (April 29-30, 2011)

Gendered Spaces and the Control of Single Men New Faculty Institute University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth (March 23, 2011)

Lodging and German Individual in The Lean Years “The Lean Years” Conference on Architecture and Urbanism A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (March 19, 2011)

Gendered Spaces in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Germany “Gender, Sexuality and Urban Spaces” Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies at MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (March 12, 2011)

Educating the Workers: Libraries in Wilhelmine German Housing “Luxuries of the Literary Mind” Conference McGill University, Montreal, Quebec (March 5, 2011)

The Ledigenheim Adapted: Single Women, Single Men and Social Convention Society of Architectural Historians, Annual Conference Graduate Student “Lightning Talks” Chicago, IL (April 23, 2010)

The German Ledigenheim: Local, National and Transnational Exchange “Positioning Global Systems”, Graduate Student Symposium Yale School of Architecture, New Haven, CT (April 15-16, 2010)

Ledigenheime: Inclusion and Integration in the Urban Fabric New England Chapter/Society of Architectural Historians Student Symposium Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (February 20, 2010)

Mellon Graduate Student Proctor Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI (September 2008-May 2009) Worked with James Hall, Assistant Director, on development and implementation of upcoming exhibitions: Marcel Breuer, April-July 2009, with Vitra Design Museum, Germany Design Research, 2010 Ira Rakatansky Retrospective, 2011 (September 2004-September 2005) “Thedlow Collection Project” with Curator of Decorative Arts Formulated and implemented cataloguing project of 500 design drawings from 1920s to 1950s.

HONORS and AWARDS

Humboldt University (Berlin) Fellowship, March-August 2008 Competitive Fellowship awarded by the Brown University German Department Summer Research Funding, Brown University, Summers 2007, 2008 and 2009 Departmental and University Funding, Competitively Awarded

vii Travel and Presentation Funding, Brown University, Spring 2010 Departmental and Graduate School Funding Phi Beta Kappa, University of Michigan, 1999

PUBLICATIONS

“Gendered Spaces in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Germany” Working Papers Series, Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Andrea Sutton, ed. (MIT) Forthcoming (Online January 2012)

“The Visual Politics of Upper Silesian Settlements in the First World War” In Empires in the First World War Andrew Jarboe (Northeastern University) and Richard Fogarty (University of Albany-SUNY), eds. Forthcoming

“Single Women, Public Space, and the German Ledigenheim” In Bourgeois Femininity and Public Space in Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture Temma Balducchi (Arkansas State) and Heather Belnap Jensen (BYU), eds. Forthcoming

Ira Rakatansky: As Modern as Tomorrow (Rhode Island School of Design Architecture Series) Contributor (text) with: Lynette Widder (RISD), Mark Rakatansky (Columbia), Joan Ockman (Columbia) and John Caserta Richmond, CA: William Stout Publishers, 2010

“Design Research: The Store that Brought Modern Living to American Homes” Promotional brochure to solicit interest for upcoming exhibition December 2008 RISD Museum, Rhode Island School of Design

“The Austrian Avant-Garde of the 1950s” Article to accompany exhibition, Friedrich StFlorian: A Retrospective, May 26-July 2, 2006 David Winton Bell Gallery, List Art Center, Brown University

SERVICE

Speaker-Becker House Series on Faculty Research Connecticut College, October 8, 2011

Participant-Open Classroom Program Joy Shechtman Mankoff Center for Teaching and Learning Connecticut College, 2011-2012

viii Participant-Research Matters Workshop Series Connecticut College, Fall 2011-Spring 2012

University Service-Member of the Curriculum Committee Department of Art History, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Spring 2011

Panel Participant-Preparing for Your First Year as a Faculty Member Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning Brown University, Providence, RI Participated on a panel intended to help current graduate students in the Humanities and Social Sciences refine their approaches to teaching May 9, 2011

Moderator-Roundtable on Teaching Architectural History Pedagogy and Technology Society of Architectural Historians Annual Meeting New Orleans, LA April 15, 2011

Panel Participant-Research Colloquium on Architecture Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI Reviewed B.A. qualifying undergraduate student research papers May 9, 2009

Graduate Student Symposium in Architecture and Urbanism Brown University, Providence, RI Conceptualized, Organized and Implemented: Urban Transformations / Shifting Identities September 26-29, 2007

Graduate Student Liaison Brown University, Providence, RI Liaison to Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning September 2006-May 2008

LANGUAGES

-German: fluent -French: proficient

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

-Society of Architectural Historians, New England and National Chapters -Historians of German and Central European Art and Architecture -College Art Association -German Studies Association

ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to my ever-patient family and the many friends who have encouraged and

supported me over these many years---you know who you are.

To Mom and Dad:

Thank you for always supporting my dreams, pushing me to do my best, and for the wise

advice that one “…can never study enough, but can study too much”.

To Mike:

I would never have been able to complete this journey without your love and support---

thank you for believing in me and following me all over the world.

To Johnny:

Thank you for being my guardian angel and biggest cheerleader. I miss you terribly.

x TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Chapter One: The Project of Reform 20

Chapter Two: Ledigenheime Constructed by Reform Organizations and Municipalities 56

Chapter Three: Catholic Ledigenheime and the Kolpinghaus Movement 110

Chapter Four: Ledigenheime and Employers 155

Chapter Five: Single Women, Public Space and Ledigenheime 204

Conclusion 240

Appendices

Appendix One: Catalog of Representative Ledigenheime, Including Illustrations 264

Appendix Two: Comprehensive Catalog of Ledigenheime 296

Bibliography 312

INTRODUCTION

This project, the examination of a little known German building type of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Ledigenheim, or home for single individuals, falls under the rubric of Architectural History, it is truly interdisciplinary encompassing social history, political history and aesthetics. Many people are familiar with the German housing revolution of the 1920s that centered in Frankfurt and Berlin under Social Democratic planners such as Martin Wagner in Berlin and architects such as Bruno Taut and Hans

Scharoun. Yet, housing, particularly for the working classes, had been an area of concern beginning with the intensification of industrialization and its attendant ills in mid-nineteenth century Germany. In fact, the German debate concerning housing, largely aired in journals, followed similar debates in more industrialized countries, such as England and America, and was particularly intense between the 1870-1914.

Scholars have largely focused on reform efforts concerning the housing of the

Germany family, and generally have not taken into account the efforts undertaken to support a segment of the population who did not fit into this familial model, the unmarried single worker. Whereas single people of both genders would generally have resided with their parents or extended family in their hometown or on a farm before the middle of the nineteenth century, the scale of economic growth, particularly after the Franco-Prussian

War, required that those seeking employment move to specific locations connected to the growth of industry, particularly large urban centers or regions that were rich in natural

resources. Unfortunately, as will be discussed in depth in chapter one, single people of the working and lower middle classes were often forced to lodge with working class families as overnight lodgers, or Schlafgänger, resulting in a variety of detrimental effects that impacted both the Schlafgänger and those families with whom they lodged.

As a result of these negative effects and associated concerns the Ledigenheim was developed as a building type to house vulnerable single workers, beginning in the Gründerzeit

(the years following German unification in 1871) through to the First World War, a period during which hundreds were built by employers and secular and denominational reformist groups1. Although we will examine some examples from the 1860s and 1870s, and even the

1920s, we will focus particularly on the period within which the Ledigenheim was built by the widest variety of groups and reached its greatest overall numbers, 1890-1914, a period which closely corresponded to the increasing involvement of municipal government in matters pertaining to the support and provision of housing. In general, we will see that the

Ledigenheim was a vernacular building type that developed from an isolated and emergency housing provision for singles, a simple “use-type” (Nutztyp), to a recognizable model of integrative housing construction, a building type (Bautyp), which commonly played a complex role for both residents and surrounding communities, and was tied to socially progressive employers, municipalities and other reformist groups2. This building type also

1 For example, records indicate that employers built 82 buildings between 1870 and 1918, and that by 1909 there existed 249 Ledigenheime built by Catholic authorities (Msgr. Dr. Schweitzer, Hospize und Ledigenheime der kath. Gesellenvereine (M. Gladbach, Volksvereins Verlag, 1911), 15). Regarding “free”, or denominationally independent Ledigenheime, I was able to find published records from 1870-1918 that dealt in detail with and provided exact dates for only twenty-two buildings, though actual numbers were certainly higher. Similarly, records for Ledigenheime built for women were scarce, with only thirty-five built precisely datable within the period of 1870-1918, though certainly they were built in larger numbers.

2 It is worth pointing out that comparisons will be drawn between the Ledigenheim and other building types that were architecturally and organizationally similar, and were likewise further developed and solidified during these years, the homeless shelter and retirement home in particular

shared some organizational characteristics with other institutions housing single individuals, such as hospitals, retirement homes and homeless shelters.

The Organization of Chapters

Complicating the somewhat neat picture of the development of the Ledigenheim drawn above is the fact that while an overall temporal progression can be ascertained, there was no single Ledigenheim type, just as there was no single group responsible for the design, construction and administration of Ledigenheime. Instead, these groups concerned with improving the situation of the young single person living far from home emerged at different historical moments in reaction to different circumstances and even served different social classes and genders. These groups ranged from employers and Catholic organizations to secular, nominally Protestant and municipally supported reform organizations3. Such complications will be untangled by considering the variants separately, even when several were similar in conception and function. Thus, in consideration of the phases and multiple variants of the Ledigenheim, this dissertation is arranged both thematically, with each significant variant receiving its own chapter, and chronologically, with each of the chapters tracing the temporal development of each variant.

However, in every case and variant considered, not only will the focus remain how these buildings were constructed, run, and positioned in the community, but on the shared and distinct foci of the groups and individuals involved. The biases and expectations of the

3 For example, the first examples of the Catholic Ledigenheime developed at the same time as the first employer-built Ledigenheime, in the early 1870s, so that one cannot speak of that era as only producing one type of Ledigenheim. Yet, at the same time, Catholic supported buildings could not be considered alongside employer-built Ledigenheime, even as they emerged contemporaneously. Instead, they belonged, both stylistically and in conception, to the buildings largely supported by secular and municipal reform organizations beginning in the 1890s.

advocates of Ledigenheime, in all their guises, will come to the fore through an examination of their own writings and lectures, particularly before delving into specific examples.

Throughout this work, visual analysis will be coupled with inter-textual analysis that links these works to the sociopolitical processes that influenced their creation.

Overview of Chapter One

Functioning as an extensive introduction to the project of the Ledigenheim, Chapter

One does not seek examine a single variant of the Ledigenheim, but considers the overall project of reform that drove the creation Ledigenheime in general, and particularly those buildings constructed by nominally Protestant, secular and municipal organizations.

Essentially, this chapter provides the reader with background to the socio-historical circumstances surrounding what has been termed the “era of reform” in German history, the period stretching from 1890-19144. In fact, despite the varied groups building Ledigenheime over a roughly fifty year period, the vast majority of primary source information covering this building type dates to this twenty-five year time period, which could certainly be termed the “golden age” of Ledigenheim construction.

In particular, the era of reform was marked by a new way of thinking about the place of reform in public life, particularly housing, and an increased involvement across society in matters relating to the health of the general public (both moral and physical), which helped to bolster the project of Ledigenheim construction. Largely enabled by the rise of powerful municipal governments and the engagement of these governments with non-governmental advocates for social reform, there was a realization by the 1890s amongst the general public

4 This reform milieu in Germany can be compared in many ways to the American progressive movement.

that the support of hygienic and sound housing (of which the building of Ledigenheime was simply one example), could serve both public and private spheres, aiding larger societal and governmental goals.

Overview of Chapter Two

Chapter Two marks the beginning of an examination of specific Ledigenheime, specifically those built by what can be termed “reform” organizations, largely middle class secular, nominally Protestant and municipal organizations, many of whom worked closely in concert with one another. These largely arose during the “era of reform” when municipalities were reconsidering their role in the lives of their citizenry and a number of organizations linked to social reform were founded. In fact, between 1890-1914, during which the majority of reform Ledigenheime were built5, also corresponded to the years of the most intense discourse in regards to the need for and significance of the Ledigenheim, and the reform Ledigenheim in particular. Specifically, the supporters of this variant of the

Ledigenheim saw the building type as a means by which they could help improve the lives of the elite of the working class by destroying the system of lodging and simultaneously elevating the tastes and behaviors of Ledigenheim residents through the provision of home- like and pleasant surroundings, as well as wide-ranging educational opportunities6.

5 Although published records only deal with twenty-two examples (providing the scholar with precise dates and construction details), considering the elevated level of discourse one can roughly estimate that at least fifty to one hundred of these Ledigenheime were built during this period, primarily in the south and west of the German Reich.

6 These homes were not to serve the unskilled industrial worker, as Ledigenheime built by employers were primarily intended to do, but were always intended to serve the cream of the working class, the artisan, the skilled worker and the emerging white-collar worker.

Unlike nearly all the variants we will encounter, with the exception of Ledigenheime for women, this variant not only included spaces for the use of the residents, but included elements that benefitted both residents and the wider public, ranging from the inclusion of

Volksbibliotheken (public libraries) and Volksküchen (public kitchens), to the relatively rare inclusion of Volksbäder (public bathing facilities), and even Arbeitsämter (employment agencies). What this also meant is that this variant was usually highly integrated within the urban fabric and the semi-rural housing settlements beginning to be constructed by reform organizations and municipalities, to the extent that a casual observer would not have been able to distinguish the housing for families from that of formerly underserved single people.

Overview of Chapter Three

In contrast to the reform Ledigenheime discussing in Chapter Two, Ledigenheime built by Catholic organizations (Gesellenvereine) for a largely Catholic residency numbered among the earliest interventions in housing for single people7. In fact, not only did the involvement of Catholic groups in the construction of these Ledigenheime, commonly termed Gesellenheime, predate the involvement of other reformist groups by over twenty-five years, but the buildings they supported also served as the primary model for later variants.

Certainly, the supporters of Catholic and reform Ledigenheime shared a number of concerns, particularly an emphasis on serving and aiding the same class of workers, the elite of the working class and lower middle class individuals. In fact, the emphasis placed on education, morality and culture by the supporters of reform Ledigenheime, drew directly

7 Msgr. Dr. Schweitzer, Generalpräsis der Gesellenvereine, referred to six decades of work in 1911, indicating that the construction of Catholic Ledigenheime dated to the 1850s (Hospize und Ledigenheime der kath. Gesellenvereine (M. Gladbach, Volksvereins Verlag, 1911), 3).

from the traditions of Catholic Ledigenheime, which sought to provide residents with both an ethical and applied education in response to concerns that skilled workers, specifically artisans, were losing both social and economic standing in industrializing Germany. Not only was it feared that this loss of standing would lead to a further decrease in the quality of their work, it was also worried that the men themselves would be lost to the industrial

Proletariat. Thus, the solution devised by the supporters of Catholic Ledigenheime, and the founder of the Catholic Ledigenheim movement specifically, Father Adolph Kolping in particular, was to maintain the craft tradition of Germany by supporting the apprentice or journeyman craftsman in the most vulnerable years of his training by housing him in a building geared to his needs, the Gesellenheim or Ledigenheim8, of which 249 buildings had been built by 19099.

Overview of Chapter Four

In contrast to the emphasis on education, both moral and applied, discussed in the previous two chapters, Ledigenheime constructed by employers beginning in the 1850s primarily sought to retain and control their youthful workforce through the provision of housing. In fact, the earliest examples of purpose built housing for single people, constructed by employers in the late 1850s in the rapidly industrializing regions of Germany in and around the larger cities in the western part of the Empire, particularly the Rhine-Ruhr region, were largely provisional barracks intended to house the young and unskilled workers

8 A Gesellenheim was identical in conception to a Ledigenheim, and this terminology was used interchangeably by those who supported the construction of Gesellenheime and Ledigenheime (Die Reichsarbeitsblatt (1913): 431).

9 Schweitzer, 15.

who made up the bulk of the industrial workforce. Unlike contemporaneous Catholic

Ledigenheime and later reform Ledigenheime, these buildings provided no opportunities for furthering one’s education, much less the chance to assimilate bourgeois habits in order to rise out of the working class.

However, by the early 1870s, after the German victory in the Franco-Prussian War and the intensification of industrialization, one began to see the development and construction of hundreds of buildings that can more precisely be termed Ledigenheime, largely built by employers for their single employees to both retain their workforce by providing sanitary housing, while also providing some access to education and culture, primarily via the inclusion of reading rooms and lecture halls. However, the building of primary purpose of the building of Ledigenheime by employers was not necessarily to elevate residents in the same manner the supporters of reform or Catholic Ledigenheime sought to do. Instead, these buildings, eighty-two of which were built between 1870 and

1918 largely in the Ruhr and the Rhineland, were generally conceived of as a means by which a company could control and retain a group of solid and virtuous workers in the midst of a constantly shifting population10. In fact, Ledigenheime built by employers were seen as an intrinsic and important aspect of business, an advertisement of both the prosperity and progressive nature of the company as a whole.

Overview of Chapter Five

10 “hierdurch inmitten der schnell wechselnden ledigen Arbeiterscharen einen Stamm tüchtiger, dauernder Arbeiter zu schaffen…” (R. Wiedfeldt, “Einleitendes Referat (Versammlungsbericht)” in Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 134).

Although the majority of Ledigenheime were constructed for men, a significant number were also built for women (thirty-five of these are precisely datable), generally in cities where potential residents were unable to reside with relatives. However, even though these buildings were modeled after reform Ledigenheime built for men, and served a similar social class, namely single women of the lower middle class and professional middle class11, the first examples of Ledigenheime for women arose nearly twenty years after similar buildings constructed for their male brethren. This was largely due to the problematic economic status of this social group, from concerns regarding the financial viability of housing women, to a number of social prejudices, even the relative invisibility of women on the job market.

Nevertheless, the construction of Ledigenheime for women was important, for even though they were not constructed to directly support nascent feminist advances, and certainly not radical feminism, these buildings provided appropriate housing to those who could not otherwise afford lodgings commensurate with their social station, and enabled residents to lead lives that were far more open than most women of their class, not only because of their employment outside of the home, but also because of the socially progressive public-private nature of the building type.

Overview of Methodology and Literature Review

This project is an investigation of the intersection of politics, social history and the built environment that necessitated not only a close reading of specific buildings, including

11 Purpose built housing for true working class women, as primarily constructed by employers, cannot be considered to be Ledigenheime, as these buildings were run on a charitable basis due to the poor earning potential of these women, rather than to turn a profit, as was the goal of the supporters of Ledigenheime.

the way residents utilized them, but also the relationship of the Ledigenheim to the larger community and culture, particularly the building type’s connections to numerous social and political programs. Thus, visual analysis of specific buildings and localities is coupled with inter-textual analysis that served to link these buildings to the larger culture.

Thus, this work is indebted to a number of methodological approaches that treat a work of art or architecture not as an element removed from everyday life, but embedded in the time and culture of its creation. These range from a Marxist approach considering issues of class and power, specifically elements of social control embedded in visual culture, to investigations of historians of social history, and specifically the approach of practitioners of

Alltagsgeschichte, who consider the role of culture, including the built environment, from the vantage point of the experiences of the average person living an everyday life.

In particular, this project is reliant upon to the work conducted by numerous scholars of the history and visual culture of the German world between the years 1870-1914, and those who have specifically worked on both the Mietkaserne and its counterpoint, the extra-urban Siedlung, which were directly tied to the establishment and sustainment of the

Ledigenheim.

However, the Ledigenheim has not been a subject of any sustained inquiry since

1914, and even in publications dealing with Mietskaserne and the Siedlungen, is rarely accorded more than a brief mention. For example, while the impact of Schlafgängertum on the working-class family residing in Mietskaserne, as well as attempts to curtail this practice have been highlighted in scholarship, there has been little examination of the building type directly constructed to eradicate Schlafgängertum, the Ledigenheime. Indeed, nothing has been published tracing this building type’s wider development and relationship to the greater culture in which it was found.

In such a context, with literally no secondary literature on the Ledigenheim, it was necessary to begin with primary source materials, largely magazines and the publications enumerating conference proceedings, as well as archival resources, all of which were contemporaneous to the building of the Ledigenheim. The State Library of Prussia

(Staatsbibliothek) and the Technical University of Berlin’s Library of Baugeschichte,

Architekturtheorie und Denkmalpflege (Building History, Architecture Theory and Preservation) contained holdings covering nearly every journal from the period under investigation, 1870-

1918, a significant number of which have aided my work. In particular, the Ledigenheim building type was heavily covered by numerous architectural publications: Deutsche Bauhütte,

Die Bauwelt, Moderne Bauformen, Süddeutsche Bauzeitung, in addition to many others from around the turn of the twentieth century. The Arbeiterwohl and Arbeiterfreund were also journals that not only featured the Ledigenheim, but that had fairly large circulations. Importantly, these publications were not intended for architects, but for a more general readership, as the

Arbeiterwohl was the publication of the Verein Arbeiterwohl, an organization that largely consisted of Catholic industrialists who felt that an employer had a duty to his employees, while the Arbeiterfreund was the voice of reforming Liberalism12.

However, the most helpful of resources were the publications of the many reform organizations in existence by 1900, which not only included images and plans of

Ledigenheime, but also provided insight into the way that Ledigenheime were perceived at the time of their construction, as well the problems that necessitated their existence, including considerable summaries of housing statistics. The most helpful of these were:

Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime: Vorbericht und Verhandlungen der 13. Konferenz der Zentralstelle für Arbeiter-Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen am 9. Und 10. Mai in Leipzig, 1904 and Weyls Handbuch der

12 Nicolas Bullock and James Read, The Movement for Housing Reform in Germany and France, 1840-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 210.

Hygiene of 1912. In addition, recent secondary sources on city growth and statistics, such as the Bericht über den Stand und die Verwaltung der Gemeindeangelegenheiten der Stadt Coeln (Köln) 1891-

1900 and Der Wohnungsmarkt in Berlin von 1840-1910 were very helpful in elucidating the housing crisis, specifically as related to single individuals. Finally, the archival holdings of the municipalities of Frankfurt am Main, Essen and Berlin provided numerous previously unpublished images and reports that concerned nearly every aspect of the Ledigenheim, from the construction and administration of such a building, to how everyday life was experienced by residents.

Pertinent Literature on German, American and British Mass Housing

My work has been greatly aided by a number of publications investigating mass housing, a subset to which the Ledigenheim belongs. The sources highlighted below cover both the German-speaking world and America and in all of these cases, the intersection of politics, history and the built environment was explored, providing direct stimulus to my approach to the Ledigenheim.

In her work on Red Vienna, Eve Blau considered building types that bore great similarity with the German Ledigenheim13, namely the Gemeindebauten of the 1920s14, and

13 Eve Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna, 1919-1934 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999).

14 The Gemeindebauten apartments of the 1920s, though based on the familial module, actually bear much comparison with the Ledigenheim, in that the individual dwelling rooms are as small and simple as possible, and the emphasis instead is on communal facilities (In the case of the Gemeindebauten, “laundries, bathhouses, kindergartens, child-care facilities, clinics, libraries, carpentry shops, meeting rooms, theatres, and even cinemas” (Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna, 7).

their predecessors, the Arbeiterheim15. Blau found that the Arbeiterheim, which combined workingmen’s apartments (above) with the public rooms of workers’ unions (below) as a precedent to the project of the Viennese Gemeidebauten. This single man’s domain, though more tied to the Socialist party than the Ledigenheim, bore much relation to Ledigenheime, particularly when their layout and city locations were compared16. More importantly, Blau’s work provided a model due to its interdisciplinary nature, which combined a close reading of specific buildings, including their use to their residents, with their architectural and symbolic relationship to the larger community and culture, such as their role in the political program of the Viennese Social Democrats (though the time frame of Blau’s examination is more compact than this project).

Brian Ladd’s work, Urban Planning and Civic Order in Germany, 1860-1914 was also helpful to the development of this work. Specifically, Ladd’s scholarship was very useful in its treatment of the cities in the western regions of the German Reich, cities such as

Cologne, Frankfurt (am Main) and Düsseldorf. In these cities, Ladd examined the strong role that local governments played in the extension and development of their cities, including the often contradictory issues that arose with the implementation of social reform

“from above”, the intersections of private property and municipal governmental, and the ultimate goals and beneficiaries of civic planning. In fact, Ladd also considers 1890 as the beginning of the alliance of city planning with housing reform.

Similar to Ladd’s work, though treated in much more general way, is Nicholas

Bullock and James Read’s, The Movement for Housing Reform in Germany and France, 1840-1914.

15 In researching the sources of the Gemeindebauten of Red Vienna, Eve Blau credits the philanthropic housing projects (Stiftungshäuser), such as the Franz Josef Jubilee Houses of 1898 as laying much of the groundwork for the Gemeindebauten of the 1920s.

16 Gessner’s Arbeiterheim in Favoriten (1901-02) had forty small apartments along with two assembly halls, a restaurant, classrooms, offices, a reading room and a library (Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna, 229).

This provided a sound overview of the housing situation and the reforms enacted in

Germany during the period covered by this dissertation. In particular, the work of Bullock and Read was helpful in clarifying the complex market forces that drove up the price of land and building in the cities of the late nineteenth century, as well as unraveling the complex workings of the non-profit sector, with its co-operatives and limited dividend companies.

The uneven way regional boards allotted their funds was also discussed, which helped to explain the dearth of building in some portions of the Reich, especially the East17.

Finally, although only encountered in the latter stages of this project, Despina

Stratigakos’ book, A Woman’s Berlin: Building the Modern City, provided an examination of the role of urban space and architecture in creating gendered identities in Wilhelmine Germany, of which the chapter on the Victoria Studienhaus, a residential center for university women, was most illuminating. In fact, the Victoria Studienhaus was part of the larger student residence movement emerging at the time that primarily served young men, a movement that drew strongly upon and bore great similarity to contemporaneous reform

Ledigenheime18. Unfortunately, Stratigakos does not address the forerunner of these building types, though she does make mention of several housing cooperatives for women, and the Lehrerinnenheim (teacher’s home) in Berlin-Pankow specifically, which can be considered a Ledigenheim and is discussed in depth in chapter five.

Publications on American and British Mass Housing Consulted

17 Here the authoritative source is the Förderung der gemeinnuetzigen Bautätigkeit durch die Gemeinden by Beck, the Mannheim Bürgermeinster of 1900 (Bullock and Read, The Movement for Housing Reform in Germany and France, 1840-1914, 243).

18 In fact, several Ledigenheime were later converted into Studienhäuser, as will be discussed in the conclusion of this work.

The Ledigenheim is not a term that appears in any of the following publications, all of which deal with mass housing in an American or British context and, not the German political, social and architectural landscape of 1870-1933. Yet, as this work deals with the international context to a certain degree, it is important to consult secondary sources that examine the housing of the members of society who did not participate in the reformist ideal of home ownership in other countries during the period when Ledigenheime were being built in Germany. Contrary to housing for single people in Germany, American and British mass housing for single people has been somewhat well studied, and specifically, all of these sources discussed the way in which single people, particularly single people of low socio- economic status, were housed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and how their treatment generally differed from their married brethren.

Thus, Paul Groth’s Living Downtown: the History of Residential Hotels in the United States was very useful to the formulation of my approach. In this work Groth concentrated on the years between 1880 and 1930, and examined the place of the residential “hotel” in American life, the later version of the American boarding house, which, in certain formulations, was similar, though not equivalent to the Ledigenheim. His categorization of this housing type into four subsets, from the “Palace Hotel” of the rich to the “Cheap Lodging Houses”

(essentially flophouses), was of great interest, particularly since the third subset, covered the chapter entitled “Roominghouses and the Margins of Respectability” seems to closely correspond to the German Ledigenheim in conception and clientele, while his fourth subset,

“Cheap Lodging Houses”, is essentially equivalent to the cheap commercial Herbergen the supporters of Ledigenheime sought to replace. This strata of housing for single people was not the place of last resort, but one step above, whose precedent was the old fashioned

boardinghouse19. Additionally, Groth posed the type of questions I ask in my work, such as:

What was considered to be the proper form a household should take? Who cooks the food, and how is it provided? How close should one’s neighbors be? How many material possessions ought one to have? What role does control and surveillance play in mass housing?

Several additional books helped to raise specific questions that also concerned the

Ledigenheime. Jesse Walter Dees’ study of flophouses in Depression era America was useful in showing the very different handling of local non-family (or single) men as opposed to a the family man on relief. While studying a building type similar in conception to an almshouse, or shelter (Obdachlosenheim), rather than a Ledigenheim, his sociological study provided an entry point to a consideration of the power relations between those served and serving, as well as what a typical resident of a flophouse (in this case, what Dees) thought of the experience. He also examined the facilities and general layout of numerous flophouses, the rules of these abodes, and clarified what sort of food was provided to the men, as well as what entertainment was on offer20.

Wendy Gamber’s work on The Boardinghouse in Nineteenth Century America was also helpful in foregrounding the debate on what constituted a home in nineteenth century thinking, the “moral danger” posed by boardinghouses, as well as a lack of consensus in both matters. In particular, her chapter “Charity Begins at Home”, which examined sailors’ boardinghouses, old age homes, YMCAs, and Newsboys’ “homes” was very helpful, especially in regards to the rules enforced in such establishments and their “Christian”

19 Paul Groth, Living Downtown: The History of Residential Hotels in the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 92.

20 Jesse Walter Dees, Flophouse: An Authentic Undercover Study of Flophouses (Francestown, NH: Marshall Jones Company, 1948), 103-123, 135-137.

underpinnings. Interestingly, the supporters of the Newsboys’ Homes (such as Charles

Loring Brace) sought to domesticate their charges, while claiming to retain an interest in not quashing their individualism, an exceeding similar balance as was sought by German reformers, who wanted the Ledigenheim serve to support and bolster the pride of the residents, rather than turn them into passive “charity cases”.

Contemporary publications on communal housing in varied newspapers and journals were also key to understanding the different stance Americans and the British had concerning communal housing, even apartment dwelling. However, similar to German reformers, the overriding concern of American reformers remained on the family, and the housing of single people was never afforded much attention by the general press.

General Shifts in the Field of Architectural History and Impact on My Work

One can never study an architectural form, particularly housing, without greatly considering the context that provided the impetus to its creation and modification. This is why this project is an interdisciplinary one, with a strong emphasis on social history.

However, this history is not only one of legislation and reform from above, but must be, by necessity, a kind of Alltagsgeschichte (history of everyday life). In emphasizing the lives and built environment of ordinary people, this project is part of a shift in the field of architectural history over the last several decades towards considering vernacular architectural history as worthy of study.

As Alice Friedman notes, the field of architectural history has been broadened from the “formal qualities of individual buildings to broader issues of typology, cultural values,

meaning and experience”21, which has given rise to a renewed interest in vernacular architecture and housing design in particular, and the way that housing shapes one’s special experience, perception of the city and sense of place, and memory. Similarly, Paul Groth feels that over the last thirty years, there has been a shift away from a folkloric or pre- industrial emphasis on vernacular architecture to more studies that assume an “interest in the meanings of the everyday lives of ordinary people” and this necessitates an interdisciplinary approach22.

My approach is also indebted to the work of Gwendolyn Wright, who has written extensively on vernacular housing, though in the American sphere. Her approach is, in her own words, “a history of housing, very rarely of professional architects…”23. While some of the later examples of Ledigenheime I explore were built by professional and well-known architects, this was generally not the case until at least the turn of the century, and even then, not always. In addition, Wright focuses much on forms of housing as a kind of social control, something that was central to the program of those who constructed Ledigenheime.

Finally, I would also be remiss if the work of Nicolas Pevsner, A History of Building

Types, was not mentioned as having an impact on my approach to the Ledigenheim, though

Pevsner was not a scholar of vernacular architecture, per se. Pevsner sees the nineteenth century as a story of diversification and increasing specialization of building types. The

Ledigenheim is an exemplar of this kind of specialized housing type designed to suit the needs

21 Alice T. Friedman, “The Way You Do the Things you Do: Writing the History of Houses and Housing,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 58, no. 3 (1999): 406.

22 Paul Groth, “Making New Connections in Vernacular Architecture,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 58, no. 3 (1999): 444.

23 Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream: a Social History of Housing in America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), xvii.

of the burgeoning cities and industrial areas of late nineteenth and early twentieth century

Germany.

CHAPTER ONE: THE PROJECT OF REFORM

Introduction

On the ninth and tenth of May 1904, the thirteenth conference of Germany’s Central

Organization for Workers’ Welfare (Der Zentralstelle für Arbeiterwohlfahrtseinrichtungen), was held in the city of Leipzig, in Saxony24. It was devoted to the question of Schlafstellenwesen and

Ledigenheime. The term Schlafstellenwesen referred to the lodging of single people with working class families, and the conference exposed the need for Ledigenheime, or purpose-built housing for single people. Although the Zentralstelle für Arbeiterwohlfahrtseinrichtungen had been in existence since 1891, this was the first time that the annual conference had been focused upon this particular topic. Attending were representatives of nearly every powerful interest group at the time all over the German Reich, from secular reformers, with strong links to municipalities, to spokesmen of the leading industrialists, to the leaders of Catholic and

Protestant religious organizations25.

24 As will be shown below, this was by no means the first time that action was being taken in regards to the well-being and housing of the single worker, but by 1904 there was enough support for a national conference, as well as the publication of the proceedings, devoted to the problem of Schlafstellenwesen, and its supposed solution, the Ledigenheime (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime: Vorbericht und Verhandlungen der 13. Konferenz der Zentralstelle für Arbeiter-Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen am 9. Und 10. Mai in Leipzig. (Schriften der Zentralstelle für Arbeiter-Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen (No. 26)) (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904)).

25 The moderators of the conference were drawn from all over the Germany Reich, and held very different official job titles, such as: Beigeordneter Dr. Wiedfeldt from Essen, Oberregierungsrat Falch of Stuttgart, a representative from the Protestant Innere Mission, Secretary Dr. Salzgeber of the Berlin Catholic Charitas Verband, and the Baumeister Berndt of Bochum, who spoke from the standpoint of his employer, the Bochumer Verein. Thus, the South, Berlin and the Ruhr were well represented, as well as the interests of religious groups and employers. In short, although it is unclear how many reformers attended this conference, no women were

The participants agreed that the lodging of single people with working class families had grave consequences for society, ranging from moral and cultural ills to hygienic dangers26. In the vast majority of cases, the Schlafgänger would not rent a room in an apartment, but rather, shared a room with the family, or if they worked night shifts, slept in one of the family’s beds during the daytime. Journals articles and books published at the time by reformers were full of reports on the spread of contagious diseases, Ungeziefer (bed bugs and the like), and out of wedlock pregnancies, as well as other indications of the collapse of society that were supposedly attributable to Schlafgängerwesen27. The conference attendees agreed that Schlafstellenwesen could only be destroyed by the replacement of one form of housing with another, and as a result, the conference participants favored the construction of Ledigenheime as the most logical solution to this pressing problem.

However, what was remarkable about this conference was not simply that the problem of housing single working people was addressed in 190428, but that a rational solution was advocated by a broad-based coalition of participants at a national conference.

In fact, this broad-based and deep level of social activism in regards to the housing of the working classes, and single people in particular, would have been unthinkable only a few decades before. Significantly, the reasons why the Ledigenheim, after a development of

listed on the program as speakers, and of the ten discussants, seven held PhDs or medical degrees (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime). This clearly indicates that this was a meeting of members of the Bildungsbürgertum, rather than representatives of those they were seeking to aid.

26 Der Arbeiterfreund (1904): 215.

27 These included publications by the Deutscher Verein für öffentliche Gesundheitspflege and writers such as Gustav Schmoller in his article “Ein Mahnruf in der Wohnungsfrage,” (Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und Volkswirtschaft im Deutschen Reich 11 (1887): 425-48, cited in Ladd, 143-144). Of course, as Ladd points out, it is possible that “dire warnings…reflected less a cynical attitude toward the living conditions of the poor than an attempt to draw attention to the writer’s pet project” (142).

28 This discussion did not highlight the housing situation facing elderly single people of modest means.

nearly fifty years, would suddenly be the subject of a national conference was not merely due to pressing need.

Instead, the conference was the culmination of decades of work in the realm of social reform by a number of organizations often allied with municipalities, the end result of a series of campaigns concerning the amelioration of the conditions of the working classes in

German cities and industrial areas29. Most importantly, it stands as an example of the social engagement of bourgeois reformers at the midpoint of what has often been termed the “era of reform” in German history30, the period from 1890-1914.

This was an era marked by an increased involvement across society in matters relating to the public health in the broadest of terms, from the physical and moral health of the individual to the health of society, and by extension, the nation. Essentially, reformers believed that interventions in the health and wellbeing of the citizenry, of which the building of Ledigenheime was simply one example, could help to regenerate and reform German society socially, culturally, and economically31. Before going into more depth however, it is perhaps most helpful to look backwards to the origins of the reform movement.

The Reformist Impulse and Context: Beginnings

The emergence of broad-based and significant public activism that characterized the

29 These solutions also included the extension of building regulations and laws.

30 Of course, the 1904 conference was only one of many such conferences and publications dating to the period of reform, roughly 1890-1914, such as Theodor Weyl and August Gärtner’s publication of 1912, Weyls Handbuch der Hygiene and R. Wiedenfeld’s Das Schlafgängerwesen und seine Reform of 1901.

31 Despite the reformers’ praise for the Ledigenheim as an aid (Hilfsmittel) to the health of society, they warned against considering that it was a cure all (Allheilmittel). (Certainly, the medical analogies are telling.) Basically, they considered the construction of Ledigenheime to be a step in the right direction in the larger battle of reform.

time from the 1890s to the First World War was a direct result of bourgeois concerns regarding the health of society that began to be aired as early as the 1870s with the advent of mass industrialization and its attendant problems, particularly the issues facing the residents of swelling working class districts32.

In particular, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870s and the founding of the German

Empire under the auspices of Prussia in 1871 helped to spur intense industrialization that required increasing numbers of workers to labor in factories and mines. Where early industry had relied upon a local workforce, this scale of growth required that workers move to specific locations to work, particularly the large urban centers that had become transportation hubs with the advent of the railroad (Berlin), or regions that were rich in natural resources (Upper Silesia, Saxony and the Saar), or both (the Rhineland/Ruhr)33.

The constant influx of workers and their families into rapidly industrializing areas had resulted in unregulated, usually speculative, building in new industrial districts both within and on the outskirts of existing towns34. In general, this housing was unhygienic and severely overcrowded, and many families were forced to live together in one room, even in attics and basements, with no space for privacy or sanitary measures. In the most extreme of cases, particularly during the early years of industrialization, housing was even non-existent,

32 As an example of the impotency of government before this time period, one can take the example of Prussia, where was nothing the government could legally do to protect workers after the Edict of Hardenberg was passed in September of 1811. This edict nominally freed the peasants, thus absolving the lords (who had previously borne some responsibility under the Leibeigenschaft system) of any responsibility over their former charges (Walter Kuhn, Siedlungsgeschichte Oberschlesiens (Würzburg: Oberschlesischer Heimatverlag, 1954), 228). Essentially, this lack of protection left the former peasants/workers vulnerable to the forces of industrialization and housing speculation, with disastrous consequences that caught the attention of the growing middle classes (who had been benefiting from the economic growth during the early years of the Second Reich).

33 Even in more rural areas, the owners of industry began to buy up so much land that the farmers were forced to live too far from the industrial works to easily “commute” to work.

34 Kuhn, Siedlungsgeschichte Oberschlesiens, 76 (Abbildung).

consisting only of “das Gewölbe unter dem Zinkofen” (the vault under the zinc oven) in the factory35.

Thus, this mass movement of people and the resultant overcrowding not only served to destabilize society, but also to make the suffering of the working poor visible to the middle classes living nearby. In particular, working class life, beset by “overcrowding, violence, poverty, sickness, the excessive drinking and untrammeled sexuality”36, was positioned as early as the 1870s as the inverse of the middle-classes conception of society.

Most importantly, it was feared that if the growing working class was not controlled, rebellion and disease could reach the doors of the bourgeoisie. As a result, the search for solutions to the problems of “unemployment, high job turnover, long hours, low wages, drudgery, child labor, crowded housing, alcoholism, sexual abuse, illegitimacy, etc.” that characterized the “typical” working-class experience became a matter for the bourgeois city dweller, and the social reformer was born37.

The first interventions in the lives of the urban public, and the urban poor in particular, took the form of conferences and publications aired in both public and professional forums, such as the 1874 and 1875 meetings of the Deutscher Verein für öffentliche

Gesundheitspflege, an organization of public health reformers, and publications such as

Reinhard Baumeister’s “Stadt-Erweiterungen” of 187638. These were important steps in civic engagement in that they were attempts to develop the mechanisms by which city dwellers

35 Kuhn, Siedlungsgeschichte Oberschlesiens, 246.

36 Anthony McElligott, The German Urban Experience, 1900-1945 (London: Routledge, 2001), 66. 37 A. Kelly, ed., The German Worker: Working Class Autobiographies from the Age of Industrialization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 4.

38 Brian Ladd. Urban Planning and Civic Order in Germany (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 84-85. However, I would be remiss if I did not mention the early efforts of physicians such as Rudolf Virchow, who tired to make public health a political issue as early as the 1840s, arguing that poverty and hunger were contributing factors in the spread of epidemics (Ladd, 37).

would be provided with better sanitation, specifically “light and air” via the provision of wider streets and new sewer systems. By systematically laying out the problems of sanitation and hygiene facing the growing cities of the new empire, these groups provided a platform for the newly empowered city governments to act upon as they planned for expansion into the suburbs and modernized the old city centers39.

Especially important for the future of the social reform movement, particularly during the “age of reform”, is the fact that from the beginning these conferences and publications were marked by a great degree of collaboration between various groups within society, and particularly between different professions within the Bildungsbürgertum, or university educated upper middle class. In fact, and indicating the shift towards greater activism in the 1890s, organizations such as the aforementioned Deutscher Verein für öffentliche

Gesundheitspflege (founded in 1899), consisted of individuals engaged in numerous professions and both the public and private worlds, from physicians, such as Georg Varrentrapp of

Frankfurt and Eduard Lent of Cologne, the engineer Arnold Buerkli of Zürich, the planner

Josef Stuebben of Cologne, and the mayors of Frankfurt and Düsseldorf (later Cologne),

Wilhelm Becker and Franz Adikes respectively40.

Again, these social reformers were largely drawn from the Bildungsbürgertum, a social class that had traditionally taken a fairly substantial role in municipal government, but largely considered themselves to be apolitical, or at least above partisan politics, though the truth was a bit more complicated41. What this meant practically was that while the late

39 These early efforts to reform urban life were buttressed by further efforts, such as a series of reports on the perilous state of housing by the Verein für Sozialpolitik in 1886 and an essay published by Gustav Schmoller in 1887 (Ladd, Urban Planning and Civic Order in Germany, 141).

40 Ladd, Urban Planning and Civic Order in Germany, 84.

41 Instead, municipal politics presented “an incomplete and imperfect reflection of national political rivalries” (Ladd, 25), for the German Reich, while remaining a Kaiserreich, had a parliament with wide ranging powers, the

nineteenth century saw the rise of a politicized public, from the rise of certain political parties42, even workers organizations (Arbeitervereine) and labor unions, most activism at the local level was not led by political parties per-say, and certainly not nationally prominent politicians, but by the civil servants, university professors (particularly social scientists) and doctors who formed a large segment of the Bildungsbürgertum. Of course, this did not mean that these individuals, despite their professions of impartiality, did not have a vested interest in politics, merely that they were relatively free from control from above via Imperial

Legislature and that local character colored their outlook43, and that they did not tend to be radicals of the right or left44. The group with the least power however, was one that was not unified and was loosely composed of non-Social Democratic organized labor, particularly the artisans and skilled workers who were members of trade unions and social clubs. These men had little representation on town councils, as they found it difficult to penetrate into executive bodies of government45. Thus, while one will find some reports in workers’ journals, such as the Arbeiterfreund, in regards to social reform and provisions for public health, they were not politically empowered, even on the local level, and largely peripheral to the critical discourse that developed.

elected officials of which were elected by a three class voting system that privileged the upper two property owning classes, the same two groups that largely controlled municipal policy (Ladd, 25 and Dawson, 64).

42 From Social Democrats to the Centre Party, both of whom challenged the power of the National Liberals, as well as the Conservatives.

43 Dawson, 35.

44 As late as 1914, despite a significant presence on the national political state, the Social Democrats had been unable to win a majority of council seats in any major city (Ladd, 32). Of course, as Ladd reports, “there can be little doubt that the Social Democrats showed no respect for the nonpartisan ideals that were invoked to exclude them…belief in class struggle led them to reject explicitly the ideal of nonpartisanship as well as the notion that city councilmen should represent the interests of the entire population” (24). Even those men elected to represent the third class of voters were largely drawn from the first, or sometimes the second class of voters (30).

45 Dawson, 76-78.

The Expansion of Reform in the 1890s

The interventions proposed by the early reformers of the 1870s and 1880s, with the exception of employers, had largely left the issue of housing alone, instead concentrating on issues of related to public health. It was only in the 1890s, for a variety of reasons we will clarify, that more radical interventions in the lives of the general public, and particularly the urban poor, became possible. Essentially, the 1890s marked a new way of thinking about the place of reform in public life, particularly housing, which directly resulted in the building of Ledigenheime.

Most significantly for the Ledigenheime and the cause of housing reform in general, the 1890s saw the rise of powerful municipal governments and the engagement of these governments with non-governmental advocates for reforms that went beyond the provision of wider city streets and sewer systems. Although the reasons for this shift are not entirely clear, this greater level of civic engagement has often been credited with the expansion of local government in a more professional capacity, a democratization that saw the role of local notables decrease and saw an increasing amount of overlap between membership in reform organizations and civic government.

In particular, it appears that the members of reform organizations already in existence were emboldened by the possibility of alliance with municipalities run by their social and economic peers, and that this led to the founding of even more organizations.

Certainly, the 1890s saw the birth of what has been termed a “vigorous civic activism within the urban bourgeoisie”46, with an intensified focus on the social-political, and specifically a

46 Ladd, Urban Planning and Civic Order in Germany, 30.

growing concern on the welfare of the wide mass of the people, including the elevation of the life of the workers47.

Even religious organizations began to develop close and substantial links with larger reform organizations and municipalities during this time period. For example, the opening festivities of the Catholic Hermann-Joseph Haus of Cologne were not only attended and led by the Cologne Bürgermeister, who came as representative of the Stadtverwaltung, but also a religious leader, the Weihbischof, a Dr. Fischer48.

In addition to serving as an illustration to the emergence of collaborations between religious and municipal reformers, this last example is also an demonstration of the increasing links between employers and other reform organizations, as a record of the proceedings was published not just anywhere, but in the Arbeiterwohl, a periodical supported by the major Rhine-Ruhr industrialists, who essentially lent their support to this entire enterprise by this publication. As we will examine in more detail in chapter two, employers also began to engage with social reform in the 1870s, even housing reform, though at this point they rarely were participants in the organizations and conferences mentioned in the previous paragraph. As will be explored shortly, it was only in the 1890s when strong links between reform organizations and municipalities were forged with employers.

Therefore, the professionalization of municipal government not only led to a reconsideration of the role of a municipality in the lives of the citizenry, but also to the founding and growth of a number of organizations linked to social reform, the variety and goals of which will be addressed throughout this chapter and in later chapters. Indeed, as has been mentioned and will be examined further, these reform organizations provided the

47 Altenrath, Das Schlafstellenwesen und seine Reform: Statistik, Schlafstellenaufsicht, Ledigenheime (Dissertation, Rechts und Stadtswissenschaft Fakultät, Universität Halle, 1916), 101.

48 Arbeiterwohl (1893): 56. Weihbischof translates to Suffragan Bishop.

much of the impetus towards this reconsideration of the place of reform in civic life, even providing the organizational and institutional framework for meeting with the other groups already active in supplying housing to the working classes, and singles in particular (namely, employers and Catholics). Most importantly, there was a realization by all of these groups during the 1890s that hygienic and sound housing could serve both public and private spheres, aiding larger societal and governmental goals, as well as those of business interests.

We will see that this shift manifested itself in numerous ways, ranging from numerous attempts to pass legislation intended to curtail the overcrowding to more direct governmental action, particularly the selling or leasing of land to reform housing organizations, and even direct construction projects by municipalities. Finally, aiding the cause of housing reform was the development of a sophisticated public argument for such engagement that was not only backed by emotional appeals and sensationalized stories, but also logical arguments and scientifically conducted surveys that provided “evidence” for the need for change. It is with these varied appeals for help that we will begin.

Sensationalizing Poverty

It cannot be denied that the speed of industrialization had a very detrimental effect on the supply of housing in large urban centers or even the towns that sprang up around rural factories and mines (in the latter case, especially the Ruhr and Upper Silesia). As previously mentioned, the population density increased in cities throughout the Reich to a great extent and Berlin in particular, which became the most densely populated city in

Europe49. In particular, many families were forced to reside in attics or cellars, to crowd together in one room with no space for privacy or sanitary measures.

However, it was the taking in of lodgers by working class families that garnered the most attention from reformers. Lodgers not only increased the overcrowding of working class homes, but were also seen as posing a moral danger. They were categorically dismissed as foreign objects in the family life and consequently classed as “schwere Gefährdungen”50.

Not only was Schlafgängertum said to have a negative impact on the children of homes that took in Schlafgänger51, it was even held responsible for the dissolution of many marriages52. As we can see, the main arguments were focused on the health of the German family in cities, of which twenty percent of households were affected in 190553.

On the economic front, Schlafgängertum was linked not only to overcrowding, but to the artificial inflation of rents in districts were Schlafstellenwesen was prevalent. For example,

Spiegel noted that the rents within the districts of Charlottenburg where Schlafgängertum was tolerated were up to twenty percent higher than in other districts54, and Wiedfeldt notes that in these same districts, the more crowded the residence was, the more profitable to those

49 Between 1870 and 1910 the avg. population density of German cities had risen exponentially (Anthony McElligott, The German Urban Experience, 1900-1945 (London: Routledge, 2001), 68).

50 Reichsarbeitsblatt (1913): 440. Loose translation: “terrible dangers”.

51 Supposedly, this led to the neglect of children, as the housewife was too exhausted to take care of them and the home was so crowded that children were encouraged to be outside the home, to make their home in the streets (Wiedfeldt, Versammlungsbericht, Schlafstellen und Ledigenheime, 1904, 129). A report on Schlafstellenwesen in Posen also focused its criticisms on the negative effects upon the family, not the lodger (J. Radomski, Das Schlafstellenwesen in Posen: Vortrag, gehalten im Verein zur Fürsorge für Kranke Arbeiter in Posen, 1906).

52 Spiegel, Ledigenheime: Referat für den Verein für Sozialpolitik (1908), 415.

53 Allgemeine Rundschau (1911): 263.

54 Spiegel, 416.

subletting the spaces55! In addition, the system of Schlafstellenwesen was blamed for the spendthrift ways of working class mothers, for the more cramped the apartment was with

Schlafgänger, the more difficult it supposedly was for the housewife to economize in her household tasks, such as canning food and doing the washing at home56. Instead, reformers claimed that she would be forced to buy these products and send her washing out, stretching the meager resources at her disposal. Furthermore, Schlafgängerwesen was blamed for the difficulties of working class families in times of economic turndown, even for these families being turned out of their apartments for nonpayment of rent. This was due to the fact that during difficult economic times, the families who took in lodgers often lost this source of extra income, since the (primarily unskilled) young men who made up the majority of

Schlafgänger were usually the first to lose their positions and thus could not pay their subletting landlords57.

Surveys and Sociological Reports

This sensationalized treatment of the living conditions of the working classes was buttressed by numerous scientifically conducted surveys and sociological reports that focused on the low quality and dearth of housing for single people58, and the negative impact

55 Wiedfeldt, Versammlungsbericht, Schlafstellen und Ledigenheime, 125 and 128. One could start to turn large profit of nearly 100 Marks with three Schlafgänger per room, and 182 Marks for five Schlafgänger, as opposed to only 35 Marks for two Schlafgänger, and a loss of nine Marks with only one Schlafgänger).

56 Wiedfeldt, Versammlungsbericht, Schlafstellen und Ledigenheime, 122.

57 Wiedfeldt, 127.

58 While one might expect that there would be building codes and laws that regulated housing, particularly that of renters and sub-tenants, this was complicated by the fact that the amount of regulation, as well as the enforcement of these codes and regulations varied considerably within the Reich. For example, a rigorous system of housing regulations and inspections, particularly in regards to rental properties, was put in place as early as 1874 in Baden, though this did not occur in Bavaria until 1901, and in Prussia there existed no

of Schlafstellenwesen on the health of both the lodger and the family with whom he lodged59, publications that began to appear in great numbers in the decade before towards the turn of the century, and particularly after 190060.

Although it is unclear as to whether this was a direct result of the national conference held in 1904, a prime example of such a study was undertaken in 1905 by a Dr.

Calwer, which studied the provisions afforded to Schlafgänger in their Schafstellen61. This report provided reformers not only with an indication of the perilous state of housing for single people, but also indicate the bare minimum acceptable to reformers by 190562. For his part,

Calwer determined that a room must have twenty cubic meters of air per sleeping person in

compulsory system of house inspection even as late as 1914 (Dawson, 180-184). Instead, this was largely left in the hands of local authorities, whose legislative activities primarily began in the 1880s. Interestingly, many early local legal provisions were concerned almost exclusively with lodgers, such as the housing ordinances of Düsseldorf passed in 1879 (Ladd, 145).

59 For example, scabies and tuberculosis were widely credited to Schlafstellen by a participant in the 1904 conference (Wiedfeldt, Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 124), while another author claimed that typically overfilled Schlafstellen were a primary cause of the spread of tuberculosis and a high rate of death amongst its victims (Spiegel, Ledigenheime: Referat für den Verein fuer Sozialpolitik, 415).

60 While the late 1880s and 1890s saw a relatively large number of publications and conferences dealing with the “social question”, particularly as it related to housing, the majority of publications and conferences devoted specifically to the plight of lodgers and the reform of their housing date to the first decade of the twentieth century. The relative scarcity of publications about this topic before the 1890s can be attributed to the fact that efforts were largely localized and that the primary participants in this reform of housing were employers, rather than the Bildungsbürgertum who formed the bulk of the reforming class after 1890 and were more threatened by the societal shifts, changes that they believed could negatively impact their way of life. Thus, the public discourse regarding the situation facing single workers and the critical response to this problem only began in the 1890s and intensified in 1900, even though the terms Schlafstellenwesen and Schlafgänger began to be used by employers, and to some extent, the supporters of Catholic Kolpinghäuser, as early as the 1870s. However, these would not have been words known to the general public in the 1870s.

61 For an indication of precisely how dire the housing situation was for these lodgers, please see Calwer’s conclusions, which are enumerated in footnote 35.

62 The amount of floor space for each resident would at least need to meet the police regulations enacted in regards to the regulation of Schlafstellen by a number of municipalities, four square meters being the minimum (Calwer mentions that in Frankfurt am Main, the minimum was three square meters, as in Kassel, Schwaben and Neuburg, whereas 3.5 sufficed in Glauchau. Four meters squared, his standard, was the minimum in Mannheim and Liegnitz (Richard Calwer. Das Kost und Logiswesen in Handwerk (Berlin: Verlag d. Generalkomm. d. Gewerkschaften Deutschlands, 1908), 19). Reformers were also very concerned about the quality of air within both Ledigenheime and other habitations. Calwer again can provide the basis of what constituted good or bad air quality, beyond the simple designation of unhealthy air. Calwer and his colleagues ascertained that air with more than 1 Promille kohlensauere was acceptable, and that inside air ought to have no more kohlensaure than .7 Promille (Calwer, 16).

order to qualify as acceptable. Similarly, he stated that window surface area must be equivalent to one fifth of the floor space, and that the windows leading to corridors and light wells to not qualify in this case63. He also made minimum determinations regarding acceptable amounts of ventilation64, and in agreement with nearly every advocate of reform housing, advised that bedrooms of any kind were not to be located in a basement or directly under the roof 65. Finally, Calwer addressed the basic provisions that he felt should be afforded to each Schlafgänger, from the fact that each person should have a bed and that beds should not only be free of vermin, but that rooms should be able to be closed off to afford a modicum of privacy to the resident66. Astoundingly, and certainly pointing to a great need for Ledigenheime, only 14.6% of rooms used as Schlafstelle surveyed met Calwer’s minimum

63 Calwer, 16-17. In another survey, one can note similar questions posed by the Gemeindeschwestern on their three surveys of the state of Schlafstellenwesen in Posen in 1906, such as: “Do the Schlafgaenger have the recommended 10 cubic meters of air and 4 square meters of floor space allotted to them?” The answers were dismal, with no positive cases in two surveys and the third survey reflecting that this was only very rarely the case (Das Schlafstellenwesen in Posen: Vortrag, gehalten im Verein zur Fürsorge fuer Kranke Arbeiter in Posen (Feb. 1, 1906), 4).

64 Calwer provides the following information on the standards regarding air of various contemporaneous building types (per head and room in cubic meters): Hospitals have 60-150 Prisons have 50 Places of employment have 60 Place of employment with ventilation systems have 100 Theaters have 40-50 Schools have 12-15 (16).

65 Basements were unacceptable as they provided little access to fresh air and were too often damp, leading to “bad air”, though this was a common practice (Calwer, 19). The report of Das Schlafstellenwesen in Posen similarly notes that Schlafgaenger were very often housed in basements, and that this was unacceptable (Das Schlafstellenwesen in Posen, 4).

66 Every person must have a bed. Beds should not be bunk beds. Bedlinens must be changed regularly, at least every four weeks, and the washcloth every week. The bedlinens must be changed entirely when a new resident takes over the room The rooms must be lice and bedbug free. Each room should have a lockable wardrobe, as well as a washcloth and washbasin. The rooms must be lightable to a decent degree in the evenings…(Calwer, 24).

standards (Of these, only 12.4% of respondents were housed in such rooms)67. This means that nearly 75% of lodgings did not conform to these standards and 87.6% of respondents lived in sub-par conditions68.

Thus, scientifically conducted surveys such as Calwer’s helped to appraise the public of the need for reform in housing by revealing the extent of poor housing stock available to the working classes and essentially set minimum standards for hygiene, while sensationalized stories detailing working class life also aided in drawing attention to the plight of those living in the burgeoning cities69.

From Consciousness Raising to Action

As we have seen, sensationalized reportage and studies not only helped to reveal the housing conditions typically facing the single worker in Germany, but also provided the

67 Calwer reported rather dismal results in regards to the percentage of dwellings, which met these minimum standards. The results of his investigation stand as follows, as noted in his report from pages 35 to 51: Only 42.3% of lodgers have enough air (20 cubic meters) (Calwer, 35) 41.4% have between 10-20 cubic meters of air (35) 21.8% have less than 10 qm per person (35) 66.1% of respondents had rooms that were not heat able! (39) 29% had rooms that could not be shut or locked (41) 27.7% of rooms were in a basement or attic (41) 10.5% of people had an unclean or not readily available WC (42) 4.9% of respondents had to even share a bed (47) and 6.8% lived in room where were in bunk beds (48) 43.6% of people are in rooms where linens were not regularly changed and 44.1% have rooms that were not regularly cleaned (49) Vermin in 6.5% of rooms (50) 53.6% of people do not have washbasin or hand-towel (51) Nearly 30% do not have lockable or closeable wardrobe (50) Nearly 30% of residents do not have enough light (51)

68 Calwer, 45.

69 However, what is truly remarkable about this survey for our later purposes is not only the poor quality of the housing of single people, but that the single men questioned were not destitute, but skilled workers, precisely the class of workers the Ledigenheim was devised to serve, and similar reports underscore how universal these concerns regarding housing were. For instance, the Commission zur Beseitigung des Kost und Logiszwanges versanstalteten Erhebung mounted an investigation in 1908 of the lodging of those employed in the crafts, the results of which were similar to Calwer’s study.

ammunition for a wide variety of reform activities and increased municipal action in particular. Most importantly, as will be examined at the end of this section, these efforts were also increasingly aided by the fact that such involvement was both seen as a logical solution to a contemporary problem, and that it was an economically feasible option that could not be confused with charity. As we shall see, the building of Ledigenheime came to stand in as a symbol for the modernity of the surrounding community.

One of the ways by which the knowledge gleaned from both sensational reports and studies was utilized occurred in numerous attempts to pass legislation from the late 1880s and the 1890s on70, though this was largely only successful at the local level71. This legislation sought to set minimum housing standards that were primarily intended to mitigate the suffering of the working class by both removing lodgers and providing the tenant family with more space. For example, Charlottenburg’s special Housing Deputation (of the town council) required that they be allowed to inspect “all dwellings consisting of not more than two habitable rooms and a kitchen, all dwellings in which lodgers are taken, and all dormitories for work-people and other employees who sleep in the houses of their employers…special attention is given to lodging houses and the lodger system generally” 72. In 1903, a proposed comprehensive dwellings bill in Prussia was heralded as a huge step for in the reform of housing due to the fact that it proposed a number of regulations concerning dwellings that

70 Ladd, 171.

71 As highlighted previously, there was no systematic system of house inspection in Prussia as late as March of 1914 (Dawson, 183). Instead, this varied throughout the Reich, and the relative activism of local elites in certain locales (primarily in the west and south) can be seen as either an indication of their political flexibility, or their disinterestedness in selling or renting buildings, as was explained by the Frankfurter Zeitung of September 8, 1902 and cited by the Kölnische Zeitung of October 27, 1902 (Ladd, 176).

72 Dawson, 184. Dawson also records that “Mannheim has distinguished itself by the thoroughness with which it has for many years endeavored by administrative measures to minimize the evils incidental to the practice, common amongst working-class households in German industrial towns, of letting to lodgers rooms which should be occupied by younger members of the family” (184-185). It appears that the overriding concern of the middle and upper class reformers was for the health of proletarian families, not for single workers/lodgers, and in fact, families with children were favored more by reformers than families with fewer or no children.

would have set minimum standards intended to mitigate the worst overcrowding, such as the amount of cubic yards of air space necessary for an apartment dweller and that “lodgers may not be taken unless their rooms (were) separated from those of the tenants…”73.

Unfortunately, the bill of 1903 and a following housing reform bill proposed in 1904 failed to pass74, indicating that any intervention into private properly was still unacceptable to much of Prussia, and much of the Second Reich in general. Nevertheless, this push for housing reform through regulation, particularly concerning lodging, not only illustrates reformers’ identification of the “housing problem” with lodging, a large component of the overcrowding of dwellings, but a new conception that regulation was but one tactic in reforming housing, as well as the fact that that greater involvement by local governments and reform groups, in contrast to regional or national action, was needed.

In fact, the avenue by which municipalities and reformers realized that significant reform of lodging could be mounted was not only through local comprehensive legislation on lodging, but by supporting the building societies headed by urban bourgeois reformers, the gemeinnützige Baugesellschaften75, via gifts of land, tax breaks and other means76. Not only

73 Horsfall, 46. This proposed bill was published by both the Kölnische Zeitung and the Zeitschrift für Wohnungswesen, in addition to Horsfall’s publication. (Horsfall was an English observer of German housing reform.)

74 The majority of opposition came from the Conservative Party. The Prussian Housing Bill of 1904, which also failed, attempted to require separate rooms for children over the age of ten or unmarried lodgers of different sexes in existing housing stock in Article IV of its provisions (Anthony Bullock and James Read, The Movement for Housing Reform in Germany and France, 1840-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 264). Although it is tempting to think that these failures might have provided the impetus to the conference held in 1904, there is nothing in the conference proceedings that indicates that the failure of housing legislation had anything to do with the conference. At no point was the failure of the Prussian parliament cited, and although it is possible that a national conference would have brought some pressure to bear, this was indirect at best.

75 These non-profit building societies functioned as private companies, but often had significant municipal support, largely from the late 1880s. In general, investment in such a society could bring a return of four to five percent---hence, the phrase “philanthropy and five percent”. They were not charity and can be seen as a compromise between direct governmental intervention in housing and the buildings supplied by benevolent employers to their employees (Ladd, 147).

did municipal support of such housing enable the reformers to construct relatively low-cost housing was of a higher quality than was commonly available to lower middle class families, it also allowed them to restrict lodging in these properties. Essentially, governmental support allowed municipalities, in concert with housing reformers, to restrict lodging in municipally supported or controlled properties77.

For example, a contemporaneous American reformer and observer of the German style of municipal government, William Harbutt Dawson, reported in 1914 that the municipality of Mannheim imposed restrictions on taking in lodgers in homes on the land they leased to building societies78, pointing out that article number five of such contracts between building society and municipality stated that the municipality of Mannheim required building societies “…to take steps to prevent sub-letting and the keeping of lodgers, and the use of the dwellings in a manner injurious to the health and morality of the inhabitants79.

76 Certainly, municipalities were well suited to the support of reform housing, of which the Ledigenheim was a variant, either directly or indirectly through private Vereine (organizations). They generally owned land on the peripheries of cities that had been created through the destruction of medieval walls and filling in the glacis, areas that generally were located near factory quarters. In addition, municipalities were already responsible for the employment of architects and the varied officials necessary for such aforementioned projects (Spiegel, Ledigenheime, Referat für Verein für Sozialpolitik, 424).

77 Of course, municipal activism was heavily dependant upon the political parties that were in power. In general, where the National Liberals, Centre Party and Social Democrats were a strong force (generally in the west and south), municipalities were fairly active in housing. In areas where the Conservative Party (which was heavily allied with the Junkers) was powerful (largely east of the Elbe), local government tended towards inactivity in this regard.

78 English language (British and American) literature contemporaneous with the building of the Ledigenheime and covering German developments was particularly illuminating in clarifying the very complicated municipal projects and city expansions during the last thirty years of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth. Works by Frederic Howe, Budgett Meakin, T.C. Horsfall and William Harbutt Dawson greatly aided in the formation of questions I pose throughout this dissertation. All of the above mentioned books examine in detail numerous reforms and municipal programs from the 1870s to 1914 in Germany, such as land reform, insurance (accident, sickness, invalidity and old age), mortgage banks, and civic projects, such as the building or subsidization of workmen’s houses, suburban colonies and apartments by municipal governments.

79 William Harbutt Dawson, Municipal Life and Government in Germany (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1914), 177.

Contemporaneously, the town council of Düsseldorf also forbade subletting and the taking of lodgers in the leases of dwellings funded by the city 80.

Yet, simply restricting subletting in properties directly linked to a municipality and building better quality housing for families was not enough to stem the problem of the overcrowding in most working class households. Particularly by the 1890s, those involved in the reform of housing had realized that if the majority of working class families were to be rid of their lodgers and boarders, then some form of housing had to be devised for those who did not fit into the middle class conception of what a working class family looked like.

It was this recognition resulted in the construction of Ledigenheime, particularly those that were the product of the combined efforts of reformers and municipalities, as will be examined further in chapter two.

However, at this point it is worth turning our attention to the means by which reformers attempted to rationalize greater municipal involvement in the construction of

Ledigenheime from the 1890s to 1914, particularly via the Gemeinnützige Baugesellschaften they had favored in regards to familial housing, or even (less commonly) direct construction. We will see that these endeavors were increasingly bolstered by sophisticated arguments that positioned the provision of Ledigenheime at least partially supported by municipalities as not only rational and inevitable, but a statement on the modernity of a municipality and a thoughtful economic move.

In particular, the logical and rational nature of the building of Ledigenheime was underscored at the 1904 conference by comparison to the newly enacted policies of numerous cities regarding Milchversorgung, or the oversight of the urban milk supply.

Specifically, Dr. Wiedfeldt of Essen cited the old system of bringing milk door to door, and

80 Horsfall, The Improvement, 93.

the high risk of bacterial contamination that was replaced by the establishment of large central processing depot by the city, resulting in city-wide Milchversorgung. Analogously, he felt that the whole system of lodging should be treated in a similar rational manner, that bad lodgings be “ersetzt durch einen grossen, hierfür genau eingerichteten Betrieb, der technisch vollkommener ist, der in wirtschaftlicher, hygenischer, sozialer und kultureller Beziehung bessere Leistungen verburgt, als sie jetzt geboten werden”81. Wiedfeldt’s argument is indicative of the numerous opinions held concerning the supposed new role of the forward- thinking municipal civil servant, extending this to encompass the support or direct construction of Ledigenheime on a mass scale and a logical basis82.

Additionally, the Association of Progressive Women’s Organizations (Verband fortschrittlicher Frauenvereine), which was founded in 1899 in Berlin83, unequivocally held the city responsible for the state of housing and for lack of action in the realm of new housing construction, particularly Ledigenheime, indicating that extremely varied reform groups, not just housing reform groups, increasingly favored greater involvement, particularly when supported by municipalities84.

81 Schlafstellen und Ledigenheime, 194. Translation: “replaced through a large and extensive agency that is technically up to date and will bring advances in the business, hygienic, social and cultural realms over what is currently provided”. It must be noted, that although this piece was written after the involvement of most secular reform groups and even progressive municipalities was a fait accompli for over ten years, it illustrates the mindset of earlier reformers and the extent to which these views had become normalized.

82 Similarly, the Reichsarbeitsblatt of 1913 considers such secular Ledigenheime as the ideal, especially for those with strong strivings towards personal freedom (440). The journal article’s author claims that this is due to the fact that the residents are not treated as children (there is little talk of the creation of the familial home), and that these buildings are not simply a means to a more distant goal; the goals are to care for the workers (with an emphasis on attached libraries and the curbing of Schlafgaengertum) and further their education, should the worker want this. The Reichsarbeitsblatt holds up the Freizügige and municipally backed Ledigenheime of Stuttgart, Charlottenburg, Düsseldorf and Strasbourg as fulfilling such ideals (Reichsarbeitsblatt (1913): 440).

83 Gerhard Ute, “Die Radikalen im Kampf um Recht und gegen doppelte Moral” Unerhört: die Geschichte der Deutschen Frauenbewegugn (1990), 218.

84 Der Arbeiterfreund 47 (1907): 369. Minna Cauer of Berlin and Ernst Kahn of Frankfurt aired such views at the Fourth General Congress of the Verband fortschrittlicher Frauenvereine.

In short, supporters argued that the creation of a Ledigenheim supported at least in part by the municipality clearly fit into the duty of a city for its citizens, echoing the viewpoint of the author of the Milchversorgung analogy. Essentially, the building of

Ledigenheime was not only seen as being in the interests of hygiene, decreasing population density, and ridding the city of the worst results of Schlafstellenwesen, it was also a part of the chain of steps that would improve housing for every member of society85.

Economic Arguments

However, as mentioned briefly, it was not merely moral outrage concerning the dwellings of the working classes (and the system of Schlafgängerwesen that intensified the problem), or a need to be “modern”, which drove the housing reform effort, and the construction of Ledigenheime in particular. Economic considerations always played a large role, as is evidenced by the fact that by the 1890s it was also being argued that the

Ledigenheim (and similar housing reform efforts) would reap direct economic rewards for the surrounding community. From the very beginning of the “period of reform”, supporters of greater involvement for municipalities in Ledigenheim construction cited economic arguments for this investment, arguing that cities would be less impacted by economic crisis than companies or Stiftungen86.

85 “Stadtverwaltungen im öffenlichen wie besonder im hygienischen Interesse in der Wohnungsfrage nicht untätig beiseite stehen sollen, sondern, dass sie hierin sehr wichtige, ernste Pflichten haben…für die Herstellung einwandfreier Wohnquartiere und guter Wohnungen für die Zukunft zu sorgen und tun dies durch Baupläne, Bauordnungen, Anlage von freien Plätzen usw….” (Altenrath, Staatswirtschaftliche Dissertation, 143). “…das Ledigenheim für die Stadtverwaltung ein wirksames Mittel ist, die ungünstige Wohndichtigkeit in ihrer misslichsten Form herabzumindern und den Missständen des Schlafstellenwesens mit Erfolg entgegenzuwirken…” (144).

86 Altenrath, 142.

In addition, the building of Ledigenheime was also positioned as a profitable enterprise yielding economic rewards in an age when fears concerning foreign competition in business were building. In particular, reformers drawn from all sections of society, from employers and municipal civil servants to the members of religious groups and reform organizations of all types (though this is not a mutually exclusive designation), considered the task of housing workers in Ledigenheime was an undertaking of national significance and pride, particularly in the face of the economic and naval might of Great Britain87.

In fact, a direct correlation between housing and the competition of the German nation on a global stage was drawn at the Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime Conference in

Leipzig. Not only was the happiness of the German worker (a happiness ensured by decent housing, and the provision of Ledigenheime in particular), positioned as essential to the increased industrial production of Germany, but housing reforms enacted in Great Britain, particularly England and Scotland, were cited as an impetus to greater involvement.

Specifically, the development of the London Rowton Houses of 1893 were noted by participants at the 1904 conference and in numerous German publications as a model to the urban reform Ledigenheime of Germany88. This not only illustrates that advances in Britain

In addition, the author does warn of dangers to avoid, and the main causes of a lack of success: economic crisis, better transport networks so that workers can live in their home village and commute at reasonable prices, and also when there is a shift in the age of marriage (If young men marry earlier…). “Also, the homes can fail if the house rules are too strict, the house is not clean enough, and the house is badly planned. For example, it is unwise not to including reading rooms and other opportunities for entertainment. After all, Krupp’s Menage, formerly unpopular, is now very popular, because it has reconfigured its interior, adding a reading and relaxation room on every level” (Altenrath, 138).

87 Berndt stated that while the German home remains the ideal, once Germans turn their minds to the reform of this system with their typical hard work, knowledge and intelligence, there is much that can be attained, and that the advantages are threefold: industrial, economic and societal (Berndt, Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 173).

88 The economic success of the British buildings also allowed supporters of German municipal and reform organization built Ledigenheime to point to the Rowton House example as a sound economic choice and critique those who feared properly administered, and practically built and furnished municipal building projects (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 183).

continued to serve as a reference point to German reformers, but that this fear of falling behind economically actually helped to drive reform.

Thus, the Ledigenheim was positioned as a friend of economic growth and a business-friendly proposition. In fact, it was even posited as working against the interests of

Social Democracy by the mouthpieces of business world, such as Baumeister Berndt of the

Bochumer Verein and a representative of the firm of Kuebler and Niethammer. For example, Berndt began his speech at the 1904 conference held in Leipzig by stressing that the satisfaction of his workers with their housing weakened local interest in Social

Democracy89, and the firm of Kübler and Niethammer in Kriebstein also felt that the provision of Ledigenheime would “destroy the roots of Social Democracy”90. Even

Ledigenheime less directly linked to the interests of business, such as the Catholic Hermann-

Joseph Haus of Cologne, were noted as keeping young men from Social Democratic influence91.

89 “…durch Anhänglichkeit an das Werk dadurch betätigen, dass die sich den verwerflichen Einflüssen der ausgesprochenen Sozialdemokraten gegenüber verschlossen halten” (Berndt, Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 173). Of course, Berndt and the Bochumer Verein were under no illusions that every resident worker could be kept happy, noting that some are simply “complainers” who are never happy, oddly attributing this to the fact that they were “…not used to order and cleanliness” (“…Leute, welche Zucht, Ordnung und Sauberkeit nicht gewohnt sind”) (171).

90 “Die Wurzeln der Sozialdemokratie” (Der Arbeiterfreund 46 (1906): 8). To this end, along with other reforms such as a Kindergarten and Konsumverein, Kuebler and Niethammer built a Burschenhaus for thirty unmarried workers in the 1870s, along with other housing for families (8).

91 “…Notwendigkeit, sich auch der einer mächtig arbeitenden socialdemokratischen Verfuhrung schutzlos preisgegebenen Lehrlinge anzunehmen” (Arbeiterwohl (1893), 55). (Loose translation: “…the importance of keeping the easily bought apprentices away from the powerful pull of the Social Democratic forces”.) Interestingly, the focus remains on apprentices, not grown men, though perhaps this is not surprising considering the majority of “youth savers” were drawn from the centrist political parties of the day, the National Liberals and Catholic Center party in particular (Vernon Lidke. The Alternative Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 5). Lidke further reports that “Antisocialism was always one of the ideological underpinnings, not only of religious youth activity but also of the efforts of the entire middle class youth salvation campaign. This antisocialism acquired considerably greater importance with the formation of a Socialist youth movement in 1904” (17).

The Opposite of Charity

In keeping with these largely economically based arguments, it is important to clarify that all of the reformers in question, from secular groups allied with municipalities to employers, considered the Ledigenheim to be the opposite of charity. In fact, reformers were very careful to stress this distinction, lest they undercut their own carefully crafted arguments in support of the Ledigenheim.

As will be examined in the following chapters, Ledigenheime built by every faction were intended to be profitable, and as such were carefully tailored to the social class and commensurate with the needs of the specific residents they would house. In addition, they nearly always included other means of generating income beyond the rent of the residents, often from an in-house restaurant or from the rental of street frontage to small businesses92, and the location of these income generators was generally carefully calculated as well93. In short, Ledigenheime were run on a basis that enabled them to both turn a profit and serve workers, not charity cases94, and it was argued that there was no economic risk whatsoever if

Ledigenheime were properly administered, sensibly and practically built and furnished, with an eye always to the bottom line95.

Certainly, the provision of affordable housing via the Ledigenheime was never considered to be a charitable act. In fact, it was actually feared that even if such housing felt

92 Schweitzer, 21.

93 Schweitzer, 37.

94 “…keine Wohltaten etwas in dem Sinne, wie sie kirchliche Vereinigungen erweisen, erwiesen werden sollen. Man sieht darin einen Beigeschmack von Almosen, die man wohl Unglücklichen, Witwen, die sich nicht selbst helfen können, gewähren muss, die aber selbständigen, arbeitsfähigen und in der Berufstätigkeit stehenden Männern und Frauen niemals zukommen sollen” (Altenrath, 109).

95 Radomski, Fürsorge für Ledige Arbeiter in Posen, 8.

like charity to residents it would hurt the cause of reform96, as reformers did not want to endanger the self-esteem of a proud and self-supporting man by allowing him to think that he was the recipient of unwanted and unneeded charity. In fact, one cannot be more blunt in regards to the type of people reformers were interested in housing in Ledigenheime than a statement from a social reformer that in regards to the Ledigenheim “Das

LUMPENPROLETARIAT is hier so gut wie ausgeschlossen”97.

Thus, it is important to differentiate the Ledigenheim from forms of poor relief where the inhabitants did not pay rent or were forced to perform a “work test/assistance par le travail”98. In general, poor relief was considered to be “the maintenance of public infirmaries, shelters for the homeless (the Asyl), the labour house for loafers and the like, the orphanages, and of boarded out children”, certainly not Ledigenheime99. Even foreign observers of Germany such as Dawson noted that the Ledigenheim was clearly differentiated from “municipal shelters of various kinds”, including the “warm kitchen” or the “public doss-house where a mattress is offered free for the night, ‘with no questions asked’…and whose frequenters “rarely belong to the work seeking class”100.

96 “jeder arbeitsfähige Jüngling und Mann muss sich, so lange er Beschäftigung hat, seinen Unterhalt allein zu sorgen, darf durch charitative Zuwendungen und Vergünstigungen nicht geschwächt oder erstickt werden. Deshalb muss ein Ledigenheim auf wirtschaftlicher Grundlage beruhen…” (Radomski, 5). Loose translation: “every employable youth and man must be able to support himself, and must not be weakened through charitable efforts. Therefore, a Ledigenheim must be functionally sound on economic grounds”.

97 Altenrath, 109. Translation: “The Lumpenproletariat is as good as shut out.” Of course, Lumpenproletariet is a Marxian term that refers to the lowest class of worker, the ignorant worker who cannot develop class- consciousness either because of innate stupidity, ignorance or laziness. Such an individual therefore stood on contrast to the individual to be served by the Ledigenheim.

98 Dawson, Municipal Life and Government in Germany, 274.

99 Dawson, 271. These earlier charitable provisions for the public welfare had begun as early as 1852, with the adoption of the Elberfeld system, which was a system of poor relief that was administered by local authorities (in the case of larger municipalities, responsibility was divided into sub-district zones of administration) (Dawson, 264-266).

100 Dawson, 301. The lowest form of mass housing was the Obdachlosen Asyl, a homeless shelter, which was sometimes combined with a workhouse in the Dickensian sense. These buildings were clearly charity and

The American Frederic C. Howe’s 1913 “European Cities at Work” also clarified the difference between Ledigenheime and “emergency” housing provisions, such as Herbergen

(pl.), which were more focused on housing those men who arrived in a town without a job or money, in order to prevent him from “passing into the vagrant class”101. In addition, unlike the majority of Ledigenheime, Herbergen were generally run by religious groups, particularly Protestant groups, and were intended as an emergency measure for those without a home, focusing on youths and young adults who were “Ortsfremd und Stellenlos”102.

Ledigenheime were also different in conception from Altersheime, or homes for the elderly. Although similar to the internal organization and exterior appearance of a

Ledigenheim, the Altersheim was nearly always reliant upon charitable contributions and was rarely self-sufficient, and thus unlike Ledigenheime in this regard103.

Controlling Change through Embourgeoisement

The development of a sophisticated and logical public argument highlighting the economic feasibility of the Ledigenheim, including direct economic benefits to society and a almost always served the permanent underclass, the Lumpenproletariat, with some exceptions. They were generally far more massive than the largest Ledigenheime and certainly did not offer anything more than the most basic care to their residents, who rarely remained for any extended period of time. However, the Obdachlosen Asyl was a part of the fabric of the late nineteenth century, and reformers considered it to be an important part of Wohnungsfürsorge (the provision of decent housing and housing reform). In fact, the erection of model asylums/shelters developed in cities along with model municipal and reform organization constructed Ledigenheime, rather late in terms of public need, and long after industry and religious groups had concerned themselves with housing (Altenrath, 112).

101 Frederic C. Howe, European Cities at Work (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913), 127. Howe reported that “…in 1904 there were 462 Herbergen in Germany with 20,000 beds…the majority are paying [or working] guests (135). However, in contrast to the Ledigenheim, for admittance to a Herberge “the worker must produce a passport showing that he has been at work. For a sum of twelve cents he receives lodging and breakfast, or he can work for four hours for them. The rule of the Herberge is, ‘morning work, afternoon walk’” (136).

102 Translation: “foreign to the area and without employment” (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 155).

103 Generally, when supported by a Stiftung, or charitable trust, these are referred to as Stiftungen.

municipality’s prestige, arguments backed by scientific studies and sensationalized stories, tends to obscure what was really at stake in the minds of the supporters of housing reform, and the Ledigenheim in particular.

As we will explore throughout this dissertation, the creation of the Ledigenheim was both a forward-thinking and reactionary undertaking, a symbol of the conflicted times within which it was primarily promoted and built, the Wilhelmine Era. While economic concerns were at the heart of its construction, the social concerns that drove its creation cannot be discounted. In particular, the social, hygienic and economic ill effects of Schlafgängertum, which were amongst the most compelling and commonly aired arguments for the

Ledigenheim, tend to discount the extent to which the embourgeoisement of residents was also a goal. After all, while not explicitly used to justify the Ledigenheim to the general public, the literature indicates that the secondary purpose was to bolster a declining by important social class that served as a buffer between the middle-classes (Bürgertum) and working-classes (Proletariat or Arbeiterklasse), the lower working-class (Mittelstand). The

Mittelstand primarily consisted of skilled workers, artisans and small shopkeepers who were proud of their social position on the edges of bourgeois respectability as the “aristocracy” of the working classes.

Although the means by which this was attempted and accomplished will be dealt with extensively in chapters two and five, the Ledigenheim and all it provided was to help the residents identify with the bourgeois reformers supporting the Ledigenheim, further distancing him from his unskilled counterparts in lifestyle and political inclination.

Specifically, reformers attempted to recreate the familial home, albeit one bourgeois in conception, and consistently wrote of the importance of creating this “home” for individuals

outside of the family circle104, noting that “…Ledigenheime sind in der Gegenwart eine

Notwendigkeit, werden aber nur dann ihren Zweck erfüllen, wenn es gelingt, Mittel und

Wege zu finden, den Ledigen das für die errichtete Haus zu einem wirklichen “Heim” zu gestalten”105. Although reformers were never under the illusion that the Ledigenheime was equivalent to a family, they believed it shared components with the traditional bourgeois family, and was thus able to ape the natural order of their own world in the realm of the

“wirtschaftlich-soziale”106.

It is this attempt to remake the lower social classes in their own image, that marks much bourgeois-led social reform in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century

Germany. Although projected as emergency measures, these middle-class reform efforts were instead largely investments in society that it was hoped would reap both literal and figurative rewards for the reformers themselves, namely social stability. Essentially, reformers wanted to control the manner by which social change was taking place by

104 This is interesting, as Salzgeber, Catholic Charitas secretary defined single people not as what they are, but what they are not, which is part of a family. He believed that in contrast to Ledigenheime, Schlafstellenwesen and Kosthäuser could never be designated as a replacement for family life, which is why this must be fought (“Veranstaltungen der katholischen Charitas” Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 155). This same author further explained why the family was a natural and healthy phenomenon, while single life was not, using a number of great Catholic philosophers to back his claims. For instance, he noted that Aristotle designated the family as the “Urzelle der menschlichen Gesellschaft, als seine natürliche, d. h. von der Natur gewollte Gesellschaft…” (155) (The basis of human society, natural and willed from nature). Similarly, Thomas Aquinas deemed the family to be a “natürliche Gemeinschaft, zum Zwecke des täglischen Zusammenlebens” (156) (Natural community, the goal of daily living). Despite the distance in time and culture, fully acknowledged by the author, Salzgeber nevertheless felt that the conclusions of Aristotle and Aquinas ring true in his time.

105 Schweitzer, 11. Interestingly, Catholic reformers did not tend to stress the economic costs of these enterprises, in stark contrast to both employers, secular reformist groups and municipalities, but consistent with the writings of Protestant reformers. Although the author of the Vorbericht of the Conference on Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime notes that Catholic Gesellenheimen generally have good economic results, the secondary focus on economics is illustrated by the Catholic reformers’ lack of specificity as to where profits (if there are any) go, whether back into the Ledigenheim to help with running costs or to help pay off the “angemessene Verzinsung and Amortisation of the Anlagekapital (Vorbericht, Schlafstellen und Ledigenheime, 43). This appears to vary by Ledigenheim and by region, but does not seem to be a concern for most Catholic reformers.

106 Salzgeber, 156. This translates to socio-economic world.

attempting to remake the lower-middle and working-classes in their own image, as we will specifically see exhibited in the project of the Ledigenheim.

Thus, the Ledigenheim was only part of a larger push towards reform, one that included the construction of public kitchens (Volksküchen), public libraries (Volksbibliotheken), public education and meeting houses (Volksheime), and even temperance reform. While all of these interventions could be (and were) justified economically, proponents primarily believed that these efforts could heal the social divisions that were creating instability in society (of course, social stability was also good for economic stability, which is also why employers supported these projects).

In fact, it was common for an individual active in one of these reform efforts to also be a member of another reform organization, illustrating the fact that these efforts were not only linked, but stemmed from the same impulse, a push for the reform of all aspects of society. Specifically, taking the development of an organization like the Verein Volkswohl of

Dresden (Organization for the Welfare of the People of Dresden), typical of the type of reform organization that proliferated throughout Germany from the late 1880s to 1914 (and one that would go on to construct Volksheime, a close cousin of Ledigenheime), as a starting point helps to illustrate the overlapping interests, efforts and goals of a typical bourgeois reform organization (and the reformers who populated their ranks).

Related Reform Efforts

Simply tracing the evolution of the Verein Volkswohl from its roots as the Deutscher

Verein für Armenpflege und Wohltätigkeit (German Organization for the Care of the Poor and

Charity), founded in 1880, to its re-birth as the Verein Volkswohl in 1883, is telling in

regards to the interdependence of social reform organizations. Significantly, it was in 1883 when the Deutscher Verein für Armenpflege und Wohltätigkeit combined forces with a sister organization, the Deutscher Verein gegen den Missbrauch geistiger Getränke (German Organization against the Abuse of Alcohol) to become the Verein Volkswohl107. While the new organization’s stated aims; “to care for the welfare of all social classes and also to support and instill a sense of community in its members”108; remained rather broad and unconnected to housing reform, the implied relationship between social welfare activism and temperance reform was clear.

In fact, by the 1890s, nearly every social welfare organization was populated by individuals who were also members of temperance organizations. For example, while serving as the chairman of the Verein Volkswohl, the liberal economist Viktor Boehmert, a

Professor of Economics in Dresden and director of Royal Statistical Bureau of Saxony, was involved in the “drink question” via the Deutscher Verein gegen den Missbrauch geistiger Getränke.

Additionally, Boehmert was chairman of the Verein gegen Armennot und Bettlelei and the Saxon

Volksbildungsverein, as well as editing the Arbeiterfreund and the other publications of the

Centralverein für das Wohl der arbeitenden Klassen from 1872-1914. As if this was not enough activity in a variety of social reform causes, he was also a member of the Deutscher Verein für

Armenpflege und Wohltätigkeit (as a founder), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Verbreitung von

Volksbildung and Verband deutscher Arbeitsnachweise109.

As a further example of this linkage between temperance and housing reform (and the Ledigenheim specifically), one can note that one of the featured speakers at the 1904

107 Der Arbeiterfreund 51 (1913): 393. This is a fairly early example, but one that, by the 1890s, had become the typical model for a reform organization.

108 Der Arbeiterfreund 51 (1913): 393.

109 Abrams, 55, 66.

conference on Schlafstellenwesen and Ledigenheime, Stadtrat Dr. Waldschmidt of

Charlottenburg, not only warned against the alliance of Ledigenheime and breweries, but participated as a representative of the Deutsche Verein gegen den Missbrauch geistiger Getränke

(German Organization against the Abuse of Alcohol)110. This organization saw the abolition of Schlafstellenwesen as a step in the right direction concerning alcohol abuse, particularly the use of hard alcohol111.

Thus, the examples of Boehmert and Waldschmidt certainly help to explain both the overlapping interests and the emphasis on temperance that was typical of social reformers, including those engaged in the creation of Ledigenheime112. However, while the temperance movement certainly played a large part in social reform organizations, temperance organizations did not build, at least not directly. In contrast, numerous other reform organizations existed that were actively engaged in the construction of buildings that were intended as partners with the Ledigenheime in terms of social reform and embourgeoisement: Volksküchen, Volksbibliotheken and Volksheime. Although all of these building types and their significance for the Ledigenheim will be dealt with extensively in chapters two and five, we will start with a brief examination of the latter two, which were often contained in urban Ledigenheime, and then turn our attentions to the former, which we will see bears the closest resemblance to the Ledigenheim in its entirety.

The Volksküche, or communal public kitchen, was first constructed in the 1870s by

Lina Morgenstern in Berlin, and was intended to provide local residents with breakfast, evening bread and refreshments at low cost. The overall goal was twofold, to improve the

110 Schalfstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 184.

111 Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 184.

112 This is not to say that only reform organizations were so inclined, as employers from Krupp to the Harpener Bergbau were also engaged with the reform of drinking establishments on their premises (Der Arbeiterfreund 52 (1914): 258-263).

dining habits of the working classes and to curb the consumption of alcohol. Thus, not only were the meals served at very affordable rates, but there was never a requirement to purchase beer or liquor with a meal (Trinkzwang), unlike many restaurants and pubs frequented by young men. The Volksküche was also open to women and children, unlike many restaurants and pubs. Thus, the pleasant yet controlled space of the Volksküche provided an alternative to the supposed unhealthiness of the tavern. Essentially, as was also the case with its British cousin, the Tea Room, the Volksküche was a way to embrace the working class habit of gathering in a pub, while attempting to curb the most problematic aspects of this practice by limiting alcohol and introducing women and children into a highly regulated space113.

The Volksbibliothek was another means by which the urban reformers intended to uplift the working classes, or at least the members of the Mittelstand. Before the 1890s, only fourteen libraries in the Reich serving the general public had over 1000 books, and relatively limited holdings and overly restrictive hours tended to inhibit usage and turnout114.

However, as reading in a library was seen as both a healthy and useful pursuit by the middle- classes, the 1890s, and particularly the first decade of the twentieth century, saw the heavy support of Volksbibliotheken, or libraries open to use by the general public, by urban reformers. Certainly, the goal of such libraries was not only to help educate the less economically fortunate members of society, but also to encourage the saving of one’s wages by providing an alternative to the purchase of so-called Schundliteratur, penny-dreadfuls and similar offerings that could be purchased on installment plans. Thus, it was a way to

113 Lina Morgenstern, “Die Volksküchen in Berlin” Die Gartenlaube 27 (1866): 431 and “The People’s Kitchens in Vienna” The Nineteenth Century 36I (1894): 744.

114 Der Arbeiterfreund 50 (1912): 462, 467.

cultivate bourgeois tastes and habits, such as frugality and a cultivation of education, in the lower middle and working classes115.

Importantly for our purposes, the development of Volksbibliotheken throughout the

Reich around 1890 both corresponded to and actually accompanied the growth of the

Ledigenheim116. Although the provision of libraries within Ledigenheime will discussed in some detail in later chapters, it cannot be overstated that the Volksbibliothek was an intrinsic part of nearly every Ledigenheim by 1900117, from employer-built buildings to municipal or reform-organization built Ledigenheime, whose libraries were often open to the public.

Although not directly a part of the design of Ledigenheime, as were the aforementioned Volksküche and Volksbibliothek, the Volksheim completes this brief look at the types of reforms favored by the bourgeois social reformers active from 1890-1914. In fact, the Volksheim, the first of which was built in Dresden in 1888118, is very useful to examine in that it is reform efforts perhaps closest in conception to the Ledigenheime, in addition to being supported by the same individuals and organizations. As will be examined in some detail, the items and benefits on offer in the Volksheime of the Dresden Verien

Volkswohl were commensurate with those often offered in nearly all Ledigenheime by the turn of the century, when both building types reached the high point of their construction.

115 Abrams, 55.

116 Der Arbeiterfreund 52 (1912): 462. The educator and reformer Johannes Tews cited the Volksbibliothek built in Berlin in 1894-95 as the first of the purpose-built public libraries created under the auspices of municipal involvement (Johannes Tews, “Die erste öffentliche Lesehalle in Berlin” Soziale Praxis 5 (1895): 775-78, as cited in Lees, 242). Again, this certainly were not the first library, but the first that was specially built for and open to the general public.

117 Catholic Ledigenheime began featuring (private) libraries from the 1850s and reform organization supported or municipal Ledigenheime of the 1890s largely contained Volksbibliotheken that were accessible to the public, as will be discussed in depth in chapter two. Employer built Ledigenheime did not feature libraries until closer to 1900 (discussed in chapter four), though even earlier many industrial complexes featured libraries for workers on the premises, though again, access was generally only permitted for the employees of the company.

118 Andrew Lees, Cities, Sin, and Social Reform in Imperial Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 264.

Most importantly, the reasons behind the construction of Volksheime, such as those supported by the Dresden Verein Volkswohl, share a striking similarity to many of the broad societal goals of the Ledigenheim. After all, the supporters of Volksheime stated that their overall goal was to care for the welfare of all social classes and also to support and instill a sense of community for all its members. Although this sounds extremely amorphous, this was emphatically linked to both educating and elevating the habits of the cream of the working classes to middle class mores and practices in the minds of the largely middle class supporters119.

Thus, these two building types shared an emphasis on restful and elevating activities, above all, providing a place where one could go after work to read or converse with fellow members, all while no pressure to drink was exerted. For example, in any of the seven

Volksheime of the Dresden Verein Volkswohl, one could relax after a workday, or in the evening in a number of reading rooms and social rooms, all without being pressured to purchase alcoholic drinks, as was the case in taverns and pubs120. In fact, supporters stressed the fact that the rooms in such establishments were both light and bright, without the smoke or beer splashed floors of a tavern.

Most importantly, the offerings (and gentrification) of the Volksheim, like the

Ledigenheim, were to provide an alternative to socialist activity and organization amongst the skilled working classes. This is certainly clear when one compares the emphasis on

119 In Dresden, a jump in membership from 6,409 in 1908 to 8,519 in 1910 was credited to a “Drang nach hoeherer Volksbildung und Volksgesittung und die Sehnsucht nach edler Gesellingkeit…” (Der Arbeiterfreund 53 (1913): 44). Translation: “A surge amongst the people towards higher education, proper customs and togetherness”.

120 For example, in the Dresden Volksheim, alcohol-free drinks were provided at a lower price than beer (Coffee at 5 and 10 Pfg. per mug, milk at 5 and 10 Pfg. per glass, Seltzerwater at 10 Pf. per bottle, Lemonade at 5 and 10 Pf. a glass or 15 for a bottle, and hot chocolate at 10 Pf. a mug), while the price of a beer was kept as high as possible (15-20 Pfg. a glass), to encourage consumption of the other drinks. In fact, supporters noted that inexpensive food on offer was purposefully not overly spiced, as was common with food provided with beer (Der Arbeiterfreund 53 (1913): 47).

keeping the Ledigenheim resident from Kneipen and other insalubrious surroundings where political activity was rife, and the emphasis amongst supporters of both the Ledigenheim and

Volksheim that they were apolitical places. Instead, both tended to stress that they sought to build bridges between the classes121, something that certainly did not fit into the socialist conception of the continued alienation of the social classes leading to the inevitable overthrow of capitalism.

Perhaps the clearest evidence that Volksheime and Ledigenheime stemmed from the same place and had many of the same overarching goals, as well as biases, is the fact that a number of the architects employed to build Ledigenheime also built and supported

Volksheime. For example, the illustrious Theodor Fischer, who would build the only

Ledigenheim still in operation in the 1920s, wrote as early as 1907 in the publication Hohe

Warte that he sought to created a new symbol of societal togetherness (Gemeinschaft) through the Volkshaus or Gemeinschaftshaus, terming this his “Volkshauswunsch”122. Certainly,

Peter Behrens and Bruno Taut, also involved in the construction of Ledigenheime, also built

Volkshäuser, the former in 1900 and the latter as late as 1918, and saw this as two sides of the same coin123.

Conclusions on the Project of Reform and the Ledigenheim

121 The Dresden Verein Volkswohl purportedly sought “aller Klassenstolz and Klassenhass zu überwunden” (translation: “to overcome all class pride and class hate”), and claimed that all men were brothers: “…sehen wir ganze Volksklassen mit Groll und Misstrauen gegeneinander erfüllt und durch politische oder soziale Gegensätze getrennt. Gibt es den kein Mittel...hoch und niedrig zu überbrücken? …dass wir alle Brüder sind” (Der Arbeiterfreund 53 (1913): 395).

122 Kristiana Hartmann, Deutsche Gartenstadtbewegung: Kulturpolitik und Gesellschaftsreform (Munich: Heinz Moos, 1976), 29. Quote: “Ein Haus, nicht zum Bewohnen für einzelne und Familien, aber für alle, nicht zum Lernen und Gescheitwerden, sondern nur zum Frohwerden…also keine Schule, kein Museum, keine Kirche, kein Konzerthaus, kein Auditorium. Und von allen diesen doch etwas und ausserdem noch etwas anderes…”

123 Hartmann, 39.

As clarified throughout this chapter, one can place the Ledigenheim amongst numerous attempts by bourgeois groups to reform and regenerate German society, specifically the working classes. In fact, the emergence of the Ledigenheim as a topic of national interest marked the culmination of decades of work in the realm of social reform.

Only when it had been proven that the Ledigenheim was both necessary and economically feasible did the social elites become comfortable with an intervention that went beyond the realm of hygiene and instead sought to ameliorate perceived societal ills through housing and associated social programs. Thus, the construction of Ledigeneheime and associated programs were both idealistic and grounded in the economic realities of the day.

Yet, considering the sustained level of discourse surrounding the building of

Ledigenheime into the first decades of the twentieth century, this building type did not, and could not, support all those who needed decent housing, much less heal the divisions within society. Instead, it appears that the support of Ledigenheime and similar

Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen allowed the burgeoning middle and upper-middle classes to feel as though they had some modicum of control over the direction German society was headed or even to assuage feelings of guilt over the good fortune they enjoyed. Nevertheless, the heightened discourse related to the Ledigenheim is indicative of an era marked by an increased involvement in civic life in matters relating to the physical and moral wellbeing of the individual, an involvement thought to have a direct bearing on the creation of a more healthy, strong and morally sound society, a project central to Germany’s social, cultural and economic growth.

CHAPTER TWO:

LEDIGENHEIME CONSTRUCTED

BY REFORM ORGANIZATIONS AND MUNCIPALITIES

Introduction

As we will see throughout this work, Ledigenheime were developed by a variety of individuals and groups from the middle of the nineteenth century through the first several decades of the twentieth century. However, although these variants share a number of formal characteristics and the basic premise that the housing of single people needed to be reformed, Ledigenheime built by Protestant and secular reform organizations, often in concert with municipalities, were very different creatures than those constructed by employers, and even bear significant differences from those constructed by Catholic groups.

First, this variant was the last of the three major variants to be constructed, for while

Catholic organizations first turned to the problem of housing the skilled working classes in the late 1850s and early 1860s, and employers began the construction of model

Ledigenheime on a relatively wide scale in the early 1870s (not including early attempts by employers to construct proto-Ledigenheime), Ledigenheime supported by Protestant or

secular organizations can be dated to the 1890s, with the rise of powerful municipal governments that either directly or indirectly backed this construction124.

Second, although some of the Ledigenheime to be discussed in this chapter were founded by Protestant civic organizations, religion never played as large a role in either their creation or administration, and therefore these denominational buildings can be considered with those built by secular reform organizations, referred to as Freizügig, or “free”. Unlike their Catholic counterparts, neither Protestant nor Freizügige Ledigenheime contained chapels or other spaces set aside for religious instruction or rituals, and neither variant included rules that required attendance at religious services, Protestant or otherwise. In fact, the only nod to Protestantism was the leading of prayers before mealtimes by the housemaster. Additionally, both variants were nonrestrictive in admitting residents, at least as far as religious persuasion was concerned125. Thus, despite the personal ties that the administration and supporters of Protestant Ledigenheime may have had to organized religion, this had little impact on the construction and operation of these nominally

Protestant Ledigenheime, and they can be considered with their Freizügige counterparts, unlike Ledigenheime built by Catholic organizations126.

124 Regarding “free”, nominally Protestant or denominationally independent Ledigenheime, I was able to find published records from 1870-1918 that dealt in detail with and provided exact dates for only twenty-two buildings, though actual numbers were certainly higher considering the elevated level of discourse. One can comfortably estimate that at least fifty to one hundred of these Ledigenheime were built during this period, primarily in the south and west of the German Reich.

125 Instead, as will be addressed shortly, it was social class that restricted residency, for the residency rates charged by both Protestant and secular Ledigenheime could only be afforded by the cream of the working class, the skilled worker. This is entirely unlike Ledigenheime built by employers, which typically focused on housing unskilled workers, and even the Kolpinghaus Ledigenheime, which initially primarily housed poorly paid apprentices in addition to journeymen, who earned slightly higher amounts of money.

126 Of course, this is not to say that the supporters of Protestant Ledigenheime considered their buildings to be equivalent to secular Ledigenheime, despite few ostensible differences. In particular, these secular and supposedly apolitical homes were accused of having the character of a Gasthaus, rather than a home, which largely meant that residents were supposedly given too much freedom to come and go at will, and that there is nothing that promoted “Christian character”, aside from the fact that gaming and that the compulsory

In addition, in both cases, the buildings were not only tied to the rise of municipal government, as highlighted in chapter one, they were more strongly allied with the Imperial government of the Reich. Unlike their Catholic counterparts, who stated that they were apolitical entities127, the supporters of a nominally Protestant building such as the Kaiser

Wilhelm Ledigenheim of Essen (1912/13) clearly stated their allegiance to the state and monarchy through the name chosen in celebration of the Emperor on the twentieth anniversary of his rule. In fact, even a Freizügiges Ledigenheim could exhibit links to both state sanctioned religious practice (Protestantism) and the nation state itself. For example, it was clearly within the bounds of acceptability to sing the “national hymn” and two religious hymns at the opening of the “free” and municipally funded Ledigenheim on the

Pistoriusstrasse in Berlin-Weissensee128. Additionally, during these opening proceedings, the mayor of Weissensee, Bürgermeister Dr. Wölck, not only gave a speech, but also offered a prayer. Thus, one can see that even secularism in early twentieth century parlance was not absent of religious influence, and a “free” Ledigenheim was not an entirely apolitical enterprise, though it must be underscored that it generally would not have been uncommon at the turn of the century to have the opening of any municipal project, even when considered a secular and apolitical undertaking, with a prayer and national anthem.

Finally, and most importantly, reform Ledigenheime were built in response to a particular set of societal pressures for a very distinct type of resident, and thus shared a

purchase of alcohol with food were disallowed. Most problematically however, the residents were accused of having a “multinational character” (Rundschau 2, no. 9 (1911): 266).

127 This is unsurprising in light of the Kulturkampf waged against Catholics in the 1870s, as will be discussed in chapter three.

128 “Feier der Einweihung des von der Gemeinde erbauten Ledigenheims an der Pistoriusstrasse in Berlin- Weissensee”, celebrated on the 19th of January 1914 at four in the afternoon. (Landesarchiv Berlin A Rep. 048- 05-03 Nr. 93).

number of formal characteristics reflective of the specific goals they sought to achieve for a select group of single people. In a similar manner to the birth of the Catholic Ledigenheim in the 1850s, which arose out of concern for the declining skilled artisan class, secular and

Protestant Ledigenheime sought to bolster a threatened social class by providing housing that was neither charity nor for profit. However, these buildings were not as narrow in conception as Catholic Ledigenheime in regards to the role of religion and their emphasis on housing the declining artisan class. Instead, reform Ledigneheime sought to serve a broader section of the working population that not only included the artisan, but also the skilled worker and the emerging white-collar worker. In all of these cases, the residents were of moderate means, but still struggled to afford accommodations befitting their social station, and may have turned to Schlafstellenwesen as a housing option.

Most importantly, these new Ledigenheime arose to serve a newer segment of the population precisely when municipalities were reconsidering their role in the lives of their citizenry and a number of organizations linked to social reform were founded. In particular, these organizations, as clarified in chapter one, existed in the narrow space somewhere between charitable and for profit enterprises, functioning along the lines of “philanthropy and five percent”, regardless of religious or secular backing. They also primarily served the needs of the lower middle and “respectable” working classes, explaining the emphasis of the supporters of the reform Ledigenheim on housing the elites of the working class and the struggling members of the lower-middle classes: the artisan, skilled industrial worker and white collar worker129. Now, this wide designation of elite working class and lower middle class does not mean that fine distinctions of socio-economic class did not exist within the

129 Thus, while the Ledigenheim can be placed in the general context of building types that housed individual people for varying lengths of time and contained comparable circulation patterns, from the retirement home to the prison and the hospital, the impetus behind these buildings differed significantly.

residents, but that reformers largely considered their needs en masse and purposefully leveled slight economic and class difference by housing residents together. In fact, the only manifestation of significant difference was exhibited via one aspect of the internal division of space within a Ledigenheim, namely the number of residents to a bedroom, as will be investigated later in this chapter.

Thus, in examining Reform Ledigenheime, namely those constructed by the secular and Protestant reform groups discussed in chapter one, and dating from circa 1890, one can note the real development of a building typology and the consolidation of a number of fairly consistent characteristics, ranging from the style and layout employed to the amenities provided to residents, to the class of worker served, all of which were linked to the standards established by the housing and social reform movements that took hold in Germany in the

1890s and lasted until the breakdown of the old order in 1918.

Basic Characteristics of Secular and Protestant Ledigenheime from the 1890s to 1914

As indicated in the previous segment of this chapter, by the 1890s, industrial

Ledigenheime were no longer the focus of those advocating for the construction of the building type130, and the following years saw further developments of this variant of the

Ledigenheim typology, generally including an acceptance of this building type and its continued refinement and integration within German cities by housing reformers in concert

130 In fact, as discussed in chapter four, Ledigenheime built by employers had stagnated stylistically by the late 1880s, and to a great extent, employers began to rely upon municipal and private reform organizations to solve the housing problems of industry. Where industry had once led the charge, reform organizations and their municipal allies were the primary movers at the turn of the century.

with municipalities131. Of course, this is not to say that development proceeded in a clearly linear and uninterrupted fashion, but that a general progression and numerous improvements can be discerned.

This involvement of civic organizations and local government was illustrative of a shift in the class of intended residents, from the unskilled industrial worker to largely urban white-collar and skilled workers, including apprentices. The higher class (and correspondingly higher rents) of men served by these Ledigenheime, is borne out in numerous architectural refinements within the building type and a deeper integration of the

Ledigenheim into the urban fabric132. Even the images published by promoters of municipal

Ledigenheime of well-dressed and genteel residents in comfortably bourgeois settings stand in sharp contrast to publications on industrial Ledigenheime from the 1870s or even 1890s, which rarely depicted residents, if they deigned to at all. From these images, and numerous others we will investigate, it appears that the goal of reformers to help integrate this subset of the workforce through a number of amenities provided to residents and even the surrounding community. In short, reform Ledigenheime were strongly differentiated from the fortress-like structures of industry, as discussed in chapter four, with their singular focus on hygiene and control. In fact, the reform Ledigenheim was even seen as a potential form that the housing of university students could take, an architectural and sociological soluiton to what Rudolf Walter termed the Studentenheimfrage, or student home question in 1909 133.

131 Municipal governments could support Ledigenheime by direct construction or via gifts of land, tax breaks and other means.

132 This had always been the case with the Catholic Ledigenheime, also called Gesellenheime, which were largely indistinguishable from the municipal models in regards to the class of men served and the finished and elegant appearance of the buildings, but whose denominational emphasis and links to political Catholicism (despite protestations to the contrary) requires that they be treated in a separate chapter.

133 Rudolf Walter, Archiv der Freistudenten-Bewegung: Die Studentenheimfrage (Leipzig: Demme, 1909).

Thus, in the following sections of this chapter, while examining specific examples of reform Ledigenheime, the level to which these buildings fit with the aesthetic and social ideals promoted in contemporary literature will be explored. These ranged from style, to interior circulation spaces, to scale, to relationships with surrounding buildings134. We will even look at the standards that governed the construction of Ledigenheime135, and the internal rules governing residents’ lives.

However, before delving into a deeper discussion of these aspects, it is helpful to briefly discuss the typical amenities contained within and layouts utilized for reform

Ledigenheime dating from 1890-1914. For example, as was the case for most Ledigenheim variants, the upper floors of reform Ledigenheime always contained bedrooms and more private relaxation rooms, while the lower floors were given over to communal rooms. These latter spaces fulfilled the numerous and specific goals of a reform organization, primarily containing healthful activities that would keep the residents in the home. Yet, in contrast to the communal spaces of other variants, both Ledigenheime built by employers and Catholic organizations, many of these provisions also benefitted the surrounding community.

Additionally, and similar to contemporaneous Catholic Ledigenheime, the exterior style of these buildings tended to reflect the popular building styles of the day, rather than the structures built by industry, which followed a set of conventions specific to industrial

134 This is particularly interesting in case the of the Berlin-Weissensee Ledigenheim, which housed both men and women, also was part of a larger complex, almost a campus akin to the Berlin-Buch Old People’s Home Settlement (Altleuteheim Siedlung), which will be mentioned later.

135 It appears that Ledigenheime were not exempt the new zoning regulations enacted in the last years of the 19th century alongside speculative construction (For example, Dawson mentioned that speculative construction was restricted to a great extent by the late 1890s in Germany (Municipal Life and Government in Germany (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1914), 171). T.C. Horsfall also detailed the classes of building allowed in certain regions of the city of Köln (The Improvement of the Dwellings and Surroundings of the People: The Example of Germany (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1905), 146)). They do seem to fit into the height limits for building, with none over five stories (including ground floor and excluding attic.

architecture and rarely had any pretensions to ornamentation. Reform Ledigenheime also tended to be placed within the urban fabric, or at least in locations with easy access to the center city.

In particular, certain representative Ledigenheime will be used as examples in this chapter to investigate what constituted the typical reform Ledigenheim. The earliest of the reform Ledigenheime we will encounter was the Stuttgart Arbeiterheim of 1890, built at

Heusteigstrasse 45. It is important as it was the first such Ledigenheim in Stuttgart, and the prototype for a larger Ledigenheim built only a little over a decade later by the same organization, the Verein für das Wohl der arbeitenden Klassen and the Arbeiter-Bildungsverein, one of the reform organizations discussed in detail in chapter one. In contrast to the Catholic

Kolpinghaus model, or the industrial model, it was it was open to anyone who could pay the required rent, regardless of religious affiliation. The Stuttgart Ledigenheim, like the numerous reform Ledigenheime that followed it, was intended for “single craftsmen and workers, in order to provide them with a good and inexpensive residence, and also to contribute to the continual spiritual education of the workers”136. Although no plans for this building are extant, we do know that it was four floors high and provided housing for 133 men in 26 single rooms and 107 double rooms137. A similar building, also still termed an

Arbeiterheim, which also can be considered a alongside with the Stuttgart building, was the

Freizügiges Arbeiterheim der Gesellschaft für Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen zu Frankfurt am Main, constructed in 1894 on the Galluswarte. In this instance, the exterior in particular was

136 “…ledigen Handwerksgehilfen und Arbeitern ein gutes und billliges Unterkommen zu bieten und ausserdem der geistigen Weiterbildung der Arbeiter dadurch zu entsprechen…” (Deutsche Bauzeitung (5 November, 1892): 546.

137 Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, Vorbericht und Verhandlungen der 13. Konferenz der Zentralstelle für Arbeiter- Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen am 9. Und 10. Mai in Leipzig (Schriften der Zentralstelle für Arbeiter- Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen (no. 26)) (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 44.

thought worthy of note by contemporary journalists, such as the author of an article that appeared in the building journal, Bautechnische Zeitschrift, in 1904138.

The Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim of 1906, located in Berlin-Charlottenburg (and currently a student dormitory), was perhaps the premier example of a Freizügiges

Ledigenheim built after the turn of the century via the joint effort by a reform housing organization, the Volkswohnheim Gemeinnützige Aktien-Gesellschaft in Berlin (later called the

Volkshotel AG), and the municipality of Charlottenburg, who provided the land for the home139. It quickly became a home for 306 residents between the ages of twenty-one and forty years, primarily skilled workers and artisans140, and was so popular with residents that most men lived in the building for a period of at least two to five months, or resided for well over a year, leading to a waiting list for vacancies141. Most importantly for our purposes, it was presented as the model of municipal and reform society supported Ledigenheim construction in numerous contemporary publications after it opened its doors to the lower middle class men of this district of Berlin142. This was not only due to the

Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim’s economic success and popularity with residents, but to the fact that the provision of extensive communal facilities and certain refinements of building style and decoration were in keeping with its supporters’ goals of creating a healthy surrounding community, as well as elevating the social and economic status of the residents

138 Bautechnische Zeitschrift 19 (1904): 308.

139 Although the term Volkswohnheim seems to suggest mixed occupancy, this particular building and buildings the organization constructed in the wake of the First World War were for male residents only. 140 Although proponents termed it a “hotel” for single men, this was meant as a compliment, indicating relative freedom from strict house-rules and pleasant surroundings.

141 Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 44.

142 This included, but was not limited to coverage in: Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung 31 (1911): 635-637; Weyl’s Handbuch der Hygiene, 353-357; Deutsche Bauzeitung 59 (1925): 347; Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung 24 (1925): 203; and Rundschau 2, no. 9 (1911): 266.

through their surroundings. As such, it was considered to be the forerunner of similar

Ledigenheime that we will encounter, which were planned or constructed between the first half-decade of the twentieth century and the outbreak of the First World War, such as the

Ledigenheime of Düsseldorf, Hellerau and Strassburg, and even others located in Greater

Berlin in the districts of Weissensee, Moabit and Rixdorf143.

Finally, we will also encounter a building that followed the precedent of the aforementioned municipally and reform organization supported Ledigenheime, though it was built on the eve of the First World War and under denominational and municipal auspices. The Kaiser Wilhelm Ledigenheim, the construction of which had been supported by both the city of Essen and the nominally Protestant Arbeiterverein, opened in November of

1913 on the Weberplatz in central Essen. The building, constructed by local Essen architects Kunhenn and Büssing, was fully occupied within three days of opening, as reported by the Rheinische Blätter für Wohnungswesen und Bauberatung144, underscoring the extent to which this was both a popular and greatly needed housing option for the subset of men to whom these buildings were geared.

Provisions for Residents and the General Public

In keeping with the goal of retaining rates that were affordable by young men of straightened economic means, as well as providing the residents with elevating surroundings and appealing healthy activities, reformers encountered a fairly difficult financial balancing

143 The fact that the latter three locations were largely working class districts of Berlin underscores the fact that the construction of reform Ledigenheime was an attempt to stem the problem of Schlafgängertum in the regions most effected, which were largely working class, and also to protect the (primarily young) economically vulnerable but still somewhat elite residents of the reform Ledigenheim from the negative influence of the Lumpenproletariat.

144 Rheinische Blätter für Wohnungswesen und Bauberatung 12 (1916): 42.

act. They had to carefully consider how they could fulfill their goal of creating a home-like atmosphere in keeping with the social class of the residents, while keeping the building economically competitive, one that never strayed into the territory of providing charity. As mentioned in chapter one, even the appearance of providing charity was feared by the middle reformers who supported these buildings, as it was thought that this would have a detrimental effect on the pride of the intended class of residents and undermine the very cause of reform. Instead, the proponents of reform Ledigenheime found alternate ways to create the revenue needed to support their overall goals while maintaining affordable rental rates145. Essentially, though this may have been a public argument in support of the

Ledigenheim with little basis in economic reality, this “philanthropy and five percent” meant that nearly all supporters of reform Ledigenheime favored buildings that allied with municipalities to lower costs by combining usage, such as including elements that benefitted both residents and the wider public, ranging from the common inclusion of Volksbibliotheken

(public libraries) and Volksküchen (public kitchens)146, and the relatively rare inclusion of

Volksbäder (public bathing facilities)147, and even Arbeitsamter (employment agencies)148.

145 Wiedfeldt, speaking at the Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime Conference of 1904, felt that the Ledigenheime rates charged by the typical reform Ledigenheim were both rational and natural, particularly when compared to the artificially low rates of Ledigenheime built by charities (Catholics) and employers. Correspondingly, he felt that the future of the Ledigenheim lay in the direction of Ledigenheime built by Baugenossenschaften (reform building societies) and municipalities, not via the machinations of benevolent employers, nor through Stiftungen (charitable organizations) (“Versammlungsbetricht”, Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 136).

146 Volksbibliothek means people’s library and Volksküchen translates as people’s kitchen, and both were an aid to the costs of running a Ledigenheim. “Ein Stadt kann ferner mit ihrem Logierhaus ein Volksbibliothek, eine Volksküche oder eine öffentliche Lesehalle und ähnliches verbinden und dadurch die Kosten für beide Anstalten ermässigen” (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 143). This loosely translates to: “A city can combine a public library, kitchen or open reading room with a lodging house and thereby lower the costs of both establishments”.

147 Public baths were rapidly gaining popularity amongst municipalities (and even industrialists) as a way to keep the population healthy, particularly from 1880. Their growth throughout Europe was noted by Adna Ferrin Weber, who noted that “…public baths is the European policy, but the American policy tends towards cheap water rates…” (Adna Ferrin Weber, The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century (Ithaca: Cornell, 1899), 353). In particular, the bathing pools were popular, the other facilities less so. This is important as Ledigenheime never featured bathing pools, though by the 1880s, they always included disinfection facilities and showers, and to a

Of course, not only were these provisions somewhat lucrative, allowing for both the economic success of a reform Ledigenheime, but they also fit perfectly with the reformers’ conception of what residents should be provided with in order to help them “relax and rest after a hard workday”, as well as keeping them from more problematic places, such as taverns and pubs149. Certainly, not every reform Ledigenheim contained all the elements enumerated above, but several dozen contained at least two, namely Volksbibliotheken and

Volksküchen, both of which were almost always open to the general public, provided that they followed the rules of usage. In general, Freizügige Ledigenheime, which tended to be the most closely aligned with municipalities, or were even built directly by municipalities, tended to have a greater number of beneficial provisions for residents and the general public than the variants built by employers or Catholic organizations.

Dining Rooms and Kitchens

lesser extent, bathtubs (Soziale Praxis 11, no. 37 (1903): 998). The Deutsche Vierteljahrschift für Öffentliche Gesundheitspflege of 1880 is also helpful for the inclusion of descriptions of a few of these Volkbäder throughout the Reich. Nevertheless, a Volksbad appears to have been a relatively rare occurrence, at least when compared to Volksküchen and Volksbibliotheken. For example, while the Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim (1906) and the Ledigenheim of the Kommunalen Zentrum in Berlin-Weissensee (1911) included Volksbäder, most other bathing facilities located in Ledigenheime were not cited as open to the public, only residents. It is also important to note that these Volksbäder were simpler in their provision of bathing facilities, only including showers and tubs, than “luxury” Volksbäder that provided bathing pools and Turkish steam baths (for a higher free), and were usually located in wealthier districts.

148 An Arbeitsamt was generally founded with the purpose of helping people gain employment and was particularly geared towards keeping the working class population from “wandering” (Die Arbeiterwohl (vol. 10, 1899)). Often these Arbeitsämter were focused on serving a sub-group of the working class population, such as the Arbeiterwohl reports in the case of Arbeitsnachweise Anstalte in Cologne, which primarily served single people from the eastern parts of the Empire (Die Arbeiterwohl 21 (1901): 323). Like the Ledigenheime they were often allied with, these organizations were purportedly “disinterested and impartial” (Der Arbeiterfreund 48, (1910): 176-184).

149 Der Arbeiterfreund 51 (1913): 395.

Of all the elements provided to Ledigenheim residents, the provision of food was accorded the most important position in the minds of the supporters of reform

Ledigenheime. In fact, access to healthful food was a central component in the overriding goal of Ledigenheim supporters in keeping the residents “at home”, as opposed to less controlled locations, where drunkenness and its attendant ills were thought to be rife. After all, it was the provision of meals that strongly differentiated these Ledigenheime from lodging houses and from the system of Schlafgängertum, as the residents of reform

Ledigenheime were not responsible either for seeking meals outside of the home150.

Additionally, these dining spaces almost always served the general public, not only the residents.

For example, the ground floor of the Frankfurt Arbeiterheim on the Galluswarte, built at the beginning of what can be considered “the era of reform”, contained a double dining hall with 270 seats, far more seats than the residents could have filled, indicating that this was to be used by the surrounding community, including women and children, as well as the residents151. This supposition is further underscored by the fact that additional spaces were

150 Men were certainly not expected to cook under any housing circumstance, and as meals were provided and taken communally the inclusion of a private or semi-private kitchen for each resident was a moot point. This lack of access to a kitchen (even if men would not use it) was in stark contrast to the traditional centrality of the kitchen to the working class home or apartment, where some apartments merely consisted of a single room that was both a living and cooking space (a Wohnküche). Dawson, in his publication of 1914, mentioned that in Berlin half of the dwellings consisted of a single room and a kitchen, that “33,000 of its dwellings have only one heatable room and 2400 no such room at all, and that 4090 dwellings consist of simply a kitchen” (Dawson, Municipal Life, 164). Of course, the absence of an individual kitchen was always the case in Ledigenheime serving men, where in institutions serving women, small kitchenettes were sometimes included (this will be discussed more fully in chapter five, concerning Ledigenheime for women). Here the male and female divide was clearly visible, where the provision of food was identified with women and particularly with wives, and thus, where there were no wives or mothers, there were no privately cooked meals.

151 It could be reached from the outside directly or accessed from the upper floors via the stairwell that ran all three floors. Thus, it was easily accessible by residents, but also intended for non-residents.

included that also provided food, such as a room on the second floor that functioned as a dining hall for local youths and children, which fed up to 120 individuals daily152.

Nearly fifteen years later, the Volksküche of the Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim

(1906), located in Charlottenburg, continued this mission to feed both residents and the surrounding community, by making healthy and inexpensive meals easily accessible. In fact, the centrality of provision of food in relationship to the mission of the reform Ledigenheim can be understood by examining the records of the Verein Ledigenheim e.V., which built the

Waldenserstrasse 31 Ledigenheim in Berlin-Moabit (1918-19), and stipulated in the 1911 rules governing the organization (Satzungen des Vereins Ledigenheim) that the meals provided by its Ledigenheime be available to residents and the community at low cost. For example, breakfast, lunch and a light evening meal were available at very competitive rates to non- residents, namely forty pfennig for the primary mid-day meal (For residents, only breakfast was included in one’s rent, which in the case of the Dankelmannstrasse building, consisted of a cup of coffee, tea or cocoa and two rolls)153. Nor was there a requirement to purchase beer or liquor with a meal, unlike many of the restaurants and pubs frequented by young men, the significance of which will be addressed shortly154. The dining hall was also made extremely accessible for non-residents, as one did not even need to enter the Ledigenheim proper to access the Volksküche. Instead, as it was located on the ground floor of the building, one needed only to enter a short passage of about 3.35 meters square on the right side of the main, darker brick central portion of the façade to reach the dining hall or the attached veranda.

152 Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 51-53.

153 Generalakten, Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 042, Nr. 26245, item no. 3.

154 Reichsarbeitsblatt 11, no. 6 (June 23, 1913).

Even Protestant Ledigenheime provided food to residents and fulfilled their implicit obligation to the general public through Volksküchen. In the case of the Kaiser Wilhelm

Ledigenheim of Essen, food was provided to residents and the public through a Volksküche positioned on the ground floor (although this dining room was referred to as a Wirtschaftlokal by the contemporary literature155), while a separate Speisesaal (dining hall) only served residents156. However, the more intriguing aspects lie in how these dining halls were approved and administered, for this case clearly indicates a working relationship between the supporters of the Kaiser Wilhelm Ledigenheim, namely the Evangelische Arbeiterverein e.V., and the city of Essen157.

In the case of most reform Ledigenheim, and particularly when a public Volksküche was included, the provision of meals within the building was decided by a Schankkonzession, a contract given by the governing municipality to the Ledigenheim, which allowed the

Ledigenheim organization to provide meals on a mass scale, essentially functioning as a cross between a restaurant and a canteen. The amount to which the mass provision of food was regulated by the municipal authorities can be obtained from details of the award of a

Schankkonzession to the Vorstand (administration) of the Evangelische Arbeiterverein, which was responsible for both the construction and running of the Ledigenheim on the Weberplatz.

Thus, after the Ledigenheim had been constructed and the building police had fulfilled their

155 This was L-shaped, measuring 17.5 meters by 9.20 meters and 7 by about 6 meters (Essen Stadtarchiv, Hausakten Signatur 45-18015). Also, in regards to terminology, the basement kitchen below the Wirtschaftslokal was termed a Volksküche, so it appears in this case that these terms are fairly interchangeable (Reichsarbeitsblatt 11, no. 6 (June 23, 1913)).

156 Essen Stadtarchiv, Hausakten Signatur 45-18015.

157 Although this is outside of the scope of this chapter, this Ledigenheime is also interesting to examine due to its adaptation during the First World War to house and feed ever increasing numbers of individuals residing in Essen, an industrial city that was central to the war effort. By 1915, due to the war effort, even the social rooms and halls of the Weberplatz Ledigenheim, particularly those located on the west end of the building were subdivided, and filled with beds for the overflow of residents working in the munitions industries—about 290 beds, rather than the intended 200 (Essen Stadtarchiv, Hausakten Signatur 45-18015).

required inspection, the governing body of the Ledigenheim, the Vorstand, was required to apply for a “Konzessions-Urkunde für den Schankbetrieb”, or permission to serve alcohol, from the municipal authorities. Following the application, filed in October of 1913, an

Erlaubnischein (# B 834) was granted to the governing body of the Ledigenheim from the

Städtische Verwaltung, which was then free to hire a manager to run the Speisesaal and

Volksküche158. Although the permission to serve alcohol and food to the public was a simple bureaucratic measure that would apply to any restaurant or bar in the municipality, this level of oversight indicates that the dining rooms of reform Ledigenheime were seen as semi-public spaces open to (primarily local) men, women, and children, not private spaces akin to a home.

This can be viewed in one of two ways, which were not necessarily mutually exclusive, either that the goal of creating a home-like building was less important than serving the general public and maintaining the building as economically feasible solution, or that the supporters of reform Ledigenheime sought to domesticate the larger world by providing public elements that in some ways aped the familial home. Of course, this emphasis on directly serving not only residents, but the public, was what differentiated reform Ledigenheime from the other variants, Ledigenheime built by the Catholic groups and employers, who did not run public kitchens or restaurants and indirectly aided society through the creation of a more self-sufficient and educated (in the case of the former) and controllable (in the case of the latter) workforce. This involvement with provisions for the local population, as well as their strict regulation, is also an indicator of the level to which municipal governments were involved in matters concerning public health. For example, as

158 Essen Stadtarchiv, Hausakten Signatur 45-18015. The numbers fed in the Speisesaal and Volksküchen of the Weberplatz Ledigenheim dating from November 1, 1914 to October 15, 1915 are impressive, as the Speisesaal provided 75, 383 lunches and 40,044 evening meals during this period, and the Volksküche sold 27,024 lunches and 25,000 dinners during the same time.

mentioned in chapter one, if the protection and control of a disease-free milk supply by means of central processing and distribution centers (Milchversorgung) was deemed necessary by municipal authorities, why would the provision of meals and drink in a place open to the public be treated with any less care. Clearly, the Volksküche had, by the 1890s, come to be seen as a reasonable investment in the surrounding community, as well as having health and economic benefits for the residents of reform Ledigenheime.

Commensurate with this concern for sanitation and professional management, particularly as it regarded the provision of food, the meals provided were also carefully planned to maximize health benefits to the surrounding community, including men, women and children, as well as the male residents. Although the records of what was provided to diners in the Essen Ledigenheim are not available, an idea of what segment of the population and what was served to these individuals can be ascertained by looking at the offerings of the Volkskaffee and Speisehallengesellschaft of Berlin, whose four dining halls, built in 1907, provided a changing menu representative of Volksküchen located in

Ledigenheime159. The meals on offer here rotated to provide a varied and fairly balanced diet, ranging from: fish with potatoes to green peas with sausage, potatoes with minced meat to cabbage with pork, and red cabbage with potatoes to white cheese with potatoes160. In contrast to the soup-based offerings of true charities161, or even the lighter meals of coffee

159 Interestingly, in this case, while providing 300 seats for male guests in the main dining hall, seating for 100 female guests was provided in an upper Speisesaal. This is something that is not noted in any of the Volksküchen attached in Ledigenheime, though these were intended to provide food to women and children, as well as men (Weyls Handbuch der Hygiene (Leipzig: Barth, 1912), 151/379).

160 Weyls, 283/55. Similar menus, as well as the insistence that the Volksküchen were not charity but a legitimate business concern, can be found in the records of the Vienna Volksküchen (“The People’s Kitchens in Vienna” in The Nineteenth Century (vol. 36, 1894), 749-752).

161 In the Berlin Asyl on the Fröbelstrasse in Berlin-Prenzlauerberg dinner consisted of 200 g of bread and 1 liter of warm soup, which was served at 8pm (Concordia (1911): 28). Similarly, a rich soup and a piece of bread, served at seven pm, was the meal served at the Asyl für Obdachlose in Munich (Johannes Altenroth, Das

halls162, the meals on offer were well balanced, including starches, plenty of vegetables, and protein, all helpful in keeping a workforce engaged in manual labor healthy.

In fact, this emphasis on healthy and balanced meals was in keeping with contemporary American and British efforts at improving the dining habits of the working classes via both educational programs and the establishment of dining halls along the lines of the Volksküche, such as the New England or Rumford kitchen of Ellen H. Richards163, indicating that Volksküchen of Ledigenheime were intrinsic to the transnational exchange of ideas related to the Ledigenheim, particularly between Germany, Great Britain and America.

In fact, this exchange dated to the 1870s, with the American Melusina Fay Peirce’s visit to

Lina Morgenstern’s Berlin Volksküchen. Later disciples of Peirce, Ellen H. Richards and

Mary Hinman Abel, feminists and campaigners for kitchen-less houses noted for their creation of the “scientific” New England/Rumford Kitchen of the Chicago World’s Fair of

1893, even claimed that their innovations came from a knowledge of public kitchens, particularly the Volksküchen in Berlin. Thus, advancements made in Germany, and within the Ledigenheim building type in particular, can be linked to Progressive Era America, as well as Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Most importantly, in all of the cases enumerated above, the offering of inexpensive and healthy meals were inexpensive intended to educate the tastes of the working classes, to teach them what to eat on a regular basis by leading by example.

Schlafstellenwesen und seine Reform: Statistik, Schlafstellenaufsicht, Ledigenheime (Dissertation, Rechts und Stadtswissenschaft Fakultät, Universität Halle, 1916), 113).

162 Coffee houses or Kaffeehäuser/Kaffeestuben (sometimes even Kakaostuben), such as that of Lübeck of 1889, served coffee, milk, buttermilk, soup (with bread inclued), rolls and pastries, sausage and other meat (Weyls, 380/152).

163 Caroline Hunt, The Life of Ellen H. Richards (Boston: Whitcomb and Barrows, 1912), 221.

Unlike the provision of “wholesome” food, the offering of alcohol in a Ledigenheim was a somewhat more contentious issue. While the inclusion of a dining hall and/or a

Volksküche that approximated a Wirtshaus was common practice, it was not unproblematic.

As discussed in chapter one, an interest in temperance was strongly correlated to other social reform interests. Nevertheless, the inclusion of a space in a Ledigenheim where men could gather to eat and to drink was largely accepted, for it was seen as the lesser of two evils when the alternative was considered, and particularly when non-alcoholic options were available and there was no Trinkzwang, or obligation to purchase alcohol with one’s meal to receive a discounted rate on the meal. For example, the Stuttgart Ledigenheim of 1890 included a dining hall where the only alcoholic beverage on offer was beer, and also provided coffee as an alternative beverage164. In the case of the Volksküche on the ground floor of the

Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim, there was no requirement to purchase even beer, much less liquor with a meal, unlike many restaurants and pubs frequented by young men165. Some reform Ledigenheime were even entirely alcohol free in the manner of Volkskaffeehäuser, as was the Düsseldorf building (1910), though this was somewhat rare166.

Thus, the Ledigenheim dining room, even when it provided alcohol, stood in stark contrast to the traditional working class Wirtshaus or Kneipe, where political activism and the consumption of alcohol went largely unregulated. Therefore, one can consider these spaces as a middle ground between what was seen as a dangerous working class activity and proper bourgeois activities. They were intended to mediate worker’s relationships to alcohol consumption by restricting what was on offer, even though the majority of the workers had

164 Weyls, 352/124.

165 Reichsarbeitsblatt 11, no. 6 (June 23, 1913).

166 Die Bauwelt 19 (1911): 25.

a more complicated relationship to drinking than the middle classes assumed, with

“drinking” considered by the working classes to be hard-liquor consumption, rather than the drinking of beer167.

It is this temperate view of alcohol and social habits that helped to ensure the popularity of reform Ledigenheime by the turn of the century. While providing an alternative to the local tavern, the Ledigenheim, while a controlled space, was still a pleasant place for men to spend their free hours. Essentially, the supporters of Ledigenheime sought to embrace some working class habits, while attempting to curb the most problematic aspects, a system that benefitted both supporters of Ledigenheime and residents. Of course, considering that the residents of reform Ledigenheime already formed the elite of the working class, or even held lower middle class social status, they hardly were candidates for being “awash in Schnapps”, as lower working class men supposedly were168. Instead, what drove reformers to advocate for some controls on the provision and consumption of alcohol was the fear that men who had the potential to rise into the lower middle class would, via the tavern and its dangerous offerings, either slide into total dissipation, wasting their talents and sliding into the Lumpenproletarian class, or come into contact with “uncontrollable influences” who would guide them into the arms of the Social Democrats169.

167 Wine drinking was not associated with the working-classes, though brandy and beer were (Glovka-Spencer, 375). This is clarified by the quote of a typical worker in Levenstein’s survey of 1912, “Ich bin ein geborener Antialkoholist. Ich trinke blos Bier. Mier macht der Schapsboikot reine Freude” (Adolf Levenstein, Die Arbeiterfrage: mit besonderer berücksichtigung der sozialpsychologischen seite des modernen grossbetriebes und der psycho-physischen einwirkung auf der arbeiter (München: Ernst Reinhardt, 1912), 249). This translates to: “I am a natural anti-alcohol advocate. I only drink beer. The Schnapps boycott makes me happy.”

168 Even Karl Kautsky, editor of Die Neue Zeit, the Socialist organ, saw the Lumpenproletariat as “awash in Schnapps”, as compared to the beer drinking socialist (James S. Roberts, Drink, Temperance and the Working Class in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1984), 87).

169 Der Arbeiterfreund 46 (1906): 8 and Arbeiterwohl (1893): 55.

Now, the overall goals of dining halls and/or Volksküchen were not simply the curbing of alcohol consumption and the provision of healthy food, though these would remain central throughout the period from 1890-1914. By the turn of the century, and particularly by 1910, reformers had realized that providing pleasant surroundings would not only encourage the residents to remain at home where their free time could be somewhat regulated, but also could serve the cause of reform in other ways. An elegantly appointed dining room could serve as a means to an aesthetic education as well, something that will be discussed in greater detail in regard to the style chosen for the exterior of many of these buildings.

Where dining halls even less than a decade earlier had been fairly simple affairs, the dining room of the Düsseldorf Ledigenheim (1910/11) provided the ambiance of a tasteful middle-class restaurant. In contrast to a cavernous room with rough-hewn wooden tables and benches, or even the long tables and canteen-like interior of the Dankelmannstrasse building built less than a decade before, the Düsseldorf Ledigenheim included tables of varying sizes, some circular and some rectangular, which were all ringed by matching wooden chairs and decorated with patterned tablecloths. In addition, the elegant paneling and stenciled decoration on the walls highlighted the tall ceiling of the room, and decorative

(electric!170) light fixtures brightened the room, exhibiting a geometric Jugendstil combined with a style that recalled the turn of the nineteenth century, both of which were favored by reformist circles at the time171.

170 The use of electric lights in the Düsseldorf building is notable, as this was still somewhat rare in German cities in 1910, further indicating the progressive nature of the building type. In short, cutting-edge technological measures taken complimented the socially progressive agenda of the Ledigenheim.

171 Die Bauwelt no. 19 (1911): 25.

Libraries

In addition to a dining space, it appears that the inclusion of a space for reading and/or obtaining books was a non-negotiable element in every Ledigenheim built by a reform organization from the beginning of the construction of this variant. From 1890 to

1914, every reform Ledigenheim encountered contained either a reading room or a library, and very commonly both. Additionally, when both were included, at least one of the spaces was open to the general public, as was the case of the Stuttgart Ledigenheim of 1890, which included a private reading room for residents, and a Volksbibliothek open to the general public and residents172. In the case of the contemporaneous Frankfurt Ledigenheim, the second floor not only contained a number of rooms for reform organization meetings and educational purposes, but also a Volksbücherei (small public library), which contained a modest selection of books, but many newspapers for the perusal of residents and the public.

This tradition of placing public library spaces in reform Ledigenheime was continued in buildings constructed after the turn of the century, with larger and more lavishly appointed spaces indicating greater investment by municipalities and reform organizations in the provision of these spaces. For example, the Volksbibliothek of the Dankelmannstrasse building in Berlin-Charlottenburg (1906), both of which were supported by both the municipality and a local reform organization, was integrated into the Ledigenheim building, but was primarily accessed via a passage, nearly ten meters long, the entrance to which was nestled between several storefronts on the left side of the façade of the Ledigenheim. This passageway led to a large central courtyard with a fountain, where the entrance to the large public library, including reading room, circulation desk and stacks, could be found.

172 Weyls, 352/124.

Interestingly, in this case the library was actually more accessible to the public than it was to its residents, as there was no access via the interior of the Ledigenheim proper and while the entrance to the residence was located on the same courtyard as the library, the courtyard was actually bisected by a brick and wrought iron fence, dividing the entrance to the

Volksbibliothek and the Ledigenheim proper (the fence even bisected the centrally located fountain), which required that residents even enter the Ledigenheim via a separate passage leading to the street.

In this case, the actual reading room was fairly simple, with long tables arranged at the center of the room with chairs around them, while books and periodicals were in built-in shelving ringing the room in the manner of the reading rooms of academic institutions, or even the nearby Staatsbibliothek. Yet, the decoration of the room was fairly sparse, consisting only of the built-in shelving and the windows along the side of the room bordering the central courtyard.

However, Volksbibliotheken, particularly by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, were not generally as simply appointed as the Dankelmannstrasse building, and the reading room and library of the Düsseldorf Ledigenheim (1910/11), located on the ground floor of the building next to a suite of rooms for relaxation, was a case in point, just as it served in regard to dining halls. It was particularly elegantly decorated in a combination of a geometric Jugendstil and the loosely classical style of um 1800, as was the rest of the building, including the aforementioned dining room, the ramifications of which will be discussed shortly. In this space the ornamentation was largely kept to the wall above the bookshelves, and the decoration consisted of wallpaper or stenciled paint along the border of the ceiling, as well as vertical panels of a complementary pattern spaced at regular intervals. Of course, the general arrangement of space reflected the typical

arrangement of a library space, such as was also reflected in the arrangement of the

Dankelmannstrasse Volksbibliothek, with long tables arranged lengthwise, while books and periodicals could be located in built-in shelving ringing the room173.

Importantly, such an elegantly decorated and furnished space would otherwise not have been so easily available to the lower middle class and working class residents, had the

Ledigenheim not existed. Nor would the surrounding citizenry have had such easy access to such carefully curated holdings, if Ledigenheim Volksbibliotheken had not existed.

Certainly, as mentioned in chapter one, the goal of such libraries was not only to help educate the less economically fortunate members of society, but also to encourage the saving of one’s wages by providing an alternative to the purchase of so-called Schundliteratur, penny- dreadfuls and similar offerings that could be purchased on installment plans. It was essentially a way to cultivate bourgeois tastes and habits, such as frugality (i.e. not buying trashy novelettes on installment) and the pursuit of education, in the lower middle and working classes. In fact, it was widely accepted by contemporary reformers that an abundance of books in a carefully appointed library and/or reading room would foster

“…einen fröhlichen Ton, gemeinsame Erholung, edle Geselligkeit”174.

Thus, what can be obtained from a brief foray into the literary lives of Ledigenheim residents (and the surrounding community) is that reading, particularly when focused on elevating literature and other educational materials, supported the ultimate aims of the supporters of Ledigenheime, the elevation of the working classes and lower middle classes through a pastime accepted by middle-class reformers. This generally meant that the books,

173 Newspapers arranged on wooden sticks at one corner of the room were also displayed.

174 Oberregierungsrath Falch, “Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime vom Stadtpunkte der Inneren Mission der evangelischen Kirche (Versammlungsbericht)” in Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 153. Translation: “…a joyful tone, communal recuperation, noble camaraderie.”

newspapers and journals on offer, reflected both the goals of the builders and the class of worker housed, and that the offerings were carefully vetted and controlled, and certainly not representative of all that was on offer at the time.

Thus, it is helpful to begin then with what did not feature in a Ledigenheim library, rather than what did. It is also worth noting that there is no record of residents having been in control of their reading material, and no mention of any way by which they could petition to have more works added. In keeping with such libraries’ educational and supposedly elevating effect, “Schundliteratur”, or penny-dreadfuls were banned from Ledigenheim libraries, despite, or perhaps because of their affordability and popularity with the general public175. In this battle against trash-literature, the supporters of Ledigenheime were not alone, for as late at March 1916, “…the army published a central list from Berlin banning

135 individual titles or series of penny dreadfuls”176, and the South German Evangelical

Juenglingsbund held a meeting specifically concerned with the “fight against trash-literature, the cinema, and other dangers to youth”177.

Another genre thought to be dangerous, and thus not included in Ledigenheim libraries, was the literature published by leftist political groups, including the socialist journals Die Gleichheit and Die Neue Zeit, edited by Clara Zetkin and Karl Kautsky respectively178. However, the restriction of such literature from Ledigenheim libraries was hardly necessary, for such highly theoretical and radical journals, which also included the

175 Levenstein’s survey reported that 33.8 percent of workers read Schundliteratur in 1911 (Levenstein, 392).

176 Derek Linton, Who Has the Youth Has the Future (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 206.

177 “Kampf gegen Schundliteratur, Kinematographen und andere Jugendsverderber” (Rundschau: Monatschrift für Jünglingspflege (1911): 78).

178 Richard J. Evans. Proletarians and Politics: Socialism, Protest and the Working Class in Germany Before the First World War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990), 97, 141.

Sozialistische Monatshefte, were not widely read by workers. Instead, daily party newspapers and speeches were means by which socialists successfully communicated with workers179.

Instead of the much-feared Schundliteratur and contemporary socialist publications, a general breakdown of popular reading material of the typical Ledigenheim library clearly exhibits an emphasis on educational works and literature. Holdings typically included daily newspapers and some journals, the latter primarily of a scientific, business or otherwise practical/applied nature, though the majority of books were titles that are generally considered to be classics in literature. This is a reasonable breakdown of holdings, as

Ledigenheim libraries were intended to bridge the gap between the city and state libraries, which were more focused on academic titles than elevating the taste of the public through the provision of literature180.

In fact, the names of authors who appear over and over in a 1912 survey

(Levenstein’s) show the variety of reading material and relative level of quality, with a decided emphasis on works of classic literature and sociology, including: Nietzsche, Schiller,

Goethe, Haeckel, Darwin, Kant, Emerson, Ibsen, Malthus, Heine, Schopenhauer, Byron,

Grillparzer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Zola, Gorki, Fichte and, of course, the Bible.

Interestingly, works by Bebel, Marx, Kropotkin and Lassalle were also generally deemed acceptable, though these were certainly somewhat politically controversial offerings.

However, it appears that such works, besides being highly theoretical, were so well-known by 1900 as to render their inclusion relatively unproblematic.

However, as mentioned before, it was not only what reading material was on offer, but the way that the library space was decorated and arranged that was of the utmost

179 Evans, 141.

180 Arbeiterfreund (1912): 460.

importance to the groups supporting the construction of Ledigenheime and their included libraries. The interiors of the libraries were also intended to provide residents with an education in aesthetics, namely contemporary bourgeois taste in interior decoration.

Employment Agencies

In addition to a Volksbibliothek and Volksküche, the Düsseldorf Ledigenheim also included an additional provision that served both residents and the surrounding community, an Arbeitsnachweis, or a municipal employment agency or labor exchange that helped to place workers, both skilled and unskilled, with companies needing employees181. The inclusion of an Arbeitsnachweisstelle in a Ledigenheim was a relatively rare development182, far less common than the inclusion of either a Volksbibliothek or Volksküche, though similarly helpful to both residents and the community, particularly during times of economic upset, and one that was growing in popularity by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century. In fact, by the end of 1912, there were 383 communally supported Arbeitsnachweise in Germany, in addition to private ones supported by employers, which both coordinated labor referrals and also observed the local labor market for the government. Thus, the Düsseldorf Ledigenheim

Arbeitsnachweisstelle was but one location in Düsseldorf, and apparently the only

Arbeitsnachweisstelle located in a Ledigenheim within a citywide network that helped 40,082 workers find employment in 1912183. Again, although rare, this indicates growing and unprecedented level of comfort with municipal involvement, directly tied to the

181 Der Arbeitsnachweis in Deutschland: Zeitschrift des Verbandes Deutscher Arbeitsnachweise no. 3 (1914): 56.

182 I have found less than a dozen examples where an Arbeitsnachweisstelle was noted, though this does not mean it was not integrated into buildings that had been constructed earlier sans Arbeitsnachweisstelle.

183 Der Arbeitsnachweis in Deutschland, 56. It is unclear how many Arbeitsnachweisstellen existed in Düsseldorf at this point, only that a reform Ledigenheim was one such location.

Ledigenheim, in the lives of working class and lower middle class individuals in an effort to ease hardships and social tensions, an involvement that would culminate in the establishment of a central employment exchange office with the outbreak of World War One, coordinating all the Arbeitsnachweise of the nation184.

Private Spaces in Reform Ledigenheime

However, not all provisions included in reform Ledigenheime were influenced by the needs of the local community and the residents. Instead, numerous communal elements, as well as private spaces, were intended primarily to benefit the young men residing in the building. However, in contrast to other variants, the focus of these spaces was not on professional education, or even the cultivation of sense of class solidarity related to the typical resident’s professional status as an artisan, but on creating comfortable and healthy surroundings that would encourage individuals to feel at home while educating them to expect such surroundings185. Although occasionally residents were provided with communal spaces only open to residents186, the primary way by which this was undertaken was through the creation of private or semi-private spaces, namely apartment-like bedrooms, which complimented the more public and communally based offerings of the Volksbibliothek and

Volksküche.

184 Der Arbeitsnachweis in Deutschland, 56.

185 Catholic groups also sought to provide a homelike space, but in general there was more of an emphasis on spaces employed for educational purposes, such as drafting rooms.

186 Bowling alleys were a very rare occurrence in reform Ledigenheime (they were relatively ore common in Catholic Ledigenheime), though this did occur. For example, a bowling alley was provided for the use of the residents in the Düsseldorf Ledigenheim, which was located in the basement (Mitteilungen des Rheinischen Vereins für Kleinwohnungswesen 6 (1910): 23-25). This was similarly the case in the Kaiser Wilhelm Ledigenheim of Essen (Essen Stadtarchiv 155 229, Akten betreffend Evang. Ledigenheim Weberplatz).

Thus, from the 1890s to the First World War, the single room was posited as the archetype to follow, due to its optimal amount of privacy and the potential for the resident to make a home through the application of personal touches. Indeed, by the turn of the century, the model had become the Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim, not only for its inclusion of a Volksbibliothek and Volksküche, but also for its ideal sleeping arrangements, as the majority of the rooms, 285 out of 309, were single rooms, all of which were “well decorated” and furnished with a “good” mattress, a table with two chairs, a wardrobe, bed linens, a woolen coverlet, and a stand with washbasin and washing pitcher187.

Yet, the positioning of the single bedroom as the ideal formulation does not indicate that all reform Ledigenheim residents were supplied with rooms that were well appointed or private. Instead, the provision of bedrooms of varying sizes and price-points within a

Ledigenheim underscored the slight economic and class differences that existed within the somewhat homogenous residency of a reform Ledigenheim. Certainly, while bedrooms of different sizes and prices allowed some mixing of slightly different socio-economic classes

(as did the semi-public and communal spaces), residents would have been patently aware that a man residing in a single bedroom, most likely drawn from the lower middle class or holding a good (and permanent) position as an artisan or skilled worker, was the social superior of a (generally younger) journeyman artisan or skilled worker in less stable employment. However, as will be discussed later in this section, the housing of men with the potential to move up in society, as symbolized by movement from a shared room to a single room, was central to the overarching goals of the supporters of reform Ledigenheime.

187 There were also twelve double rooms and twelve triple rooms, and as we will discuss shortly, rent, which included heat and electric lighting in residents’ bedrooms, as well as breakfast, varied from ten to fifteen marks a month dependant upon whether the room was a single, double or triple room. However, as most of the residents resided in single rooms, most residents paid around fifteen marks a month (Generalakten, Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 042, Nr. 26245, item no. 3).

However, in the 1890s, during the first decade of intensive discourse surrounding the construction of reform Ledigenheime, several models of Ledigenheim construction were posited in an attempt to determine what was feasible, one of which differed significantly from the model provided by the Dankelmannstrasse building cited above. At the beginning of the construction of reform Ledigenheime, the primacy of the single bedroom had not yet been established, as the Frankfurt Ledigenheim on the Galluswarte of 1894 shows. When examined with a view to what would be positioned as the model Ledigenheim after the turn of the century, the bedroom arrangements of this building certainly seem less than ideal. For example, four double rooms on the third floor were organized in a home-like fashion188, while the majority of residents resided in a less ideal situation, in single sleeping compartments built of thin wooden partitions that measured 1.5 meters wide and 2.5 meters long189. While one could consider the sleeping compartment as a kind of compromise, a less expensive solution that still allowed residents a bit more privacy than sharing a room, it obviously remained less desirable than sharing a permanent and home-like room, which is indicated by the fact that these compartments were considerably less expensive than the double rooms on offer190. Additionally, these sleeping cabins were less private than they initially appeared, as they shared a window with at least one other compartment, and although the walls of the compartment stretched nearly to the ceiling, it is highly unlikely that the partitions fit so precisely into the window frame and windowpane as to provide a sound proof barrier. Unfortunately, men rarely had access to the same compartment from

188 “wohnlich eingerichtet” (Bautechnische Zeitschift 19 (1904): 309).

189 This is important, as the promoters of the building note that each man is therefore allowed 35 cbm, where most military and industrial Kasernen and similar buildings only provided 15-20 cbm (Bautechnische Zeitschrift 19 (1904): 308).

190 Single compartments were located on the second floor, while four double rooms were on the third floor. Rents ranged from 1.50-1.80 Marks a week for a second floor sleeping compartment to 2.10 Marks for the more solidly built double rooms on the third floor (Bautechnische Zeitschift 19 (1904): 309).

day to day and could not read in bed, as the individual chambers were not electrified. The final indication that these rooms were less desirable and intended for the less economically well-situated residents of the Ledigenheim was that the apartment of the house inspector was located directly across from the sleeping compartments191.

In fact, the employment of sleeping compartments was more in keeping with British practice than German efforts, specifically the Rowton House movement, which was another reason why, while this form was employed due to its supposed economy, it was nevertheless seen as an imperfect solution. As the Industrial Revolution impacted Britain decades earlier than Germany, the housing of single people was a problem the British had grappled with earlier than their German colleagues, and consequently, numerous publications on the

Ledigenheim cited British innovations as a precedent for German constructions. In fact, reformers often appealed to national pride and a sense of foreign competition to stir municipalities from their complacency. Several speeches given at the Schlafstellenwesen und

Ledigenheime Conference in Leipzig in May 1904 cited reforms enacted in Great Britain, particularly England and Scotland, illustrating that Britain continued to serve as a reference point on many fronts, and not just the colonial, naval and economic, as is often cited.

Specifically, the development of the British Rowton Houses of 1893 were noted in numerous German publications as a model to the urban reform Ledigenheime of Germany in the 1890s, though Italy and Austria also created similar buildings with basic sleeping compartments, or Kabinen. The economic success of the British buildings allowed supporters of German municipal and reform organization built Ledigenheime to point to the

Rowton House example as a sound economic choice and to critique those individuals who

191 Here it is useful to note that this inspector was not positioned across from the more well off residents of the third floor, but where the bulk of the residents would be housed, and potential problems could arise. His apartment is also useful for comparison to what typical housing for a middle class person was expected to be composed of: three rooms, a hall, a private toilet and a kitchen.

did not support Ledigenheime, even then they were properly administered and practically built (and furnished) municipal building projects. For example, largely due to its the low cost of its construction, the “Kabinensystem” was advocated by some reformers, including the

Königliche Schulrat in Posen, J. Radomski, author of Über Fürsorge für ledige Arbeiter in Posen192.

However, although ostensibly less expensive to construct, these sleeping compartments carried higher economic risk than the construction of permanently walled rooms, as they, and hence the Ledigenheim, could not be as easily converted into another type of building, the hotel. In fact, the possibility of converting a failing Ledigenheim

(should this occur) into a hotel assuaged the fears many supporters of Ledigenheime had regarding their investment (apparently turning it into a greater for-profit enterprise would not work---it would not appeal to the middle classes writ large---as as a traditional

Ledigenheim it already functioned as philanthropy at five percent)193.

In addition, and more tellingly, the criticisms of this model betray the emphasis that

German reformers placed on serving the single men who made up the elite of the working class and the lower middle class. This is because, in contrast to the typical individual served by reform Ledigenheime, German reformers believed that the Rowton houses served members of the lowest level of society, specifically the Arbeitsscheuen and Arbeitslosen (work shy and out of work), though this was not actually the case. Instead, German reformers conflated a form of mass housing serving a similar social group, albeit one serving the elite of the working class rather than the lower middle class, with the so-called common lodging

192 In this aforementioned publication, he considered this to be the next best thing in comparison to a true single room, a suitable and less expensive option, particularly when each Kabine had a length of 2.55 m and a width of 2 m, and held a bed, wardrobe, washing table, chair and table. According to the author, such a Kabine had “alles, was er (ein Mann) braucht und kann nach seinem Geschmack leben”, though he conceded the Kabine also must be arranged as to have a window to the exterior and one’s own entrance (J. Radomski, Über Fürsorge für ledige Arbeiter in Posen (Posen: W. Decker and Co., 1911), 7).

193 Essen Stadtarchiv 155 229, Akten betreffend Evang. Ledigenheim Weberplatz.

house, which served the lower members of the British working class. In contrast, for the supporters of the German reform Ledigenheim (in contrast to German employers), the focus remained on the creation of a home and the cultivation of bourgeois propriety for their workers, ideally through individual rooms that functioned almost as homes within the larger home194. Consequently, German reformers qualified their praise for this British model as only useful as a starting point, upon which improvements suitable to German life and the

German worker could be made. To advocate for a model that did not appear to provide any impetus to an ascent into the lower middle or middle class would have been to abandon one of the main tenants of the German reform project, the support and embourgeoisment of those who stood between the middle class and the bulk of the working class.

Thus, the general consensus amongst reformers was that the single room was the most preferred solution195, and if this was not economically feasible for all (which it certainly was not), the double or triple room was acceptable (though as we will see in chapter three, the double room was feared in Catholic circles for its supposed encouragement of homosexual practices). In short, nearly any room of permanent appearance was preferable to the sleeping compartment196, provided that this room was complimented by a number of other rooms serving as places of entertainment and education197.

194 Similarly, the author of a treatise on mass housing for young men felt that a single bedroom (as opposed to shared bedrooms or even Kabinen) is the best, considering “…dass viele Menschen auf den Besitz eines eigenen Raums einen sehr hohen Wert legen, dass es vielerlei Lebenslagen gibt, wo der einzelne sich am liebsten allein sieht in seinen vier Wänden” (Altenroth, 100).

195 Schweitzer, in his publication on Catholic Ledigenheime, depicts his ideal room layout, and tellingly, these are either single rooms or triple rooms (Schweitzer, 112).

196 As mentioned earlier, this indicates a clear shift from the large sleeping halls of many industrial Ledigenheime, which has provided little privacy or sense of home to residents.

197 Of course, there was also an economic argument to be made for the provision of closed rooms, as opposed to sleeping halls in the manner of the Rowton House. A Dr. Singer at the Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime conference of 1904 noted that single rooms were less risky, because, as previously mentioned, if

Therefore, from the mid-1890s, reform Ledigenheime commonly employed of a variety of rooms within which the single room was privileged and the double room was an acceptable option. However, it is worth noting that a building with a majority of single bedrooms was a bit of an anomaly, even as late as 1904, and certainly in the 1890s. For example, when the Stuttgart Ledigenheim was built in 1890, the rooms were evenly split between single and double rooms, and these rooms were considered by proponents to be well furnished (gut eingerichtet) and acceptable for the time198. They typically contained not only two individual beds (quite an improvement for one used to sharing a Schlafstelle!), but in addition, included a personal lockable wardrobe and chair, a shared washing table and a square table with storage drawers. In the rooms that only housed a single resident, the furnishings were the same, except that a sofa replaced the second bed. Of course, the level of privacy provided was reflected in the rent the residents paid, which included breakfast and varied from two to three Marks per week for single occupancy (or about eight to twelve

Marks per month), and 1.20-1.60 Marks for double occupancy per week (or about 4.8-6.4

Marks per month)199.

This model of providing rooms of varying sizes was retained even decades after the first time it was employed, despite the privileging of the single room model in the discourse surrounding the reform Ledigenheim. For example, the Düsseldorf Ledigenheim, built two decades later (1910/11), offered four different lodging options, although in keeping with the

the Ledigenheim did not prosper the building could easily be turned into a hotel, as he reported had already occurred in the case of a Ledigenheim in Berlin (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (1904), 183).

198 Deutsche Bauzeitung 26, no. 89 (Nov. 5, 1892): 546.

199 Deutsche Bauzeitung 26, no. 89 (Nov. 5, 1892): 546 and Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 45. Thus, residing in the Stuttgart building in a single occupancy room was less expensive than renting a similar space in the Dankelmannstrasse building. However, such numbers can be misleading, as Dankelmannstrasse was built over a decade later, when inflation had pushed overall costs up, and it was also located in the comparably more expensive city of Berlin.

increasing emphasis on privacy for the supposed elite of the working class, the number of single rooms far outnumbered the number of doubles, triples or sleeping halls200, the latter of which were clearly designed for less well-off residents or transitory artisans. Interestingly, although the rent for these spaces was staggered to reflect the amount of privacy provided, lodging in a sleeping hall at nine Marks a month was not significantly less expensive than renting a triple at eleven Marks, or a single room at fifteen Marks, further encouraging lodging in a single or double room, or at least giving those residing in less salubrious surroundings the impression that upward mobility within the home was possible201.

Yet, one must note that the relative affordability of a single room in the Düsseldorf

Ledigenheim had been made possible by the fact that privacy and the decoration of the communal spaces had been privileged over the provision of decorative details that would have created a home-like atmosphere in the bedrooms, despite the fact that contemporaries, while referring to “simple” furnishings and decoration stated that the bedrooms presented a

“cozy” appearance202. Now, this does not mean that the rooms were unfurnished203, but that overall impressions of the rooms were of functional spaces with little character, as

200 The home included 139 single rooms, twenty-eight double rooms, sixteen triple rooms and only one sleeping hall for fourteen men (Zeitschrift für Wohnungswesen (1912): 96).

201 Zeitschrift für Wohnungswesen (1912): 96. Prices include breakfast coffee but not other meals (though these were available on the premisis), the cleaning of bedrooms and the changing of linens and hand towels, though not heat or light, indicating that the prices charged could be misleading to potential residents (Reichsarbeitsblatt 11(1913).

202 Zeitschrift für Wohnungswesen (1912): 96. Of course, not everyone was so obliging, as the author of Ledigenheime für weiblicher Erwerbstätige notes that the rooms were fairly small and the included furnishings made them seem smaller (Klara Trost, Ledigen-Heime für weibliche Erwerbstätige ; Eine Forderung aus d. Kriegswirtschaft mit Grundrißbeispielen (Hannover: Deutsche Bauhütte, 1918), 12).

203 One can refer to the furnishings of all the room, as those of a triple bedroom were identical in appearance to a single room (which was 2.30-3.30 meters square and three meters high). A triple contained three individual iron bedsteads, a mirror, a large shared wardrobe with three doors (it appears that each resident would have his own section of the wardrobe), a table and three chairs. It also contained a set of three basins, one ewer, a single soap-dish and three towels. Additionally, the room included a large window for light and air, complete with floor to ceiling curtains and a decorative valance at the top of the window (Zeitschrift für Wohnungswesen (1912), 96).

exemplified by uncovered linoleum floors, a lack of pictures, and a single hanging electric lamp204. Instead, this seems to indicate that in the case of the Düsseldorf building that largest amount of money was earmarked for the construction of other amenities, from technological and hygienic elements to the decoration of semi-public spaces.

In contrast to the model provided by the Düsseldorf Ledigenheim, one can note numerous decorative touches to the private upper floors and single bedrooms of the slightly more expensive Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim, something that was advocated by most contemporaries. For example, small paintings decorated stairwell walls, the doors of individual bedrooms and even the bedroom wardrobes. In bedrooms, men were provided with the requisite bed, table, two chairs, a wardrobe, bed linens and woolen blankets, as well as a washstand with a washbasin205, though residents were allowed to and actually encouraged to decorate their rooms with pictures, flowers, and even potted plants206. Thus, even though bringing one’s furniture was disallowed in all of the Ledigenheime consulted in this work207, in the ideal formulation of a reform Ledigenheim, residents were to be allowed to help create a place where they could feel comfortable and be at home.

In fact, the majority of reformers realized that both privacy and the small comforts provided within individual rooms could play as large a role as the inclusion and appointment

204 Zeitschrift für Wohnungswesen (1912): 96. One would think that if the promoters of this building wanted to highlight its homey, as opposed to its hygienic and functional character, they would have had the room photographed with at least a rug or some decorations.

205 A single bedroom in the Kaiser Wilhelm Ledigenheim on the Weberplatz in Essen circa 1913 included similar furnishings, which had become typical of reform Ledigenheime, including a white enameled or painted metal bedstead with linens and pillow, a large wooden wardrobe, a set of hooks and a table covered with cloth, upon which an image was propped (Rheinische Blätter für Wohnungswesen und Bauberatung 12 (1916): 40-43).

206 Generalakten, Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 042, Nr. 26245, item no. 3.

207 This prohibition of bringing one’s furniture (generally on the grounds of hygiene in an era where a wooden bedstead was problematic due to the fact that it could house vermin) was most likely a moot point in any case, considering that single men would have had little opportunity to obtain such possessions. After all, it was the establishment of the marital home that was associated with the accumulation of possessions, primarily via the bride’s dowry and trousseau.

of the communal spaces in attracting residents and the creation of a pseudo-familial environment that would mold good citizens. The success of a reform Ledigenheim was not only the result of competitive pricing and numerous room options, nor even determined by the communal provisions, but also attributable to its cleanliness, friendliness, and, above all, the provision of “Bequemlichkeiten” that lent the Ledigenheim a domestic appearance and feeling208.

Technological Provisions and Massing

In noting the importance of cleanliness209, reformers were alluding to the fact that

Ledigenheime not only needed to be clean and sanitary places due to the large numbers of residents living in close proximity to one another, but also that the well designed

Ledigenheim was to be distinctly different from the unhygienic Schlafstelle. Unknowingly, they were also pointing out the fact that from the beginning, reform Ledigenheime were even providing elements that were relatively rare in middle class homes, much less working class ones, as reform Ledigenheime, from the beginning of their widespread construction in

1890, nearly always provided residents with the most advanced technology, ranging from electric light to central heat210, and from well-ventilated spaces to numerous other services and spaces that served the interests of hygiene, including but not limited to: laundry services

(a Wäscherei was located in almost every reform Ledigenheim), and specific spaces to air one’s

208 Arthur Dix, “Ledigenheime” in Conrads Jahrbücher für Nationalökonimie und Statistik (III Folge, Bd. XXV, Jena: Gustav Fischer Verlag, 1903), 494, 510.

209 Dix, 494, 510.

210 This is remarkable because in 1910, only a small percentage of Berliners had access to electric light (Dix, 510).

clothing, clean one’s boots and even oneself211. We will see that while certain provisions remained constant, those that could be improved upon certainly were, indicating that advances in knowledge and technology were readily applied to this building type212, positioning it to serve as a model for hygienic housing. In fact, the Dankelmannstrasse

Ledigenheim of Charlottenburg was actually featured as a model of technological and hygienic advancement only three years after its completion at the Hygienic Exhibition of

Dresden in 1911, a venue where reformers of numerous persuasions came together to discuss solutions to the problematic state of housing and hygiene in Germany213.

However, well before the Hygiene Exhibition, as early as 1892, reformers were noting elements in Ledigenheime that would remain standard in the reform variant over the next several decades, such as heated rooms and bed linens that were washed and changed every week214. In a trend that was also continued, residents could even have their clothing laundered and boots cleaned on site for a nominal fee215. Additionally, the provision of sinks, footbaths, showers and tubs for residents, as implemented in the Frankfurt

211 Of course, this was largely due to economies of scale, as contemporaries readily noted (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (1904), 182-184 and Dix, 494).

212 Changes to the hygienic surroundings typically occurred when new building materials intended to create a more hygienic environment had become available or inexpensive enough to employ. For example, instead of the bare pine floors of earlier Ledigenheime, linoleum was used employed in the Düsseldorf Ledigenheim in order to make cleaning easier (Zeitschrift für Wohnungswesen (1912): 94).

213 Generalakten, Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 042, Nr. 26245, item no. 3.

214 Deutsche Bauzeitung (Nov. 5, 1892), 546, Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 45. As regards the inclusion of heat and linen service in the rents charged at the Dankelmannstrase Ledigenheim, see Haus für Ledige Männer, 33.

215 It cost 20 Pfg. extra per week for the washing of clothing and cleaning of boots (Deutsche Bauzeitung (Nov. 5, 1892): 546 and Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 45). Of course, the Düsseldorf Ledigenheime built two decades later also offered a service that would wash residents’ clothing for an extra fee (Zeitschrift für Wohnungswesen (1912): 96). In this case, special cleaning rooms with attached verandas were included for the airing of clothing and the cleaning of shoes and boots by the residents themselves (Zeitschrift für Wohnungswesen (1912): 94).

Ledigenheim216, would be continued217, though in the case of the Kaiser Wilhelm

Ledigenheim, all the showers and toilets were provided on each upper story for the convenience of the residents, rather than in the basement, as was typical218.

Despite the importance of the aforementioned services and provisions, the most important elements of a Ledigenheim concerned ready access to fresh air and natural light, made possible by carefully planned layouts and advanced ventilation systems. In particular, the massing of buildings to create large courtyards made certain that light and air was not in short supply, and even in the earliest Ledigenheime placed in dense inner city centers, the buildings were planned with large internal courtyards, upon which nearly all bedrooms windows could open.

For example, the Frankfurt Arbeiterheim of 1894 only covered three-fourths of the

431 square foot building lot, allowing for a large courtyard for additional light and air219. In the case of the Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim, typical for Ledigenheime built a decade later, the massing of the building on the lot, though typical of Berlin Blockrandbebauung220,

216 As was typical for a Ledigenheim of this era, the sinks were located across from the sleeping cabins, as well as in a readily accessible room nestled between the ground floor and first floor, which also included two footbaths, two showers and two tubs (Deutsche Bauzeitung (November 5, 1892): 546).

217 For a discussion of the showers that were provided in the basement of the Düsseldorf building, see the Zeitschrift für Wohnungswesen (1912): 96.

218 The showers are located in the northwest corner of the building on each upper floor.

219 For comparison, in Berlin the only requirement for a courtyard was that it be large enough for a fire truck to enter and turn around in.

220 This refers to the construction of housing around a central courtyard.

provided the rear of the building with light courts for ventilation and extra lighting221, none of which were shared with any neighboring buildings222.

What this meant in typical practice, as exemplified by the Dankelmannstrasse building, is that regardless of whether a resident chose a single, double or triple room, he would have been comfortable in a room that varied from three by two meters to three by five meters223, which was provided with ample light and fresh air via windows that fronted either a large courtyard or the street224. Furthermore, special circulation channels within the walls connected halls, toilets and loggias, where men could air their clothing, to fresh outside air. All of these elements helped to create what a contemporary reformer termed a “clean and sound home”225.

Issues of Control and Reform Ledigenheime

This is not to say that the emphasis on the creation of comfortable and hygienic surroundings negated the need for rules and regulations in reform Ledigenheime. In fact, elements of control existed in combination with beneficial programs and provisions,

221 Rudolf Walter, Archiv der Freistudenten-Bewegung: Die Studentenheimfrage (Heft 2, Leipzig: Demme, 1909), 32. These two rear light-courts located at the rear of the building measure 7.87 by 13.04 m and 13.16 by 7.87 m respectively. In comparison, the main courtyard near the front of the building measures 12.50 by 12.60 meters.

222 The basic shape of the building, composed of two sets of parallel wings, one set running from the east to west of the building and the other north to south, made these relatively large internal and unshared courtyard spaces possible.

223 Single rooms measure 3.05 by 2 meters, double rooms 3 by 3.5 meters, and triples 3 by 5 meters. In the case of the Kaiser Wilhelm Ledigenheim of 1913, the individual bedrooms were roughly three by four meters, and measured 3.5 m in height. The bedrooms were also positioned along the outside walls, which provided each with a window, while internal corridors of about 2.5 meters width connected the rooms and provided for further air circulation (Essen Stadtarchiv 155 229, Akten betreffend Evang. Ledigenheim Weberplatz).

224 Only twelve bedroom windows faced to the north, which was not preferable, though even they were availed of morning light.

225 “reinliches und gesundes Heim” (Altenrath, 116-117).

something that certainly would not have been foreign to the residents of the homes, for as mentioned in chapter one, systems of “registration and documentation”, as well as the requirement to abide by certain rules were a part of everyday German life during the

Kaiserreich, all of which served to “strengthen the official grip on the population”226.

However, the supporters of reform Ledigenheime did not see the majority of rules; such as those guarding against the entry of women into Ledigenheime227, restrictions on times that residents and visitors alike could enter228, and the position of a housemaster or porter at the entrance229; as ways to control the residents. Instead, they believed that they were creating a well-ordered space that would positively influence the habits of the residents.

In the parlance of the reformers who built reform Ledigenheime, they were not restraining, but training the residents, particularly those who were supposedly demoralized by

Schlafstellenwesen and who merely needed to reacquaint themselves with “eine feste Ordnung und Zucht”230. They believed that they were simply bringing out the nascent qualities of the residents, who, after all, were candidates for admission into the middle class.

In fact, the supporters of the reform Ledigenheim were quick to dismiss any comparison of their residents, or their Ledigenheime with those built by other groups. In the case of Ledigenheime built by employers, reformers felt that these buildings served a

226 Evans, 15.

227 Of course, women could frequent the other areas of the complex open to them, such as the Volksbibliothek and Volksküche.

228 Entry was restricted to between 5am-12 midnight, though an exception was made for those who worked at night, and were then allowed to enter between midnight and 5am. Anyone entering the Ledigenheim outside of the appointed hours was fined 10 pfennig, payable to the night porter. In addition, no visitors were admitted after 10pm and all visitors were required to leave by 11pm (Dix, 356/128).

229 For example, most housemaster or porter apartments were located within view of either the main door, or the staircases leading to the bedrooms. This was the case for the Kaiser Wilhelm Ledigenheim of Essen, which contained an apartment for a housemaster at the intersection of the home’s two main staircases, as well as the Frankfurt Ledigenheim on the Galluswarte.

230 Wiedfeldt, 108. Translation: “ a strict sense of order and discipline”.

lower class of men (unskilled and lower paid), men who needed to be controlled. For example, the Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim allowed relatively free circulation within its walls, in contrast to Ledigenheime by employers, such as the Bochumer Verein’s

Stahlhausen. Regardless of the location of the resident’s bedroom on any of the upper floors, he could reach his room without much difficulty, considering that the hallways of each of the upper floors were connected at numerous points. In contrast, at Stahlhausen, circulation within the building was sharply controlled and one could not reach one bedroom wing from the other without first exiting the building and re-entering231. Additionally,

Catholic Ledigenheime were considered by reformers as too closed to society, almost cloister-like, whereas the reform Ledigenheim was conceived as neither a cloister nor a military barracks (Of course, Dix’s admonition that a reform Ledigenheim was not a monastic complex did not prevent the Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim from being referred to as a “Bullenkloster” by local residents of the area)232.

Thus, this emphasis on training the residents, rather than strictly restraining their movements and activities, would come to be reflected in rules thought to encourage the practice of good habits and customs233. Certainly, it can be surmised that residents felt these rules were reasonable, and that supporters deemed them sufficient, as any critique of the house rules was not attributed by the administration to the residents themselves, but to

231 Of course, the multiple points of connection within the Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim were also construed by supporters as a fire-safety measure that made the building easier to quickly evacuate.

232 Bullenkloster is a slang term that refers to a type of building housing single men, and to Ledigenheime in particular (Rudolf Walter, Archiv der Freistudenten-Bewegung: Die Studentenheimfrage (Heft 2, Leipzig: Demme, 1909), 39).

233 “Die Hausordnung ist weder die einer Kaserne noch die einer klösterlichen Gemeinschaft, aber sie sorgt für die Aufrechthaltung der guten Sitte” (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 511).

Social Democratic ferment, or “outsiders”234. In fact, the house rules of the

Dankelmannstrasse building remained unchanged until 1930, when regulations concerning political activities were tightened, largely due to the threat of sectarian violence in the surrounding neighborhood in Charlottenburg235.

Exterior Style and Aesthetic Education

Complimenting attempts to mold residents’ conduct through education (or reeducation) in middle class cultural norms and habits, an undertaking supported by the establishment of house rules, the supporters of reform Ledigenheime intended to educate residents and the surrounding community aesthetically. In keeping with the importance placed by reformers on one’s physical surroundings, which they believed aided in the molding of a moral character, the beauty of the buildings, particularly the exterior style chosen, was of great concern236.

From the 1890s, reformers stressed the fact that reform Ledigenheime were not to appear stark and bare, which would have provoked a comparison with the spare and barrack-like structures built by industry, but instead insisted their relative massiveness could be mitigated by tasteful decoration that would aid in the creation of a more domestic

234 A gathering of 1913 in the Charlottenburg Volkshaus (a building frequented by Social Democrats and Gewerkschafter) had aired complaints of the building that then resulted in a response from the administration of the Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim. In this letter the Dankelmannstrasse administration directly accused the political journal Vorwärts (the organ of the Social Democratic Movement) of provocative activities, even the making of threats (Drohungen) (Ralf Zünder, Vom Ledigenheim zum Studentenwohnheim (Berlin: Studentenwerk, 1990), 40).

235 During this time, residents were required to carry an ID that marked them as residents, and political activities of any kind, from the distribution of flyers to putting up of posters, was prohibited (Zünder, 45).

236 After all, as mentioned in chapter one, the Ledigenheim was considered to be a “Kulturfortschritt”, a phrase that indicates the importance placed on the maintenance and elevation of culture to reform society (Speigel, Ledigenheime, Referat für Verein für Sozialpolitik, 425).

appearance. For example, the Frankfurt Arbeiterheim of 1894, though criticized for its bedroom arrangements, was singled out for praise by reformers over a decade later, largely due to its attractive exterior. In this case, the mansard roof helped to deemphasize the height of the building and provided a “cozy” impression, while the dark stone window trim and light stucco decoration gave the building a polished appearance. In addition, the gables, executed in the style of “old-Frankfurt”, helped the building blend with its surroundings, particularly with the historic architecture of the city237.

However, by 1900, a reform organization would not have been singled out for praise if they simply supported the construction of a Ledigenheim that appeared to be a home, rather than a barrack (or a Ledigenheim built by an employer). While the buildings constructed after this point retained a domestic appearance, one began to see an emphasis on the employment of the style um 1800 (also referred to as Biedermeier), which drew from the vernacular architectural traditions of Germany circa 1800, specifically the homes favored by the urban bourgeoisie238. A building constructed in the style of um 1800, as popularized at the turn of the twentieth century, can be considered a variant of Neoclassicism, one that was marked by a number of features: overall symmetry (or balanced asymmetry), a light color, a hipped roof (complete with eyebrow windows and gables), delicate decoration, and pilasters that provided the building with a feeling of elegance and lightness.

For instance, the Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim provided a perfect illustration of this favored reform style, in regards to the simple and modest materials used (glazed brick with sandstone and terracotta accents), the application of dormers and a pediment, the limited and softly pastel color palette (brown, cream and white), as well as an overall

237 “alt-frankfurterische” style (Spetzler, 309).

238 Of the twenty-two reform Ledigenheim published on between 1890 and 1914, well over half utilized a style that referenced the early nineteenth century Biedermeier period and its associated style.

symmetry softened by delicate decorative details239, such as the carved fabric swags, rose garlands and stylized placards, which hung from stone ribbons and were emblazoned with words referring to the aim of housing working men, Tagesarbeit and Abendsgäste240.

Similarly, the Kaiser Wilhelm Ledigenheim not only formed an integral part of the social and aesthetic regeneration of the Weberplatz241, but was also characterized by

Wasmuths Monatsheft in 1915 as a “…malerische Gruppierung der mass bei durchaus einfacher, sachlicher Behandlung der Umrisses” and noted that the architects chosen,

Kuhenn and Büssing, were known for the design of architecture that was “…durchaus sachlich und selbständig an die gute Überlieferung aus der Zeit um 1800…guten alten

239 The façade was divided into nine general areas: three vertical divisions indicated by string courses and other decorative devices, and a central horizontal section containing the main entrance to the largest courtyard of the building, as well as two symmetrical, and slightly inset sections to the right and left of the main body of the building (Generalakten, Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 042, Nr. 26245, item no. 3). However, one must note that some of the exterior decoration of the Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim was added to the original construction, which included the sandstone rose garland frieze and other details in terracotta (Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung no. 17 (1925): 203).

240 This translates to “work during the day, guests at night”. Of course, these placards can be read not only as an honoring of labor, but also that they are specifically honoring day labor, and by extension, not (primarily unskilled) night-shift workers. However, considering the emphasis on housing skilled workers (even white collar workers) by the supporters of Ledigenheime, this certainly is not surprising.

241 In fact, its architects drew up designs to connect the Ledigenheim to the Kreuzeskirche, an ensemble that would then function as a node for future building projects. These drawings show several different designs for the Ledigenheim and the surrounding buildings, although in each case the components corresponded stylistically. One variant depicted the Ledigenheim and the other elements as rural Heimatstil buildings, while the other reflected the building as it was constructed (Essen Stadtarchiv 155 229, Akten betreffend Evang. Ledigenheim Weberplatz).

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Baukunst”242. Certainly, the Kaiser Wilhelm Ledigenheim was considered to be both a representative work of the architects, as well as an example of style of um 1800243.

So why was this particular style held up for praise and emulation? It was a simple and unpretentious style of building according to proponents, an alternative to the architectural bombast and faux-grandiosity that marked much of the official and domestic architecture of both the Gründerzeit and the Wilhelmine era, the exemplar of which was the pseudo-Baroque Reichstag building finished in 1894 by Paul Wallot in Berlin. While reformers construed the latter as a symbol of Germany’s moral and cultural decline, this reform style popularized around the turn of the nineteenth century was thought to intrinsically connote honesty and morality due to its clarity of form and vernacular roots, as well as the fact that it arose during the last era within which the “good taste” was exercised before it was supposedly corrupted in the nineteenth century.

Certainly, these connotations appealed to reformers who felt that the built environment could elevate and train the tastes of the population. The style was also appealing as its middle class roots and relatively modest appearance were deemed appropriate to the class of individual to be housed within, namely the men who reformers sought to imbue with middle-class values and mores. Finally, the employment of the style of

242 These two phrases translate as, “…an artful grouping enabled by the simple and sober handling of the contours” and “…throughout sober and self-reliant und selbständig delivery of the heritage of the time of circa 1800…of the good old building tradition”. In general, the work of the architects was characterized by Wasmuths as one where masses were grouped in proper relation to one another, facades were restful, with properly measured distances between solid and void, and roofs were solid and worked well with the rest of the composition. In general, the solidity of their buildings were enlivened with gables, passages, arcades and forecourts, but presented a functional and unified whole (Wasmuths (1915), 64).

243 The Kaiser Wilhelm Ledigenheim presented a symmetrical and balanced façade. The building was covered by a moderated mansard roof, though a dormer, positioned at the center of the façade and reaching to the fourth upper floor, enlivened the central portion of the mansard roof with its scalloped silhouette and decorative carvings of shells and urns. The rest of the building was primarily decorated through the application of pilasters and simple inset ovals between the simply treated windows. Stringcourses divided the building horizontally, marking the position of each story, and balancing the strong vertical emphasis provided by the pilasters (Wasmuths (1915), 64).

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um 1800 recalled an era within which (supposedly) social divisions were not felt as strongly, and where art and life formed an organic whole. In short, the building of a reform

Ledigenheime in the style of um 1800 linked the appearance of the building to not only social reform, but also aesthetic reform, both of which were part of a larger cultural project of societal regeneration.

The Location of Reform Ledigenheime within Municipalities

While the physical form that reform Ledigenheim took was refined through time, culminating in a celebration of a style that recalled the early nineteenth century, the type of locations of these buildings remained fairly static over the period of 1890-1914, with an emphasis on suburban and semi-rural locations. In fact, it was relatively rare that they were positioned in the old urban core, as were their Catholic counterparts, nor were they largely placed in rural settlements, as Ledigenheime built by employers had been. Instead, most reform Ledigenheime were located in the first ring of suburban development, often where there had been open land to build upon and where the land in question had generally been owned by municipalities, rather than speculators, who then sold or leased the property to the non-profit building societies responsible for most reform Ledigenheime.

Of course, though the building of a Ledigenheim in central urban location was relatively rare244, it did occur, as can be seen in the example of the Protestant Ledigenheim on the Weberplatz in central Essen, even as late as 1913. However, it must be noted that the

244 This was more common for Catholic examples, the earliest examples of which dated to several decades before the construction of the first reform Ledigenheime. For example, as we will see later in this chapter, by the time the Breitestrasse Ledigenheim was built, the urban center of Cologne was already completely built up, and consequently, the Ledigenheim was a rebuilding of an earlier Ledigenheim of the Kolpinghaus organization, a project that necessitated the purchase and expansion into neighboring buildings.

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Weberplatz building was not built in a section of Essen that was desirable, even considering its central location. It was inexpensive due to the fact that the Weberplatz was located in the former Armenviertel (poor quarter)245, and consequently, the centrally located square had become a popular place to locate the Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen supported by local reformers.

Certainly the location of a Kreuzeskirche on the Weberplatz (built 1894-96), similarly supported by Protestant authorities, was an encouragement to those seeking to build a

Protestant Ledigenheim, albeit in concert with the municipal government246.

Far more common was the trend of building Ledigenheim in new areas of the city, or even the outer suburbs, as illustrated by the example of the Ledigenheim of Bau Verein zu

Hamburg, Aktiengesellschaft (1910), located in the Sanierungsgebiet of the southern Neustadt, on the corner of the Rehoffstrasse and the Herrengraben. Due to the fact that this land was in a developing and non-fashionable district of Hamburg, the cost of the land only constituted one sixth of the total building cost, totaling only eight million Marks247. However, and most importantly, the Ledigenheim did not inhabit the entire plot of land purchased by the reform organization, but instead formed one corner of the city block located between the

Herrengraben, Rehoffstrasse und Passmannstrasse structure248. Instead, it was an integral part of a larger project of reform housing, namely the familial apartments intended for the members of the Bau Verein zu Hamburg. In fact, much as the inclusion of a Volksbibliothek

245 Of course, the location of the Weberplatz Ledigenheim was not chosen simply because the land was inexpensive on the northeastern corner of the Weberplatz, but also because of the central location of this square, which was a mere two blocks form the north station (Nord-Bahnhof) and a fifteen minute walk to the south to the main train station (Hauptbahnhof). Largely regular streets in a grid arrangement enabled easy travel in any direction, particularly to other city squares where job opportunities and businesses were located (The Kopstadtsplatz and Pferdemarkt were located less than two blocks to the south-east and the east respectively) (Essen Stadtarchiv 155 229, Akten betreffend Evang. Ledigenheim Weberplatz).

246 Essen Stadtarchiv 155 229, Akten betreffend Evang. Ledigenheim Weberplatz.

247 Hamburg und seine Bauten: unter Berücksichtigung der Nachbarstädte Altona und Wandsbek 1914 (Hamburg: Boysen und Maasch, 1914), 583.

248 Hamburg und Seine Bauten (1914), 586.

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or Volksküche in a Ledigenheim enabled the construction of the latter, in this case (which also included a Volksküche), the Ledigenheim enabled the construction of familial apartments.

Similarly, and as common to most reform Ledigenheime, the second of the two reform Ledigenheime erected by the Verein für das Wohl der arbeitenden Klassen in Stuttgart

(1910) was not placed in the central city and aided a reformist project. The Ledigenheim, located on “ein etwas freierer Platz nach dem Neckartal”, allowed the residents of the

Ledigenheim easy access to the numerous workplaces along the Neckar River, and the location of the land not only meant that the size of the property was larger than anything available in the center city, but also that it had been owned by the municipality of Stuttgart, which was then able to donate the land to the cause of reform. Most importantly, this allowed the construction of contemporaneously built Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen (provisions for public health and welfare) on a single piece of property by a number of reform organizations, creating a kind of campus of reform. For example, the Ledigenheim was positioned in front of a Säuglingsheim (foundlings’ home) and a public swimming pool and bathing facilities erected by the non-profit Stuttgarter Badegesellschaft 249. Although in this instance these Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen were only enabled, not directly built, by a municipality, we will see that this sort of intensive intervention was becoming more and more acceptable, something that would culminate in the large scale municipal building projects of the 1920s.

After all, it was certainly not unheard of, particularly by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, for a Ledigenheim to exist due to the extensive planning and

249 Taking a closer look at the plan containing the Ledigenheim and Säuglingsheim, one can note the relative positioning of the buildings to the streets they front. While the Ledigenheim, with its large front garden and “court of honor” faces the heavily trafficked Villa Strasse, the Säuglingsheim was positioned in a quieter location at the corner of the Villa Strasse and the Stuttgarter Strasse (a narrower and less trafficked street)) (Bauwelt no. 19 (1913): 26).

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involvement by a municipality, or for one to be situated at an even greater distance from the city center. As an example, the Weissensee Ledigenheim, built in 1911, was located within a semi-rural Siedlung (settlement), the Kommunalen-Zentrum, in Weissensee, a northeastern suburb of Berlin. In this case, the Freizügige Ledigenheim, built by James Bühring directly for the municipality (Gemeinde Berlin-Weissensee), not only formed the southern end of a larger familial apartment block along the Wölk-Promenade, but the block itself formed the eastern edge of the self-contained Siedlung. In fact, unlike most other Ledigenheime, this building can be seen as a component within a larger campus-like complex, rather than forming the basis of a complex of Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen, as exhibited by most reform Ledigenheime250.

Thus, while residents of the Ledigenheim and the familial housing all had access to a general store and the bathing facilities housed on the ground floor and in the basement of the Ledigenheim, numerous other (easily accessible) elements benefitted all residents of the

Siedlung, from a large garden laid out in the English style only twenty meters from the

Ledigenheim across the Wölk-Promenade, to an enclosed gymnasium (Turnhalle) with stage and changing rooms, an open area for gymnastics (Turnplatz), and a restaurant with an attached beer garden, all of which were only sixty meters from the Ledigenheim. In addition, to the far northwest, only ten meters past the western edge of the Turnhalle, lay an additional Volksbadeanstalt (public bathing facility), as well as an Ober Real-Schule (high

250 Moderne Bauformen 2 (1915): 214. This “campus” treatment was given to other similar forms of municpal housing from roughly the same time, such as the Altleuteheim (old people’s home) in Buch, to the north of Berlin, which was similarly funded by the city of Berlin (Ludwig Hoffmann, “Ein Gang durch das Altleuteheim in Buch” Wasmuths (1915/16), 7). The complex was unified artistically, from the stylistically similar buildings, to the sculptures and the layout of gardens, exterior pavilions and fountains. All were of a simplified Baroque style with some whimsical touches, such as an old woman on the roof of the gatehouse (263) and a bear (207). In addition, the numerous blocks of housing for elderly couples and single people were arranged along four formal interior gardens and a long central allee leading from the entrance building to the administration building and enclosed supplementary dining hall. Certainly, as no young people would be in residence, there was no need for gymnasium buildings, nor a secondary school, as at Weissensee. Instead, a Trauerhaus for mourning the dead was provided.

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school). Completing the entire ensemble were the buildings that would keep the buildings running and the residents safe, a Pumpstation (pump station) and Feuerwache (firehouse)251.

As one can see, the Kommunalen Zentrum Siedlung was a self-contained and somewhat self-sufficient village with numerous provisions for the health, education and entertainment of the residents. Essentially, it can be seen as the culmination of the reformist drive to remake the housing and surroundings of the lower middle classes, made possible through the initiative and full support of the municipality of Weissensee.

Locations of Reform Ledigenheime within the German Empire

While the locations of reform Ledigenheime varied to some degree within municipalities, a factor largely dependant upon the price and availability of land, the best indicator of where a Ledigenheim would be located within the German Empire was a strong municipal government, particularly one that was active in reforms having to do with housing.

In fact, numerous publications make clear this connection between municipal activity intended to make quality housing more affordable and assessable to the lower middle and working classes252, not only through direct construction, but also through the provision of municipal land and low-interest funds to gemeinnützige Bauvereine253.

251 Moderne Bauformen 2 (1915): 214.

252 Cities that had enacted land reform as of 1901, in order to help curb property speculation and thus make housing more accessible and affordable, were: Mühlheim am Ruhr, St. Johann (Baden-Württemberg), Frankfurt am Main, Aschaffenburg (Bavaria), Würzburg (Bavaria), Glauchau (Saxony), Freiburg im Breisgau, Mannheim (Baden-Württemberg) (Neue Untersuchungen über die Wohnungsfrage (1901), 213).

253 Cities noted for making low interest funds available to gemeinnuetzigen Bauvereinen, which often were the form by which reform Vereine built Ledigenheime took shape, included as of 1901: Charlottenburg, Erfurt, Kiel, Münster, Siegen, Barmen, Remscheid (previous four Nordrhein-Westfalia), Saarbrücken, München, Ulm (Baden-Württemberg), Freiburg, Mannheim (Baden-Württemberg), Giessen (Hessen), Lübeck, Braunschweig (Niedersachsen), Jena (Thuringen), and Cöthen (Sachsen-Anhalt) (Förderung der Gemeinnuezigen Bautätigkeit durch die Gemeinden (1901), 213).

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As far as strong municipal governments active in housing reform were concerned, certain cities and regions were far more active than others, and as a result, these were the locations where the greatest numbers of reform Ledigenheime were constructed. Namely, one can note a clear pattern of municipal activism and Ledigenheim construction in the western and southern regions of the Reich, stretching from the cities of the Rhine-Ruhr region to those of Hessen, Baden-Württemberg and Hamburg, with a relatively high level of activity in Bavaria, Saxony, Thuringia and the city of Berlin (though not Brandenburg)254. In fact, of the reform Ledigenheime built (and published on) between 1890-1914, the city of

Berlin held the greatest number with twenty-five, then Frankfurt am Main with nine,

Hamburg with five, and finally Stuttgart, Munich and Dresden with two. In all of these cases, the city governments, as well as the regions within which the Ledigenheime were found, had been noted as progressive (though at this point not Social Democratic, as mentioned in chapter one), and were particularly active in the provision of

Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen255. In contrast, the local governments of West Prussia and Posen were inactive256, and in general, the east remained a backwater in regards to the construction of

Ledigenheime257.

254 Soziale Praxis no. 39 (1903): 1048.

255 Soziale Praxis no. 39 (1903): 1048.

256 Certainly, reformers in regions and cities where Ledigenheime were not as prevalent were aware of this unbalanced situation. For example, a reformer in Posen noted that there was no municipal Ledigenheim in Posen as of 1911, or even one supported by a non-profit organization such as a building society, in contrast to those of Stuttgart, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Charlottenburg, Ulm, Fürth and Frankfurt am Main (RJ. Radomski, Über Fürsorge für Ledige Arbeiter in Posen (Posen: W. Decker und Co., 1911), 5).

257 This trend of inactivity could partially be explained by the lower population density of many of the heavily agricultural areas of the east, but it was also due to a bias against workers living in the east. For example, workers in the east were generally seen as less demanding, used to very little, and rather unsophisticated, particularly when compared to workers from the Ruhr and much of Western Germany, and thus less need to be done for them, at least according a Dr. Thiel (an official) and a representative of the Bochumer Verein (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 171 and 180).

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Conclusions on the Popularity and Overall Success of the Reform Ledigenheime

As has been considered throughout this chapter, the reform Ledigenheim was posited by advocates as a highly rational and logical response to societal and economic pressures, a solution thought to be capable of raising lower middle class residents into the middle class, for the benefit of the society in general258. Certainly, reformers considered their intervention as superior to similar buildings erected by employers and Catholic organizations259, due to a number of reasons, ranging from somewhat homogeneous class of men housed and the provisions the buildings could provide to the local community, all without resorting to charity.

Additionally, the reform Ledigenheim appears to have been highly popular with the sort of young men reformers sought to house and aid, as illustrated by the example of the

Düsseldorf Ledigenheim (1910/11), which housed the majority of its 233 residents for an extended period of time260. This was a remarkable feat when one considers that the majority of the residents were between twenty and thirty years of age, with the second largest group falling under twenty years of age, precisely the ages when single young men tended to be the most transient, particularly when they were unhappy in their surroundings261.

Of course, this does not mean that all those who sought residency in a reform

258 A Protestant pastor, writing at the turn of the century in Berlin, noted that “…contenders in the battle for youth were often more interested in controlling the future than they were in fostering the welfare of young workers…” (Pastor Dehn, in Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 5). Basically, Pastor Dehn was stating that although these reforms could aid young single men, they ultimately served the interests of the urban bourgeoisie.

259 As we have briefly discussed in regards to the class of the men supported by these secular reforms, one can again notice a certain hierarchy of housing tacitly acknowledged in the listing of various types of Ledigenheime, the most exalted of which was to serve the elite of the working class and lower middle class. 260 Zeitschrift für Wohnungswesen (1910/11): 93.

261 Reichsarbeitsblatt 11, no. 6 (June 23, 1913).

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Ledigenheim were served by this housing type, and certainly, the numbers built could not hope to truly stem the tide of substandard lodgings, nor could a building type entirely remake society in the way the reformers wished. Yet, despite its failings in widely regenerating and reforming society, this architecturally sophisticated solution remained an important model for a number of reasons. It not only indicated a new level of engagement in the provision of housing and social programs by reform organizations and municipalities to residents, but also provided the surrounding community with a variety of resources, in which one can see the genesis of the social programs that would come to fruition in the

1920s, as will be discussed in the conclusion of this work.

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CHAPTER THREE:

CATHOLIC LEDIGENHEIME AND THE KOLPINGHAUS MOVEMENT

Introduction

As we have seen throughout this dissertation, Ledigenheime were developed and supported by a variety of groups from the middle of the nineteenth century through the

1920s. Despite significant differences, all of these groups, ranging from employers and muncipalities to denominational and secular reform organizations, shared the basic premise that the housing of single people needed to be reformed via the construction of

Ledigenheime. In particular, as highlighted in chapter one, reform organizations, both secular and denominational, had come by the 1890s to see the Ledigenheim as a necessary and architecturally sophisticated solution to a number of societal problems. Consequently, the buildings constructed by these varied groups shared a number of formal characteristics, as well as an emphasis on regenerating and reforming society by serving the cream of the working class, namely the skilled worker and emerging white-collar worker262.

However, among the groups who supported the construction of Ledigenheime, particularly Ledigenheime serving the skilled working classes and lower middle classes, involvement by Catholic organizations, namely so-called Gesellenvereine, predated the

262 Despite the reformers’ praise for the Ledigenheim as an aid (Hilfsmittel) to the health of society, they warned against considering that it was a cure all (Allheilmittel). (Certainly, the medical analogies are telling.) Basically, they considered the construction of Ledigenheime to be a step in the right direction in the larger battle of housing reform.

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involvement of other reformist groups, both Protestant and secular, by over twenty-five years. In fact, Ledigenheime built by Catholic organizations for a largely Catholic residency number among the earliest interventions in housing for single people263, and as such,

Ledigenheime built by Catholic organizations, to a far greater extent than contemporaneous

Ledigenheime by employers (such as Stahlhausen of Bochum), served as a model for the buildings constructed beginning in the 1890s by municipalities and reform organizations264.

Even among denominational Ledigenheime, Catholic philanthropic organizations supported the building of far more Ledigenheime than their Jewish and Protestant counterparts265, a fact that is significant in itself as well as reflecting the power of the organizations and church that supported this construction. Additionally, though not so exclusive as to reject members of other Christian groups266, even housing August Bebel in his youth267, Catholic

263 Msgr. Dr. Schweitzer, Generalpräsis der Gesellenvereine, refers to six decades of work in 1911, indicating that the construction of Catholic Ledigenheime dated to the 1850s (Hospize und Ledigenheime der kath. Gesellenvereine (M. Gladbach, Volksvereins Verlag, 1911), 3). In fact, the first Ledigenheim was not a purpose-built building, but a property bought in August 1852 on the Breite Strasse in Cologne called the “Lendersche Haus” (Heinrich Festing, Adolph Kolping und sein Werk (Freiburg: Herder, 1981), 63). The first purpose-built Ledigenheim would take the place of the aforementioned building and was constructed in 1865 (Festing, 45).

264 Secular reform groups even held up Catholic Ledigenheime as an example to be emulated as late as 1900 (Derek S. Linton, Who Has the Youth, Has the Future: the Campaign to Save Young Workers in Imperial Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 72), as from the beginning of their construction, the focus was on the skilled worker. However, these Catholic homes began as homes for wandering youthful apprentices and artisans (Zugewanderte Handwerksgesellen) and only began to serve a more permanent population of young men in the 1890s, primarily apprentices working, but not living with their masters (Concordia (1911), 431). This is to say that they began to function more and more as Ledigenheime for a semi-permanent population, albeit primarily of skilled workers, just as did contemporaneous municipal Ledigenheime. However, this shift is a reflection of changing economic conditions rather an indication of a reconsideration of the social class Catholic Ledigenheime were to serve.

265 The Jewish population of Germany during this period was not large enough to support massive construction campaigns, nor was there a tradition of young Jewish men becoming journeymen or apprentices. In contrast, Protestant Ledigenheime tended to fall under the auspices of reform organizations that were only nominally religious, that is to say in name, and often this was not even highlighted in the name of the building. Additionally, Protestant Ledigenheime, as opposed to charitable homes for youths, were not considered en- masse by contemporaries, as were Catholic Ledigenheime.

266 Schweitzer, 14. Schweitzer made no mention of Jews or other groups.

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Ledigenheime were specifically geared to the needs of Catholics, in stark contrast to the

Freizügige Ledigenheime and even Ledigenheime founded under (nominally) Protestant auspices discussed in chapter two. Thus, this chapter will deal with precisely what constituted a Catholic Ledigenheim and the significance of this building type, including the distinct reasons for this early intervention, the overall numbers of and locations of these buildings, their development through time, and the impact of Catholic Ledigenheime on other Ledigenheim variants, namely buildings built by secular and Protestant organizations in concert with municipalities beginning in the 1890s.

We will see that as the overall goals of the supporters of this building type remained relatively static over the decades268, even as the number of Catholic Ledigenheime grew exponentially from the single building in 1861 to hundreds by the turn of the twentieth century269, growth that was accompanied by notable stylistic and structural changes to the buildings. However, even in the earliest buildings, which dated to the mid-1860s, one can discern the typical elements that were always included in Catholic Ledigenheime, from bedrooms to baths and other hygienic provisions, from communal rooms for healthful recreation to spaces where educational opportunities were provided. Rules and regulations governing the lives of residents also remained somewhat constant, as briefly discussed in

267 August Bebel, co-founder of the German Socialist movement, briefly resided in a Catholic Gesellenheim in 1860, and reported that while Catholic in focus, the atmosphere in was one of religious tolerance, noting that “…herrschte daher auch damals gegen Andersgläubige volle Toleranz” (Festing, 65).

268 The only significant shift concerned the decreasing transiency of residents by the turn of the century.

269 As of 1906 there were 236 Catholic Ledigenheime in the German Reich, and by 1909 this number had grown to 249. This relatively large number of Ledigenheime allowed the Catholic supporters to house one tenth of their target group (Schweitzer, 15). In regards to the Ledigenheime noted in the contemporary literature and included in the appendix to this work, 28 were built between 1860-1914 and of these, the seven constructed after 1900 featured prominently (These included the Ledigenheime of Neuss am Rhein (1910), Altenessen (1910), Marxloh-Bruchhausen (1910), Münster (1905), Cologne Central on the Breitestrasse (1910), Cologne St. Antoniushaus (1905), Strassburg i. Elsass and the Kolpinghaus of Düsseldorf (1909). Certainly, Schweitzer wrote in 1911 that building activity had grown enormously in the last half-decade (“…die Bautätigkeit…in den letzten halben Jahrzehnt bereits enorm gesteigert hat”) (Schweitzer, 3).

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chapter one. In general, only the employment of increasingly sophisticated spaces intended for a single use, as well as developments in décor commensurate with changing tastes marked the passage of time.

The Origins of the Catholic Kolpinghaus Movement

The founding of the Catholic Ledigenheime movement can be traced to a single figure and very specific set of circumstances. In 1851 the Catholic priest Adolph Kolping

(1813 (Kerpen)-1865 (Cologne)) founded what was to become “die älteste soziale deutsche

Organization für die arbeitenden Stände” in response to concerns that skilled workers, specifically artisans, were losing both social and economic standing in industrializing

Germany, leading to a further decrease in the quality of their work270. This dislocation of a previously important social class not only threatened the stability of the existing social hierarchy, but also weakened an important link to traditional work practices. In particular, the preservation of the artisan class was deemed important because such workers were seen as the embodiment of German self-sufficiency and hard work. Specifically, Kolping saw the main cause of the decline in Handwerk271, and the status of the artisan, as attributable to the advent of the practice of Schlafstellenwesen, or what he termed “wildes Herbergswesen”272.

Kolping’s solution was therefore to maintain the craft tradition of Germany by both

270 “The oldest German social reform organization concerned with the working class…” (Schweitzer, 3). Kolping had himself been an apprentice in his youth, becoming a priest only in 1845 at the age of thirty-two (Heinrich Festing, Adolph Kolping und sein Werk (Freiburg: Herder, 1981), 25).

271 “…die Ursache der moralischen Fäulnis im Handwerke” (Concordia (1911): 431).

272 This translates to “uncontrolled lodging“ (Concordia (1911): 431). This is borne out in the fact that the Präsis of the St. Josephshaus preferred to take youth from out of town, who certainly would have turned to Schlafstellenwesen, and only took in youth with parents in the area if they could prove that their house was too small (Die Arbeiterwohl 12 (1892): 116).

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maintaining and “rescuing lost” craftsmen273, most commonly the apprentice or journeyman274, by housing him in a building geared to his needs and those of the surrounding Catholic community, the Gesellenheim or Ledigenheim275, the first of which was built in 1865 in central Cologne on the Breitestrasse276.

However, Kolping did not immediately undertake to found Ledigenheime, but instead realized that he would have to garner support from numerous Catholic groups and create an organizational framework for the project at hand. Although he founded the first

Gesellenverein, an organization intended to simply band together young Catholic Handwerker, in

Munich as early as 1851 and purchased the “Lendersche Haus” on the Breite Strasse in

Cologne, with a view to converting the building into a Ledigenheim277, work really began at the general meeting of the Catholic organizations of Germany, held in Münster in 1853.

This is the moment and place where Kolping was able to call upon his Catholic colleagues to advocate for and support the creation of Gesellenvereine, local organizations of young artisans headed by Catholic notables that would advocate for local Ledigenheime, working

273 “das bereits Verlorene wieder zu gewinnen” (Schweitzer, 17). Kolping specifically employed the analogy of the Christian shepherd and his flock being employed to appeal to his Catholic colleagues.

274 Although these homes for “junge Fabrikarbeitern und Handwerkslehrlingen” were generally less hierarchical than those for adults (Die Arbeiterwohl (9th Jarhgang, 1889), 18), admittance was strict and largely class-based, centering on the apprentice or journeyman artisan. Charitas secretary Dr. Salzgeber of Berlin, speaking at the Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheim Conference of 1904, writes that these men were required to have a Wanderbuchlein, basically a record of their residencies and employments during their Wanderjahre (wandering years), which they would then show upon admittance to the Ledigenheim. This restriction leads one to see these early buildings almost as if they were private clubs or societies (Salzgeber, Schlafstellen und Ledigenheime, 155).

275 A Gesellenheim is identical in conception to a Ledigenheim and these terms for the buildings were used interchangeably by those who constructed and supported them (Die Reichsarbeitsblatt (1913): 431).

276 Schweitzer, 18. Although it may not have been the very first, this building was the earliest recorded Catholic Ledigenheim and was given extensive coverage by Schweitzer in his publication of 1911. It was also in this publication where he referred to six decades and 72 years of work (Schweitzer, 3, 52) and mentioned the construction of Gesellenheime in the 1850s and 1860s (18), which leads one to believe that there may have been earlier buildings, though these most likely served as meeting places in the manner of a Volksheim, rather than housing residents, as did “true” Ledigenheime.

277 Festing, 63.

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within the community to gain support. Additionally, this was a very auspicious time for

Catholic projects in general, which partially explains why Kolping was able to garner a large level of support relatively quickly. The 1850s and 1860s saw a reinvigoration of both monasticism and Catholic lay organizations in Germany, something that would come to be targeted in Bismarck’s Kulturkampf of the 1870s, the ramifications of which will be discussed shortly278. However, Kolping required that these local Gesellenvereine, and the

Ledigenheime they would eventually build, be organized under the auspices of a larger umbrella organization centered in Cologne entitled the Verband katholischer Gesellenvereine

(though it was also known as the Kolpinghaus organization after Kolping’s death in 1865 in honor of the founder of the movement). Essentially, this “mother” organization served a kind of quality control function, placing a number of lay-leaders at every level of organization279, thus ensuring that all Catholic Ledigenheime built retained the ultimate goals of the founder of the movement.

In fact, the centralized and hierarchical nature of the organization copied the organization of the Catholic Church in many ways. Essentially, the Church provided a model of the fairly regimented manner by which the organization was to be run. A good example of this was reflected by the strict rules that governed the creation of Catholic

Ledigenheime, put in place by Kolping, and codified by his successors. For example, if a

Catholic organization was to gain the official support of the Kolpinghaus organization for the building of a Catholic Ledigenheim, local supporters had to prove the worthiness of their project to an administrator higher placed in the Kolpinghaus administration, namely at the

278 Michael B. Gross, The War Against Catholicism: Liberalism and the Anti-Catholic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005), 128-129.

279 The Generalpräsis stood at the head of the all Gesellenvereine, with the Dioezesanpräsis responsible for leadership at the diocese level, and the Präsis in charge of each individual Ledigenheim. The term Präsis can be roughly translated as lay leader.

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level of the diocese, rather than the parish. Essentially, supplicants were required to answer a number of questions regarding the future building, from what would be provided to the residents, but also in regard to the financing and practicality of the building, even the availability and cost of the land upon which the Ledigenheim was to be built280, and the questionnaire would then be submitted to the Dioezesanpräsis (local diocese-wide lay leader of the organization), who either approved or rejected the project281. As we will see throughout this chapter, these regulations not only helped to govern what sort of building would be supported, but also where it was most feasible to position it282. This harnessing of local initiative and knowledge, supported by a hierarchical framework that ensured economic success resulted in the astounding growth of the Catholic Ledigenheime movement, from adaptation of the “Lendersche Hause” into a Ledigenheim in 1852, to the first purpose-built building built on the same spot in 1865, to nearly 1,182 buildings and 80,000 active members by 1911283.

280 Generally, it was advised to attempt to obtain land in municipal hands, as this was often the least expensive, at least when compared to the private market. Similarly, for financing, it was advised that a Catholic Gesellenverein utilize the communal Sparkassen and/or Landesversicherungsanstalten for financing, as these could chose to use their money to fund public and private institutions run along the lines of low-profit or non-profit organizations (Schweitzer, 29). In particular, the Landesversicherungsanstalten regularly helped to finance Catholic Ledigenheime. Appartently, the religious character of these institutions was not problematic, and the resulting rates were considered to be very fair: a Zinssatze of 3.5 % and 1.5% Amortisation (Schweitzer, 30). Basically, by such means, Schweitzer was able to calculate that in a medium-sized city of 1911, that the building construction (including furnishings and decoration at 10,000) would cost about 110,000 M, and the land about 30,000 M (Schweitzer, 38).

281 Schweitzer, 27. In fact, Schweitzer’s publication of 1911 is essentially a formalization of these standards and was intended as a guide to potential applicants.

282 Even the way in which resident complaints were to be lodged reflected the hierarchically arranged internal order of Catholic Ledigenheime under the auspices of the Kolpinghaus organization (and by extension the Catholic Church). For example, if a resident wanted to file a complaint or suggest a change, they had to petition the Ordner (an individual who current residents had elected out of a pool of long-term residents), who would then petition the Präsis (Schweitzer, 27).

283 Now, not all members of the local organizations, or Vereinsmitglieder, resided in the Ledigenheime built, though this remained the ultimate goal. Instead, these buildings also served as resource centers for members as well as residents (Schweitzer, 18).

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Locations of Catholic Ledigenheime

The presence of the Catholic Church also had an impact on the location of Catholic

Ledigenheime, for we will see that the majority of these buildings were built in specific geographical regions where there was a large Catholic population and where Catholicism had long been the dominant belief system284. Catholic Ledigenheime were primarily located in the western and the southern regions of the Reich, and of these heavily Catholic areas, the western reaches boasted the greatest numbers of Ledigenheime285. In fact, according to

Schweitzer’s account of 1911, out of nineteen Catholic Ledigenheime built in the German

Reich between 1905-1910, only four were not in the Rhineland or Ruhr286, and of the twenty-four cities researched containing Catholic Ledigenheime as of 1911, seventeen were located in the Rhineland.

One can also note that most of the Catholic Ledigenheime were located in fairly large cities, as Catholic Ledigenheime in large cities tended do better financially than those in smaller towns287. This emphasis on building Ledigenheime in larger cities was also due to the fact that Catholic reformers expected that most young Handwerker would be forced to

284 Note the locations of the Catholic Ledigenheime we will discuss in detail later: Neuss am Rhein (1910), Altenessen (1910), Marxloh-Bruchhausen (1910), Muenster (1905), Cologne Central on the Breitestrasse (1910), Cologne (St. Antoniushaus) (1905), Strassburg i. Elsass and the Kolpinghaus of Düsseldorf (1909). As one can see, the majority of these Ledigenheime were built in regions with large or majority Catholic populations.

285 Schweitzer, 18-20.

286 Two of the four exceptions were located in Catholic Bavaria (Bamberg and Würzburg). The others were located in Hildesheim (Saxony) and Lübeck (Schleiswig-Holstein) (Schweitzer,19 ). My own research identified twenty-four cities that contained Catholic Ledigenheime, of which seventeen were located in the Rhineland. The remaining seven cities were located largely in the south and west in areas with large or majority Catholic populations (Munich, Freiburg im Breisgau, Karlsruhe, Strasburg, Trier), with only Lübeck and Berlin representing the east (Berlin actually had the greatest number of Catholic Ledigenheime with six, though this was due to its massive size and influx of immigrants from Catholic Upper Silesia, and was followed by Cologne with five, and Düsseldorf with three Catholic Ledigenheime).

287 “stehen finanziell durchaus günstig” (Schweitzer, 21).

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move to Grossstädte, due to the educational and training opportunities only available in such locations288. The importance placed on the occupational requirements of residents also impacted the placement of Ledigenheime within the urban fabric itself, either within the central city or within easy reach of it via mass transit.

In contrast to the majority of the Ledigenheime built by other groups after 1890, which tended to be built in areas of new development (even if these areas were technically within the city limits), many Catholic buildings were located in the old inner city, or Altstadt, often near the central cathedral square. This was primarily due to the fact that the these buildings began to be built decades before their secular counterparts, when land was less expensive, and also is a testament to the land-holdings of the Catholic Church and its various organizations, which allowed large Ledigenheime to be constructed in the central city, even after the turn of the century. This was the case of the Lübeck Ledigenheim of

1908, which was positioned on the main thoroughfare, the Paradestrasse. The Ledigenheim was also built next to a new Catholic church, yet within a block of the old Dom und

Zeughaus289.

If a central location was not available however, particularly in the case of a second or third Ledigenheim of a larger city290, special care was taken to position the buildings along a number of streetcar or train lines, with easy access to numerous work locations in the central

288“technisch, gewerblich, kaufmännisch Fortbildung” (Schweitzer, 8).

289 Schweitzer, 65.

290 This was the case of the second Ledigenheim of Münster (1905), which was located on the Ägidiusstrasse and Grüne Gasse, “im neuern Mittelpunkte der Stadt”, whereas the first Ledigenheim was on the Domplatz at the center of the city. Of course, even from the new home, it was still only five minutes to the center of the city (Schweitzer, 60).

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city and the suburbs, as well as the train stations291. For example, the Ledigenheim in

Altenessen on Lindenstrasse 16 (1910) and Düsseldorf’s Blücherstrasse 4-8 Ledigenheim

(1909) were both built on inexpensive land, though care was taken to place both by a stop on the new electric streetcar route292, where access to the central city was available via two different streetcar lines293. Of course, if one did not want to travel into the central city, not only was the surrounding quarter developing rapidly, with small and large Handwerksbetriebe abounding294, the building was located on the same city block and side of the street as a municipal Badeanstalt (bathing facility) Catholic school and Protestant school, as well as within a block of several charities295.

Interestingly, in Cologne, the heart of the Catholic Ledigenheim movement, one can find an example of a Ledigenheim in a central location and one in a more distant position, as was typical in many larger cities with a number of Catholic Ledigenheime. For example, the original Ledigenheim/Kolpinghaus in Cologne was located in the historic city center

291 In fact, train stations, factories and stores were also considered to be important in attracting a clientele from the outset, as the plackets inviting young men to reside in Ledigenheime were placed in these primarily urban locations by both Catholic and Protestant groups (Rundschau: Monatschrift fuer Juenglingspflege und Jungmaenner- Mission (1911), 256).

292 Schweitzer, 80, 67.

293 It was easy to arrive at the main train station (via red line number two) and the elegant areas of central Düsseldorf about one kilometer to the south (shops on Königsallee, theatres and grand gardens near the Corneliusplatz) via the blue-line number one streetcar. Specifically, the red line number two ran from the Hauptbahnhof (from which one could travel in any direction by train) to the Nord-Friedhof and back, with the Blücherstrasse building nearly at the half-way point. A secondary streetcar, the blue-line number one, ran less than half a block to the north along the Münsterstrasse, crossing the red number two at the corner of the Muensterstrasse and Bluecherstrasse. This connected the suburb of Derendorf (to the north to the central city) to the centrally located Corneliusplatz (complete with Bismarck monument, theatres, Hofgarten and fountains), to the elegant shops of the Königsallee, and finally to the Karolinenplatz (with Karolinenhospital) near the Düsseldorf-Bilk train station in the south of the city (Pharus-Plan Düsseldorf, Grosse Ausgabe).

294 Handwerkbetrieb translates to workshop.

295 The Aders’sche Stiftung was located one block to the south and a Martha Stiftung was positioned one block to the north.

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(Zentrum)296, well within the ring roads and ring train lines of the growing city. This building at Breitestrasse 108 dated to 1865, though by 1884 it had expanded into a neighboring building, also on the Breitestrasse. Yet, even this expansion did not provide enough space, and thus in 1910 the building was further expanded through the city block to the

Helenenstrasse running parallel behind the Breitestrasse, as well as fully renovated, including an entirely new façade in the style of um 1800 (as will be discussed shortly). However, at this juncture it is more important to position this building within the urban fabric, noting its central location. Not only was the building located only one-hundred meters to the north of the Neumarkt, but it was positioned along two streetcar lines, the twelve and five, both of which ran to the Neumarkt, one of the busiest squares in Cologne297. In addition, if one were to walk up the Mohrenstrasse less than a block from the building’s main entrance, one would encounter Christoper Street or Komödienstrasse in less than two blocks, both of which led directly to the Dom and the ancient heart of the city, as well as the

Hauptbahnhof298.

In contrast to the central location of the Breitestrasse Ledigenheim, the St.

Antoniushaus at Dagobertstrasse 32 (1900) was positioned to the north of the ancient heart of Cologne, though still within the ring roads and ring parks that skirted the city’s edge.

However, it too was less than a block from a number of streetcar lines (the seven, eleven and thirteen red), all of which ran north and south along the Neusser Strasse. Any of these lines would allow one to reach both the Hauptbahnhof and Dom only half a kilometer to the south, and to reach the northern suburbs of Nippes, Merheim and Niehl, with their growing factory

296 Currently, a portion of the building serves as a hotel Kolpinghaus located at the corner of the Helenenstrasse and Sankt Apem Strasse.

297 As of 1910, eight different streetcar lines converged on the Neumarkt, which was a major transfer location. The eight lines were: 5, 12, L, 24, 23 (red); 33, 39, 37 (blue).

298 Pharus Plan von Köln (Berlin: Pharus Verlag, 1904).

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districts299. Even the industrial regions to the north along the Rhine, such as the Kaiser-

Friedrich-Ufer (now Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer), were easily accessible from streetcar stops located about two blocks to the north of the Ledigenheim300. Of course, Handwerkbetriebe, or workshops where artisans were employed were also readily accessible to the residents of

Catholic Ledigenheime in general, as these places of employment were more commonly located in the Altstadt or first ring of suburbs, and generally reachable by foot if public transport was deemed too expensive or was inaccessible.

However, despite providing ready access to industrial areas or small shops, it is worth stressing that Catholic Ledigenheime were not placed either on land in the relatively less expensive industrial outskirts of burgeoning cities or on factory land, as Ledigenheime constructed by employers for their single employees generally were (as will be discussed in chapter four). In particular, although supporters wanted the buildings to be self-sufficient, the creation of Catholic Ledigenheime were not as driven by the motives of monetary gain, specifically the economic well-being of a particular company, as were buildings built by employers, and those of heavy industry in particular. Instead, the more expensive and pleasant surroundings of the central city or first ring of suburbs were typically chosen, as befitted a higher class of resident, a skilled worker or artisan rather than an unskilled industrial worker.

299 The Pallenberg Ledigenheime discussed in chapter four were located in Merheim Village, in the large northern suburb of Cologne-Nippes.

300 One could then take the 12, 16, 26 and T red lines northeast along the Rhine, or even across the Rhine to Mühlheim and Deutz (future home of Lufthansa and Ford of Germany).

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Class and the Catholic Ledigenheim

Commensurate with the focus on the skilled worker or artisan from the beginning of the construction of Catholic Ledigenheime, it was made perfectly clear by Catholic reformers that the Ledigenheime they supported were not intended for what Marx termed the

Lumpenproletariet. In contrast to contemporaneous Ledigenheime built by employers,

Catholic reformers maintained that Catholic Gesellenheime were different from

“allgemeinen Ledigenheimen für alle Schichten der arbeitenden Bevölkerung”301. They were not “lediglich Unterkunftsstätten, sondern Heime zur Pflege der Gemeinschaft, der

Berufsideale und beruflichen Vorwärtsstrebens…”302.

This was an emphasis that would remain central to the overall project of Catholic

Ledigenheime, and would even intensify by the 1890s and early years of the twentieth century when, as we will discuss shortly, the Kolpinghaus organization began to compete with other groups building Ledigenheime serving the same segment of the population (albeit not focused on Catholics specifically). As late as 1913, as in the 1850s, the overall purpose of these homes remained the “sittlichen, geistigen und beruflichen Ausbildung ihrer

Mitglieder”303. Education was, and remained, central to the Kolpinghaus movement, be it cultural, spiritual or professional. In fact, these aspects of education were not and could not be easily divided from one another, as Kolping believed that retaining traditional practices

301 Translation: “all-inclusive Ledigenheime serving all levels of the working population”.

302 Albrecht, Concordia (1911): 432. This translates to “not only facilities for basic accommodation, but also homes for the community that support the professional ideals and aspirations of the residents”.

303 The cultural, spiritual and professional education of their members (Reichsarbeitsblatt (1913): 440).

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and beliefs could only happen via the economic and educational support of young men during the “Sturm und Drangperiode” of life304.

Specifically, religion, and Roman Catholicism in particular, was considered by the supporters of the Kolpinghaus movement as a means of maintaining social stability in the face of the “increasing religious and cultural wildness” of youth305, which was attributed to the a loss of religious belief. Certainly, Catholicism, and organized religion on the whole, was losing its grip on the majority of lower middle and working class men by the middle of the nineteenth century, a trend that would intensify through the turn of the century. In fact, in a survey of working class men, both skilled and unskilled workers, conducted by Adolf

Levenstein in 1912, over fifty-one percent of respondents stated that they did not believe in

God and no longer attended services, with only twelve percent stating that they did believe, even though the majority of respondents did not officially leave the Catholic or Protestant church for a variety of social reasons306.

In particular, and most dangerous to social stability, was the fact that secularization was strongly correlated with Social Democracy, and that the skilled workers forced to travel from their hometowns to find work were the “vital source for the Social Democrats”, particularly by the last decades of the nineteenth century307. In fact, Socialism not only threatened the social status quo (and even the state), but also directly challenged the Catholic

304 The transition to adulthood, or period of “storm and stress”, was a literary reference to the early Romantics of the 19th century (Schweitzer, 157).

305 Das Arbeiterwohl (1892): 116.

306 Only 6.2% left officially (Adolf Levenstein, Die Arbeiterfrage: mit besonderer beruecksichtigung der sozialpsychologischen seite des modernen grossbetriebes und der psycho-physischen einwirkung auf der arbeiter (München: Ernst Reinhardt, 1912), 353).

307 “…the lot of the impoverished journeymen who were such a vital source for the Social Democrats was so bad in the second half of the nineteenth century that many were indeed compelled to beg or sleep rough at times” (Evans, 11).

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Church by replacing God with reason and the Catholic religious hierarchy with an alternate system of belief. Thus, supporters of Catholic Ledigenheime saw one of the goals of these buildings as being able to convert the socialist elements in Handwerk to serve both the

Church and the State308. In short, Catholic Ledigenheime were to counter such secularization and its attendant evils by both educating their residents, as well as protecting residents from negative elements309, and Socialist agitation in particular310.

Of course, the threat that the Bismarckian Kulturkampf had posed to Catholicism in

Germany can also not be discounted when considering emphasis of Catholic Ledigenheime on bolstering Catholicism. Kulturkampf, which translates to culture war, is a term that refers to the anti-Catholic policies enacted by the Prime Minister of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck, between 1871-1878. Bismarck’s policies primarily sought to limit the power and influence of the Catholic Church, but largely backfired, though it did temporarily stall the building programs of the Kolpinghaus movement. Instead, it antagonized the Catholic population,

308 Schweitzer, 17. One of the stated goals of the Catholic Hermann-Joseph Haus in Cologne was to keep young men from Social Democratic influence (“…Notwendigkeit, sich auch der einer mächtig arbeitenden socialdemokratischen Verfuhrung schutzlos preisgegebenen lehrlinge anzunehmen” (Das Arbeiterwohl (1893), 55). Translation: “…The importance (of counteracting) the seduction of unprotected apprentices by powerful Social Democratic forces”. Interestingly, as the word Lehrling, or apprentice, was used here, it is clear that the focus of Catholic Ledigenheime was on youths, not grown men. This is not surprising considering the majority of “youth savers” were drawn from the centrist political parties of the day, the National Liberals and Catholic Center party in particular (5. Linton). Linton further reports that “Antisocialism was always one of the ideological underpinnings, not only of religious youth activity but also of the efforts of the entire middle classs youth salvation campaign. This antisocialism acquired considerably greater importance with the formation of a Socialist youth movement in 1904” (17, Linton). Certainly, the supporters of Ledigenheime founded under religious auspices, both Catholic and Protestant, shared this commitment to turning young workers away from Social Democracy, although this is more understandable on the side of Protestant reformers, who were more closely allied with the State (particularly during and after the Bismarkian Kulturkampf).

309 Negative elements were clarified as individuals unable to abide by the house rules, and would thus be rejected by the home and its residents. The Ledigenheim in this conception is a bit like a small republic, with its law-abiding citizens and those who have been exiled.

310 This emphasis cannot be overstated, considering that the Kolpinghaus movement even applied for tax- breaks for the organization by claiming that the buildings served as a bulwark against Social Democracy (Schweitzer, 52).

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helping to strengthen the Centre Party311, and helped to spure the construction of

Ledigenheime after pressure from Berlin had abated in the 1880s312.

However, even though the Bismarckian threat only arose in the 1870s, nearly twenty years after the Gesellenheim movement had begun, anti-clericalism was already rampant when Kolping founded the movement. Therefore, although the proponents of Catholic

Ledigenheime, and the leadership of the Verband katholischer Gesellenvereine in particular, professed their lack of political affiliation313, this did not mean that they were entirely apolitical. After all, the leadership of the organization professed to serve both church and state in their own way314, thus indicating that they felt that their allegiances needed to be made clear, something that would not have been necessary, had their been no question of

Catholic loyalty to the State. In a polarized political situation, it certainly would have occurred to the proponents of Catholic Ledigenheime that they ought to focus on taking care of their own, and that the support of cause closely allied with Catholicism was a form of quiet rebellion.

Of course, one must be careful not to overestimate the role that organized religion played in the daily lives of residents (rather than the administration), and there is no evidence

311 Michael B. Gross, The War Against Catholicism: Liberalism and the Anti-Catholic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005), 130.

312 There was a relative lull in active building during the Kulturkampf, with Festing reporting that, “Härter als dieser Bruderkrieg (zwischen Preussen und Österreich) traf der Kulturkampf unter Bismarck den Gesellenverein. Die Arbeit wurde gehemmt…” (Festing, 79). (Translation: “More difficult for the organization than the civil war (between Prussia and Austria) was the Kulturkampf waged under Bismarck. Work was curtailed.) Thus, particularly in regards to the first years activity, there was relatively little growth in the 1870s, and the Kolpinghaus movement only gained momentum from the 1880s on. For example, membership in the Kolpinghaus organization throughout the German Reich rose from 24,600 in 1865 (and 418 local chapters) to only 29, 038 (and 522 local chapters) in 1875, exploding to 55,712 members (and 924 chapters) in 1895 and 84,021 members (and 1,259 chapters) in 1912 (Festing, 81).

313 “Politik und alles, was damit zusammenhängt, schliesst der Verband der Gesellenvereine grundsätzlich aus” (Schweitzer, 13).

314 “auf unsere Weise der Kirche und dem Staate zu dienen” (Schweitzer, 13).

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that Catholic Ledigenheime stemmed the tide of secularism. In fact, religion in Catholic

Ledigenheime seems to have been a secondary consideration to class, for although spiritual education was believed to go hand in hand with other kinds of education, chapels and rooms reserved for religious practice were not given the same amount of attention by reformers, or even space as other aids to social and cultural elevation. Instead, Catholicism can be considered as a compliment the cultural education specific to the Catholic buildings, and education that was linked to the support of the skilled artisanal classes. Religion, like other educational programs, was thus intended to serve as an “erzieherische Mittel”, a means to counteract the dangers of modern life capable of “destroying the life of the soul”315.

In short, every element included in this variant of the Ledigenheim was intended to aid and serve the particular class of workers living in Catholic Ledigenheime. To this end, as described by the Catholic journal Concordia, three types of rooms were necessary:

“Vereinsräume für Bildung und Geselligkeit, Gastzimmer zür Beherbergung reisender

Gesellen und Zimmer für dauernde Unterkunft”316. In particular, the common areas for education and community were of great importance in fostering an ersatz family, and although these spaces underwent slight shifts from the mid to late 1860s to 1914, the majority fulfilled the ideals formulated at the beginning of the construction of Ledigenheime, only slightly increasing in sophistication and number depending upon the scale of the specific Ledigenheim. It is to these specific provisions intended to both educate and build community amongst the residents of Catholic Ledigenheime that we will now turn.

315 Schweitzer, 157.

316 Concordia (1911), 431. Translation: “Clubrooms for education and socializing, guest room accommodations for those travelling through and rooms for permanent accommodation”.

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Communal Provisions for Recreation and Education

The typical Catholic Ledigenheim, beginning in the 1860s and continuing to through to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, contained a multitude of spaces providing a number of resources for residents, ranging from rooms intended to provide for one’s physical, moral and mental well-being. They typically included numerous rooms for the use of the residents, from chapels to bowling alleys, from drafting rooms to meeting halls. As previously mentioned, the multiplicity of specially designated spaces and provisions for residents in Catholic Ledigenheime provided the model for the municipal variants that would arise in the 1890s, the included chapels notwithstanding317. Thus, the Ledigenheim was not only to offer the single skilled worker a place of residence and decent food, but also, and more importantly, would feed him in other ways, particularly in regards to his moral and professional education.

Beginning with the actual provision of food, rather than knowledge, the dining hall was the primary way by which reformers not only sought to create a sense of community by having residents and non-resident members of the organization dine together318, and by excluding the general public319, but also by strictly limiting alcohol consumption. In fact, the primary way by which reformers sought to prevent alcohol abuse on the premises was to

317 Nearly all contained a chapel within, the exception of the Ledigenheim of Neuss: in the case of Strassburg, it was on the first floor above the dining hall, for Düsseldorf it extended from the first to the second floor, in the St. Antoniushaus of Cologne on the ground floor off the rear courtyard, and in the Central Catholic Gesellenhaus of Cologne, it was located on the second floor near the center of the building.

318 For example, the Aschaffenburg Ledigenheim had eighty members, though only ten of these members resided in the Ledigenheim. However, twenty men, both residents and non-residents, were served lunch and dinner daily in the dining hall (Schweitzer, 19).

319 In contrast to the practices of other Ledigenheime, Schweitzer was not in favor of an “open” Speisewirtschaft for Catholic Ledigenheime, meaning that he did not want food and drink to be sold to the general public (Schweitzer, 23). Although this was a money maker for many Ledigenheime, it did not fit into the Catholic reformers’ idea that the Catholic Ledigenheim was a family, essentially closed to and protected from outsiders.

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offer a number of alcohol free options in addition to beer, and not offering hard liqour at all.

Amazingly, it appears that this method of broadening beverage offerings to combat alcohol consumption was highly successful, as within the average Catholic Ledigenheime, nearly six- sevenths of all beverages consumed were non-alcoholic, with beer consumption constituting the remainder320.

Of course, dining halls, a central element in Catholic Ledigenheime from the 1860s, were not only used for the provision of food to residents, but were commonly multi- functional spaces that doubled as meeting or lecture halls and as such, tended to be lavishly decorated321. This was particularly the case for smaller Ledigenheime located in the vicinity of larger Ledigenheim that contained lecture halls322. This was certainly the case of the St.

Antoniushaus in Cologne, which only housed two hundred men and did not include a lecture hall323. Instead, the dining room doubled as a lecture hall for up to one-hundred- twenty men at a time and as such was richly decorated324, complete with imitation mahogany wood and blue mosaic surfaces and three inset busts indicating the allegiances of the

320 Schweitzer, 22.

321 The Ledigenheim of the Katholischen Gesellenhospitiums zu Köln, built in 1865 on the Breitestrasse 108, featured an elaborate wooden vaulted dining hall (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 38-40).

322 Ledigenheime that were very large and contained single purpose lecture halls were located in Strassburg, Altenessen, Neuss, Münster and Cologne (on the Breitestrasse).

323 The nearby Ledigenheim on the Breitestrasse housed over three hundred men and contained a lecture hall. Similarly, the Düsseldorf Ledigenheime did not have a gathering/lecture hall, as there was one located nearby in the larger Central Hospize.

324 Even the billiard room of the St. Antoniushaus in Cologne was richly decorated, complete with an inspirational quote from the founder of the Catholic Gesellenhaus movement, Kolping, which stated that “Religion and Work is the golden foundation of the people” (“Religion und Arbeit ist der goldene Boden des Volkes”) (Schweitzer, 54).

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residents (or at least the supporters): the Kaiser; Professor Cauer, current leader of the

Kolpinghaus movement; and the Pope325.

Of course, even in larger Ledigenheime containing lecture halls and dining halls, the rooms were usually arranged so that they could be connected for special occasions. For example, the lecture hall of the Altenessen building not only included a stage for presentations and meetings, but also could be linked to a smaller dining room via motorized

Rolladen, increasing its capacity to seven hundred people326. In Neuss, the small gathering/lecture hall could be joined to the dining room and Wirtschaftssaal, and even opened to the courtyard terrace during the summer months. Finally, the Cologne

Breitestrasse grand hall, located near the secondary Helenenstrasse entrance, could not only be linked to the dining room, but in a departure from common practice, was even rented out to groups unaffiliated with the Kolpinghaus organization. Generally though, these large spaces serve as meeting places for supporters, not the local community at large, though in the case of Cologne, with a majority Catholic population, these groups most likely would have been Catholic as well.

The second element that nearly always appeared in a Catholic Ledigenheim was the chapel, though when these were missing, the aforementioned gathering halls could also be employed for religious functions. These spaces were intended to underscore the Catholic nature of the Ledigenheim, particularly ensuring that only dutiful and at least nominally observant Catholics remained. As a representative example of how this form of control functioned, residents of St. Josephshaus Ledigenheim were required to attend weekly Sunday meetings from four to eight in the evening, and if they were to abjure this obligation, they

325 Schweitzer, 54.

326 Likewise, in Münster, the room included a stage and could also be enlarged by opening four sets of doors connecting it to a smaller hall.

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would be thrown out of the Ledigenheim. Of course, in a show of Catholic charity and forgiveness, the rejected former residents could later reapply for readmission (apparently no formal penance was needed).

However, requirements intended to guide the moral and religious practices of the residents did not stand alone, but were underscored by other forms of training and education. Educational classes, even studio spaces within which one could practice and develop one’s craft, would further develop the individual’s skills, helping to bolster a declining but historically important social class327. This education can also be read as cultural, since it also helped to promote a social identity within this “aristocracy” of the working classes by specifically serving the needs of the artisan328, not the average worker329.

In fact, educational rooms were never omitted from Catholic Ledigenheime, even in buildings serving smaller communities, and usually were complimented by the addition of

327 Schweitzer, 13.

328 However, by the turn of the century, Catholic reformers, even while still drawing a distinction between skilled and unskilled workers, had widened their consideration of what constituted “skilled”. Schweitzer’s category of “skilled” is broadly conceived by the early twentieth century, including both the skilled factory worker and the artisan, something that would not have been countenanced several decades before (12, Schweitzer). Therefore, by the turn of the 20th century, it is clear that “gelernte Fabrikarbeiter” (skilled factory workers) are considered to be generally the equal in social status to the Handwerker (Concordia (1911), 432), and he can be considered to be advocating for Ledigenheime serving both traditional Handwerksgesellen and similarly skilled factory employees. Basically, Schweitzer’s formulation of an “elevated” class of workers, both artisans and skilled workers, relies upon the way that such workers (supposedly) took pride in their position and their work. After all, Schweitzer instructed his readers that one (the reformer) must take this pride into account when formulating programs of reform, particularly in housing (“…jedenfalls wird man mit diesem Standesbewusstsein unserer jungen Handwerker rechnen muessen, wenn man auf sie Einfluss gewinnen will”) (Schweitzer, 12).

329 However, this is not to say that Catholic reform groups were not active in providing any Ledigenheime for unskilled workers. Although they were more focused on the skilled and the artisan, a few homes for unskilled workers did exist, such as the Annohaus in Cologne, opened in 1898. Yet, these buildings generally only arose in the latter part of the nineteenth century, with the rise of other municipal Ledigenheime, and during a period of very active involvement by Catholic reform groups in the area of housing (Schweitzer wrote in 1911 that building activity had grown enormously in the last half-decade (“…die Bautätigkeit…in den letzten halben Jahrzehnt bereits enorm gesteigert hat”) (Schweitzer, 3)). In addition, they did not tend to be as successful as those for skilled workers, though perhaps this is due to a dearth of social rooms, since the author does not mention any in his discussion of these Ledigenheime, unlike in his mention of variants for skilled workers and artisans.

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libraries330, as discussed in chapters one and two, which were similarly intended to aid the resident in developing his mental abilities and cultural awareness. The former usually took the form of a drafting room, it was common to position both these rooms and libraries in areas easily accessible to the residents, with the larger spaces for instruction located on the ground or first floor, while smaller rooms functioned largely as practice spaces and were located on the upper floors. For example, the large drafting halls of the Neuss and

Marxloh-Bruchhausen Ledigenheime were positioned on the first floor, with the latter even opening onto a terrace. However, the smaller drafting room of Marxloh-Bruchhausen was located on the second floor of the building, as was the case of the Münster building, where the smaller classrooms were located on the second and third floors with the primary drafting hall on the ground floor.

An exception to this rule presented itself in the form of the Breitestrasse

Ledigenheim of Cologne, where all the rooms for professional development were located on the upper floors. However, the sheer number of rooms devoted to professional development in the Cologne building is astounding, for not only was the typical drafting room provided on the third floor, but additionally a room on the fourth floor of 113 square meters was provided to painters, complete with windows oriented to the north for good light, and a room for bookbinders could be found in the attic level. Again, one cannot stress enough the continued emphasis by Catholic reformers on the skilled worker and the practice and advancement of his class, even on the eve of the First World War.

This professional, religious and cultural education was further underscored by a number of healthy amusements, particularly those focused on physical health, and

330 Libraries were included in the following buildings, with locations noted in brackets: Neuss (on first upper floor), Düsseldorf (reading room on ground floor), Marxloh (reading room and library combined on first floor-with access to terrace), Cologne Breitestrasse (reading and writing room on ground floor), and Cologne Antoniushaus (ground floor).

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gymnastics in particular. In fact, the physical and the mental were considered to be two sides of the same coin, which together would not only help the resident to become a healthy individual cognizant of his place in society, but also simultaneously turn him away from the problematic activities associated with public life, such as the frequenting of pubs and cinemas (as discussed in depth in chapter one). More than anything else, the provision of a gymnasium was strongly linked to the burgeoning reform movement and the most progressive streams of thought in the Second Reich331. Thus, gymnasia were commonly provided in Catholic Ledigenheime, as was the case with the Cologne Breitestrasse building, where the Turnhalle, or gymnasium, was located in the basement.

Even gardens located in the courtyards or rooftops of the buildings not only encouraged to residents to both relax and reflect, but also provided the fresh air and sunlight thought to mitigate the worst effects of urban life. Thus, numerous courtyards and terraces were provided in nearly every Catholic Ledigenheim, and in several instances these spaces reflected the monastic tradition of building cloisters, as they contained covered walkways ringing interior courtyards marked by garden spaces complete with fountains332.

Finally, some provisions were made within Ledigenheime for leisure activities that were not educationally focused, nor aided in physical development, but were still relatively unproblematic333, although these largely only appeared in Catholic Ledigenheime towards the

331 Turnhallen in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Germany were seen as a place where a healthy body could be supported, which would in turn support a healthy mind and moral life.

332 Neuss in the former instance and the St. Antoniushaus in Cologne in the latter.

333 As discussed in chapter two, in-house billiard rooms and bowling alleys could be supervised and were thus not linked to the greater dangers of urban life: excessive drinking, Socialist activity and women of dubious moral character.

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turn of the century rather than the 1860s334. Billiard rooms were often also included in

Catholic Ledigenheime from the 1890s335, as were bowling alleys336. These were nearly always positioned either on the ground floor or in the basement337, and sometimes were combined with other spaces for relaxation, such as reading rooms, or even dining halls338.

Perhaps the simplest way to consider the wide-ranging recreational options available to residents of a typical Catholic Ledigenheim by the 1890s is through a brief description of what was included in the St. Josephshaus of Cologne. In this case, not only was a library with nine-hundred volumes included, there were further places for discussion with friends, and even a gymnasium339. As far as religious instruction and professional education was concerned, drawing, reading, and writing classes were offered, as well as lectures on local

History, church (Catholic) History and Natural Science that were offered each day with the exception of Saturday340. Additionally, there were opportunities for music making, such as

334 However, although these spaces were positioned in places easily accessible to the general public, much like their secular municipal counterparts, these rooms were not open to the general public in the manner of a Volksbibliothek or Volksküche.

335 Billiard rooms were included in the following Catholic Ledigenheime: Düsseldorf (on the ground floor off dining hall, providing access to basement bowling alley), Marxloh-Bruchhausen (off the relaxation room on ground floor), Cologne Breitestrasse (combined with the relaxation room), and Cologne St. Antoniushaus (ground floor (with two tables!)).

336 Bowling alleys were positioned in the basements of the following buildings, with the exception of Neuss, where it was located on the ground floor: Altenessen, Düsseldolf (open to outside air), Münster, Marxloh- Bruchhausen and Cologne Breitestrasse (along with a Turnhalle (gymnasium)).

337 This was the case in the Gesellenheime of Altenessen, Münster, Marxloh-Bruchhausen and Cologne Breitestrasse.

338 In Cologne, the relaxation room was combined with a billiard room and linked to the dining room.

339 Das Arbeiterwohl 12 (1892): 117.

340 Das Arbeiterwohl 12 (1892): 118.

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the choral group of twenty-five who performed for the Kaiser on the Cologne Neumarkt

(new market square close to the old center city) in May of 1891341.

Hygiene, Privacy and Decoration

In keeping with the mission of the Catholic Ledigenheime to provide a model home for residents that underscored their somewhat elevated social status, those responsible for these homes would have been remiss had they not at least kept up with advancements in housing technology, particularly those that would come to be employed by Ledigeneheime built by employers and other reform groups (as discussed in chapters four and two respectively). As we have seen in chapter one, hygienic measures were central to the late nineteenth century conception of modernity in housing, particularly mass housing, and a preoccupation with hygiene was not something that the Catholic authorities would have been able to avoid. To this end, largely due to economies of scale, Catholic Ledigenheime nearly always provided residents with the most modern of conveniences in the realm of sanitary and hygienic provisions, provisions that would not have been available to residents otherwise.

From the beginnings of construction in the late 1850s, as codified in the Schweitzer publication of 1911, Catholic Ledigenheime not only provided plenty of light and air in individual and communal rooms342, they also contained numerous toilets located on nearly

341 Das Arbeiterwohl 12 (1892): 118.

342 The Düsseldorf Gesellenheim even had terrazzo floors that were easy to wash, and were three meters wide, allowing for plenty of air circulation, a construction element that Schweitzer considered as “Vorbildlich” (an example to be emulated) (Schweitzer, 108).

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every floor and a number of showers and baths343, generally located in the basement of the building344. This emphasis on hygiene would even intensify by the turn of the century, when

Ledigenheim built commonly included individual rooms equipped with sinks and faucets providing residents with running water345. In fact, the sole exception found after 1900 was the Ledigenheim of Altenessen, which still provided sinks on every floor, though not in every room. Generally, even in the case of less expensive triple occupancy rooms, two sinks and faucets were provided346. The provision of sunlight was also thought to provide numerous benefits to residents, particularly in regards to its supposed germ-killing abilities.

By 1900, it had also become common in reformist residential construction to consider the orientation of a building to optimise the amount of daylight provided, something that would come to form the core of the planning of the much-lauded Siedlungen of the Weimer

Republic (particularly those of greater Berlin and Frankfurt am Main). In keeping with the rising profile of the Ledigenheim building type as a variant of reform architecture, the designers of Catholic Ledigenheime followed suit. This is illustrated by the Neuss

Ledigenheim of 1910, where bedroom windows were positioned to face the southern sun, specifically south-east, while more functional rooms; the coatroom, toilets, meeting rooms and business rooms; faced north. This orientation of private rooms to the south was also the case for the Ledigenheim of Marxloh-Bruchhausen built several years earlier, though

343 Altenessen had seven shower stalls and three tubs, Strassburg was equipped with five showers and one bathtub, as well as three sinks, and Düsseldorf had four showers and two bathtubs. All of the following were located in the basement of the buildings.

344 However, Marxloh-Bruchhausen provided one bath and four showers on the second floor, perhaps owing to its small size and Cologne Breitestrasse not only held thirty shower cells in the basement, but also located a bath on each of the three upper floors.

345 St. Antoniushaus in Cologne, Cologne Breitestrasse, Düsseldorf and Strassburg.

346 In Schweitzer’s ideal formulation, a room for a single resident measured 2.10 by 4.50 meters, and that for three men sharing measured 3.30 by 5.20 meters, providing each resident 9.45 and 5.72 square meters of floor space respectively (Schweitzer, 109-112).

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several bedrooms did face east or west347. Of course, this positioning not only provided the rooms with ample light for hygienic reasons, it was also an economical move, as brightly lit private rooms would not need to be illuminated by artificial light, except in the evenings and at night. Certainly, this would also have had a positive effect on the mood of residents.

Most importantly though, the attention paid to such relatively small adjustments provide evidence that Catholic reformers were on the forefront of developments in reform architecture348.

This emphasis on healthful surroundings commensurate with the latest developments in reform housing was also carried through in the dimensions of the bedrooms, which were both large and comfortable, particularly by the standards of the day.

For example, a single room in the Gesellenheim of Strassburg was ten square meters, while

Marxloh-Bruchhausen’s single rooms measured twelve to fourteen square feet, dimensions that stand in stark contrast to what would have been available to a young man of similar social class seeking lodgings as Schlafgänger. Certain steps were even taken to minimize the amount of disturbance to residents in their bedrooms, such as the positioning of the bedrooms in the Strassburg Ledigenheim away from the stairwells. Essentially, the provision of private and home-like living spaces provided a foil to the noisy, overcrowded, unhygienic and morally suspect conditions of Schlafstellenwesen, where the Schlafgänger never had a space of his own.

347 Schweitzer, 85.

348 In fact, though the placement of windows and other elements could possibly be explained by the position of the plot of land the building was constructed upon, this can largely be dismissed, considering that Schweitzer cited that certain plots of land were chosen in order to facilitate the building of Ledigenheime that were commensurate with the specifications of reform architecture, and that the placement of windows, etc. was highly intentional (Schweitzer, 85).

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In particular, it was the provision of a Catholic Ledigenheim resident with a single room that strongly distinguished this building type from a typical upper working class lodging. As noted previously, the Kolpinghaus organization advised that Catholic

Ledigeneheime contain a variety of bedrooms, or “guestrooms”, that would serve both transient guests and long-term residents (“Gastzimmer zür Beherbergung reisender Gesellen und Zimmer für dauernde Unterkunft”)349. Certainly, the provision of a variety of rooms did not mean that these bedrooms, or their residents, were ranked equally. For example, single rooms were held up as the ideal room formulation from the beginning of the construction of

Catholic Ledigenheime, though these were relatively rare until the turn of the century, as they were more expensive. Double rooms were consistently seen as problematic for reasons concerning homosexual activity, while rooms for three or four residents were both common and acceptable, though not ideal. For example, though the Ledigenheim of Strassburg contained more double and triple rooms for its one-hundred-twenty-nine residents than reformers such as Schweitzer deemed desirable350, preferring only single rooms, a variety of rooms were considered to be useful to both residents and the prosperity of the Ledigenheim, as these could be rented out at different price points, broadening the pool of potential residents351. For example, the Ledigenheim of the Katholischen Gesellenhospitiums zu

Köln, built in 1865 on the Breitestrasse 108, indicates that in 1884 a room with four beds

349 Concordia (1911): 431.

350 Twenty-two double rooms and nineteen triple rooms to only twelve single rooms, and even seven quad rooms.

351 So, can an average rent be determined for a resident in a Catholic Ledigenheim? Unfortunately this varied by the size of the city in which the Ledigenheim was located, the earning power of skilled workers in this city and of course, the number of beds to a room (Schweitzer, 23). Reformers also complained that while a variety of rooms at different price points were helpful, residents were not always willing to pay for better surroundings. According to some reformers, half the battle was educating the public to expect more and to be willing to pay for such housing. (“Wer erst die Bedeutung eines guten Wohnens zu würdigen gelernt hat, der stösst sich wirklich nicht an der geringen Preisdifferenz…” (Dr. Wiedfeldt, Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (1904), 192).

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was nearly half as expensive as lodging in a single room352. Importantly, rooms holding one to four residents were nearly always set aside for the more settled workforce, while sleeping halls, though criticized from the very outset of Ledigenheim construction, were only employed to lodge residents who would only stay for a night, or at most, a few days, a group who almost never even constituted one-fourth of the residents at any given time based on the average number of beds allotted to serve them353. If the amount of privacy provided to a resident can be read as a marker of class, as it certainly was in the late nineteenth century, the somewhat settled skilled worker was deserving of a more than simply a modicum of privacy.

However, it was not only the number of residents and overall size354, but also the relative comfort of these bedrooms, largely attributable to décor and furnishings, that allowed supporters to proclaim these rooms as true living spaces, not just places for sleeping355. This was particularly true by the turn of the century, where the bedrooms of these buildings can be read as a clear response to the dictates of the proponents of reform.

This is evident when one notes the amount, types and styles of movable furniture provided, as well as built-in furnishings, and their correspondence to new and “modern” ideas regarding furnishings, in addition to the hygienic facilities356 and the maximization of space previously discussed357.

352 1 bed per room cost 2M per week, 2 beds per room was 1.75 Marks, 3 beds per room cost 1.50 Marks, and a room with 4 beds cost 1.25 Marks per week (Schweitzer, 98 and Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 38).

353 Of course, this number varied by the size of the Ledigenheim (which was largely dependant upon the size of the local population), ranging from ten beds in a single sleeping hall in the Marxloh Ledigenheim to 24 beds in two sleeping halls in the St. Joseph Ledigenheim in Berlin (Schweitzer, 87, 97).

354 Bedroom size was maximized by the functional and space-saving furnishings commonly provided to residents.

355 Schweitzer, 108.

356 More in the vein of hygienic considerations, the bathing facilities provided within each Ledigenheim must be noted. Were baths or showers included? If not, were local municipal baths readily available, or did accommodations at work exist? We will see that although communal washrooms were not favored by

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As briefly mentioned in relation to his codification of the acceptable standards of a

Catholic Ledigenheim in his publication of 1911358, Dr. Schweitzer, the Präsis of the

Kolpinghaus organization, is an extremely useful source in establishing what Catholic

Ledigenheim supporters saw as essential in every bedroom, particularly in regards to the lauded single occupancy room or acceptable triple bedroom. Namely, Schweitzer advised that each resident be provided with a wardrobe, a bed (of at least 1.95 by .90 meters), and a chair, as well as one table per room359, specifications largely met by the majority of Catholic

Ledigenheime, particularly those constructed or updated after 1890. For example, a single room in Cologne’s St. Antoniushaus contained an iron bedstead, complete with footboard and springs, as well as a three-part sea-grass mattress. Additionally, bed linens, a feather pillow, a feather comforter, and two woolen blankets were provided to each resident, as was a solid wooden table with chair. Similarly, residents of the Gesellenheim/Kolpinghaus on the Blücherstrasse in central Düsseldorf, built in 1909, were provided with a wardrobe, a bedstead with blankets and pillows360, a chair, and even a built-in bookshelf/storage space.

residents, these were included from the outset, including both baths and showers (though the latter was criticized as being too military-barrack like (Weyls Handbuch der Hygiene, 344/116).

357 As will be addressed in the conclusion of this dissertation, simple built-in furniture for the working classes would later be popularized by the Dessau Bauhaus, in addition to movable proletarian furniture, such as a simple and portable storage closet for men (1930). In particular, in the late 1920s and very early 1930s, the Bauhaus focused on “standardized furniture models for popular housing of the boardinghouse type…aimed at single persons living outside the family household” (Karel Teige, The Minimum Dwelling, 266). Such items for the room of a single person (without a kitchen and of 9, 16, or 20 m squared) would include a “sleeping couch/or wall folding bed, a small table, a few chairs, possibly a Morris easy chair, a rocker, an upholstered easy chair, a clothes closet, a bookshelf, a writing desk and a folding table near the bookshelf or cabinet” (Teige, 267.)

358 Msgr. Schweitzer, Hospize und Ledigenheime der kath. Gesellenvereine (M. Gladbach: Volksverein Verlag, 1911).

359 In Schweitzer’s ideal formulation, a room for a single resident measured 2.10 by 4.50 m, and that for three men sharing measured 3.30 by 5.20 m, providing each resident 9.45 and 5.72 square meters of floor space respectively (Schweitzer, 109-112).

360 However, in the case of Düsseldorf, the bedsteads were somewhat problematic from a hygienic standpoint as they were wooden, believed to be a more welcoming habitat for vermin than an iron bedstead. Additionally, the room appeared fairly cluttered, though this was largely due to the positioning of the furniture, something

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Additionally, a number of measures were taken to reduce clutter and maximize bedroom space in nearly every Catholic Ledigenheim, such as specially appointed locations within the buildings for the storage of bulky personal items, such as bicycles and luggage.

However, did the provision of functional, but rather spare furnishings, as well as a distinct lack of clutter mean that these bedroom spaces reminded the residents of their familial homes? The short answer is no. While everything necessary for resting, relaxing and sleeping in hygienic and uncrowded surroundings was nearly always provided to residents, the relative spare surroundings stood in contrast to the average working class, or even middle class home, both of which, even as late as 1910, would typically have been marked by heavy pieces of furniture and a good deal of fabric, from wall hangings to decorative tablecloths. Certainly, due to the lack of a dining room and kitchen in the rooms, the bric-a- brac associated with cooking and dining, from pots and pans to plates and other dishes commonly displayed on sideboards, was absent.

In particular, the lack of these domestic details illustrates the extent to which

Ledigenheime were considered “true” homes361. After all, in a private home, furniture was certainly not prescribed, in contrast to Catholic Ledigenheime. Thus, the bedrooms of

Catholic Ledigenheime differed considerably from the bedrooms and living spaces of the

that Schweitzer noted, stating that two wardrobes near the door crowded the space (Schweitzer, 108). In addition, setting the beds foot to foot tended to make the triple bedroom appear even longer and narrower than it was, creating a room without a real “center”. Of course, the ideal single bedroom in the same building did not present the same problem of crowding. In addition, one can also note, taking the printed cloth table covering as an example, that the resident (or the photographer?) attempted to create the appearance of a cozy and yet uncluttered space. In the case of the single bedroom, the overall impression is one of bourgeois propriety, not a bare and overcrowded space.

361 Interestingly, Dawson notes that municipal pawnshops would not receive articles of furniture to be pawned, as they not only took up too much room, but also because they “belong to the primary comforts of the home” (Municipal Life, 309). Thus, furniture was identified with creating a familial identity.

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typical working class, or even lower middle class, dwelling362. Why then did Catholic reformers create spaces significantly different from the homes that the residents would have been accustomed to? While sanitary reasons and spatial constraints were certainly cited by

Catholic reformers, and journeymen would generally not have owned substantial pieces of furniture, the role that bourgeois taste played cannot be discounted. Basically, anything that recalled the interiors of the hated Mietskaserne (as discussed in chapter one) were avoided.

Thus, highly functional and easy to clean elements such as a painted dado or mirror above the sink, as appeared in the St. Antoniushaus of Cologne, were acceptable, while spaces cluttered and crowded with furniture, as well as heavy fabrics that were difficult to clean and air were not363.

That being said, it appears that residents modified their spaces by setting out personal items, typically small decorative objects such as potted plants and framed pictures, though this practice does appear to have been more common in single rooms rather than double or triple rooms. This tailoring of one’s room in small ways becomes clear in an examination of a single bedroom in the St. Antoniushaus of Cologne, where one notices the placement of a patterned cloth on a resident’s desk, a crucifix hung on the wall above the bed, the arrangement of personal articles on the table, as well as a postcard or small picture attached to the frame of a small picture hung above the aforementioned desk364. Similarly,

362 Lizabeth Cohen’s article on working class interiors was very illuminating, in that she largely discussed the interior decorating style of European immigrants in the United States in the late nineteenth century, and the way in which these people felt that store bought bric-a-brac not only beautified their homes, but made them modern American citizens (Lizabeth Cohen, “Embellishing a Life of Labor” in Common Places (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia, 1986), 261-280).

363 The walls of the Düsseldorf Ledigenheim on the Blücherstrasse were also decorated in a very simple and hygienic way, with the lower portion of the walls painted a darker color than the upper segment of the wall, and the two sections were divided by a chair-rail positioned about seven feet up. There even appears to be a Greek key pattern painted above the chair-rail.

364 The triple bedroom of the St. Antoniushaus photographed and recorded in Schweitzer contains all the elements provided in the single bedroom in triplicate, though it actually appears more home-like at first glance

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an image of a single room located in the Düsseldorf Gesellenheim/Kolpinghaus on the

Blücherstrasse, built in 1909, shows a well dressed young resident reading under a framed painting on the wall365. Of course, these photographs, in depicting residents as serious- minded and interested in intellectual pursuits, may well have been posed in order to cultivate an image of the ideal resident, who could then stand in for the whole.

Massing, Positioning and Exterior Decoration of Catholic Ledigenheime

In keeping with other attempts to elevate the resident of a Catholic Ledigenheim, the buildings were largely adapted to reflect current architectural trends and abjure anything appearing institutional or barrack-like in massing and decoration366. Consequently, this was not a housing type that stood outside of contemporary considerations of good taste, and even the earliest of Catholic Ledigenheime were never as coldly functional in appearance as were the early proto-Ledigenheime built by employers (discussed in chapter four). From the beginning of construction, Catholic Ledigenheime were buildings that not only served a larger societal purpose, but employed recognizable and established architectural styles to connote the elevated status of their residents, as well as the power of the Kolpinghaus organization. In general, Catholic Ledigenheime can be divided into two stylistic camps, with those constructed from the middle of the nineteenth century to the 1890s that exhibited

(more so, and more roomy than most American college dormitory rooms in my experience). This could perhaps be attributed to the centrally placed table, which does not function as a desk in this case, but rather a central gathering point in the room and the larger window, over twice as large as that of the single bedroom (Schweitzer, 58).

365 The low-pile rug on the floor of the room and the floor to ceiling window curtains, which partially obscured the radiator, also add to the appearance of comfort. However, the window treatments are fairly simple and highly functional, as there is no excess of fabric.

366 “…alles Kasernenhafte und Anstaltsmässige in Bauart und Architektur zu vermeiden” (Schweitzer, 53.)

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varied historicist styles, and those built around the turn of the century, which, along with other buildings for the public good367, functioned as clear responses to the dictates of the proponents of reform architecture and as such, employed the vocabulary of Heimatstil.

In the case of the first Catholic Ledigenheime, the Historicist model most often utilized the late medieval brick commercial buildings typical of Hansastädte368, replete with elaborate brickwork and stepped gables. Yet, one cannot assume that the employment of such a style indicated a Catholic Ledigenheim, even a Ledigenheim in general, as this style was widely employed. Additionally, and for reasons discussed in chapter four, it was readily employed by one of the most forward thinking of employers in the realm of housing, the

Bochumer Verein, for the massive Stahlhausen Ledigenheim. Yet, while buildings such as

Stahlhausen loosely resembled the contemporaneous Cologne Ledigenheim on the

Breitestrasse, the latter was far more ornately decorated and appointed with far more expensive materials than the fairly stripped brick building of Stahlhausen. For example, not only was red brick utilized, but the ground floor was also constructed of a light-colored stone that also divided the expanses of the red brick façade horizontally. The richness and variety of the exterior was also aided by a number of decorative details, particularly those that recalled the high middle ages, when Cologne, and the Rhineland in general, was one of the most powerful ecclesiastical centers of the German speaking world. For example, the two main entrances, reminiscent of gothic church portals, were surmounted by projecting

367 These included public (or Gemeinde) elementary schools, as well as the Volksheime discussed in chapter one.

368 Hansastädte were trading cities that had formed an economic alliance in the late Medieval period in order to support trade and the member cities’ merchant guilds. The cities, stretching from the Baltic to the North Sea, were as varied as: Danzig (Gdansk), Lübeck, Cologne, Hamburg, Riga and Tallin.

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bays that ran along the roofline, terminating in gables with niches, within which, in the tradition of a gothic cathedral, a statue of a religious figure was placed369.

However, this somewhat eclectic stylistic approach, characteristic of architectural tendencies during the early years of the German Reich, was largely jettisoned by the builders of Catholic Ledigenheime by the final decade of the nineteenth century, and as the century turned, most Catholic Ledigenheime came to be characterized by a more studied approach that attempted to recall the vernacular traditions of early nineteenth century Germany, and in particular, loosely recalled the modest burgher’s home of circa 1800 (um 1800), as discussed in chapter two. Thus, as we will see shortly, most Catholic Ledigenheime post-1900 exhibited the style of um 1800, a variant of the Heimatstil (as had the municipally supported

Dankelmannstrasse building), or a somewhat simplified Baroque in keeping with um 1800 sensibilities (as was the case of the Kaiser Wilhelm Ledigenheim in Essen on the

Weberplatz).

Additionally, as was the case for the secular and denominational Ledigenheime discussed in chapter two, the architectural style utilized for Catholic Ledigenheime was carefully calibrated to reflect both the relative importance of the building in question and its size. Thus, in the case of Catholic Ledigeneheime, informal styles and materials were utilized for smaller buildings and a more formal vocabulary was employed for larger buildings370.

Additionally, the permanent nature of these Catholic Ledigenheime was underscored by the materials used for the buildings, as also befitted the urban location of these buildings,

369 Four smaller niches also ran across the facade of the building just under the roofline, and six attic level windows were replete with dormers with exaggeratedly pointed gable fronts.

370 In terms of scale, like their municipal counterparts, Catholic Ledigenheim varied in scale. Smaller buildings housing fewer men were generally three stories, such as the Gesellenhaus of Marxloh-Bruchhausen, with 63 residents, while larger buildings often reached six stories and housed several hundred residents, as in the case of the Central Gesellenhaus of Cologne on the Breitestrasse, with 382 men.

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whether this was within the city core or in the newly expanding suburbs. Certainly, a ramshackle wooden barrack would have made a poor impression in central Cologne, or even relatively more rural Marxloh-Bruchhausen. Thus, stone was nearly always employed to construct the ground floor, while stone, brick, or stuccoed brick was most often used to enclose the upper floors.

Additionally, the largest urban variants of Catholic Ledigenheime tended to be the most formal in style and utilized the most expensive of materials371, befitting their status as deep investments in the Catholic community and profile in the urban fabric. For example, the Düsseldorf building employed a restrained Baroque style and was constructed of white limestone alongside sandstone imported from another region of the empire, the Pfaltz.

Similarly, the neoclassical red sandstone façade of Strassburg was completed with attached ionic pilasters reaching from the second story to the roofline and both the Cologne

Breitestrasse and St. Antoniushaus Ledigeneheime employed a formal Biedermeierstil. In the case of the latter, the simple and inexpensive white cement façade was elevated by the arrangement of a trim of red and blue-green colored Anrochter-Dolomitstein (a sedimentary rock from the Italian Alps).

In comparison, smaller Ledigenheime generally measured three stories or less, housed half as many men as their larger counterparts372, and utilized a less formal vocabulary that was often more in keeping with the architectural traditions of the region, though rarely an identifiable variant of the Heimatstil popularized by reformers. For example, the architect of the Ledigenheim of Marxloh-Bruchhausen attempted to fit the building into the

371 These buildings ranged from four floors, excluding the basement and attic, in the case of Breitestrasse and Düsseldorf, to five floors, also excluding the basement and attic, for the St. Antoniushaus, to the six stories of the Strassburg Ledigenheim, excluding the basement.

372 This measurement excludes basements and attic spaces.

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surrounding neighborhood by employing a similar scale and type and amount of decorative detail and avoiding any semblance of monumentality373. As were the neighboring buildings, it was constructed of Dutch sandstone and brick with stucco overlay and stucco ornamental details, complete with decorated balconies, as well as a full hipped-roof.

Smaller buildings also more commonly recalled architectural styles that had somewhat fallen out of fashion, as they were less prestigious commissions that had been given to architects who were either unknown or little-known, and generally less up-to-date.

In the case of the Altenessen Ledigenheim, the historically Rheinisch ornamental style recalled the Hanseatic buildings of the Rheinland, as well as the earliest version of the

Cologne Breitestrasse building (built thirty years before), due to the application of red clinker brick and the verticality of the building, including the tower at the center of the façade.

Finally, in Münster, the small Ledigenheim of three stories did not recall any particular style or vernacular tradition, but was composed of raw stone on the lower level, which was less expensive than brick, while white stucco over brick encased the upper floors.

Yet, typically the decorative styles utilized for the construction of Catholic

Ledigenheim bore a great deal in common with the reformist tendencies within turn of the century German architecture, not unlike the contemporaneous Ledigenheime built by reform

Vereine and municipalities, the ramifications of which will be discussed at the end of the chapter. In some cases, Catholic Ledigeneheime were even at the forefront of architectural design and were built by the most illustrious and notable of architects.

This was certainly the case with the Ledigenheim of Neuss, which was not merely part of a larger stream of reformist architecture, but was considered to be a model building on every level, particularly as regarded its novel silhouette and style. An attractive and highly

373 Even the entry was positioned at the corner of the lot, thus avoiding the creation of a more monumental main façade.

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functional building, according to Dr. Schweitzer374, the three-story building, complete with moderated mansard roof, was a somewhat stripped and sharply geometric version of the

Biedermeier house of um 1800 so popular in reformist circles. In fact, it bore remarkable similarity to the massing and interweaving of exterior and interior space representative of the early work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in such buildings as the Riehl house of 1906-07, though of course, when one notes the architect of the Neuss Ledigenheim, the avant-garde appearance of the building becomes clear. After all, the Neuss Ledigenheim was the product of Architect Professor Peter Behrens, made famous as a teacher and the creator of a corporate identity for the AEG company of Berlin, which included the design and construction of the

AEG Turbine factory in Berlin of 1909. In fact, Schweitzer made clear the position of this building within Behren’s architectural beliefs and practice by including a quote from the architect in regards to the timeless and contemporary effect he sought to evoke in the creation of the Neuss Ledigenheim of 1910375:

…gerade hierein, d.h. in der Aufgliederung, die Tradition liege, wodurch alte

Architekturschöpfungen ihre Schönheit erhalten haben, die auch für unsere Zeit zu

erkennen und zu verfolgen wäre. Zweifellos habe jede Zeit ihre eignen Formen,

wohl aber lägen für die Gesamtanordnungen Gesetze vor, durch deren Verfolgung

die Vergangenheit jeweil mit der neuen Zeit verbunden werde376.

Of course, not all Ledigenheime were entirely new constructions. Instead, it was fairly common for a building to be expanded and updated before a new or an additional

374 Schweitzer, 75.

375 This effect is achieved primarily by the organization of internal space and the massing of the building.

376 Schweitzer, 75. Translation: “...Just herein, i.e. in the breakdown, the tradition lies---this is the means through which ancient architectural creations have retained their beauty, though this is also useful for our time and worth pursuing. Undoubtedly each time has its own forms, but the overall arrangements of old buildings can be used as guides or laws, the examination of which connects the past to the present”.

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Ledigenheim was built. For example, the aforementioned Ledigenheim of the Katholischen

Gesellenhospitiums zu Köln was initially built in 1865 for 120 residents and was located in the densely populated center of this medieval city in the shadow of the Minoritenkirche.

However, within less than twenty years, the Breitestrasse 108 property was insufficient to house all the individuals seeking residence within its walls. Luckily, the neighboring property at Breitestrasse 106 became available in the early 1880s, and the existing Ledigenheim was then expanded in 1884 to house up to 250 residents. Yet, this model of expansion had become untenable by the turn of the century, when the rising popularity of Catholic

Ledigenheime, indicative of the growing success of the Kolpinghaus movement and the rise of public support for such Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen in general, necessitated new construction.

Buildings could simply not be expanded indefinitely, particularly in the central cities, where land was both at a premium and neighboring properties did not commonly come up on the market for sale. However, this did not mean that later buildings were not constructed in the center city, only that architects would have to take care to integrate these buildings with the existing built environment377, maximize the available space and even devise ways by which the Ledigenheim could earn revenue in addition to charging rent to residents.

In general, the Catholic Ledigenheime were built into the block structure of the existing city, as in the case of the Cologne Central Hospiz on the Breitestrasse, or on a plot of land where it was expected that buildings would later surround it, as in Altenessen. In both cases, as nearly always, the building was flush to the street, with the main façade positioned along a major street or square. This set up also allowed retail spaces to be incorporated into the Ledigenheime to offset costs. In the case of Cologne Breitestrasse,

377 This was the case for the Ledigenheime of Neuss am Rhein (1910), Altenessen (1910), Marxloh- Bruchhausen (1910), Münster (1905), Cologne Central on the Breitestrasse (1910), Cologne St. Antoniushaus (1905), Strassburg i. Elsass and the Kolpinghaus of Düsseldorf (1909).

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retail spaces and offices for the general public are incorporated into the main façade of the

Ledigenheim. This employment of the expensive central Cologne street frontage was a way to recoup construction costs and indicates the marriage of this Ledigenheim with the surrounding city. However, it did necessitate the positioning of the main entrance of the

Ledigenheim proper on a narrow courtyard running parallel to and only accessible via a passage from the Breitestrasse, essentially disguising the primary purpose of the building in order to obtain extra revenue378. This also brought the residents of the Breitestrasse building into closer contact, albeit a contact still controlled and subject to surveillance, with the general public.

Emphasis on Social Control

As previously investigated, residents’ behavior was largely conditioned via positive measures, namely healthful leisure activities and educational opportunities. However, the supporters of Catholic Ledigenheime also actively sought to restrict what they deemed to be problematic by instituting certain house rules379, as well as controlling access to and even circulation within Catholic Ledigenheime.

In regards to access and circulation, nearly all of the Catholic Ledigenheime mentioned thus far had one primary entrance for the use of residents, and never more than two, which meant that the movements of residents in an out of the building were readily observable by the administrators of the buildings, either by the Präsis or the porter, and

378 The upper floors of both building segments were linked via two corridors on the third floor. A secondary entrance lay on the far side of the block, where the Helenenstrasse provided direct access.

379 For example, as mentioned previously in regards to attendance at Sunday prayer, if an individual chose not to follow the rules and parameters set out by the Kolpinghaus organization, they were rejected.

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sometimes both. Even in the rare exception that there were two entrances, as was the case of the Strassburg Gesellenhaus, which had a street and courtyard entrance, these were laid out so that they could be easily and simultaneously observed from the porter’s lodgings and office. Additionally, both entrances, which intersected on the main hall of the ground floor near the stairwells leading to the bedrooms, were but a short distance from all of the administrative offices, including those of the Präsis. If one assumes that perhaps this was accidental, a statement by Schweitzer noting that the single entrance “has the purpose of serving to make it easy to watch those who leave and enter the building”380, should disabuse one of such a notion.

Certainly, space was not only observed, but also strictly regulated within Catholic

Ledigenheim, particularly where interactions between the sexes were concerned. For example, the St. Josephshaus Ledigenheim not only had a Präsis and porter, but a house inspector and even a night porter, all of whom made certain that residents never came in contact with female staff, both nuns and lay personnel, who were housed in a separate wing of the building381. In the case of the St. Antoniushaus of Cologne, even separate entrances for female personnel were provided382.

The proponents of Catholic Ledigenheime not only sought to protect residents from all negative elements via a system of surveillance, but also attempted to replicate the familial home through a number of house rules intended to aid in the formation of a moral

380 Schweitzer, 77. “…hat den Zweck, eine Überwachung der Ein- und Aus-gänger leichter zu ermöglichen”.

381 The quarters of the female staff were essentially sequestered in a separate wing of the building, in contrast to male personnel, who were housed in the basement. The twenty-two nuns and lay female personnel also shared a dining room. As regards the sleeping accommodations of the nuns, there were ten rooms with one bed each, two rooms of three beds and one room of six. For the lay female servants, there were ten beds provided: five single rooms and two triples. Male personnel were provided with two rooms, each containing three beds (Schweitzer, 106).

382 Schweitzer, 59.

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character383. Catholic reformers, acting in the guise of devout and benevolent parents, believed that the protection and blessings of the family circle could be replicated by house rules, which would protect residents from all negative elements384. However, the supporters of such Ledigenheime had a difficult time formulating what exactly, besides familial feeling and rules, would help to create a “Christian” home, and what specifically constituted a

Christian “tone”. For example, Falch wrote that “…ein christliches Heim…muss Schutz bieten gegen alles, was der Kirche entfremden…und alles hüten und pflegen, was das Band mit der Kirche stärken, das Heiligtum des Glaubens…alles, was Anderdenkende und

Andersgläbige, die ja aus solchem Heime nicht ausgeschlossen sein, verletzen könnte, streng zu vermeiden…”385. Yet, Falch did not explain how, with the exception of house rules, one could keep un-Christian forces at bay, and who these forces actually were.

The only clue to the identity of these un-Christian forces is Falch’s mention that all things brashly political must be shut out386, allowing one to conclude that he was actually writing about Social Democracy, a strong force within working-class circles by the turn of the century and the avowed enemy of the German State, which had very strong links to the official state-sanctioned Protestant Church, though less so to the Catholic Church. In fact,

383 Other religious reformers, both Protestant and Catholic, also saw the ideal Ledigenheim as constituting a large family, in opposition to other Ledigenheime, which they considered to be little more than guesthouses (Gasthaus) or rental barracks (Mietskaserne) (Rundschau: Monatschrift für Jünglingspflege und Jungmänner-Mission (1911), 266).

What is notable in the 1911 article is not so much the formulation of a specific familial ideal, but the way in which this ideal is presented as a counterpoint to other Ledigenheime. Basically, a Ledigenheim founded under the auspices of the German Catholic or Protestant church defined itself against the Ledigenheime of industrial companies and secular organizations.

384 Negative elements were clarified as individuals unable to abide by the house rules, and would thus be rejected by the home and its residents. The Ledigenheim in this conception is a bit like a small republic, with its law-abiding citizens and those who have been exiled (Falch, Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 153).

385 Falch, 153. Translation: “A Christian home…must provide protection from everything that is alien to the church…and protect and care for everything that strengthens the bond to the church, the holy community of belief…those who think and believe differently, if not avoided and shut out, can endanger it.”

386 Falch, 154.

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Ledigenheime operating on a religious basis, with strong links to the Protestant church, or even the Catholic Church, were far more likely to be concerned with the stability of the

State, which they saw as a German family writ large. For as an advocate of religiously based

Ledigenheime wrote, “…Die christliche Familie ist die Grundlage des christlichen

Staates…Und darum fordern wir Ledigenheime mit christlichem Charakter und nach christlichen Grundsaetzen”387. Consequently, religious groups favored Ledigenheime that operated much in the way that a large family would.

Of course, reformers realized that this re-creation of the familial home via certain rules was a careful balancing act, with the Präsis acting with the care and flexibility of a good father. Thus, the firm but kind Präsis was to enforce rules that were neither too strict, nor too lenient, rules wide enough to allow for individual expression without being too wide388.

This was extremely important, as Catholic reformers realized that the typical resident was not a boy, but a young man, who in accordance with his social status, had both the expectation of and the right to a certain level of individuality, self-sufficiency and freedom389.

387 Rundschau (1911), 266. Translation: “The Christian family is the basis of the Christian state, and therefore we advocate Ledigenheime of Christian character that were founded on Christian principles”.

388 Falch, 153.

389 Falch, 153. The listed rules governing the behavior of the residents of Catholic Ledigenheime tended to be fairly basic and in keeping with those employed by similar Ledigenheime geared towards the skilled worker, such as municipal Ledigenheime. Basically, the majority of rules called for a certain level of neatness and cleanliness by the residents. In the case of the Catholic Gesellenheim of Neuss, this was exhibited in admonitions to keep the rooms clean and aired, including instructions for the last person leaving a bedroom to open the window to air the room and the banning of the throwing of refuse out of windows. Men were also banned from washing themselves in the hallways and were required to close windows for modesty when bathing or changing clothing in the bedrooms. In addition, although it must have been an annoyance, men were required to vacate their rooms between 8-11 am on Sundays and holidays for cleaning (Schweitzer, 48). Other rules safeguarded residents and their belongings, particularly dealing with the twin dangers of fire and theft. As such, the residents of the Neuss Ledigenheim were required to store valuables in the lockable wardrobes provided in every bedroom and smoking was banned in bedrooms. A provision that one notify the house authorities at least eight days before leaving the home was also a logical requirement and is not unlike today’s stipulations to give one’s landlord a month or two month’s notice (Schweitzer, 59).

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In particular, this emphasis on rules balanced by a certain regard for freedom and individuality, modeled on the patriarchal household and bounded by Catholic faith and tradition, was held to be the distinguishing factor of Catholic Ledigenheim by their supporters. Namely, Catholic reformers took care to distinguish their creations from non- confessional or Freizügige Ledigenheime, which they termed “tendenzlos geleitete

Ledigenheime”390. Although admittedly helping to curb the worst excesses of

Schlafgängertum in a subset of the population, they considered by Catholic reformers as unable to compete with their Catholic forerunners in several centrally important ways391.

Unlike Catholic Ledigenheime, they could never function as “ein zweites Vaterhaus”392, nor were they able to aid the creation of community, which Catholic authorities claimed remained tied to religion, and Catholicism in particular393. In fact, Schweitzer termed religion a “Bindungsmittel”394.

Conclusions on the Kolpinghaus Movement and Catholic Ledigenheime

So, how successfully did Catholic Ledigenheime fulfill their mandate to house and reform the young men of the upper-working and lower-middle classes? Certainly, Catholic

Ledigenheime can be considered highly successful in appealing to the young men they were

390 Schweitzer, 13.

391 Of course, this attack on non-religiously based Ledigenheime occured as Freizügige Ledigenheime were being constructed by reform organizations and municipalities alike in rapidly increasing numbers, as discussed in chapter two.

392 Schweitzer, 13. This can be translated as “second familial-patriarchal home”.

393 This, in spite of the fact that the lower class male was turning away from organized religion in large numbers by the turn of the century, a fact borne out in Adolf Levenstein’s study, Die Arbeiterfrage (1912).

394 Schweitzer, 14. This translates to “binding material”.

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to serve. In the case of the St. Antoniushaus of Cologne, the popularity of the building with potential residents was highlighted by the fact that it was not only fully booked by its opening, but that by the following summer, twenty men were being turned away daily, as the building remained fully occupied395.

Unfortunately, this last sentence indicates that there were never enough Catholic

Ledigenheime built to effectively house those Catholic reformers sought to save396. This was a fact readily admitted by the reformers themselves, as in Schweitzer’s 1911 publication, a book that simultaneously celebrated the achievements of the Kolpinghaus organization, while bemoaning the fact that much remained to be done397. However, even had the

Catholic authorities been able to house all the young Catholic men of middling social status, this is no guarantee that they would or could be reformed in the manner sought. As with numerous contemporaneous social reform programs, the Kolpinghaus movement was a combination of realistic expectations founded on firm economic ground and a dream of a

Catholic Germany that was heavily reliant upon an idealization of past mores, community and the centrality of organized religion.

395 Schweitzer, 99.

396 For example, even in Cologne as late as the first decade of the twentieth century, the three Ledigenheime could only house 520 men, leaving 900 members of the Kolpinghaus organization to seek lodgings as Schlafgänger, while 200 lived with their masters (Schweizer, 19).

397 He mentioned a huge increase in building activity during the period of 1900-1911 (Schweitzer, 3). Yet, of seventy Kolpinghaus organizations that already possessed Ledigenheime by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, thirty still considered it necessary to either expand or build another Ledigenheim to house more members (Schweitzer, 19).

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CHAPTER FOUR: LEDIGENHEIME AND EMPLOYERS

This chapter investigates the evolution of Ledigenheime constructed by employers from the middle of the nineteenth century through the First World War, with an emphasis on buildings either constructed or cited as prototypes during what we have termed the era of reform (1890-1914). We shall see how these buildings, for a number of reasons, generally developed from spare and architecturally unadventurous buildings akin to barracks in appearance and layout in the 1850s and 1860s, to more architecturally and socially sophisticated creations by the 1870s through the 1910s that were akin to, and even served as a model for, the non-employer built Ledigenheime being developed at the turn of the century398. However, it must be noted that this was not a clear and direct development, but one that varied considerably. Unlike variants discussed in chapters two and three, a progression and typology are more difficult to discern, with a number of different types existing contemporaneously399.

We will thus clarify the historical circumstances and critical debates surrounding the creation and development of this variant of the Ledigenheim building type. By selecting examples that are representative for different time periods, we will also deal with the

398 Contrary to what might be expected, it appears that Ledigenheim construction by employers was only loosely linked to economic growth, as they were constructed in both troubled times (the mid-1870s to 1890), and during periods of economic growth (1871-73, 1890-1914 (with downturns in 1900, 1907)) (Bade, 61).

399 Complicating this picture, the construction of Ledigenheime by employers began several decades before municipalities and reform organizations became involved and several of the buildings built by employers in the 1870s continued to be used to house single men until their destruction in the Second World War.

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implications of the massing, layout and architectural style(s) chosen for these buildings, even the way that residents used and accessed the buildings, particularly as these elements related to both social control of the residents and corporate self-fashioning.

Thus, this chapter will begin with an examination of what can be termed proto-

Ledigenheime, buildings little more than barracks that were constructed circa 1850-1870.

We will then devote our energies to the Ledigenheim that served as a model for this variant for over forty years (roughly 1870-1914), the Bochumer Verein’s Stahlhausen (constructed in

1872). However, while Stahlhausen remained the model and typical Ledigenheim built by employers, largely due to the relative stasis of this building typology after the early 1870s, we will examine several atypical buildings that developed after the turn of the century,

Ledigenheime which incorporated some of the physical improvements typical of secular or denominational reform Ledigenheime, with particular attention paid to where and why these other models were chosen, as well as why (and where) they were not.

Literature

Interestingly, the majority of primary source material was either written directly by employers regarding their creations, or appeared in the building trade journals, such as

Deutsche Bauhütte, Die Bauwelt, Moderne Bauformen, and Süddeutsche Bauzeitung, all of which tended to underscore the rational basis of the building type by focusing on the details of construction, rather than the larger implications of these buildings, in contrast to the coverage given by reform publications and lifestyle magazines to other variants, namely denominational and reform organization supported Ledigeenheim, as discussed in chapters two and three. The exceptions to this emphasis on construction were the Arbeiterwohl and

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Arbeiterfreund, which also covered the employer-built Ledigenheime, but were not intended for architects. Instead, these publications shared an interest in the lives of workers.

Specifically, Arbeiterwohl was the publication of the Verband katholischer Industriellen und

Arbeiterfreunde, which largely consisted of Catholic Industrialists who felt that an employer had a duty to his employees400, and the Arbeiterfreund, the voice of reforming liberalism401.

In general, it is not until the turn of the twentieth century that one begins to see a more sophisticated analysis of the way these buildings were used, as well as a social justification for their construction in the literature. Unsurprisingly, this shift occurred when a number of conferences were held under the auspices of reform organizations, such as the aforementioned conference on Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime held in May 1904 in Leipzig, which was primarily supported by the reformist Zentralstelle für Arbeiter-

Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen402. Importantly, as discussed in chapter one, there traditionally had tended to be a disconnect between the larger societal goals reformers sought to accomplish and the more practical considerations of employers. These groups were almost never engaged in the same building projects, and typically employers had little to do with the project of reform writ-large, even if they engaged in the provision of Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen on their work premises. As mentioned above, employers also tended to publish their efforts via different venues. Thus, this national conference was significant, as it was one of the first

400 This organization was founded in 1880 in Aachen and the publication of Arbeiterwohl began in 1881 in Cologne (Nicolas Bullock and James Read, The Movement for Housing Reform in Germany and France, 1840-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 210).

401 Bullock and Read, 210.

402 The publication associated with this conference is Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime: Vorbericht und Verhandlungen der 13. Konferenz der Zentralstelle für Arbeiter-Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen am 9. Und 10. Mai in Leipzig (1904).

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to include a representative of industry as a speaker403, indicating that despite their differences and an ongoing uneasiness between reform organizations and employers404, by 1904 both groups considered the Ledigenheim to be somewhat of a shared concern and project.

Importantly, the conference also supplied employers, and the Bochumer Verein in particular, with a chance to look back at what they had accomplished in regards to the

Ledigenheim, and thus it is through this lens that one can encounter a detailed examination of the development of this building type, one clarified by the employers themselves.

The Roots of the Early Ledigenheim

The roots of the Ledigenheim building type first developed in the 1850s-1870s in the regions where factory work was replacing artisanal labor, and the Rhine-Ruhr region in particular. The factory work in these rapidly industrializing regions was significantly different from the specialized work of the old crafts, which required a closely supervised hands-on training in the form of apprenticeships and commonly provided the apprentice with room and board at the master’s house. In contrast, factory work required larger numbers of unskilled laborers to whom the employer had no obligations short of a paycheck.

However, these employers quickly realized that it was often in their business interests to house their single unskilled employees when their factories were located in areas where no

403 In this case, the speaker was an employee of the Bochumer Verein, a Baumeister Berndt.

404 The reasons for this tension will be addressed at the close of this chapter.

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acceptable living options were available405. Thus, Ledigenheime were built not only in heavily populated areas where other options, albeit unsavory ones (i.e. a Schafstelle), were available, such as Berlin or the Ruhr406, but also in rural and remote locations where there were no other boarding opportunities, such as the relatively underpopulated areas of the

Empire, in particular the vast eastern reaches of the Reich, including East and West Prussia,

Brandenburg and Saxony407.

These buildings often began as part of a larger program of employer supported housing programs408, including housing for families409, and were similarly positioned in rather bare surroundings within easy walking distance of the factory or mine410. However, these

405 These men were largely unmarried and under the age of thirty, but there was also a small subset of men who were housed as singles due to the fact that while they had wives and families, their place of employment was removed from the familial home and they had little ability to commute due to monetary considerations. The case of working women will be dealt with in chapter five due to a number of factors, including the fact that housing women tended to be viewed as charity due to their lower earning power, while the housing of men did not.

406 In general, as rapid industrialization swelled the late nineteenth century German city, even cities that had previously had plenty of housing stock became overcrowded, particularly with single young men employed in factories and other employment. For example, Spindlersfeld near Berlin grew from 1,500 workers and officials in 1882 to 2,288 by 1901, nearly doubling in less than twenty years (Der Arbeiterfreund (1902): 377).

407 In addition, satisfactory local labor could not be easily procured in some of these regions, due to both low population numbers and a supposed proclivity to drinking amongst the local population. In fact, the great estates were having a difficult time finding agricultural workers by this time. (Zeitung des Vereins Deutscher Eisenbahnverwaltungen 51, no. 27 (April 5, 1911): 3). Thus, the majority of the employer-built Ledigenheime reported on at this juncture (and through 1918) were located in the western part of the empire and a great number of these were in the Ruhr and Rhineland. For example, of eighty-two buildings built between 1870 and 1918, forty were located in either the Ruhr or the Rhineland, with Greater Essen alone containing eight. Of the forty-two remaining, the largest numbers were located in other industrial areas, such as the Saarland (with five), the “advanced industrial state” of Saxony (with four), Hessen (with six) and Upper Silesia, with sixteen (A. F. Weber, 80, 92).

408 The majority of these were very rigidly arranged, only beginning to appear more organic in the 1890s. For example, only only has to look at the street layout of the Krupp colonies of Kronenberg and Holsterhausen to note that the large streetblocks and their narrow side streets limited light and air, particularly due to the streets’ north-south orientation (Deutsche Bauzeitung no. 45 (1892): 267).

409 When built, family housing at this juncture was primarily constructed for skilled workers and their families, though this focus was broadening.

410 The majority of these were very rigidly arranged, only beginning to appear more organic in the 1890s. For example, only only has to look at the street layout of the Krupp colonies of Kronenberg and Holsterhausen to

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buildings were intended for a particular class of workers who would not qualify for familial housing; the young, unskilled and transitory workers who received the lowest wages and made up much of the industrial workforce411. Thus, the building of Ledigenheime was intended to retain a group of solid and virtuous workers in the midst of a constantly shifting population412. This was important, as young men in particular were noted for having a tendency to seek new employment when wages were down, or when they encountered any other sort of difficulty, including an unsatisfactory housing situation413.

However, despite the focus on housing single men, it would be difficult to consider the majority of the buildings constructed by employers for their single employees before the

1870s to be Ledigenheime. In fact, a more apt label is proto-Ledigenheim, though these buildings were generally termed Schlafhäuser by the groups who built them. These proto-

Ledigenheime include, amongst numerous others, the Bibiella Schlafbarack (sleeping barrack) for one hundred male employees of the mining company (Bergwerk) Bibiella near Tarnowitz in Upper Silesia, built in the 1860s, the Maxgrube Schlafhaus near Laurahütte in Upper Silesia, built contemporaneously with Bibiella414, the Ledigenheim for North-Baltic Sea Canal Workers,

note that the large street blocks and their narrow side streets limited light and air, particularly due to the streets’ north-south orientation (Deutsche Bauzeitung no. 45 (1892): 267).

411 In the 1850s through the 1870s, much of this labor would come from local markets, though this would shift by the 1880s, when a great number of these relatively unskilled young workers would begin to be drawn from the agricultural regions of the East. As an indication of the huge population shifts of the last years of the nineteenth century, one can note that as of 1890, 59.3 percent of Berlin’s population had not been born in Berlin, but were migrants, most of whom were from the rural East-Elban hinterlands (A. F. Weber, The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in Statistics (Ithaca: Cornell, 1899), 267).

412 “hierdurch inmitten der schnell wechselnden ledigen Arbeiterscharen einen Stamm tuechtiger, dauernder Arbeiter zu schaffen…” (R. Wiedfeldt, “Einleitendes Referat/Versammlungsbericht” Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 134).

413 This was true especially in the mining communities of the Ruhr.

414 Grube translates as mine, and Huette translates loosely to works. Therefore, this would be the Max mine and Laura works.

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constructed in the mode of the 1860s as late as 1895415, and the Rheinhausen Menage built by Krupp of Essen in 1856416, as well as his early Arbeiterkaserne dating to the very early

1870s417.

Certainly, the builders of these early Ledigenheime made no claim that their creations were “architecture” in any sense of the word418. In fact, it was even rare for an architect to be employed419. Typically, these buildings did not employ a recognizable architectural style420, and were laid out very simply, with a relatively low number of differentiated rooms arranged along a corridor running either along the side or through the center of the building421. Instead, the emphasis was typically focused upon hygienic elements422, specifically

415 Deutsche Bauzeitung (18 May, 1895): 250.

416 This is referring to the Freistattstrasse complex with 200 beds (Weyls, 342/114).

417 These include the Arbeiterkaserene/proto-Ledigenheime in the Segeroth area, including one building for 1600 men and another grouping of four buildings, with 240 men housed in each, as well as the Feuerwehrkaserne (for single firemen) on the Westendstrasse and Muehlheimer Chausee and the Freistattstrasse Menage/Arbeiterkaserne in Rheinhausen located to the northwest of the Nordhof colony, of which it was not a part. Interestingly, although the Essen Stadtsarchiv has the plans, including the exterior elevations, of the Segeroth buildings and the Feuerwehrkaserne, the Freistattstrasse complex is not included in their holdings, and there are no external images available to the researcher, only views of the interior. The external views were most likely held in the Krupp Archive, the Ledigenheim portion of which was destroyed in the Second World War (Essen Stadtarchiv and specifically regarding Freistattstrasse see Weyls, 342/114).

418 The employment of well-known professional architects and a more distinctive style identifiable with Ledigenheime come later, particularly at the turn of the century. At this point, the buildings were largely utilitarian with little attempt at refinement and architectural beauty.

419 Generally, the Baumeister of the company, who would have been in charge of nearly all company building projects, designed these early industrial buildings.

420 For example, the Bibiella building includes little or no decoration on either the interior or exterior of the building, with the exception of the slight framing at the top of the windows and main door, and a decorative detail in what appears to be wood at the center of the main entrance gable (Baugewerkszeitung 30 (1898): 1664).

421 Using the case of the Bibiella Schlafbarack as a representative example, one finds four sleeping compartments for twenty-five men each (about 7m by 8m each), two bath cells, a “roomy” kitchen and two small communal gathering rooms (Baugewerkszeitung 30 (1898): 1664).

422 Consequently, this building type was largely published in building journals, such as the Baugewerkszeitung, alongside articles on new building materials and advances in ventilation and heating and in publications focusing on public health.

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ventilation and the provision of “solid and healthy” building elements, such as cement walls and floors that were plastered and tiled floors in the kitchen, bathrooms and corridors423.

In fact, with their simple layout and emphasis on hygiene, the (proto) Ledigenheim bore a great resemblance to other very basic housing types, namely the army barrack and the homeless shelter. Certainly, the long and low buildings of the Sachsen army complex had much in common with the employer supported Schlafhaus/proto-Ledigenheim of the 1850s- early 1870s424, as did the homeless shelters of Munich and Berlin, with their emphasis on ventilation425.

However, although the early Ledigenheim may have resembled a building type developed to house the poor, the employers who supported the construction of Ledigenheime did not open or operate them on disinterested or humanitarian grounds. Instead, these buildings were always run “for profit”. The fact that the building of Ledigenheime was emphatically not a charitable intervention in the minds of employers is illustrated by the reaction of local notables and industrialists towards an Obdachlosenasyl (homeless shelter) planned for Bochum. The fact that groups who commonly supported the construction of

Ledigenheime branded a homeless shelter “humanitarian nonsense” makes clear that the latter housing type was not considered to be charity in any sense of the word426.

423 In the case of the Bibiella building, ventilation shafts were located at the center of each sleeping room and the upper third of the windows could be opened to vent the rooms, each of which contained four to five windows. This was believed to discourage damp walls that could breed microorganisms, and tuberculosis and malaria in particular (Of course, damp walls would not lead to either condition directly, but this was the medical wisdom at the time. Certainly, damp walls would not be good for one’s health) (Baugewerkszeitung 30 (1898): 1664).

424 Deutsche Vierteljarhsschrift für Öffentliche Gesundheitspflege 11 (1879): 76-91.

425 In regards to the Munich Obdachlose buildings see Johannes Altenroth, Staatswirtschaftliche Dissertation: Das Schlafstellenwesen und seine Reform: Statistik, Schlafstellenaufsicht, Ledigenheime (Universität Halle, 1916), 112-115. In regards to Berlin Obdachlose buildings see Weyl’s, 79/307-81/309.

426 David Crew, A Town in the Ruhr: A Social History of Bochum, 1860-1914 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), 150.

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Certainly, those individuals writing or speaking in support of employer built

Ledigenheime (almost always the employers themselves) repeatedly stressed that such buildings did not support charity cases, but instead sought to spare workers from the

“Jammer” (misery) of the private Schlafstelle, which would in turn support the aims of their company by reducing turnover and producing rested and healthy workers who would not injure themselves on the job427. Thus, it is clear to see that from the beginning, economic considerations lay at the heart of this early intervention of employers in the lives of their employees, not the saving of souls or the transformation of the working class into middle- class burghers that marked the approach of other Ledigenheim builders (the Catholic

Kolpinghaus movement and reform organizations).

Beyond the Barrack: Developments from 1870 in Permanent Workers’ Housing

It is in the early 1870s that one begins to see the development and construction of buildings that can more precisely be termed Ledigenheime, rather than the barrack-like buildings previously discussed (though this form continued to be used). Although still built by employers for their single employees in order to provide sanitary housing close to their place of employment, these are much more permanent and architecturally sophisticated constructions that do not immediately call emergency housing to mind. In fact, one can more clearly ascertain the shifts in massing and the internal organization of space, as well as links to education and social reform, that connect this variant more firmly with the urban reform Ledigenheime of circa 1900 than with the previously mentioned barrack type.

427 Wiedfeldt, 134. Krupp actually forbade the taking in of lodgers in its familial housing, though approximately three percent of Krupp tenants did this anyways (146).

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However, literature in the 1870s continued to refer to the employer built

Ledigenheim using the language developed to describe the older barrack-like variant:

Logierhaus, Schlafhaus, Arbeiterkaserne or Menage. This indicates not only a lack of consensus as to what this building type should be termed, but a lack of clarity as to precisely what its larger purpose was428. This is unsurprising when one considers the relatively sporadic reporting of the construction of this building type, even by building journals and the internal publications of industrial concerns. Again, it was not until the 1890s and the advent of the

“era of reform” that one begins to encounter articles that both refer to these buildings as

Ledigenheime, and position these early Ledigeneheime by employers as buildings of some historical importance for the design and construction of housing for the working classes, important prototypes that paved the way for both municipal/reform organization built

Ledigenheime and later Ledigenheime by employers429. This lack of coverage indicates that these buildings were seen as a somewhat tentative attempt towards housing single workers, the future success of which was not assured.

In addition, the construction of more permanent and sophisticated Ledigenheime by employers must not only be considered with later Ledigenheim variants, but also as one of many provisions by employers intended to benefit the health and wellbeing of employees.

These employer funded projects, or Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen, ranged from the building of employee housing and playgrounds to social programs and they often arose in concert with

428 Was it simply a place for men to sleep and eat, or something more? Of course, considering that the average work week for an unskilled laborer was 72 hours in 1871, there would have been little time for anything besides eating and sleeping (Gerhard Bry, Wages in Germany, 1871-1945 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), 51.

429 For example, in 1892, Theodor Goecke of the Deutsche Bauzeitung held up these earlier constructions as examples to emulate, terming them “Grossartig”, and even publishing detailed plans of the Selbecker Bergmannsheim (Deutsche Bauzeitung (1892): 268).

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one another, even when they were not integrated with each other430. Of course, it was by no means certain that an employer, even a large and prosperous one, would fund

Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen, including the construction of a Ledigenheim, for his single employees431. Generally however, by the late 1870s, the Ledigenheim had come to perfectly fit into the conception of what an employer should provide to his workers432, an endeavor which would aid the employer as much as the employee, for reasons we will clarify433.

Stahlhausen of Bochum: the Ideal

Perhaps the preeminent example of an early Schlafhaus cum Ledigenheim, one that both remained the ideal for nearly thirty years and clearly illustrates the development from small scale barracks to a large and permanent Ledigenheim, is the Kost und Logierhaus Stahlhausen, or

430 For example, Krupp of Essen not only planned the Kronenberg settlement (1872-73) to contain 233 familial residences, but also a Consum-Anstalt and Restaurant, as well as a Kindergarten, Sewing School, Badeanstalt (bathing facility),Turnanstalt (gymnasium) and Ledigenheim (referred to here as an Arbeiterkaserne). In fact, the early plan of the settlement reveals a space at the very center of the colony marked “Bauplatz für Arbeiterkaserne”(Essen Stadtarchiv, Signatur 901 1017), a plot that was built upon at a later date (Richard Klapheck, Siedlungswerk Krupp (Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth Verlag, 1930), 15).

431 This was even the case when the employer built and funded other Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen. For example, the Marienhütte works near Kotzenau was singled out for praise in the Arbeiterwohl journal for the care it took for its workers, though the lack of a Ledigenheim for single workers on the premises was not even noted (Die Arbeiterwohl 9 (1889): 132-146).

432 Although, as mentioned in chapter one, this was largely not mandated by law.

433 The Arbeiterfreund of 1911, in discussing such Fürsorge (aid programs) for workers, provides good examples that illustrate the general mindset of the industrial employer. They primarily saw education as a tool to help the workers help themselves. The particular case discussed covered rescue service in mining, and how education of workers in first-aid and other life saving techniques would help the workers in case of an accident. This was necessary, as the miners underground were far from the immediate reach of doctors. Thus, the mine owners could feel good about providing their workers with some modicum of information that could save their lives, while costing the mine little money, and certainly less than had they made the mines safer or hired a doctor to go into the mines with the workers. Factory libraries were also an area where industrialists were active, though again, in a hardly neutral manner. These libraries were seen as an aid to improve the working class family along middle class lines. The factory discussed believed that providing good children’s literature and school reading would encourage family togetherness, in that they could be read aloud by the entire family and then discussed (Der Arbeiterfreund (1911): 277).

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lodging house of Stahlhausen, erected by the Bochumer Verien in 1872 for 1,200 to 1,500 workers outside the industrial town of Bochum in the Ruhr434.

While we will see that the impetus behind the construction of Stahlhausen was fairly typical for employers in the 1870s, in other ways it is a remarkable example of a very early

Ledigenheim. Firstly, the Bochumer Verein was one of the earliest companies to develop what can be considered a Ledigenheim to house its single workers, rather than a barrack. In addition, and most importantly, this building appears to have generated a great deal of discourse over a period of thirty years, culminating in a discussion of its relative merits at the

1904 national conference Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, where it was held up by the successor of the original architect as “the” model for other employers to follow435. In fact, the Stahlhausen building remained in use until 1943, when it was destroyed during an Allied bombing raid.

Thus, the next sections of this chapter will examine the reasons Stahlhausen was both representative of and unique to Ledigenheim construction in the last decades of the nineteenth century, as well as the larger implications for both the employer and the residents.

We will begin by briefly describe both the housing situation in Bochum before the construction of the Stahlhausen complex and then proceed to elements that made

Stahlhausen different from earlier proto-Ledigenheime. We will then analyze the basic appearance and physical arrangement of the building, before delving into an analysis of the implications of such an arrangement. Specifically, we will clarify the ways by which

434 While the Ledigenheim of Georg Marienhütte in Osnabrück (1875), the Logierhaus of the Bochumer Verein in Stahlhausen (1872), the Selbecker Bergwerksverine’s Bergmannsheim (1892), and Logierhaus/Schlafhaus of Krupp of Essen (1895) could all serve as representative examples of this transitional Ledigenheim type, it is most fruitful to focus our attention on of the Stahlhausen building for a variety of reasons that will be enumerated below.

435 In fact, much of the data on Stahlhausen comes from the report of Baumeister Berndt, the successor to the architect of the Stahlhausen building, Baumeister Spetzler.

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Stahlhausen was both a central component in the company’s self-fashioning as a forward- thinking, benevolent and economically competitive company, and finally, how it functioned as a means to greater control over the employees of the Bochumer Verein.

A Brief History of the Housing Situation in Bochum before Stahlhausen

Before dealing with the implications of the Stahlhausen Ledigenheim, it is most helpful to clarify the reasons for its initial construction. In short, as was typical for the Ruhr region and other rapidly industrializing areas of Germany, the housing situation in Bochum had become dire by the late 1860s and early 1870s. In particular, the settlement of young male (unmarried) workers in the town resulted in both an imbalance in the population in favor of young, single men and a chronic housing shortage436. The immediate result was an ad-hoc system, where in 1858 the average number of residents per household numbered thirteen in one or two room dwellings, many of them lodgers or Schlafgänger437. This extreme overcrowding not only had negative consequences for familial life, it was a great factor in the outbreaks of disease that plagued the area from the 1850s438. In addition, and most

436 In the Ruhr, where the Bochumer Verein and a large number of industrial employers were located, the overwhelming majority of migrants to the area were single and under the age of thirty. Taking Bottrop as an example, 62.7 percent of migrants were single upon arrival, 26.4% were under 20 years of age, 28.6% between 21 and 25, and only 17.1% between 26 and 30 (R. C. Murphy, Guestworkers in the German Reich (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 30). Even in Upper Silesia, a location of vast industrial expansion in the nineteenth century, new residents were overwhelmingly single, at an astounding sixty-seven percent (102).

437 Abrams, 25. “…in Bochum nearly ten percent of homes surveyed in 1905 had one or more lodgers/boarders…a substantial number in the one- or two-room houses” (S. H. F. Hickey, Workers in Imperial Germany: The Miners in the Ruhr (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), 42).

438 “Cholera appeared in Bochum in 1849 and returned with disastrous force in 1866…the outbreak coincided with a smallpox epidemic” (Hickey, 43). In addition, tuberculosis, influenza and bronchitis, though caused by an inhaled organism, were understood to be “fostered by overcrowded, damp, polluted and poorly ventilated conditions” (Hickey, 47). Typhoid was also a problem and “the cause was impure water and foodstuffs, and cases tended to concentrate in the less salubrious districts of the town” even as late as 1910, when a typhoid epidemic occurred (Hickey, 46).

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importantly for the Bochumer Verein, the instability of life in Bochum led unskilled workers to seek better conditions in other towns, with such quick worker turnover negatively impacting the profitability of the company. As we will examine later in this chapter, these

(primarily) young men were also feared as the most uncontrollable and easily radicalized members of the workforce439.

Thus, the administration of Bochumer Verein came to realize that it was in their best interest to integrate significant portions of unskilled workers into the more permanent workforce440, and to do so via housing located on the fringes of the family housing then under construction several blocks to the northeast. Not only did the administration consider permanent workers to be more disciplined, trained, and productive441, they also realized that the transformation of an unskilled and non-permanent workforce to more settled one could

439 Bachelorhood also almost guaranteed that one would not remain in residence for a long period of time, but move again in a short period of time. Certainly, “marital status was closely associated with long term residence”, and in this industrial region, few potential wives were to be found (Murphy, 103). Thus, the men enjoyed a prolonged period of single life, where they were not tied to family or place.

440 The unskilled workers were largely non-local labor (Crew, 68), and the expansion of heavy industry in the region and the continued success of the company were cited by Berndt at the Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheim conference of 1904 ((“Das Ledigenheim vom Stadtpunkt des Arbeitgebers, insbesondere das Ledigenheim des Bochumer Vereins für Bergbau und Gusstahlfabrikation” in Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904): 161-174). (The title translates to “The Ledigenheim from the Standpoint of the Bochum Organization for Mining and Steel Fabrication”.)) Baumeister Berndt of Bochum was the resident manager of construction for the Bochumer Verein at the time of the conference on Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime in 1904, and happily reported that the Stahlhausen complex had a positive effect, not only on the workers it housed, but also on the city of Bochum and the general area (173). Certainly, the stabilization of the surrounding area is certainly something that would have benefited the Bochumer Verein in terms of quelling labor unrest and disease.

441 In fact, the Bochum Chamber of Commerce recorded in 1878 that, “It is self evident that with such a constant coming and going, a thorough training for individual workers in their task is made extraordinarily difficult and that the productivity as well as the prosperity of the large works is severely affected. In this respect, the English and Belgian firms who enjoy a much more stable and well schooled workforce have a great advantage over us” (Crew, 148). This was also seen to have a detrimental effect on Social Democracy, at least according to Louis Baare in 1878 (148).

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only be accomplished though the provision of “good and inexpensive accommodation outside family housing…for single workers”442.

The Innovations of the Stahlhausen Ledigenheim

Dr. Spetzler, Baumeister of the Bochumer Verein, therefore devised the complex at

Stahlhausen in 1872 to both “settle” and serve unmarried employees by designing a complex consisting of three buildings that created a kind of Ledigenheim campus: a building housing the men (with separate, soundly built and inexpensively priced places to rest and two basement beer halls), a large dining hall with attached kitchens located in the courtyard, and the “servant” spaces required for the running of dining hall and residents’ quarters

(laundries, etc.)443. Despite the massive size (larger than any later Ledigenheim, which evoked fears that the building was a bit too like a barrack), Stahlhausen provided residents with sanitary and solidly constructed housing, as well as easy access to food and drink and improved spaces within which to socialize, coming closer treatment generally reserved for largely skilled residents of urban Ledigenheime built by reform groups, municipalities, or the

Catholic Kolpinghaus movement.

442 Hickey, 42. Berndt, speaking in 1904, was quick to note that this was always, and continued to be, a wise financial move on the part of the company and not charity in any manner (Berndt, 162).

443 In every case, male residents were kept strictly divided from the female help, so that there was a clear division between the rooms for the residents and the business related rooms (Berndt, 162). Interestingly, this is the only mention of the actual layout of a Ledigenheim at the Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheim conference of 1904. Tellingly, this indicates that industrialist and employers of all kinds, though only a portion of the participants, were more interested in the organization and construction of a Ledigenheim than their peers, whose emphasis remained on moral or societal goals, often elevating the tastes and habits of the residents, almost to the exclusion of the quotidian business of how the Ledigenheim was run and planned. In contrast, employers generally were happy to maintain social divisions so long as the workforce was productive, meaning healthy and under control. Unsurprisingly, the accounts of employers tend towards appearing as business accounts.

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What is also notable about Stahlhausen, and differentiated it from other contemporary Ledigenheime built by industry, was not only that it was designed by an architect, but that Spetzler was central in promoting the modernity and forward thinking nature of the Bochumer Verein through the media via the innovative nature of the

Stahlhausen building444. Spetzler recognized that this was a new and innovative housing type, one that turned away from the construction of numerous small-scale barracks to a larger, more self-contained building (or linked groups of buildings) that would provide residents with all their needs. He was aware that he was choosing to go against the common wisdom of how to house single workers by employing the centralized building system and abjuring the otherwise advantageous barrack system445. Thus, he took care to differentiate his creation from other means of housing single men by employers, particularly the

Bochumer Verein’s competition. In particular, he took care (as early as 1879) to clarify that

Stahlhausen was not organized along the lines of the Kruppian Menagen446.

What this meant in practical terms was that instead of large sleeping halls, where one’s neighbor was generally not the same from night to night, and that unfavorably reminded Spetzler of charitable housing like a homeless shelter, one’s roommate situation in

444 This also came after initial attempts in housing by Spetzler and the Bochumer Verein primarily geared towards housing families (Zeitschrift für Baukunde, Band II, Heft 4, 1879, 543), though this housing largely consisted of four-in-block buildings, meaning that four families resided in four apartments in a small building that resembled a single family home. There would generally be two families on each floor and two doors that led to two apartments respectively.

445 Spetzler, 543.

446 Of course, considering that Krupp was a major competitor against the Bochumer Verein, this distinction between the forward-thinking Bochumer Verein, and its Logierhaus, and the “outdated” Kruppian Menagen is important. Housing provided and the benefits companies could offer their employees, even those at the lowest level of employment, were examples of the economic health and competitiveness of a company.

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Stahlhausen remained fairly stable447. The bedrooms generally housed eight men, though there were rooms for two, four, eight, ten or twelve men448, and each room had a table and benches, as well as what appears to be lockable cabinets or wardrobes. Spetzler reported that this set-up created separated, sound and inexpensive places to sleep for the residents, as well as additional places for them to relax in their free time449. This was also intended to encourage the men to form small friendly groups based upon their roommates, which would mitigate the large scale of the building450, as well as fostering camaraderie451. Finally, this organization of rooms had other benefits for the company, rather than just happier and more collegial residents, as smaller sleeping halls would allow those resting not to be disturbed by workers of other shifts452, leading to well-rested workers and thus fewer accidents on the job.

Aesthetics and Scale

Another way by which Spetzler’s creation differed from earlier proto-Ledigenheime was in regards to the level of attention paid to aesthetics, even small details of decoration,

447 There is no evidence on the typical length of a resident’s stay, but Spetzler highlighted the fact that housing was more stable in Stahlhausen than was typical for a Schlafstelle, or the proto-Ledigenheime of other companies (544).

448 There must have double or triple bunks in the rooms housing more than four men, as the largest number of beds shown in a room is four, even for those marked “for 12 men” on the plan.

449 Spetzler, 544. There is no interest as of yet of enticing residents with bowling allies, etc.

450 This arrangement could also potentially root out troublemakers by removing anonymity from the residents. Roommates would know one another well, and notice untoward behavior, something that will be addressed shortly in the section on rules and surveillance.

451 Spetzler termed these groups Kameradisch (Berndt, 163). Of course, camaraderie and happy workers served particular ends that were beneficial to the Bochumer Verein, and the author does not gloss over this fact.

452 The Bochumer Verein employed both day and night shift workers, and shift workers were housed with other members of the same shift under Spetzler’s design.

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rather than just basic hygienic provisions. For example, although the dining hall of the building had a simple, even spare appearance, the wooden floor was laid in a herringbone pattern, and a high wooden dado surmounted by trim ringed the room, providing some decoration, as well as the pegs from which men could hang their overcoats and hats453. In general, the interior of the building was noted as pleasant, light and bright454.

In addition, Spetzler designed the exterior of Stahlhausen in historicizing manner, employing a combination of recognizable architectural styles and a significant amount of decorative detail. For example, the main façade included a central stepped gable in the manner of a late-Medieval Hanseatic building, that was decorated with a clock and weathervane. Meanwhile, the far sides of the main façade were capped with mansard-roofed turrets, complete with metalwork decoration on the ridgeline455, and the brickwork façade included terracotta decoration running in several bands across the façade, primarily indicating the division of the floors456. Additionally, and clearly visible on the elevation drawings, are a series of repeating motifs (in half-moon shapes) located between the pointed

453 Soziale Arbeit (Bochum: Bochumer Verein, 1942), 56.

454 Zeitschrift für Baukunde 2, no. 4 (1879): 543.

455 Considering the imposing nature of the building, the somewhat hidden position of the main entrance is surprising. Although at first glance the entrance appears to be the central archway of the main façade, this is not the primary entrance. Instead, this gateway served as the passage through the lodging house to the Menage located behind. Although the Schlafhaus proper could be entered through doorways within this interior passage, those entrances immediately visible to residents or visitors appeared at the far ends of the building and were smaller and less intimidating. However, it does appear that there are secondary exits and entrances along the rear courtyard of the u-shaped building, possibly due to fire safety concerns. For similar reasons, kitchens were not included in lodging house (Spetzler in Zeitschrift für Baukunde 2, no. 4 (1879): 545, 547).

456 This is in keeping with the construction materials used for familial housing in the nearby settlement, simple brick with pitched roofs. However, although these familial housing blocks could hold from four families to twelve families each, they remained relatively small, particularly in light of the Stahlhausen lodging house. In the case of the dwelling house for twelve families, the house measured three floors high, with four families to a floor and three rooms for each apartment. Within the apartments, each room had a window and was decently sized, at roughly twelve square meters. In the house for four families, each apartment had its own entrance (two on one façade and two on the opposite façade) and contained both an accessible attic and cellar. In both cases, other than the brick courses, there was no concession to exterior decoration. In fact, they bore much similarity to the Mühlhaus four in block housing model.

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windows of the fourth floor and directly below the roofline. These motifs included the tools that employees of the Bochumer Verein would have used at work and symbols that indicated the nature of the company, including: a crossed hammer and chisel, several interlocking toothed wheels and drafting equipment.

The scale of the Stahlhausen building also differentiated it from its forerunners. The

Ledigenheim was not only massive, with two wings extending from the main body of the building and enclosing the separate building for the provision of food, it reached five stories

(including the attic story) into the air. Interestingly, such details not only underscore the business interests of the Bochumer Verein and its employees, but also link Spetzler’s

Stahlhausen to the company’s winding towers, which featured similar architectural motifs and also rose over six stories into the air. These towers, like the provision of a large and imposing Ledigenheim, also functioned as a highly visible advertisement of a mining company’s success, as will be discussed shortly.

The large scale and inclusive nature of the building also allowed the architect, due to economies of scale, to meet the most modern standards in regards to the materials used and utilities provided to residents. For example, Spetzler reported that Stahlhausen not only provided each resident with the number of cubic meters of air recommended by reform organizations as late as 1904, such as the Zentralstelle für Arbeiter-Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen457, proving that the building was ahead of its time, but that it also employed an extremely efficient ventilation system, which both heated the building (via steam) and maximized air quality458. In addition, gas lighting was provided in the corridors, and in the individual

457 The cubic meters per man are as follows: 10-12 cubic meters for a ten-man room. In addition, ceilings were 3.77 to 3.60 meters from the floors. (Spetzler in Zeitschrift für Baukunde 2, no. 4 (1879): 544).

458 The ventilation system was linked to the central heating system, though it could also work even without heat in the summer. For each bed, 30 cbm of air was circulated per hour (Spetzler, 545).

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rooms. In stark contrast to earlier barracks, Stahlhausen was also considered to be safe from the threat of fire, due to a number of measures. These included the use of railway rails to support the corridors, and the covering of the walking surfaces with asphalt. Only the bedrooms and communal spaces had hardwood floors. Additionally, basalt lava was used to protect the stairs from both wear and tear and prevent accidents459. Finally, in a nod to the control of disease, as would be employed in the mines themselves a number of years later, a number of showers, not baths, were included460. Amazingly, residents were availed of all these technologically advanced elements, in addition to a cast iron bedstead, straw sack, sea grass filled pillow, half-linen bedcover, woolen blankets (upon request), a lockable dresser, as well as regularly changed towel and bed linens, for the price of only fifteen pfennig a day, when the average weekly wage for an unskilled worker was ten Marks a week (based on an average working week of 72 hours)461.

Certainly, the level of attention paid to both quality and affordability in Stahlhausen did not go unnoticed by contemporaries, and in fact, reformers as late as 1904 noted how well priced and modern such amenities at Stahlhausen remained, though they had first been provided to residents over twenty-five years before462. Of course, the inclusion of such elements was considered to be a good economic investment that would bear returns in the form of well-rested and productive workers, but could also function as a form of advertising.

459 Spetzler in Zeitschrift für Baukunde 2, no. 4 (1879): 545 and Gerhard Bry, Wages in Germany, 1871-1945 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), 51.

460 “Trachoma was easily passed on, and in 1899 baths were banned from mines and had to be replaced with showers” (Hickey, 124).

461 Spetzler in Zeitschrift für Baukunde 2, no. 4 (1879): 546.

462 The amenities noted by reformers in 1904 included steam heat and the regular changing of bed linens (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime , 164-166).

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The Ledigenheim as Corporate Advertising

This emphasis on new technologies and benevolent treatment of employees through the form of the Ledigenheim, as a component of the larger provision of housing to workers, an be linked to the fact that these buildings were seen as necessary elements in the development of both corporate self-fashioning and corporate growth from the 1870s through the turn of the century. Certainly, the Ledigenheim was more than a measure to ensure worker happiness and lower job turnover in the most vulnerable element of the workforce463, it was a way for one company to demonstrate its success in comparison with another. In fact, highly successful firms such as the Bochumer Verein and Krupp were expected to build impressive

Ledigenheime, primarily as an advertisement of their economic success464, but also as a reflection of their knowledge of the needs of their work force465. Thus, the construction of a

Ledigenheim by an employer was one of the means by which a company could show that business was good, and had the monetary funds for such expensive projects. Additionally, the lavish and historicizing treatment of functional industrial architecture, from the highly decorated winding towers positioned above the entrance to the mines to the Ledigenheim,

463 Crew, 64. Single workers were fired first during depressions and the company generally replaced single workers who went on strike with strikebreakers, as opposed to their married brethren, who often were allowed to return to their jobs.

464 In fact, Krupp was surpassing the Bochumer Verein at this point in regards to the quality of housing it was providing its workers by the late 1870s, early 1880s. This also indicates three non-mutually exclusive possibilities concerning Krupp at this point: that the Ledigenheime of the Krupp complex were intended for the elite of the single workforce (which they initially had been), that Kruppian workers were paid more than those of the Bochumer Verein (again, this was dependant upon their position in the company, but wages were higher), and that Krupp was willing to pay more initially to front such projects because the firm could afford to (it could and did, particularly by 1900) (Berndt, 141).

465 Berndt praised Krupp for always keeping in mind the class of men for whom the Ledigenheime were intended and not confusing the skilled and unskilled worker in the way that the English supposedly did (Berndt, 141). This betrays Berndt’s bias in favor of the skilled workforce, and corresponds to the view of nearly employers that the skilled worker was more valuable than the unskilled worker. Of course, in purely economic terms, a skilled worker was worth more than an unskilled worker.

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was a way by which a company could to show the credit worthiness of the Konzern by appearing “similar but better” than the competition466.

Not only was the Ledigenheim an indication of the economic success of a particular company, a visible sign to local and regional competition, it was also a way by which industry measured its success on the national and international stage. As mentioned previously in chapter two, reformist measures in Great Britain were of particular interest to German industrialists, and considering the growing competitiveness between the two empires, the

Ledigenheim was an indicator of economic health, even economic superiority. Essentially, the provision of model Ledigenheime by German employers as early as the 1870s indicated that the German industrialist was more knowledgeable and active about the attendant ills that accompany the growth of industry than his British competitor 467.

Patriarchal Social Control and the Ledigenheim

The building of a Ledigenheim, amongst other housing reforms, also played into the myth of the benevolent employer, particularly when personal relationships between labor and capital were dissolving with the growth of German industry. These buildings thus functioned as signs that the company would reward workers loyal to them, loyalty that was in increasingly short supply in certain industrial areas by the 1880s, the Ruhr and Upper

466 Matthew Jefferies, Politics and Culture in Wilhelmine Germany: the Case of Industrial Architecture (Oxford: Berg, 1995), 27, 35. Interestingly, although ornament and historicism in general fell out of favor post 1900, it continued to be used in heavy industry, particularly the coalmining, crude iron and steel industries (Jefferies, 31).

467 Der Arbeiterfreund (1907): 419. America, despite the contemporaneous creation of company towns such as Pullman outside of Chicago, and even earlier mill towns in New England that dated to the 1830s and 1840s, remained less of a yardstick for German industrialists and were not mentioned once in the literature consulted.

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Silesia in particular468. In fact, the Bochumer Verein was known for its paternalistic stance, one that was representative of heavy industrial companies in general469.

However, the reverse of rewarding loyal employees was the system of control enacted by employers via provisions such as the Ledigenheim. Stahlhausen functioned not only as housing, but also as a means to greater social control over the employees of the

Bochumer Verein. In particular, we will see that elements of social control were thus coupled with the benefits provided to residents to create a stable workforce out of men who were considered (somewhat unfairly) to be the most dangerous members of the workforce470.

Ironically, despite their supposed volatility, these men were almost never the source of Social Democratic ferment that employers feared. In fact, it was extremely rare for them to become involved in any sort of sustainable protest against their employers or other authority figures. One can use the case of Bochum as an example, as the greater working class population of Bochum was not involved in any significant manner with the socialist party. They were neither members, nor supporters. For example, in Bochum, SPD membership “never rose above 7,000, despite the fact that in 1912 there were nearly 162,000

468 However, this patriarchal ideal was problematic for many reformers and workers, even employers. Der Arbeiterfreund of 1907 clarifies current notions that both the worker and the employer need to pay into housing and worker well-being schemes, each according to his own means, in order to be invested in the reform work undertaken on behalf of the company, similar to the way in which the social insurance schemes inaugurated by Bismarck worked (Der Arbeiterfreund (1907): 420). Under this model, the workers raised money for improvements as well as the employer, which hypothetically would lead to greater cooperation between capital and labor (Der Arbeiterfreund (1907): 423).

469 This stance is reflected in a stanza of a song celebrating the anniversary of the Bochumer Verein, whereby the founder and current head of the company were thanked for making the Bochumer Verein a “home”. “ ‘And a home has grown here for thousands Who remain loyal to the Bochumer Verein For this thank this gallant pair’ ” (Crew, 155).

470 Young unskilled workers were more likely to leave a position if they were not happy with their pay. They also tended to exhibit more immoderate behaviors than their older and married counterparts, as has been mentioned.

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voters in the constituency, the vast majority of them solidly working class”471. In fact, most of the membership of the SPD actually came from the skilled working classes), the very classes that the Bochumer Verein and similar organizations tended to grant a level of freedom to. For example, Evans mentions the power of the Social Democrats in

Düsseldorf, whose population consisted primarily of skilled workers, as opposed to lower working class and fairly apolitical Bochum472. These were not the workers who would have found lodgings within the Stahlhausen Schlafhaus, but instead those who would have been free to choose their own lodgings. Therefore, despite employer fears of the lower working classes, it was not the oft maligned unskilled worker who was the danger, but the lauded skilled worker, which puts many of the regulations geared towards unskilled workers into question.

Nevertheless, this combination of elements of control alongside beneficial programs and provisions, from food and drink to pleasant and healthy ways by which to spend one’s free time, can be compared to the “carrot and the stick” analogy used by Bismarck during the government’s crackdown on the nascent Social Democratic Party and the creation of governmental social insurance schemes, with the Sozialistengesetz (or law prohibiting the

Socialist Party) being the stick, and the provision of social insurance the carrot. We will thus begin our examination of these attempts by employers to control the workforce by first looking at negative means of control and then more positive interventions in workers’ lives.

Rules, Regulations and the Monitoring of Space at Stahlhausen

471 Evans, 86.

472 Evans, 67-69, 86-87.

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As the overriding concern of the employers who built Ledigenheime for their single workers, including the Bochumer Verein, was the creation of an orderly workforce, it is only logical that these Ledigenheime tended to have the most stringent rules of any of the

Ledigenheime discussed in this dissertaton, something that did not change in any significant way from 1870 to 1914 and rarely varied from company to company473. Additionally, the design of circulation spaces, systems of surveillance, and even the positioning of the

Ledigenheim within the larger Bochumer Verein complex helped to control and direct the behavior of residents, as well as lessen the danger to the surrounding population should these elements fail to produce the desired outcome474.

Basically, the residents of Stahlhausen were physically segregated from the general population of workers simply by being housed in a Ledigenheim that was not integrated in any significant way with the nearby housing complex and was more closely related to the factory complex itself475. The large building was also positioned on a diagonal, in contrast to the rigid N-S/E-W axis that constituted the majority of the settlement. In fact, the central road leading from the heart of the familial apartment complex did not even run in front of the main façade of the Ledigenheim, but behind the bathing facilities in front of the

Ledigenheim. Thus, Ledigenheim residents were kept physically separate from the rest of the

473 Industrial Ledigenheime in particular “…involved fairly stringent rules and were rejected by the young men in favour of the greater freedom and independence of lodging” (Hickey, 50).

474 “If, however, employers could not or did not want to stabilize this floating population [young single males], they could at least segregate it both from other workers and from other townsmen. This seems to have been one of the main functions of the Kost und Logierhaus” of the Bochumer Verein (Crew, 152).

475 In contrast to family housing, over six blocks away, the Ledigenheim was placed little over a block from the factory complex.

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working population, with the exception of the workplace and the dining hall or Menage, where interactions between individuals could be closely monitored476.

In addition, the control of residents’ movements via the design of Stahlhausen was underscored by the prevalence of relatively sophisticated systems of surveillance. Not only are there indications that informants were widely employed by employers within

Ledigenheime to report on problematic residents477, even the design of the buildings aided in surveillance. As mentioned earlier, Spetzler had taken care to create sleeping rooms that would only house small and stabile numbers of men. The men were encouraged to form friendships with their roommates, rather than other residents, which not only created a pseudo-familial atmosphere for the men, but a system that Spetzler felt kept the men from misbehaving. Thus, anonymity was actively discouraged at Stahlhausen, greatly increasing the likelihood that one would be caught if one engaged in illicit activities478. This emphasis on knowing one’s fellow residents was further underscored by the fact that there were no private places to meet men who were not one’s roommates on the upper floors, though this was likely a cost-saving move. In addition, the circulation routes within the building were closely monitored, as there were only three stairwells leading from the sleeping rooms to the

476 The relatively convoluted means by which the Menage could be entered by residents of the Ledigenheim indicates this attempt at regulation. Specifically, this dining hall, open to all employees of the company, could only be directly accessed by residents of the Ledigenheim via a single entrance, though there were numerous entrances for the more general working population.

477 Certainly the employer-built Ledigenheim had its own internal structure, with unproblematic long-term residents occupying the highest position within the hierarchy of residents. Interestingly, these specially titled Stubenältesten (most senior room residents) were the only residents permitted to meet with the management to air grievances or other concerns. Considering that the employers chose these individuals, it is hard not to see Stubenältesten as creatures of the management. This was similar as well to the system of Selbstverwaltung used within the mines (Ministerialdirektor Dr. Thiel, Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 1904, 191), and is similar to the Catholic Ledigenheime, where, such as in the case of Neuss, complaints had to be brought before the Präsis in person by the Ordner (a person with a position similar to that of the Stubenältesten), not the regular residents (Schweitzer, 49).

478 The author of Über Fürsorge für Ledige Arbeiter in Posen, written as late as 1911, feared housing large numbers of men in sleeping halls for this very reason (J. Radomski, Über Fürsorge für Ledige Arbeiter in Posen (Posen: W. Decker and Co., 1911), 8).

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outside of the building, and the primary circulation route directly passed the private rooms of the house inspector, whose lodgings were located on the second floor479. The apartment of the housing inspector also served as a barrier to the direct circulation of men throughout the building, as it bisected every upper floor, essentially cutting one wing of the building off from the other480.

This restriction of free movement was further underscored by a number of rules, some of which were merely intended to ensure quiet and sanitary conditions for the residents481, but others that were linked to the employers’ need to monitor the movements and contacts of the single worker. The emphasis that employers put on the latter was made clear by that fact that the breaking of rules that could potentially undermine this system of control and surveillance put in place by the Bochumer Verein were the most severely punished of all infractions. For example, residents of Stahlhausen could be dismissed immediately if they brought in non-residents without permission, or even if they changed their bedroom, bed or seat in the dining hall without speaking to the management.

479 The fact that there was no one to oversee the inspector, and that female staff was lodged next to, and was only accessible via an interior hallway running by the inspector’s apartment, is an illustration of the discrepancy between housing for the managerial class and the unskilled worker in Germany in the latter nineteenth century. Evidently it was not problematic for female employees to be housed next to a man if he was their social superior, but that they were to be separated out from males of their own class for their “protection”.

480 This level of surveillance was not uncommon, as in the Ledigenheime built by Krupp, the men’s movements were watched over by both the Hausmeister and the Verwalter, whose rooms typically looked out upon the main entrance to the residents’ living quarters (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 31).

481 The rules required for residence within Krupp’s Menage are useful, as they indicate the types of infractions that would be punishable by a fine (in this case, of ten Marks), rather than dismissal. These included requirements to make one’s bed daily, as well as admonitions that that noting be thrown out of the windows, that there was no smoking in the bedrooms and that “haircutting and shaving must only be done in the Fluren and then cleaned up promptly”. One was also required to do one’s washing or drying of clothing in specifically appointed spaces, not in the bedrooms (damp clothing in close spaces was thought to breed disease, or at least make symptoms worse), and one had to attend meals with washed hands and without hats. (7, “Hausordnung für die Menage der Gusstahlfabrik von Fried. Krupp in Essen” in Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime).

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Additionally, the men were not even allowed to visit each other’s bedrooms or enter their bedrooms during the daytime482!

Yet, these restrictions on one’s freedoms do not appear to have overly concerned contemporary commentators. Instead, contemporaries attributed a resistance to dwelling in the Ledigenheim of one’s employer to a dislike of “punctual and orderly behavior”483, rather than to a system of informants, relative segregation, restrictions on one’s movements within the building and harsh rules intended to underscore an employer’s control of his workforce.

The Carrot: Positive Elements

While we have seen that relatively numerous restrictions were placed on

Ledigenheim residents, negative elements were not the only means by which employers sought to control their workforce, and single men in particular. While they ostensibly counterbalanced the rules and restrictions enacted by employers, the positive elements contained within Ledigenheime also served the needs of the employers, needs that went beyond the creation of a healthy workforce. Employers realized that providing residents

482 Hickey, 67 and Zeitschrift für Baukunde 2, no. 4 (1879): 544. Of course, the residents would be assumed to be at work during the daytime, and this is comparable to the English example of the Rowton House, where men had to vacate their bedrooms by nine a.m. at the latest (Altenrath, 107). This rule also can be compared to the rules regulating the homeless shelters, which required (and still often do require) overnight guests to not only leave their sleeping halls, but also the building as a whole during the daytime (Concordia (1911): 27). Yet, these examples, particularly considering the faults many nineteenth century German reformers found the Rowton House to have, are thus illustrative of the relatively low position the unskilled residents of industrial Ledigenheime held in the hierarchy of valuable workers and good citizens.

483 Hickey, 50. The full quote reads, “It is a well known fact that the single workers only avoid the official establishments provided by the companies because if they used them they would be compelled to adopt punctual and orderly behavior…They sacrifice the higher cost of alternative lodgings to secure independence--- which only too often leads to the worst moral failures. It frequently happens that half-grown youths leave their parents’ home and take lodgings in the same area just because they feel their freedom too restricted when under their parents’ eye”.

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with healthy food and drink, as well as pleasant spaces set aside for recreation and relaxation484, could help to control the workforce by guiding behavior.

Specifically, the provision of such spaces within the Ledigenheim was intended to keep residents from influences employers found problematic and uncontrollable. This was particularly important in the case of workers over twenty-one years of age485, where there was little that an employer could do when his employees were not on his private property

(either at work or living in company housing). Thus, there was an incentive for the employer to keep his workers “at home” through positive measures that could also serve as a kind of conditioning486.

Access to healthful food was perhaps the central component in the overriding goal of keeping the residents “at home”. In the case of the Stahlhausen Ledigenheime, meals were provided to residents at cost. For example, lunch in 1879 cost thirty-five pfennig, and dinner fifteen pfennig487. These meals could be taken either in the large dining hall located behind the Ledigenheim building and open to all employees of the Bochumer Verein, or

484 These spaces were often multi-use, as the dining room of the Stahlhausen Ledigenheim was not only used to provide healthy food and drink to residents, it was also used for festivals, balls and concerts (Zeitschrift für Baukunde 2, no. 4 (1879): 546-547). “Der Speisesaal dient ausser seiner Hauptbestillung auch noch dem gesammten Arbeiterstamm des Bochumer Vereins zur Abhaltung von gemeinsamen Festen, Bällen, Concerten, Vorträgen u. dgl. Auf der Tribüne desselben ist ein Orchestrion aufgestellt.”

485 In regards to younger workers, designated as those under the age of twenty-one, employers with over twenty workers could legally attempt to regulate both behavior and morality by imposing rules on the underage worker even during his time away from the factory, such as forbidding visits to bars, dance halls, and other places of pleasure (Linton, 44). Such rules were legally impermissible for adult workers, though we will see that employers found other ways of controlling the activities and contacts of their residents.

486 After all, if one did not have to leave the building in one’s free time, it was easier for the company to keep accounts of what one did do in one’s free hours. Certainly, the old adage that one should keep one’s friends close and enemies closer applies in this case, where an ostensibly dangerous class of workers could be kept under the close watch of their employers.

487 Spetzler cited in Zeitschrift für Baukunde 2, no. 4 (1879): 548.

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within the two dining halls for residents located within the basement of the Ledigenheim488, rooms where beer was also served via a Bierbuffet during mealtimes in the evenings and on holidays489.

This engagement with the provision of food and certain types of alcohol at carefully appointed times is understandable when one considers what the Bochumer Verein was attempting to counteract, the unregulated frequenting of local taverns by its employees.

Certainly, had the Ledigenheim not provided its residents with a place to eat and drink, the young men largely would have been forced to obtain their meals from one of the

“…drinking places (that) lined the periphery and the approach road (to Stahlhausen), within the easy reach of the inhabitants”490. However, considering that employers were still providing “nips” of spirits on the jobsite as late as 1906491, it does not appear that the provision of alcohol to young men was problematic in itself492. Instead, these spaces were particularly “suspect” to employers due to their location as “possible sites of political discussion and organization” and the fact that they could not be readily monitored for such activity by the employers493.

488 Spetzler cited in Zeitschrift für Baukunde 2, no. 4 (1879): 546. It appears that this area was entered from the secondary doorways on either side of the main façade. Men would, instead of mounting stairs to the main level and upper levels of the building, descend several stairs to large open halls (probably vaulted rooms, as large piers are indicted), which were linked via a narrow hall running underneath the ground floor passage. The furniture appears to have been long tables with benches on either side; through there is a concession to a typical Kneipe in the way of three smaller tables and associated benches in semi-private niches.

489 The Bierbuffet only served beer, not hard liquor (Spetzler in Zeitschrift für Baukunde 2, no. 4 (1879): 544).

490 Budgett Meakin, Model Factories and Villages: Ideal Conditions of Labour and Housing, (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs and Co., 1906), 69.

491 Meakin, 75, 143.

492 As we saw in chapters one and two, this was not the case for other types of Ledigenheim, whose supporters were often linked to temperance movements.

493 Elaine Glovka Spencer, “Policing Popular Amusements in German Cities” Journal of Urban History 16, no. 4 (August 1990): 373.

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Conclusions on the Significance of Stahlhausen

So, what was the significance of Stahlhausen? Did such a Ledigenheim become the rule, rather than the exception by the turn of the century? Was the project of building

Ledigenheime to both house and control the least stable members of the workforce by the

Bochumer Verein and similar employers successful?

Of course, one must keep in mind that with the Ledigenheim as a building type, it is not always possible to posit a clear development or progression. Essentially, employers largely built what suited their needs and their budgets, leading to a number of large centralized Ledigenheime like Stahlhausen beginning in the 1870s through the turn of the century, which certainly numbered in the hundreds, though records only exist on fifty-six494, but also the continuation of barrack-like housing for single men495.

However, Stahlhausen is significant in that it was one of the first industrial

Ledigenheime where the architect clearly considered not only the needs of the company, but also the needs of the residents, at least to a certain extent. The level of privacy in

Stahlhausen, though hardly private by later standards, and certainly when compared to turn of the century Catholic or municipal Ledigenheime, remained a large step up from the provisional barracks other companies provided single workers. In addition, the men were provided with more spaces within which to rest and relax following a long workday, unlike simple sleeping barracks. Compared to the barracks that came before (and continued to be built), the centralized building, smaller bedrooms, provision of food and drink, even the

494 It must be noted that these numbers only include Ledigenheime built by employers that were published upon in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and thus while indicative of total numbers cannot be considered entirely accurate and complete.

495 This was particularly prevalent during the First World War, something that will be dealt with in the conclusion of this dissertation.

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regulated interactions with the outside world enabled a company such as the Bochumer

Verein to position itself as engaged in the wellbeing of its workforce.

Yet, although Stahlhausen and similar Ledigenheime provided residents with housing that included more amenities and was of better quality than what they would have obtained as either a Schlafgänger or in a barrack, this does not necessarily indicate that the majority of the residents of such Ledigenheime were viewed very differently than they had been in the preceding decades, merely that more permanent measures were needed to control and house a growing workforce consisting of greater numbers of migrants from the Eastern reaches of the Empire496. In general, while “…young unattached men were the largest group among all the migrants” (the new workforce)497, they still remained the most vulnerable of employees498, even despite the interventions of the Bochumer Verein and similar companies to stem this problem decades before. In fact, as we will see in our continued examination of

Ledigenheime built by employers, even the model of Stahlhausen would be challenged by several variants after the turn of the century.

Employer-Built Ledigenheime at the End of the “Era of Reform” and Beyond

496 K. Bade, ed., Population, Labour and Migration in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany (Leamington: Berg, 1897), 62. Migration patterns at this pointed generally consisted internal long-distance migration from the agrarian Prussian East to industrial areas in the West, where before Easterners had moved to Leipzig, Dresden and Berlin. Many of these migrants were ethnically Polish, although they were German citizens. Consequently, they were termed “Ruhr Poles” (Bade, 62). Gelsenkirchen had a large Masurian community, Oberhausen and Wanne had Poseners, Wattenscheid had West Prussians, and Bottrop’s new population consisted largely of Upper Silesians (Murphy, 28).

497 Bade, 94.

498 Bade reported in his study of miners that for the “core of permanent residents, migration signaled marginality!” (98).

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While Ledigenheime in the manner of Stahlhausen continued to be built and remained typical, the early years of the twentieth century saw the construction of small numbers of increasingly sophisticated buildings by employers, for a variety of reasons that will be addressed shortly in generalities and then more specifically through certain examples.

The reason for the emergence of these modifications to an existing and well-established typology can largely be attributed to an intensifying level of concern for the state of society, and particularly the shared belief of employers and reformers that “…young working males constituted a pressing and distressing social problem that demanded remedial welfare measures”499. As discussed in chapter one, this concern was evidenced by the participation of both reformers and employers in conferences addressing the issues related to the reform of housing500, from the building of model Siedlungen501, to the need for the construction of greater numbers and higher quality Ledigenheime502, though in the case of the employers, this continued to be presented as something that would benefit their business503.

499 Linton, 2.

500 Considering the level of attention paid to the problem of Schlafstellenwesen after the turn of the century by employers and reform organizations (see chapter one for a more detailed discussion of these conferences and publications and the project of reform in general), it also appears that the building of Ledigenheime did little to stem this practice. Not only did a certain number of young men tend to choose the freedom of a Schlafstelle instead of the hygienic but restrictive surroundings of a Ledigenheim constructed by one’s employer, it appears that there were simply not enough temporary barracks, much less “ideal” Ledigenheime like Stahlhausen, constructed to house the huge numbers of migrants to German cities and industrial regions.

501 Reform Siedlungen were advocated for by the Gartenstadtgesellschaft of Germany (modeled on the Garden City movement in Britain), and similar reform housing groups.

502 To this end, the report of the Arbeiterfreund in 1907, which focused on the 14th International Congress for Hygiene and Demography in September of that year, saw employers, particularly great industrialists, as both responsible for and taking in greater interest in a number of issues in regards to the welfare of their workers. In fact, of the 75 Ledigenheime in existence in the Rhein-Ruhr region in 1900, 34 were built by the mining industry (“Versammlungsbericht”, Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 134). In the case of industrial employers, the Reichsarbeitsblatt of 1913 noted that the industries most prolific in the construction of Ledigenheime were largely heavy industrial concerns in the mining, metallurgy, textile and chemical industries (Reichsarbeitsblatt, (1913): 440).

503 The author of an article in the Arbeiterfreund of 1907 saw the industrialist as having an economically grounded interest in social welfare, from programs such as: low priced and healthy food (though the poor are blamed for unhealthy eating habits that lead to bad health and nowhere are low wages blamed), newborn

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Therefore, the construction of Ledigenheime, particularly Ledigenheime modeled on those built by reformers and/or positioned in reform-style settlements, could function as an advertisement of an employer’s closeness to contemporary reform organizations, and by extension, the modernity of one’s company. Thus, although still representative of a typical

Ledigenheim built by an employer circa 1900, the construction of a building such as

Stahlhausen no longer functioned as well as an advertisement of a company’s modernity in the way it previously had. While clearly a step above building a barrack, it would simply position a company as rather unexceptional in regards to caring for its single workers.

Essentially, if a company wanted to make a statement pertaining to its relative modernity, one needed to build a Ledigenheim that compared favorably with the examples then being constructed by municipalities and reform organizations, rather than the Bochumer Verein, and it was particularly helpful to place this Ledigenheim within an extra-urban housing settlement504.

These Ledigenheime were sometimes integrated into smaller scale “model” housing settlements which505, in contrast to the Siedlungen built by employers in the 1870s-1890s, were planned to be aesthetically pleasing, not just functional. After all, these settlements were marked by cozy looking Heimatstil residences with curvilinear streets and landscaped surroundings that recalled pre-industrial village life. Importantly, this style was also used in health, support for mothers directly after infant births, street cleaning in employer built settlements, the repression of alcoholism, healthy schools, sick funds, and of course, housing that included the Ledigenheim (Der Arbeiterfreund (1907): 357).

504 At this time, considerable interest was devoted to the supposed “landlessness” of the working class, in that they were neither “urban nor rural” (Levenstein, ed. Die Arbeiterfrage (Munich, 1912), page needed). Such settlements sought to mitigate this situation and bring the workers back to their formerly landed roots while still keeping them as members of the industrial workforce.

505 By the end of the 1890s, a number of companies who had not even built Ledigenheime were considering doing so to compliment their family housing. These were not limited to, but included BASF (who had constructed 509 familial dwellings), Farbwerk Meister, Lucius and Bruning (with 442 family dwellings), and Villeroy and Bosch (with 324 family dwellings constructed) (Bullock and Read, The Movement for Housing Reform, 211).

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the creation of similar Nutztypen, such as old people’s homes, and the Alteleuteheim of Buch near Berlin in particular. Now, this may seem like an odd way of expressing modernity for companies engaged in heavy industry, but it was read as showing both the prosperity of said companies, namely a forward-thinking nature, and a lack of internal strife, particularly during a time rife with disputes between labor and capital. In fact, Siedlungen (and the buildings within) created by industrialists tended to express the industrialists’ tastes, rather than those of the architects they employed, according to Walter Buschmann506.

Thus, while most employer-built Ledigenheime did not change between 1870 and the First World War, remaining close to the model provided by Stahlhausen, we will deal in detail with three specific examples that employed either this new visual language or positioning (or both) for the reasons enumerated above, as well as reasons specifically linked to the companies that constructed them, varying from a need to position their residents as different from the typical unskilled resident of a Ledigenheim built by an employer, to the underscoring a close working relationship between an employer and the project of aesthetic reform, to the utilization of a Ledigenheim and settlement style typical of central Germany to maintain a hierarchy based on class and ethnicity on the fringes of empire during the First

World War.

The Junggesellenheim of the Caoutschouc and Guttapercha Kompanie

506 Arbeitersiedlungen im 19. Jahrhundert: Historische Entwicklung, Bedeutung und aktuelles Erhaltungsintresse (Bochum: N. Brockmeyer, 1985), 45.

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The first of these exceptions to the model provided by Stahlhausen was the

Junggesellenheim of the Caoutschouc and Guttapercha Kompanie507, built in Hannover by the architectural firm of Stapelberg and Schermer in 1909. This building could be readily included in an examination of denominational and reform organization supported

Ledigenheime due to the style and layout of the building, as well as its relative integration in the surrounding community508. However, it is not simply the fact that this Ledigenheim bore significant similarities to reform variants and thus deviated from the typical employer-built model that is important, but the reasons behind this choice. Certainly, the Jungesellenheim could function as a means of advertising the forward thinking nature of the company, due to the employment of an exterior style and the provision of amenities that approached those afforded to the residents of reform Ledigenheime.

For example, although a relatively massive four-story building, it does not recall the heavy and ponderous stylings of Stahlhausen, but appears light and nearly feminine. This is largely due to the fact that it employs the style favored for Ledigenheime by reform organizations, that which recalled the early nineteenth century, as discussed extensively in chapters two and three. In the case of the Jungesellenheim, this manifested itself by a modified mansard roof with two large dormers and several attic level eyebrow windows cap a long and relatively shallow building constructed of brick and light-colored stucco509, which worked to great decorative effect.

507 Jungesellenheim is a synonym for Ledigenheim.

508 Of course, it was also not located in a reform Siedlung, as are our next two examples.

509 The street frontage of 48 m was very long, particularly when compared to the relatively shallow depth of the building (13.28 m). The main street facing façade ran parallel to the street and was set back from the street by only about five meters, marked off by a fenced-in front garden (Obtained from plans in the Baugewerkszeitung, (April 1913): 340).

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Similarly, although there was no billiard room or bowling alley as commonly featured in variants built by reform organizations, there was much provided to entertain the resident of the Junggesellenheim of Hannover that was not featured in a Ledigenheim like Stahlhausen, but was nearly always a feature of Ledigenheime supported by reformers. These elements ranged from a reading room to a gymnasium (with integrated stage to be used for performances as well), located at the rear of the building510. In addition, the ninety-six individual bedrooms were fairly generous spaces511, which were very much on par with reform Ledigenheime of the same era. Also significantly, these bedrooms were Wohnzimmer, indicating that they were true living spaces for residents to retreat to in their private time, instead of rooms for merely sleeping and dressing in.

Most importantly however, the building recalled other Ledigenheim variants, rather than a building like Stahlhausen, because the company sought to position the residents as distinct from the typical unskilled or semi-skilled laborers who generally resided in

Ledigenheime built by employers. In fact, the residents of the Junggesellenheim were largely apprentices or trainee white-collar workers, who were intended for higher positions within the company in adulthood. Essentially, the residents of the Junggesellenheim were young men whose current wages placed them in the working class, but whose future social class and wages would position them somewhere between the working class and lower middle class, identical to the position held by the residents of reformist Ledigenheime512. This future position both in the middle of society writ-large and the company hierarchy made the

510 This was reachable from the rear of dining room by descending a covered stairway of about six meters long and 2.25 meters wide. Of course, the gymnasium would have been considered to be the most important of the spaces for residents to use in their free time, considering the popularity of Turnvereine amongst reformers at this time and the supposed links between a healthy body and a strong character and mind.

511 The bedrooms measured a roomy 2.55 meters by 5 meters, with a ceiling height of 3.46 meters (Baugewerkszeitung (April 1913): 340).

512 Baugewerkszeitung (April 1913): 340.

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residents of the Hannover home an economically and socially valuable commodity worth protecting, and one that the employer was keen to underscore via the employment of architectural forms that illustrated their difference from unskilled labor. Certainly, this favorable treatment can also be construed as a way to retain these valuable workers in adulthood by gaining their loyalty in their formative years. Thus, in contrast to the residents of most industrial Ledigenheime as early as the 1870s and as late as the 1910s, the residents of the Hannover Junggesellenheim were valued as the stable and skilled workforce they would become and were treated in a manner befitting their future station.

The Pallenberg Ledigenheime

The Pallenberg Ledigenheime, located on the eastern edge of the Pallenberg Siedlung in the village of Merheim on the northern outskirts of Cologne (Cologne-Nippes)513, remain

513 Nippes was the second most populated of the 27 Cologne suburbs, with 56,000 residents by 1927, from 1,500 in 1860 (Hans Vogts, Kölner Bauliche Entwicklung, 1888-1927 (Köln: Architekten- und Ingenieurverein für den Niederrhein und Westfalen und Köln mit Unterstützung der Stadt Köln. Festgabe zum Deutschen Architekten- und Ingenieurtag, 1927), 58). In 1887, one can note that Merheim was located well within the Gemeindebezirk Köln, although not within the central city or the first Stadterweiterung (Reinhold Kruse, 111 Jahre Köln-Nippes (Köln: Emons Verlag, 1999), 17). Along with the Pallenbergheim, Merheim also included a Saeuglingsheim and Krueppelanstalt, while Nippes housed the Vinzenzhospital (Vogts, Kölner Bauliche Entwicklung, 65). Other settlements also made their home in the area as early as 1895 with the founding of the Cöln-Nippeser Bau und Spargenossenschaft, and the Wohungsgenossenschaft im kath. Gesellunhospitium (Kölner Bauliche Entwicklung, 70). In the 1920s Nippes would come to house the large Mauernheim und Grüner Hof settlements along the Kempener Strasse and the small-scale settlements of Merheimer Strasse, Thekla, and Rossbachstrasse (Kölner Bauliche Entwicklung, 102). Due to the close relationship of Merheim/Nippes to downtown Cologne, transit was not an issue. By 1900 the left side of the Rhine, including Nippes/Merheim was closely connected via streetar with the inner city (Kölner Bauliche Entwicklung, 101). In constrast, villages and settlements laying further afield, such as Longerich, Volkhoven, Merkenich and Worringen had to make do with either the Staatsbahn, or later, cars (Kölner Bauliche Entwicklung, 102). Therefore, urban access was easy for the residents of the Pallenbergheim, as it was located under two blocks from the Strassenbahnhof Merheim, and the 11 and 17 streecarlines, both of which ran directly south to the Cologne Hauptbahnhof in the center of Cologne (Stadt und Verkehrskarte der Hansestadt Köln).

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an example of a fully integrated settlement and Ledigenheime514, both of which were intended for long-term employees and retired employees of the Pallenberg furniture factory as a reward for loyal service, and bear much similarity to the Ledigenheime constructed by secular and denominational housing reform organizations, rather than the typical employer.

However, it is not the relative lateness of this building program (1904) that differentiates the Pallenberg Ledigenheime and settlement from the typical employer-built

Ledigenheim typology. Instead, the Pallenberg company operated quite differently than most employers from 1870-19114. Firstly, the settlement and Ledigenheime were not directly constructed by an employer for his employees in the manner of the Bochumer

Verein’s Stahlhausen, but, in a rare action for an employer, the furniture manufacturer Jacob

Pallenberg willed the funds for the complex to the city of Cologne515.

Secondly, and more importantly, the Pallenberg company was unlike many employers who built Ledigenheime due to its establishment of close links to the aesthetic reform movement. In fact, Pallenberg was the owner of a large Kunstmoebelfabrik (art furniture factory) in Cologne who financed the purchase of “mustergultiger Möbel” (model furniture designs) for the Cologne Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Applied Arts). This not only positioned Pallenberg and his business right at the heart of the reform movement

(specifically in the design of housing and furnishings), but showed Pallenberg’s interest in supporting civic life516.

514 The latter was constructed along the lines of a model village, recalling the garden cities of Great Britain, as well as those of Hellerau, outside of Dresden, and the entire settlement, still extant, is not more than one square kilometer in size.

515 It remains to this day the property of Cologne, the majority of the buildings having survived the bombs of the Second World War. In fact, the complex remains in very good repair and the gardens are still well tended by largely lower middle class residents.

516 Der Arbeiterfreund 38 (1900): 201.

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Thus, the two Pallenberg Ledigenheime517, although intended for older single workers, stood between Ledigenheime built by industry and those supported by reform organizations518. Essentially, they were a marriage of both, though decidedly more of the latter than the former, for reasons we will elucidate.

The Ledigenheime of the Pallenberg Siedlung certainly provided residents with a level of private space that was uncommon in a Ledigenheim built by an employer. For example, one of the Ledigenheime included nine single rooms for nine residents, along with a large communal living room and covered veranda, while the other provided each of the four residents with two private rooms including an individual small kitchen, as well as a common day room and access to a veranda. In the case of both Ledigenheime, gardens were attached for the use of the residents.

Most importantly though, what differentiated the Pallenberg Ledigenheime from other Ledigenheime built by employers, such as Stahlhausen, is the fact that a casual observer would not have been able to distinguish the housing for families from that of single people. In fact, the Ledigenheime buildings bracketed the entrance to the complex and opened onto the main garden at the heart of the settlement and the scale and style utilized were incredibly similar to the neighboring buildings housing families. All of the buildings, including the Ledigenheime, were between two and three stories high, in accordance with

517 Aided by the fact that this district of Cologne was semi-rural and land prices were not as high as the central city, Pallenberg and the city of Cologne were able to disregard some of the typical practices of employer in constructing Ledigenheime, allowing the small-scale construction and placement of several Ledigenheime, rather than a single large building.

518 This is also similar to the layout for the Krupp Settlement of Altenhof, in particular the Pfruendnerhaeuser on the Agathastrasse for Widowers (1901) and the Witwenhof for widows (1910-1913), even down to the exterior composition of the court structures and the interior of the individual buildings. However, the Pallenberg examples are not called retirement homes or old people’s homes, but Arbeiterheime, a word that can be interchangeably used with Ledigenheime (Klapheck (1930), 40-49,61-62).

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the new zoning laws of Cologne regarding the outer ring of suburbs519, and this lack of differentiation was heightened by the style employed for all the buildings (and even buildings in the neighborhood not constructed by Pallenberg). Termed Heimatstil, which was explained in chapter two, was a term that recalled rural or small-town German single-family homes, this style meant that the buildings appeared to have grown organically, with varied rooflines and a combination of half-timbered, stuccoed and painted exteriors highly irregular in shape. In fact, the only difference between the exteriors of the Ledigenheime and the familial housing was that the Ledigenheime utilized a slightly more formal Heimatstil, the more sophisticated style of a Biedermeier townhouse, rather than the farmhouse vernacular of the family apartments. Yet, these slight differences would not be enough to distinguish the

Ledigenheime from the rest of the complex, at least for the casual observer.

Not only were the residents not segregated by their location in the settlement, as they had been in an earlier variant such as Stahlhausen, they were encouraged to participate in

“village” life via the inclusion of a building at the opposite end of the green from the

Ledigenheim that was for the use of all of the residents, male and female520, and housed a reading room and other places to gather for community events. Thus, the Ledigenheime of the Pallenberg Siedlung differ considerably from the majority of Ledigenheime we have previously examined, and the integration of small-scale Ledigenheime within a settlement built by an employer was to remain notable for the relative rarity of this organization of space as well as the employer’s links to the project of reform.

Fürstengrube

519 Buildings of greater height were disallowed in this district of the city (Kölner Bauliche Entwicklung, 68).

520 This is indicated by the presence on the plan of bathrooms for men and for women (Zeitschift für Wohnungswesen (1905): 3).

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Although changes to an existing typology can be explained to some extent by an elevated level of engagement in social matters by employers, influenced by both the discourse and the relatively sophisticated examples emerging in other spheres, this does not entirely clarify the example of the Schlafhaus/Ledigenheim (both terms were used interchangeably by contemporary sources) of the settlement of the Fürstliche Plessische

Bergwerkdirektion in Fürstengrube, Upper Silesia, south of Kattowitz (now Poland, then near the German border), built as late as 1917, and the latest and most complicated of the atypical examples we have consulted.

In this case, the Ledigenheim was positioned in a reform style semi-rural housing settlement built by the Fürstliche Plessische Bergwerkdirektion521, and the style utilized for the Ledigenheim bears much similarity to the formal Biedermeier/um 1800 variant of Heimatstil building typical of many reform Ledigenheime, from that of Weberplatz in Essen to the

Dankelmannstrasse building in Charlottenburg, although the large clock on the steep hipped roof was a nod to industrial Ledigenheime, such as at Stahlhausen.

However, the Ledigenheim of Fürstengrube, despite its placement within a settlement and its utilization of a formal vocabulary associated with reform housing, stood in sharp contrast to the integrative settlement style utilized by employers such as Pallenberg in

Cologne, where although the Ledigenheime were slightly different from familial housing, this was not striking. In contrast, although still utilizing the popular reform style that recalled the period of circa 1800, when compared to the housing for families within the settlement, the

521 The building to be discussed is by no means the only such example of such a Schlafhaus/Ledigenheim; in fact, it bears much similarity stylistically to other rural industrial Ledigenheime from the first decades of the twentieth century, such as that of Halbergerhütte (Der Industriebau (1914), 213) and the Röchlingschen Eisen-und Stahlwerke in Völklingen (Concordia (1909), 206). However, plans and photographs of these examples do not show other housing nearby, or at least nothing in detail. In contrast, reportage on Fürstengrube, as well as plans, indicate the position of the building within the settlement and makes clear stylistic differences.

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Ledigenheim of Fürstengrube presented a very severe and authoritative appearance522, avoiding the use of cozy looking eyebrow windows or shutters, as exhibited by the buildings that housed families.

Essentially, the formal language utilized for both the Ledigenheim and settlement, while appearing to reflect an affiliation to the project of reform, was nothing more than updated cladding placed upon the older industrial model of Stahlhausen. However, even this does not tell the entire story of Fürstengrube, where the style and layout employed was explicitly used by the Bergwerkdirektion to underscore the existing hierarchy of class and ethnicity on the fringes of empire during the First World War.

The more formal architectural language of the Ledigenheim at Fürstengrube can be read as an illustration of more than the typical hierarchy of employee housing within an industrial company. As mentioned earlier, Ledigenheime, and all forms of company housing, could be used “…to consolidate divisions amongst the workers…”523, and this was used in a particularly pointed way at Fürstengrube, on the fringes of the German Empire.

For example, in the districts (Kreise) east of the Oder River in German Upper Silesia, within which Fürstengrube was located, ethnic Poles (who only spoke Polish) made up 73 percent of the population. Even in the five main industrial cities of Upper Silesia (Gleiwitz,

Beuthen, Kattowitz, Koenigshütte and Zabrze), which tended to be more Germanized than

522 In the case of the Ledigenheim, the heights of the stories were taller than necessary, particularly the second floor, as shown by its overly vertically elongated windows.

523Hickey, 65. These divisions existed between the skilled and unskilled, as well as “type of work, payment systems, earning, titles and status”, and even within sub-divisions (Hickey, 222). Evans also notes that “…company housing tended to deepen divisions within the mining community by deliberately segregating families by ethnic and regional origin” (Evans, 83).

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the surrounding countryside, the German speakers made up the bare majority, only 54 percent, with the Polish speakers at 46 percent524.

Thus, Baumeister Malpricht and owners of Fürstengrube would not have been immune from the rising ethnic tensions between Poles and Germans in Upper Silesia525, compounded in this instance that all the administrative and upper level positions at

Fürstengrube would have been held by ethnic Germans, many of whom would not have been born in Upper Silesia, while the workers housed in the Ledigenheim were primarily ethnic Poles, of both Upper Silesia and Congress Poland (then under Russian and Austro-

Hungarian rule). Even the name of the settlement, the Kolonie, or colony, of Fürstengrube is an interesting indication of the role this settlement was to play. Thus, Bauinspector Malpricht has a different role than the architect of the Pallenbergheim Siedlung, or even the

Stahlhausen Ledigenheim, and his individual style is somewhat more likely to have been subsumed in the complex as a whole and the hierarchical system implicit in its creation526.

Turning to the interior arrangements of Fürstengrube one can also note great differences between the Schlafhaus and the surrounding housing, as well as the

Ledigenheime of Pallenberg, and other municipal or reform organization supported

Ledigenheime of the same era. Fürstengrube actually recalls buildings of nearly forty years previous, such as Stahlhausen, in the arrangements for the residents527. For example, the

524 Murphy, 173.

525 This was intensified by Bismarck’s Kulturkampf in the 1880s, and came to a head with the plebiscites following the First World War that resulted in this area become part of the new Poland. In fact, there were bloody insurrections in nearby Kattowitz and Pless in 1919 (Murphy, 174).

526 This is not to say that Malpricht did not have an individual style, only that he certainly would have had to pay attention to the delicate balance of power within the settlement. In fact, he was employed in the design of other Upper Silesian settlements, including others for the Fürstliche Plessiche Berkwerksdirektion, and they all exhibit a similar layout, hierarchy of buildings, and stylistic vocabulary.

527 In addition, no images of the rooms and furnishings of the Fürstengrube Schlafhaus exist. However, this can be imagined by consulting images of similar Schlafhäuser, such as those of Halbergerhütte and Völklingen.

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bedrooms were not intended for individuals, or even groups of four to six men, but for groups of ten to twelve men528. Yet, even here one can note a distinction between

Stahlhausen and Fürstengrube, as the literature associated with Stahlhausen indicated that the low numbers of residents to a room (for the time) were to encourage collegiality. In the case of Fürstengrube, no reasoning was provided to explain the (relatively) large numbers of men to a room529. In fact, where Stahlhausen had provided residents with two dining halls with Bierbuffet and a nearby Menage, the only provision for the comfort of the men living in the Fürstengrube Ledigenheim was a large dining hall530. One needs only to compare these dimensions and provisions to an apartment in a building for four families in the same settlement, which included a basement storage area, an entrance only shared with one other family, two rooms, each of eight meters squared, and a large kitchen of twenty meters squared to note the difference in treatment between the single and lower class residents of the Ledigenheim and their neighbors531.

Thus, in the case of Fürstengrube, it is clear that architecture functioned as more than just employee housing; it was national work, a project related to the establishment of social and economic hierarchies in Central Europe, and the German Reich in particular. Via the employment of an identifiably German style and settlement layout, coupled with a clear

In these cases, the interiors are clean and orderly, but the extreme simplicity and benches in the dining halls of both establishments bears no relation to the elegant surroundings of municipal Ledigenheime from the same era.

528 These bedrooms measured a mere four meters by six meters, though relaxation rooms were attached. Sinks in individual bedrooms were also not included, though two small rooms for washing up were provided on each floor. Essentially, this meant that residents were required to go to the nearby settlement bathhouse (Badeanstalt) for showers (Bau-Rundschau no. 31-34 (1918): 126).

529 As always, the number of men to a room indicates the individual’s socio-economic status. Thus, the more men to a room, the lower status of the men, and vice-versa.

530 Bau-Rundschau no. 31-34 (1918): 126.

531 Moderne Bauformen (1917): 84.

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hierarchy of housing based on skill and ethnicity, Fürstengrube helped to support the project of German hegemony at the fringes of the empire, where control was beginning to slip.

After all, as Scott Spector writes, “…throughout the long fin de siècle, German cultural

“work” (in the borderlands) was identified as national and therefore political”532, and Edward

Said’s work indicates that culture (including architecture) is inseparable from national fantasies of identity, where identity is not only linked to the defense of one’s culture, but also where it can function as both a symbol and instrument of power by the “dominant” culture over the others within its orbit533. As we have seen, this cultural work included architecture.

One can take this further and state that culture is imbued with a moral importance, particularly when one considers the contemporary debates that positioned ethnic Germans as the inheritors of a Kulturnation (cultural nation rather than simply “Civilization”)534.

Conclusions on the Stance of the Employers

So, what does the examination of Ledigenheime built by employers tell us? What conclusions can be drawn from the statements of employers (and their supporters) justifying the construction of Ledigenheime? How did employers conceive of these buildings and what role did these buildings play for employers and residents?

532 Scott Spector, Prague Territories (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 14.

533 Said, as cited in Spector, 173.

534 This includes the idea that “true” culture/genius/art (including architecture) is “not separable from its roots”, that it cannot be translated from one culture to another, but is only honest when serving its own culture (This idea was promoted in “Talent and Genius” by Oskar Ewald in a 1912 issue of Bohemia) (Spector, 197).

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While Dr. Wiedfeldt of Essen535, a leading participant at the Schlafstellenwesen und

Ledigenheim conference of 1904, provided three general reasons as to the engagement of employers with the Ledigenheim; out of business interests, humanitarian inclinations, or religious concerns536; we have seen that these three reasons can really be subsumed under one overarching concern, the umbrella of business. This becomes very clear when one notes the relative static nature of the building type, as well as the continual employment of housing that was little more than temporary barracks. In fact, once an economically viable model was developed in the 1870s (as exhibited by the Bochumer Verein’s Stahlhausen), few significant changes to the building type were instituted, even with the development of far more sophisticated Ledigenheim models by contemporaries (denominational and secular reform organizations). As the Ledigenheim built by an employer was generally not part of a larger project of social reform, the degree to which residents benefitted personally or enjoyed living in a Ledigenheim was of little concern unless this affected the economic success of the company. Basically, this meant that although the Ledigenheim may have benefitted its residents, ultimately the benefits brought to the company by the construction of a Ledigenheim were what enabled its construction over a period of nearly fifty years537.

Despite their participation in reformist conferences by the turn of the century, it was this focus on the benefits to business that firmly separated the efforts of employers from those of the reform organizations and the Catholic Kolpinghaus movement discussed in chapters two and three respectively. In fact, employers took care to differentiate themselves from other groups, and sometimes viewed social reformers and their Vereine (organizations)

535 He would certainly be thinking specifically of Krupp, which was/is based in Essen.

536 Der Arbeiterfreund (1904): 215.

537 This was certainly noted by the “enemies” of the capitalists, the Social Democrats. In fact, the socialist Freie Presse wrote in 1891 that “(housing) reform efforts only work to the advantage of the capitalists” (Abrams, 141).

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with consternation, if not distain. This was particularly the case when these groups exhibited

(what employers felt to be) a lack of understanding of the ways of business and not only provided unsolicited help, but applied pressure to owners and other figures of authority within companies538. Examples of inept and overly interfering reformers were even cited in

Der Arbeiterfreund, a journal supported by Rhine-Ruhr industrialists, serving to illustrate the irritation and derision with which the efforts of some reform Vereine were viewed by employers539. The Arbeiterfreund article further indicated that approaching either employers or workers with the following attitude, “Ich treibe Wohlfahrt, haltet still, ich will Euch beglücken, ich will Wohlfahrt treiben…” could only fail540.

Thus, not only were Vereine members seen as “do-gooder” intruders by employers, they were attempting to intercede in a world they both failed to understand and had no right to be involved with in the first place. In contrast, employers positioned themselves as exceedingly knowledgeable about the habits and particularities of the working classes, even that they had a special relationship with their workers. However, this special relationship was not one of equals. Instead, it was one within which employers were able to play the benevolent patriarch, but then only to the point where this would raise the productive capacity of the company. Certainly, Ledigenheime built by employers were not considered to be charity, nor were they ever intended to be. Instead, they were an intrinsic and

538 “Diese Vereine bemühen sich, in die Arbeiterkreise hineinzukommen. Die meisten von den Vereinen kommen nun auf den Ausweg, dass die zum Arbeitgeber gehen und sagen: Die Leute sind bei dir taetig, bitte, interessiere sich für meinen Verein, hilf uns, dass die Leute das verstehen, was wir wollen…” (Der Arbeiterfreund (1907): 423). Loose translation: “These organizations make an effort to enter into worker’s circles. The majority approach the employer and say that as the people (workers) are doing business with you, please have an interest in my organization and help us to let the people (workers) understand what we want…”

539 Der Arbeiterfreund (1907): 423. These incidents included placing pressure on employers to instruct employees in cooking (and improving faulty cooking hygiene) or encouraging employers to prohibit workers from drinking coffee or alcohol.

540 Der Arbeiterfreund (1907): 425. Rough translation: “I am doing welfare work, stay still, i will guide you, I will conduct welfare work...”

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important aspect of business, one that advertised both the prosperity and progressive nature of the company whole, while simultaneously functioning as a means to control the workforce.

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CHAPTER FIVE:

SINGLE WOMEN, PUBLIC SPACE AND LEDIGENHEIME

While Ledigenheime for men began to be constructed in the middle of the nineteenth century, with an intensification of building activity towards the turn of the century, the building of Ledigenheime for single women began and remained nearly twenty years behind those for men, a fact strongly linked to the problematic economic status of this social group. Thus, this chapter will address not only the form that Ledigenheime for women took, but also the shared and specific concerns of various writers who attempted to understand why the construction of Ledigenheime for women remained something that was far more difficult than what the erection of buildings for men.

Of specific interest are Ledigenheime (pl.) built for skilled working class, lower middle class and professional middle class women in the last twenty-five years of what has often been termed the “long nineteenth century,” roughly 1890-1914541. An examination of the form that these Ledigenheime took underscores the level to which the buildings reflected

541 It must be noted that this investigation of purpose-built housing for single women will primarily deal with housing constructed for single skilled working class, lower middle class, and middle class professional women, and less so with the housing of unskilled female factory workers. Certainly, by the 1890s there were numerous homes for girls and women employed in factory work, but many of these were more akin to the early barrack- like proto-Ledigenheime, which were largely built by employers for unskilled male workers. Instead, this investigation will deal with Ledigenheime for women that were typologically similar to those built for men by secular and denominational reform organizations and more progressive employers, which, correspondingly, tended to serve the same social class, one that ranged from the semi-skilled or skilled worker to the lower middle class white collar worker. However, for a number of reasons we will investigate, unlike Ledigenheime for men, Ledigenheime for women also served the middle class, and specifically, professional women. Thus, both variants of Ledigenheime for women will be consulted and differences and similarities will be noted.

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the class of the women housed and the perceived dangers facing them, as well as the relative freedom of the residents themselves. Although the word Heim translates to home in

German, Ledigenheime for women were not homes in the conventional sense. They functioned as a space apart from both the public world and that of the family. We will see that the lives of the women who resided in Ledigenheime were far more open than those of most women of their class, not only because of their employment outside of the home, but also because of the socially progressive public-private nature of the Ledigenheim building type. Thus, Ledigenheime not only provided a morally unproblematic housing option for single women working outside of the home, they also enabled the cultivation of a more public life, though one still acceptable to bourgeois mores. The highly differentiated and integrated spaces of the buildings allowed residents a safe and secure space within which they could learn to navigate the public world while encountering other professional women and still retaining their respectability. Therefore, the Ledigenheim building can serve as a symbol of the changing social and economic landscape of women in Wilhelmine Germany, one which would have been visible to all urbanities, not just potential residents.

In fact, by the turn of the century housing the issue of housing single women working outside of the home had become was an international phenomenon that was also discussed with great intensity in Great Britain and the United States alongside discussions of the settlement house project and cooperative housekeeping542, and that certain buildings that approximated the German Ledigenheim had been devised543, though unfortunately, a full

542 In regards to the settlement house project, it is helpful to examine Toynbee Hall in the East End of London and Jane Addams’ Hull House in Chicago, and the idea of cooperative housekeeping was publicized, amongst other reformers, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the United States and Clementina Black in Great Britain.

543 For example, Nutford House in London was a “residential club” that served 97 female residents as well as local “educated women workers” (“Nutford House, W.” The Builder 110, no. 3822 (1916): 341).

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investigation of the international context lays outside the scope of this project, at least at this juncture.

The Reformist Impulse

The initial concern of the reformers supporting the creation of Ledigenheime for women was to provide appropriate housing to those who could not otherwise afford lodgings commensurate with one’s social station and who were increasingly visible within the growing and changing German economy as factory workers, bookkeepers, salesgirls, teachers, social workers and doctors544. Significantly, these positions often required women to relocate from their hometowns545, but only generally paid one-half of the wages that a man in a similar position would have earned.546 Therefore, women, even those of middle- class background, had fewer options than their male counterparts, even if the options for men were less than ideal.

Certainly, Pensionen, or family homes that provided lodgers with separate quarters and meals, existed, but these were relatively expensive and were generally geared towards housing men (Zimmerherrn)547, making them a poor choice for a single woman living far from home.

The next possibility was a furnished room without board, an option that required residents to obtain meals in a restaurant or Gasthaus, something that was hardly conducive to the

544 Wilhelmine Mohr, “Ledigenheime für Frauen” Die Hilfe 17, no. 47 (1911): 742.

545 Wilhelmine Mohr, “Ledigenheime für Frauen” Die Hilfe 17, no. 47 (1911), 741.

546 Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime: Vorbericht und Verhandlungen der 13. Konferenz der Zentralstelle für Arbeiter- Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen am 9. Und 10. Mai in Leipzig (Schriften der Zentralstelle für Arbeiter- Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen 26, Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 188.

547 Klara Trost, Ledigen-Heime für weibliche Erwerbstätige ; Eine Forderung aus d. Kriegswirtschaft mit Grundrißbeispielen (Hannover: Deutsche Bauhütte, 1918), 7.

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woman’s supposed desire to create a comfortable and cozy existence. An even less desirable solution was the much-maligned Schalfstelle (discussed extensively in chapter one), a solution that, according to contemporary reformers, often ended “mit Tragik”548. As if these options were not problematic enough, due to the reasons enumerated above, obtaining good private lodgings required a combination of “Lebensmut, Können, ein gewisser Ruf, und nicht zuletzt Glück”549. Finally, adding insult to injury, landlords preferred not to rent to women for a variety of reasons that will be enumerated below550.

As briefly mentioned above, women earned considerable less than their male counterparts, and were often poorly paid, even as late as the 1890s. For example, August

Bebel reported that in “in Germany (in 1904), female labor is paid worse than male…in an investigation of the wages earned by the factory hands of Mannheim in 1893…the working women earned mostly veritable starvation wages. They received per week (by percentage of female workers): under 5 Marks-4.62%, 5-6 Marks-5.47%, 6-8 Marks-43.96%, 8-10 Marks-

27.45%, 10-12 Marks-12.38%, 12-15 Marks-5.38%, Over 15 Marks-.74%” 551. Although

Bebel was reporting on the dire situation facing working class women, this disparity in pay existed across the board, from the aforementioned factory worker to the white-collar worker, to the professional woman.

In fact, due to the poor wages paid to women in general, the social reform journal

Soziale Praxis went so far as to make the argument that all purpose built housing for women was untenable and that money would be better spent in the construction of Arbeiterinnen-

548 Translation: “tragically” (Trost, 7 and Der Arbeiterfreund (1909): 59, 77).

549 Loosely translated: “Specific knowledge (of the world) and not least of all, luck” (Trost, 7). Of course, this was something that presented numerous difficulties, even for men.

550 Mäthe Schivmachev, “Wie Wohnt die erwerbende Frau?” in Blätter für Volksgesundheitspflege 11, no. 10 (1911): 230.

551 August Bebel, Woman Under Socialism. (translated by Daniel de Leon) (New York: Shocken, 1904), 174.

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Klubs (clubs for working women), the so-called Tagesheime and Abendheime (day and evening homes)552. Instead of housing women, the authors of the aforementioned article posited that the focus of such buildings should be on the provision of healthy food, as well as the elevation of popular taste and education, rather than providing housing that was out of the reach of many working women553. Certainly, the single-family home was dismissed as an economic impossibility for single women of all classes, though was widely considered to be the ideal housing type for families.

Further complicating their situation, women generally spent more time at home than their male counterparts, much to the irritation of landlords554, a fact that was attributed to a woman’s supposed “love of home,”555 a conclusion that was embraced from reactionary groups to even the most radical and revolutionary circles within the Social Democratic sphere.556 Thus, the most model female tenant was one who was not only economically less lucrative, but also was perceived to be more demanding on the landlord, a set of circumstances that circumscribed the housing options of the educated single women, and to an even greater extent, her less educated and even more poorly paid sister.

Essentially, due to the problematic options enumerated above, the only respectable housing option for unmarried German women before the construction of buildings termed

552 Soziale Praxis 12 (1903): 994.

553 Soziale Praxis 12 (1903): 994. Of course, this also assumes that those frequenting such establishments were in need of such “elevation”, meaning that they were of the working or lower-middle classes. This solution thus entirely excluded middle-class women.

554 Mäthe Schivmachev, “Wie Wohnt die erwerbende Frau?” in Blätter für Volksgesundheitspflege (1911): 232 and Käthe Schirmacher, “The Modern Woman’s Rights Movement in Germany” (1912) in Müller, Magda and Patricia A. Herminghouse, eds. German Feminist Writings (New York: Continuum, 2001), 136.

555 Wilhelmine Mohr even claimed that the “Heimliebe” of a woman never left her, regardless of how different her life is from the traditional roles of housewife and mother (“Ledigenheime für Frauen” Die Hilfe 17, no. 47 (1911): 741).

556 Roger Fletcher, ed. Bernstein to Brandt: A Short History of German Social Democracy (London: Edward Arnold, 1987), 134.

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Ledigenheime, regardless of her education or social status, was the charitable Stiftung usually run by a religious organization557. However, not only did this form of housing run the risk of “…turn(ing) people who are capable of helping themselves into charity cases,”558 they were also governed by rigorous rules and an emphasis on self-improvement that reformers realized could be alienating to potential residents559.

Additionally, the denominational issues associated with charitable religious institutions were problematic for reformers of varying levels of radicalism, who saw such distinctions as harmful and backward looking560. Most importantly, they were primarily conceived of as serving older women, and reformers noted that this emphasis was hardly conducive to the life of a woman who was a participant in the greater world, and certainly not middle-class

557 Fanny Lewald, “Ninth Easter Letter for Women: Shelters for Working-Class Women” (1863) German Feminist Writings, ed. Magda Mueller and Patricia A. Herminghouse (New York: Continuum, 2001), 79.

558 Lewald, 79. As early as 1863, when Fanny Lewald reported on Stiftungen, she noted that this form of housing was neither sufficient nor sustainable in the long term, and pointed also to the dangers of charity, stating that “…I have become convinced that the power of charitable works will always be insufficient in the long run…it is a mistake and an injustice to turn people who are capable of helping themselves into charity cases…”

559 Even these were noted by reformers as insufficient on numerous levels, from the “streng, oft hart…”(strict, often hard”) rules to the internal arrangements, which were described as “…öde Baracken, enge Zellen, schlechte Lüftung, ungenügende Heizung, wenig Reinlichkeit, keine weiblich Aufsicht, Durcheinanderwohnen Gesunder und Lungenkranker” (Schivmachev, 230). This translates as “nasty barracks, tight cells, bad air circulation, insufficient heating, little cleanliness, no female presence to watch over the women, and the housing together of those sick with tuberculosis and the healthy.” In fact, some of these house rules even required that the young women vacate the premises on Sundays from 10 to 10 (230), effectively treating the residents like lodgers at a homeless shelter. In this, they were being treated in a manner that was worse than much of the working-class had to bear, at least that portion who were not lodged in institutions, but in private apartments. Nevertheless, this reformer did point out that there will always be young women who cannot abide rules, as well as failing to take to clean surroundings and even fresh air (Der Arbeiterfreund (1909): 77), implying that there must be wrong with moral fabric of some individuals who found this problematic.

560 This was true of both those on the left and right of the progressive movement, particularly the naecent feminist movement, with Lina Morgenstern and Minna Cauer (the founder and editor of the journal Frauenwohl) firmly in the camp of the Liberals, and the Social Democrats Lily Braun and Clara Zetkin on the far left (Mäthe Schivmachev, “Wie Wohnt die erwerbende Frau?” in Blätter für Volksgesundheitspflege (1911): 135).

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professional women as a class.561 This provides a number of reasons why many of the newer

Ledigenheime for women were founded on a non-denominational basis, thus turning away from the religious and denominational orientation of these older models. For example, an examination of Ledigenheime throughout the German Reich from circa 1870 to 1930 indicates that of the sixty-eight Ledigenheime from which data was gathered, fifteen were founded along Catholic lines, ten operated due to Protestant support and eighteen were built by employers for their employees.

Reformers also considered the current laws and regulations in place governing the housing of single women to be less than effective. They stated that the involvement of the police in the matter of housing, such as enforcing building laws and lodging regulations, did not provide the unmarried German woman with good, affordable and unobjectionable housing.562 In a sense, they saw such regulatory measures as outdated and ineffective, reflective of the mid-nineteenth century mindset, not a modern solution to a complex problem.

Thus, with the faith of good German Liberals, turn of the century reformers saw the

Ledigenheim as a logical and rational solution to a set of complex social concerns, just as they had in the case of single men. In fact, Wilhelmine Mohr, in her article, “Ledigenheime für Frauen” in Die Hilfe, specifically mentioned Ledigenheime for men as providing models for those created for women, namely, the Ledigenheim in Berlin-Charlottenburg and the

Konkordia-Haus in Hamburg563.

561 Regarding the old-fashioned Herberge and Heime in particular, Mohr noted that they are certainly not suited to working women in the prime of their lives. Instead, these are lodging houses for the young, for apprentices and for those who are traveling through or searching for work, not those who have permanent employment (740).

562 Schivmachev, 188.

563 Wilhelmine Mohr, “Ledigenheime für Frauen” Die Hilfe 17, no. 47 (1911): 742.

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The result of such views was a campaign waged towards the construction of the

Ledigenheim, an undertaking that was often aided by the women who would be living in the

Ledigenheim564, as well as from reformers in the surrounding community565. In fact, rather than positioning the plight of these women as delicate creatures in a bid to support the construction of these Ledigenheime, reformers generally appealed to a sense of class consciousness or solidarity, highlighting the fact that the a subset of those in need, the educated single German woman, was drawn from the same social class as the very reformers coming to their aid and that the reformers and potential residents could work together to solve this problem566. For example, Hauptmann a. D. W. von Kalckstein of Bremen, a participant in the Schlafstellen und Ledigenheime Conference in Leipzig of 1904, in noting the difficulties in finding suitable housing for skilled and ladylike single women,567 stressed the commonalities between these women and the middle-class conference (male) participants, noting that they were all “workers” in a loose application of the word.568 Implicit in these statements is that fact these reformers did not accept the idea of separate spheres for men and women, and that certain women did have a place in the larger economic development of

564 The Lehrerinnenheim in Berlin-Pankow was an instance were the future residents were very active in the creation of the building, though further research needs to be conducted in this matter.

565 Mohr mentions the Stuttgart Wohnungsamt’s directive of 1906 pleding support of Ledigenheime for both genders and the efforts of Mathilde Kirchner of Berlin-Moabit in raising awareness of the need for Ledigenheime for women. In addition, she noted that in Vienna one could see the Frauenheim (woman’s home) of the Franz- Josef-Jubiläumsstiftung as a positive step. Interestingly, this same Stiftung also supported the construction of several Männerheime that lacked a rigid religious outlook, even in heavily Catholic Austro-Hungary (Mohr, 741).

566 In fact, an organization with largely female membership helped fund and construct the Lehrerinnenheim in Berlin-Pankow.

567 “Diese Arbeiterinnen, Damen zum Teil aus guten Kreisen, finden am allerschwersten Unterkunft” (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 178). Translation: “these female workers, ladies primarily of good social class, have extreme difficulty in finding housing”.

568 “…bessere Arbeiterinnen…Arbeiterinnen in dem Sinne, wie wir alle Arbeiter sind…ich halte den Ausdruck Arbeiterinnen, wie er jetzt gebraucht wird, für sehr unglücklich gewählt” (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 178). This translates loosely as, “better (class of) female workers…(are) (female) workers in the sense that we are all workers…I find that the expression female-worker, as it is currently used, to be very poorly chosen”(Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 179).

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Germany. Essentially, they took the situation of middle class and working class women working outside of the home as a given.

However, the construction of Ledigenheime for all segments and subsets of the single female population in Germany remained something more problematic than the erection of similar buildings for men, though not only for the economic reasons clarified above or for the moral reasons one would suppose.569 Early reform efforts concentrated on the housing of single men, not women in permanent employment. This was due to the fact that women generally were perceived to lodge as single individuals for a very limited period before marriage (men generally married later than women), despite the fact that as late as

1912 half of adult German women over eighteen years of age were not married, and most of these individuals were working outside of the home.570 Further exacerbating the problem, women tended to be a less visible presence on the job market and, by extension, were considered less important to the economic life of the country. This led reformers to see the housing of young, single women as less pressing than that of their unmarried male counterparts, whose period of single life was perceived to be longer, and whose need was assumed to intensify with the founding of a family. This helps to explain the dual emphasis on both the housing of single young men and the housing of families by German reformers, often to the detriment of single women, particularly those professional women who remained single. Nevertheless, though in fewer numbers than were constructed for their

569 The relative dearth of contemporary reports on housing specifically for women is telling, particularly in contrast to the numerous articles and conference held to address the housing concerns of their male brethren. In fact, reports only concerning the housing of women first appear after the construction of Ledigenheime for men had already gained widespread support, particularly amongst municipalities and reform Vereine (organizations).

570 Käthe Schirmacher, “The Modern Women’s Rights Movement in Germany” (1912) in German Feminist Writings, ed. Magda Mueller and Patricia A. Herminghouse (New York: Continuum, 2001), 133.

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male counterparts,571 a significant number of Ledigenheime were built for working, lower- middle and middle class female residents between 1900 and 1914 in Germany,572 serving as a visible sign of the rise of the professional woman and the increasing participation of German women in public life.573

General Characteristics

While reformers noted the municipally or reform-organization supported Ledigenheim was somewhat problematic economically, nevertheless it was deemed the most logical solution in every other way to the problem of housing unmarried German women. Not only was it the model of housing that was closest to the familial home, but also, and most importantly, it had largely been successful for a certain class of German men. However,

Ledigenheime for women were not homes in the conventional sense, for while a resident might possibly have a single or double bedroom, the rest of the space was communal, generally including a dining room, library and reception hall, and there was always the female variant of the male Hausmeister, the Leiterin (Directress)574. This, including the emphasis on

571 Wilhelmine Mohr, in her article, “Ledigenheime für Frauen” in Die Hilfe, specifically mentioned Ledigenheime for men as providing models, and specifically, the Ledigenheim in Berlin-Charlottenburg and the Konkordia- Haus in Hamburg (Die Hilfe 17, no. 47 (1911): 742).

572 The single-family home was dismissed as an economic impossibility for single women, though still widely considered to be the ideal housing type for families.

573 However, it must again be underscored that despite similarities on many levels, the Ledigenheime built for middle-class professional women differed greatly from those for their poorer sisters, and women of different social standing were nearly never housed together. Wilhelmine Mohr makes clear that different Ledigenheime should house different classes of women, stating that “…sich in einem Frauenheim Frauen verschiedener Stände und Bildung nicht vereinigen lassen…” (Mohr, 742). In addition, the provision of mass housing for working class women was generally imbued with a moral imperative in a way that housing for their upper class female counterparts and unskilled male workers was not.

574 The Leiterin was to be “einer intelligenten, warmherzigen, mit den Erfordernissen und Neigungen des Ständes der Heimbewohner vertrauten Leiterin stehen” (Mohr, 742). This loosely translates as “an intelligent,

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control via a house director/directress, was the case in all Ledigenheime, from those serving working-class men to middle-class professional women.

In fact, even the Ledigenheime serving women were hybrids of the public and private realms, meaning that they often included dining halls and libraries open to and primarily serving the general public in order to defray costs. For example, the Lehrerinnenheim

(Ledigenheim for teachers) in Berlin-Pankow contained fifty one to three room residences, each with its own kitchen, but also a Speisewirtschaft (restaurant) for the entire building open to residents and the community at large. Similarly, the Arbeiterinnenheim (Ledigenheim for lower-middle class women) of Berlin-Moabit, not only housed sixty-six residents, 37 of them in single bedrooms, but also provided the community and residents with the use of a

Kaffeestube (akin to a modern coffee shop) and educational room. In this way, the Ledigenheim was a focal point in the larger community, and one in which residents existed well outside of the conventions of the time that deeply circumscribed most women’s interactions with the outside world.

Supporters of such Ledigenheime also insisted upon several requirements for such buildings that indicated the relative freedom residents enjoyed. There was to be no hint of the “convent or the cloister”, for as reported earlier, reformers found this older model of housing single women profoundly unsuitable to women engaged in the larger world. Instead of restrictive rules, the buildings were to feel “home-like”, with the decorations and furnishings relatively fine and elegant in relation to the residents’ social class. These elements and further details geared towards the needs and interests of the women would

warmhearted Directress who is knowledgeable and understanding of the requirements and proclivities typical of residents of a certain social class”.

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then serve as positive measures to encourage the residents to stay away from local coffeehouses and taverns in the evening575.

However, as will be examined in greater depth later in this chapter, the provisions intended to keep residents at home were not consistent across class lines, serving as an indicator that the Ledigenheim, although a socially progressive institution, can be viewed as an example of the significant social divisions that marked Wilhelmine Germany. Despite the use of the word “worker” in their speeches, reformers never suggested that the treatment of middle-class women ought to be consistent with that of their working-class sisters.

Certainly, it was taken for granted in Imperial Germany that middle-class women should not be housed with women of another social class, and that each class of single female worker deserved her own type of Ledigenheim, something that is unsurprising, considering the hierarchical divisions that existed even within the working class and middle class, not to mention between the larger social classes. The basis for this segregation of classes remained tied to the assumption that working and lower-middle class women needed to be

“improved,” while the middle-class teachers and civil servants certainly would not benefit from the ministrations of women drawn from their own social class. It was also feared that a women from a bourgeois background could potentially be “contaminated” by exposure to her less well-brought-up sisters, whose moral standards would potentially be far lower than hers. As will be discussed, class specificity was shown not only by the greater number of differentiated spaces provided for middle-class residents as opposed to their poorer sisters,

575 Mohr, 743. This statement does indicate that it was common practice even for single genteel and professional women to frequent such places, even residents of Ledigenheime. Therefore, one can hardly speak of a purely domestic realm or the ideology of separate spheres for the residents of such buildings, even in the case of genteel upbringing and the pursuit of middle-class professions.

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but also evidenced by elegance of the furnishings and decorations provided in specific

Ledigenheime.576

However, despite this reflection of contemporary social prejudices and the measured and logical explanations in regards to both the need for Ledigenheime for women and the ways in which these institutions ought to be organized, an underlying radical edge to these projects can be discerned. The creation of new forms of housing, particularly those for women, was a revolutionary undertaking according to leading leftist radicals August Bebel,

Peter Kropotkin and Lily Braun, who all saw reformed housekeeping as “one of the foundations of their (women’s) liberation”577. In her writings, informed by Bebel’s Woman under Socialism578, Braun quotes the anarchist Kropotkin, who wrote that “to liberate women means not only to open the doors to the university, the court of law, and parliament for them; rather it means to free them from the cooking stove and washtub, it means creating institutions that will permit them to raise their children and participate in public life”579. This statement is an implicit embrace of cooperative housing experiments, the communal spaces, centralized kitchens and other labor saving elements of which provided a means for women to live full and public lives. Of course, the housing form that most closely fulfilled such specifications was the Ledigenheime, the details of which will be discussed in depth later in this chapter.

576 Klara Trost, Ledigen-Heime für weibliche Erwerbstätige ; Eine Forderung aus d. Kriegswirtschaft mit Grundrißbeispielen (Hannover: Deutsche Bauhütte, 1918), 9.

577 Lily Braun, “Women’s Work and Housekeeping” (1901) in Müller, Magda and Patricia A. Herminghouse, eds. German Feminist Writings (New York: Continuum, 2001), 93.

578 Mention can be made that Woman under Socialism was popular reading material among many of the working class men surveyed in Adolf Levenstein’s 1912 survey/book, Die Arbeiterfrage (Adolf Levenstein, Die Arbeiterfrage (München: Ernst Reinhardt, 1912), 388-402).

579 Braun, 93. This was also the stance of many feminist reformers in the United States and Britain, who also advocated for communal kitchens with attached residences for both single women and their married counterparts, particularly concentrating their efforts on married women with children.

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Therefore, one can therefore focus on the complex role that Ledigenheime played for both middle-class and working-class female residents and within the surrounding community between 1870 and 1914, as the construction of these buildings reached their greatest numbers. However, it must again be underscored that despite similarities on many levels, the Ledigenheime built for middle-class professional women differed greatly from those for their working and lower middle class sisters (as well as from those for all classes of men), and that women of significantly different social standing were nearly never housed together580. As a result, we will first investigate those Ledigenheime housing working and lower middle-class women, and then those of their more educated, genteel and wealthy counterparts.

Ledigenheime for Working Class and Lower-Middle Class Women

As enumerated above, the construction of Ledigenheime was a reaction to the housing crisis facing women of varying social standing, from skilled and white-collar workers to professionals. However, this solution was also a reflection of economic realities and class considerations, meaning that skilled working-class and lower middle class women were housed together (with the occasional unskilled worker), while their more educated and middle class sisters were housed separately.

Thus, the majority of the Ledigenheime to be examined in this section sought to serve lower middle class women, generally office workers such as bookkeepers and

580 Wilhelmine Mohr clarified that different Ledigenheime should house different classes of women, stating that “…sich in einem Frauenheim Frauen verschiedener Stände und Bildung nicht vereinigen lassen…” (Die Hilfe, 742).

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telephone operators, as well as seamstresses and saleswomen581, as well as a number of skilled factory workers582, all of whom earned roughly what a male unskilled laborer earned583. Bewilderingly, even when these buildings were referred to by contemporaries as

Arbeiterinnenheime, or homes for working women, buildings housing skilled working class and lower middle class women, as well as relatively few unskilled laborers, were not and are not to be confused with the majority of housing built by employers for their unskilled female workforce, which were closer in conception of barracks than the Ledigenheime for women we will be examining and those for men we have examined584.

An early example of this new form of housing for women was the Stuttgart Herberge für Fabrikarbeiterinnen, or home for skilled female factory workers, built in 1874 by the Verein zur Fürsorge für Fabrikarbeiterinnen585, a group that was not linked to any particular employer but was comparable to the reform organizations that supported the construction of

Ledigenheime for men586. In many ways, it is a transitional building bears far more similarity

581 Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 188.

582 The housing of true working class women, such as those working as domestic servants and as unskilled factory labor will generally not be addressed in this work due to the fact that women in domestic service generally lived with the families they served and female factory workers were often afforded a form of housing that more often approximated a barracks than anything that can be compared to a Ledigenheim, at least as construed in this work. However, rare examples of Ledigenheime built by employers for their female workers that operated in a similar manner to reformist Ledigenheime will be cited.

583 Schivmachev, 230.

584 There are several exceptions to this, but as a rule, housing for female unskilled labor built by employers cannot be considered to fit into the Ledigenheim typology. This was largely due to the extremely poor wages paid to unskilled women, who earned half of what an unskilled man earned, essentially placing them out of nearly all but the most basic housing options (Schivmachev, 230).

585 This organization, whose name translates to “Organization for the Welfare of Women Working in Factories”, was founded 1868, a mere six years before they constructed the Ludwigstrasse 15 building (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 73-74).

586 This is not to say that this was the only such non-denominationally supported building, but that it is a fairly early and good example. Martha Hoppe, the author of an article in Die Gleichheit, the Social Democatic women’s journal, reports that the city of M.-Gladbach supported the creation of a “städtische” (municipal and non-denominational) Arbeiterinnenheime on the Paulstrasse, which provided women with room and board for .8 Marks per day, but this was over twenty years later. Of course, as Die Gleichheit was a partisan journal, the

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to Ledigenheime for men built over twenty years later, particularly those built by other reform groups and municipalities587. As opposed to standing, singular and monument-like on a semi-rural plot of land near an industrial complex in the manner of Stahlhausen in

Bochum, it was massed on its city lot in an inverted-T shape588, and somewhat integrated with neighboring buildings on either side.

Linking the building to later Ledigenheime for men, not only was there a Volksküche, or public kitchen, in the basement of the building, something that would be employed to a great extent in turn of the century municipal and reform organization Ledigenheime for men589, but also numerous other amenities were provided to the residents. For example, there were numerous places for residents to gather, including a (heated!) room on the ground floor, where on winter evenings there was instruction in singing, and which was generally used as a space in which residents would amuse themselves by embroidery, reading out loud, and other genteel occupations. Kitchens, provided on every floor, were also

author also notes that such facilities are in the interests of the capitalists (“das im Interesse der Kapitalistenklasse wirkt”) (“Heime für Textilarbeiterinnen” Die Gleichheit no. 20 (5 Juli 1909): 308).

587 In contrast to the massive housing structures of industry for men, such as Stahlhausen of the Bochumer Verein in Bochum (Ruhr region), or barrack-like industrial constructions, or the cloister-like structures of many religious organizations.

588 The main stairwell was located at the “crossing” of the two arms of the building.

589 Communal kitchens run on a scientific and self-sufficient basis became intrinsically linked with many reform German Ledigenheime for men, as evidenced by the Dankelmannstrasse building in Charlottenburg (1906) and the Ledigenheim on the Neue Schönhauserstrasse in Berlin-Mitte (circa 1900), which both contained Volksküchen. In fact, the Volksküche was also a central component in the transnational exchange of ideas related to mass housing and proper nutrition that dated to the 1870s, and the visit of Melusina Fay Peirce of America to Lina Morgenstern’s Berlin Volksküchen. Later, disciples of Peirce, Ellen H. Richards and Mary Hinman Abel, feminists and campaigners for kitchen-less houses, in the creation of their much heralded “scientific” New England/Rumford Kitchen at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, claimed that their innovations came from a knowledge of public kitchens, particularly the Volksküchen in Berlin.

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available for residents to use, though obtaining meals within the aforementioned Volksküche was also an option590.

Although hygienic concerns do not appear to have been the primary focus of those responsible for the Stuttgart building, the implementation of elements that provided good ventilation and sanitation also help to connect early Ledigenheime for women to those built contemporaneously for their male counterparts. For example, in the Stuttgart building, although the bedrooms were arranged off central corridors, which had no source of ventilation themselves, each bedroom did have a window for fresh air and light, there were bathrooms on each floor, and the residents were required to clean the residence as part of the rules governing their stay591.

Instead, it is the scale of reform Ledigenheim buildings for men that really served to differentiate them from those constructed contemporaneously for women. For example, the

Arbeiterinnenheim located on the Theresienstrasse in Munich, the construction of which was supported by the reform organization Frauenverein Arbeiterinnenheim in 1891, was typical for

Ledigenheime for women built at the time in that it could only hold seventy residents at a time, in contrast to contemporaneous Ledigenheime built for men by reform organizations, which easily held hundreds of men592. Even a larger home such as the Stuttgart Herberge für

Fabrikarbeiterinnen only housed 150 residents in sixty bedrooms distributed over the three upper floors593. Although one would be tempted to think this was due to the fact that there were fewer female workers in need of housing than male workers, this is not mentioned in

590 The prices of the Volksküche were as follows: breakfast and dinner for 15-20 Pfg. and lunch for 25-30 Pfg. (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 73).

591 This was never the case within Ledigenheime for men, either of the municipal or industrial variety. 592 Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 86-94.

593 These rooms held two to four beds each, and prices stood at one Mark for a week for rooms with more than two beds, and two Marks for a double room (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 73-74).

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any of the discourse surrounding the construction of Ledigenheime for women. Instead, the smaller scale of these buildings, facilitated by lower numbers of residents in each building, was thought to be necessary due to the supposed detrimental effects that larger buildings of great heights had on the health of women594, and correspondingly, Ledigenheime for women tended to be smaller and more intimate.

Of course, Ledigenheime for women were not only smaller and more intimate in comparison to Ledigenheime built for their male counterparts for reasons of women’s health. This relative intimacy was also thought to be intrinsically linked to the formation of a home-like atmosphere, at least when coupled with an emphasis on the provision of elegant surroundings and exteriors that reflected the latest style, aesthetic considerations that brought slightly later variants of Ledigenheime for women even closer in appearance to those built for their male counterparts.

Thus, slightly later variants of reform Ledigenheime for skilled working and lower middle-class women retained most of the elements of these earlier housing experiments for women, but in general presented a much more elegant appearance bearing great similarity to reform Ledigenheime for men. In particular, as exemplified by the Arbeiterinnenheim located at Alt Moabit 38 in Berlin (1909), these turn of the century Ledigenheime had much in common with the style, layout and massing of Catholic, municipal or reform-society supported Ledigenheime for men595, indicating the level to which this housing type had bee.

594 Although it was more likely that this was due to the poorer residents living in the cheapest lodgings, located on the upper floors, the Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift für Öffentliche Gesundheitspflege noted in 1878 that female residents living on the fourth floor or above of Mietskasernen had higher rate of stillbirths and miscarriages (Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift für Öffentliche Gesundheitspflege 10 (1878): 260). Of course, stillbirths and miscarriages would not have been much of a consideration in the design of buildings for unmarried women, at least at this juncture.

595 This is true of many municipally supported Ledigenheim for working-class women, such as that built in Ulm in 1905, though Ulm omitted a Volksküche or Volkskaffeestube (Zeitschrift für Wohnungswesen 2 (1905): 28-30). In fact, Ulm appears remarkably similar on the exterior to the Essen Ledigenheim on the Weberplatz, both utilizing a simplified baroque style and mansard roof.

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For example, although it was termed Berliner Zopf style by the author of the article in

Die Architektur des XX Jahrhunderts596, it is clear that the Alt Moabit Ledigenheim was a variation of the popular style of um 1800 597. The four-story façade, topped with a mansard roof, is a light-hearted and informal application of a simplified and vertically articulated neoclassical style. Decorative details and exterior treatments recall a late 18th or early 19th century urban residence, as would be owned by the lower nobility or a prosperous burgher.

Additionally linking this building to contemporaneous reform Ledigenheime for men

(as well as earlier Ledigenheime for women), the building included both a dining hall

(Speisesaal) and coffee house (Kaffeestube), both of which where prominently placed on the main façade of the building. While the main entrance was located a little to the right of the center of the building, the outside entrance to the basement of the included Speisesaal was positioned directly to the left, and the entrance to the included Kaffeestube to the right, indicated by a sign carved into the faux-stone facade. Importantly, these elements and the attention paid to their advertisement on the exterior of the building highlighted the public- private nature of the building, much like the earlier Stuttgart Arbeiterinnenheim, as well as other turn-of-the-century Ledigenheime for men598. The public rooms, all located on the ground floor off a central L-shaped hallway, are thus very accessible to both residents and visitors. In fact, not only were the Kaffeestube and the dining hall open to the general public, with room for 100-150 diners in the latter case, the common rooms of the residents were

596 Die Architektur des XX Jahrhunderts (1909): 42.

597 It is very similar indeed to the Cologne Breitestrasse Catholic Jungesellenheim (1910) and the Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim in Berlin-Charlottenburg (1906), which both employ numerous elements, from details to massing, associated with the aforementioned style of um 1800.

598 However, compared to the amenities for the male residents of the aforementioned Catholic or municipally supported Ledigenheime, these are fairly simple, excluding the latter’s: billiard rooms, extensive libraries, numerous reading rooms and even the occasional bowling alley.

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also open to women from the surrounding community in the evening599, in emulation of the

English model of the settlement house. Well within the tradition of housing for working- class women, there was also a focus on educational or vocational improvement, as the supporters of Alt Moabit 38 also hoped to open evening courses and a continuing education school for local women in the future, to be housed in the building on the first upper floor and in a teaching kitchen attached to the rear of the scullery of the large kitchen for the dining hall600.

Pleasant spots for the women to spend their free time, from a large reading room that could serve as a stage for the dining room, to a veranda, to a fountain within a central courtyard, were also common within contemporary Ledigenheime for men, as well as those for middle-class single women to be examined shortly. In fact, such courtyards were common in most reformist housing developments at the turn of the century, not just those for single people. Above all, such spaces were not only to provide light and air to the regions of the building not fronting the street, but were also central to contemporary reformist conceptions of what was needed for a healthy life, as popularized by numerous

Lebensreform (life-reform) movements, namely the opportunity to enjoy nature and fresh air.

The rudimentary luxuries provided within these homes for women were also in keeping with contemporary model Ledigenheime for men, again highlighting the fact that

599 Mathilde Kirchner, “Das neuerbaute Arbeiterinnenheim in Berlin” Westermanns Monatsheft: Illustrierte Deutsche Zeitschrift fuer das Geistige Leben der Gegenwart 54, no. 107 (Oct.-Dec. 1909): 392.

600 Kirchner, 392. In addition to cooking, the courses were to be in tailoring, singing, gymnastics, stenography, cleaning, German, English, etc. Westermanns attributes this to attempts to keep up with Sweden, Belgium and France in the field of training women in such skills. Another example, the Arbeiterinnenheim on the Dorotheenstrasse (no. 137) in Hamburg, built in 1912, also included both a sewing room and a writing room for the training of the residents that were well integrated into the home. Both training rooms were linked to the larger communal living room, the sewing room through a sliding partition that stretched across the entire width of both rooms and the writing room through a smaller doorway and down several steps (Hamburg und seine Bauten: under Berücksichtigung der Nachbarstädte Altona und Wandsbek 1914 (Hamburg: Boysen und Maasch, 1914), 341).

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there was some parity in the treatment of female residents and their male counterparts. For example, the Alt Moabit building provided “allen modernen Anforderungen an Licht, an

Luft und an Reinlichkeit,”601 including central heat, and showers and toilets in both the basement and on each upper floor.602 The majority of the 47 bedrooms were single rooms, as was advocated as ideal for Ledigenheime serving men or women, with the 37 single rooms measuring approximately eight square meters, complete with sunny window-seat, roomy wardrobe and large good bed.603 Additionally, a living room where the women could socialize was provided on each of the upper floors.604

Westermanns Monatsheft für Baukunst also noted that the interior was enlivened by artistic touches by the architect, Baumeister Heinrich Schweitzer, which included color schemes that changed depending upon which floor one was on and coordinating fresh flowers in every hallway.605 In fact, every space, from the private and communal rooms to the hallways, stairwells, and even the façade, was to convey “Ruhe und Heiterheit, Freiheit und Schönheit.”606 Clearly, beauty was a primary consideration in the design of the

Ledigenheim, particularly those serving middle-class women.

This focus upon aesthetic matters by the supporters of Ledigenheime for women may appear strange until one considers that the provision of such pleasant surroundings was in fact a replacement for the restrictive rules of the cloister, as the refined and elegant

601 Kirchner, 393. Translation: “All the modern conveniences in light, air circulation and cleanliness”.

602 Die Architektur des XX Jahrhunderts (1909), 43. Each upper floor also has three toilets and a single bathtub (in separate rooms).

603 Kirchner, 391. Fifteen single rooms, one double and two triples were located on each of the 2nd and 3rd floors, and on the first upper floor one found: seven singles, one double, two triples and one five bed bedroom. This organization of space is very much in keeping with most Ledigenheime for men built contemporaneously.

604 Kirchner, 391. This room measured 4.75 by 3.9 meters.

605 Kirchner, 392.

606 “Quiet and cheeriness, freedom and beauty” (Mohr, Die Hilfe: 742).

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decorations were both in keeping with the social class of the residents, and were considered by reformers to be central to retaining residents. In short, the well-appointed “home like” appearance of the Ledigenheim was intended to keep its residents from a “nomadic” life,607 and that the distractions of the city would be counteracted by “gesundere Räume, bessere

Verpflegung und gemütlichen Aufenthalt”.608 Pleasant surroundings would also help the young women to refine their taste and perhaps even curb impulses towards the purchase of frivolous items,609 seeing that there would be no need to beautify their surroundings in an already elegant and prettily appointed space.

However, the most important point here is that such surroundings were thought to encourage residents to remain “at home”, to stay away from coffeehouses and taverns in the evening, even though reformers falsely considered that such amusements held no appeal for women.610 Of course, identical spaces were created in Ledigenheime for men that were similarly intended to entice residents to enter a semi-public realm while “at home”, indicating that this was not a gender-specific tactic.

Even more importantly, considering that most Ledigenheime for women of all classes contained spaces loosely approximating a restaurant, it appears that this was a space they frequented with some regularity, and that the inclusion of such a space in a

Ledigenheim made it more reputable. In fact, the Ledigenheim enabled German women of the skilled working and lower middle classes, while remaining respectably “at home”, to

607 Kirchner, 391.

608 Trost, 10. Translation: “healthy rooms, good care and cozy/homey abode”.

609 The frivolous temptations cited as a waste of a young woman’s hard-earned wages were cited as: pretty things, furnishings, clothing and even sweets (Kirchner, 392).

610 Unlike men, both young and old, the public Wirtshaus (pub/bar) and its social attractions supposedly held no appeal for women. In regards to the Wirtshaus, the feminist reformer Klara Trost noted that “…die fein empfindliche Frau wird sich schwerlich mit solchem Tausch zufrieden geben…” (6). This translates to, “a delicately composed woman is not content with such exchanges.

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participate in the larger world by merely walking downstairs to spaces open to the general public, and a traditionally masculine space like a restaurant in particular. This fact indicates that these women’s public lives were more nuanced that has generally been considered.

Ledigenheime for Professional Women

To an even greater extent than those for working class and lower middle class women, Ledigenheime built for middle class professional women at the close of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century disprove conventional wisdom that such women existed in a separate sphere, one in which middle-class women had no engagement with public life.611 In contrast to conventional ways of looking at middle-class women’s interactions with the public world, we will see that the spaces Ledigenheime for middle class women created were both agents of change and a reflection of massive societal changes, functioning as places where a specific group of women could both form and confirm their new identities as public beings with fellow residents, changes that would lead to the feminist advances of Weimar Germany.

In general, these buildings housed women who had been raised middle class612, and were employed in professions or trades that had required them to obtain at least some, if not extensive, education and training for their positions as: librarians, laboratory, hospital and clinical assistants, chemists, artists, social workers, teachers, factory inspectors,

611 Of course, even the ideology of separate spheres only pertained to a small group of bourgeois housewives, and even then this is not an apt description of a far more nuanced existence.

612 Essentially, even if they did not earn a middle-class income, their birth within a middle-class household, education, and the practice of a profession deemed middle-class enabled these women to claim middle-class social status. Above all, it was the status of these women’s fathers that determined their social class. There were even specific programs that helped to support and train the daughters of deceased (male) members of certain organizations, not the general public.

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superintendants of orphanages, nurses, police matrons, midwives, school physicians, architects and engineers613. In short, the residents were members of the rising middle class; yet, unlike most women of that class, they did not live in anything that approximated a separate woman’s sphere.

In fact, this lack of difference was underscored by the appearance of the facades of the buildings within which these women were housed, in that Ledigenheime for middle-class women did not differ in any significant way from the design of Ledigenheime for skilled men. For example, the elegant baroque façade of the municipal Ledigenheim for women in

Ulm recalled that of the Weberplatz Ledigenheim for men in Essen and Catholic

Ledigenheim for men in Düsseldorf, and both the Pankow Lehrerinnenheim and the

Weissensee Ledigenheim loosely employed the Biedermeier influenced decorative style common to numerous Ledigenheime for men from the Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim in

Berlin-Charlottenburg, to the Catholic Ledigenheime of Münster and Neuss, as well as the

Breitestrasse building in central Cologne614. Of course, this is not particularly surprising, as

Ledigenheime for lower middle class and skilled working women also employed a visual vocabulary akin to that of contemporaneous reform Ledigenheime built for men.

Instead, the difference between these buildings for professional women and other

Ledigenheime for women and men was one that was not legible on the exteriors of the

613 Schirmachev, 134.

614 For the Pankow Lehrerinnenheim, this meant that the massive lone Berlin block structure of four stories was capped with a hipped roof, complete with eyebrow windows on one of the wings and dormers on the other. Large expanses of stucco were enlivened with stringcourses and windows of different sizes, from narrow and tall casement windows to large bay windows and numerous balconies and loggias covered with flowers (“mit blumen geschmückte Loggien und Balkone” (Schmidt, 47 and Wasmuths (1915/16): 113-142). In the case of the Weissensee Ledigenheim, although similar to the rest of the complex by Gemeindebaurat Carl- James Bühring, the Ledigenheim was identifiable within the larger block structure through wide brickwork pilasters and further brickwork in the inset portions of the façade. The entire building presented a calm and loosely neo-classical appearance, with the delicate lines and detailing commiserate with the refined urban variant of the “um 1800” style.

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Ledigenheime in question. Instead, the provision of elegantly decorated and numerous private spaces within Ledigenheime for middle class female residents can be viewed as a marker of class that even differentiated residents from the relatively privileged residents of reform Ledigenheime for men, and certainly from their lower class sisters.

As we have seen, it was taken for granted in Imperial Germany that each class of single female worker should be housed in a Ledigenheim specific to her social class, something that seems illogical when one considers that housing a number of social classes a in a single home could contribute to more economically healthy venture with benefits for all residents. After all, if a single building could include varied rooms at prices reflecting the level of privacy and amount of space provided, there would be no reason why more financially solvent women could not contribute to the overall economic well-being of the endeavor. Instead, the basis for this segregation of classes remained tied to the assumption that lower-class women needed to be “improved”, while the middle-class teachers and civil servants certainly would not benefit from the ministrations of women drawn from their own social class. It was also feared that a women from a bourgeois background could potentially be “contaminated” by exposure to her less well-brought-up working-class sisters, whose moral standards would potentially be far lower than hers615.

Thus, class specificity, to an exacting level that did not exist in Ledigenheime for men, was manifested in Ledigenheime serving middle class professional women. This was not only exhibited in the relatively higher rents charged to middle class professional women residents as opposed to lower middle class and working class women, but also though the

615 At the very least, a woman from a working-class background would most likely not place the same value on privacy as a woman who had perhaps grown up with her own bedroom and who almost certainly would not have seen acts of a sexual nature within the family circle, and certainly not those between her parents. In contrast, as a working-class woman most likely would have been exposed to the expressions of human sexuality from earliest childhood, due to close living quarters and even shared beds.

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amount of attention lavished on the provision of interior decorations that were in keeping with the residents’ aesthetic sensibilities. Additionally, the female middle class Ledigenheim resident was provided with a greater number of private and semi-private spaces, which also served as an indicator of their elevated social standing616.

A comparison of the communal spaces in two very different Ledigenheime can serve as an illustration of the level of decoration that was expected for and by middle-class residents, as opposed to lower middle class residents. The most cursory examination of the elegantly appointed dining hall of the Lehrerinnenheim (home for teachers) on the

Wisbyerstrasse in Berlin-Pankow, complete with a central chandelier in the simplified and strongly linear style of many German Jugendstil practitioners, shows it to stand in stark contrast to the four large bare electic bulbs hanging from the ceiling of the large hall

(Festsaal) for “Theateraufführungen und Konzerten” within the Arbeiterinnenheim of

Mannheim-Walddorf617. While the Lehrerinnenheim’s dining room was paneled in wood, and included a wooden buffet, tables with floral arrangements and tablecloths and geometric painted decoration at where the wall meets the ceiling, the only decoration in the

Arbeiterinnenheim, as disclosed by the article praising the building, was the “Bogendetail”, the division of the room into bays with large windows on one wall, a development made possible by the use of reinforced concrete618.

Nevertheless, while highly decorated in comparison with the Mannheim-Walddorf building, the Lehrerinnenheim in Pankow is not overly grand in comparison with some contemporary Berlin rental buildings serving the middle classes, complete with their marble

616 Trost, 9.

617 “Theatre performances and concerts” (“Mädchenheim in Mannheim Walddorf” Baugewerkszeitung 39 (1907): 554).

618 “Mädchenheim in Mannheim Walddorf” Baugewerkszeitung 39 (1907): 554.

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floored entrance halls. This was a grandeur that Anna Schmidt, the author of an article in the Mitteilungen des Rheinischen Vereins für Kleinwohnungswesen, found somewhat false and unfitting for both the Lehrereinnenheim as well as the aforementioned apartment buildings.

Instead, she advocated the Lehrerinnenheim’s “hell, freundlich, farbenfroh und praktisch” entry hall as not only a model for other Ledigenheime, but for the apartment buildings serving the general public619.

However, it was not only decoration, but also the amount of privacy provided to residents that stood as a marker of class difference between women from bourgeois or haute-bourgeois backgrounds and residents largely drawn from the working class and lower middle class. As mentioned before in a discussion of Ledigenheime for skilled working-class and lower middle class women, such as that of Alt Moabit 38, Ledigenheime for working- class and middle-class women generally contained both a central kitchen where the majority of food was prepared by hired cooks for consumption in the in-house dining room and small stoves or hotplates where individuals could make small meals, primarily snacks and tea/coffee620. However, the application and form of these small kitchens differed depending upon whether the Ledigenheime in question was constructed for skilled working- class and lower middle class women, or for professionally employed middle-class women.

For example, the Lehrerinnenheim in Pankow contained fifty one to three room residences, each with its own kitchen generally measuring 2.25 by 4 meters621, while Alt Moabit 38 only

619 Anna Schmidt, “Die Wohnungsfrage im Leben der Lehrerin und ihre Lösung” Mitteilungen des Rheinischen Vereins für Kleinwohnungswesen 8, no. 5 (May 1912): 47. This was a very similar approach to the decoration of the entry hall of the Alt Moabit Arbeiterinnenheim.

620 Of course, there were exceptions to this, such as the Ulm Ledigenheim for women (Zeitschrift für Wohnungswesen 2 (1905): 31), and the Linden Arbeiterinnenheim of circa 1910 (Baugewerks-Zeitung 43, no. 56 (July 15, 1911): 396).

621 Anna Schmidt, 47. They were also provided with a small Spiesewirtschaft (restaurant) that served all the residents, and was not open to the residents for individual cooking, though food could be ordered up to the

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provided small private kitchens on each floor, to be shared by the residents. The level of privacy provided, even in something as minor as the preparation of food, thus can be read as both a marker of class and an expectation of the daughters of the middle-class, even if their wages did not place them within the class into which they had been born622.

The parlor was another marker of difference between Ledigenheime for middle-class female residents and lower middle class women (as well as between them and male reform

Ledigenheim residents). Although we will investigate the specific ways in which these spaces functioned, it is worth noting that parlors or sitting rooms attached to private bedrooms never appear in Ledigenheime for men623, and nearly never in those for lower middle class and working-class women, where communal rooms evidently considered to be sufficient. It appears that in Ledigenheime for women, particularly for middle class women, the small parlor or sitting room remained a socio-economic marker associated with the female domain, regardless of the presence of larger communal gathering spaces. Thus, despite the otherwise progressive lives of the residents of such Ledigenheime, there remained an interest in retaining socially significant private spaces as an advertisement of the social class one sought to identity with.

rooms for an additional fee. Thus, the type of food preparation they could do on their own was done on a small scale, owing to the provision of dining halls or public restaurants in women’s Ledigenheime and the economic impracticality of Einküchenhäuser (homes with a central kitchen). The consensus was that these central kitchens for use of the residents, as well as the kitchen for the staff only, merited the expenditure of money when constructed by industry on a large scale.

622 This was also true of British communal housing experiments, such as Homesgarth in Letchworth Garden city, where every suite of rooms was supplied with a kitchen for the creation of small meals, while food was also provided in the main dining hall at cost. Thus, one could join the other 50-60 people eating in the dining hall (It was also open to the general public in the manner of a Volksküche), or, like the Pankow example, one could take food back to one’s suite (H. Clapham Lander, “Associated Homes: A Solution to the Servant Problem” Garden Cities and Town Planning (1911), 72).

623 This only occurred in the mid to late 1920s in buildings that can no longer be termed Ledigenheime, but apartment buildings for single residents, such as the Ledigenwohnungen of the Heimstatt settlement in Berlin- Mariendorf, built in 1930 by Göttel.

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In particular, the parlor, or parlor-like room of the Ledigenheim for middle class women, was a clear marker of class that indicated the resident’s respectability, her tacit acknowledgement of the middle class cult of domesticity centered upon the parlor624. In contrast, undifferentiated spaces were seen as dangerous and chaotic---associated with the overcrowded dwellings of the working classes where one or two rooms sufficed for all activities. This can be further examined in the case of the Pankow Lehrerinnenheim, where the majority of suites contained two or three rooms625, excluding the hall, bathroom, and a small kitchen626, even if one of the rooms was only a Schlafkabinet (sleeping cabinet) of merely

2.1 meters wide by four meters long. While all of the suites included the most modern conveniences, particularly in regards to sanitation627, the number of rooms per suite indicated the economic and social status of the resident. Tellingly, the twelve suites with three rooms included two rooms for the use of the resident, while the third was reserved for a servant.

However, and most importantly, nearly all of the suites included not only a bedroom628, with at least one other room that served as a sitting room or parlor. This, despite the fact that

624 Lawrence Taylor wrote of the nineteenth century fixation on the “cult of domesticity and the belief in the power of rooms to produce and reproduce middle-class civility” (“Re-Entering the West Room: On the Power of Domestic Spaces” in House Life: Space, Place and Family in Europe, ed. Donna Birdwell-Pheasant and Denise Lawrence-Zuniga (New York: Berg, 1999), 228).

625 Anna Schmidt, “Die Wohnungsfrage im Leben der Lehrerin und ihre Lösung” Mitteilungen des Rheinischen Vereins für Kleinwohnungswesen 8, no. 5 (May 1912): 48. Only two of the “suites” consisted of a single room with attached kitchen, hall and bathroom, while 31 had two rooms and twelve had three rooms.

626 2.25 meters wide by 4 meters long (Schmidt, 48).

627 For example, each suite included: a kitchen with its own window for ample light and air, as well as a cupboard, a built-in coal oven and two-burner gas cooker; a bathroom with zinc bathtub and hot and cold faucets for running water; a loggia or balcony for fresh air; a private corridor leading to the grouping of rooms and private storage space in either the basement or attic of the building (Schmidt, 47).

628 43 out of 45 suites (Schmidt, 48).

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there was ample space available in the elegantly appointed reading and writing rooms attached to the dining room on the ground floor629.

However, it would be a mistake to conclude that all Ledigenheime for middle-class women provided the residents with private parlors, though this does appear to be more common than not, though an exception to this rule was illustrated by the municipal

Weissensee Ledigenheim, located in a northeastern suburb of Berlin. In this case, no private sitting rooms are provided, and as such it is clearly expected that residents were to solely use the communal spaces630. Yet, it can be noted that the Weissensee Ledigenheim was one of the last Ledigenheime built that did not provide residents with the level of privacy available in buildings such as the Pankow Lehrerinnenheim. Certainly, the importance of the parlor space and the small enclosed kitchenette cannot be overstated in relation to the development of the lives of the Ledigenheim residents and the single professional women who followed in their footsteps in the coming decades.

Links to Radicalism: Ledigenheime for Women and Housing Cooperatives

Despite the maintenance of class distinctions between single women working outside of the home, as well as the measured and logical explanations in regards to both the need for

Ledigenheime for women and the ways in which these institutions ought to be organized, an

629 Schmidt, 48.

630 It should be noted that the layout of the Ledigenheim, particularly the public-private division of internal spaces, would not have been entirely foreign to residents, as it clearly reflected the conventions regulating the layout of the bourgeois family home, with spaces for entertaining friends and acquaintances and spaces where one rested and sought solitude. Of course, the distinction here was that the semi-open spaces of the bourgeois home were not entirely open to the public, as the public spaces of Ledigenheime were. In addition, the décor and architectural treatment of the more visible sections of the Ledigenheim, though indicating the social status of the residents to some extent, were not as personal of a statement of taste and class as in a typical bourgeois home.

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underlying radical edge to these projects can be discerned. As briefly mentioned, all

Ledigenheime constructed for women contained a central kitchen631, where professional cooks prepared meals for consumption in the in-house dining room632, as well as small stoves or hotplates where the residents could cook small meals, primarily snacks and boil water for tea or coffee633. Now, although this did not entirely free a resident from her kitchen (if one counts a hot plate as a kitchen-like space), the shifting of a gender-specific burden as cooking every meal to the simple act of boiling water for a cup of tea can hardly be discounted. Essentially, the provision of the majority of her meals severed some of the traditional ties of a woman to her place of residence and freed her to pursue her profession, as well as leisure time activities. This is particularly important when one considers that the middle-class women living in certain Ledigenheime could not afford to employ the cooks and lady’s maids they would have grown accustomed to in their girlhoods and thus would have been solely responsible for bearing the burden of cooking and housework634.

631 This strongly distinguishes Ledigenheime for women built by reform organizations from the Arbeiterinnenheime/barracks for working-class women constructed by employers. In the latter buildings, residents were generally required to cook their own meals, as well as to occasionally clean the building; this, after working for eleven hours in a factory! Of course, this left nearly no free time, which the reporter of this article in an organ of Social Democracy attributed as purposeful: “Es darf den Arbeiterinnen keine Zeit zum Nachdenken bleiben, denn Nachdenken verstoesst gegen die Interessen der Kapitalisten” (Loose translation: Leaving the working-women no time to think serves the interests of the capitalists, as thinking goes against the capitalist’s interests.) (Hoppe, “Heime für Textilarbeiterinnen” Die Gleichheit no. 20 (5 Juli 1909): 309.

632 One can assume, based on turn of the century gender roles, that women were more willing to cook meals for themselves, where German men did not and would not cook for themselves, though they also were not provided with the opportunity to do so. Instead, the advocates of Ledigenheime for men only supported the construction of central kitchens that would meet these needs, thus rendering cooking done by individuals both impractical and impossible.

633 For example, in Alt Moabit 38, every resident had access to a small “tea” kitchen with a gas stove, which Kirchner noted was primarily to be used on Sundays and in the evening (“Das neuerbaute Arbeiterinnenheim in Berlin” Westermanns Monatsheft: Illustrierte Deutsche Zeitschrift für das Geistige Leben der Gegenwart 54, no. 107 )Oct.- Dec. 1909): 391).

634 It should be mentioned that women residing in Ledigenheime apparently did not need anyone to darn their socks or mend their shirts, as the wife of a landlord traditionally did for male tenants and on-site tailors did for male Ledigenheime residents (Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime, 140). Thus, one does not see retail space set aside for barbers and tailors within Ledigenheime for women, though in a surprising twist, sometimes employment agencies were included, as were common in municipal Ledigenheime for men (One can find

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Certainly, the creation of new forms of housing that mitigated the burden of housekeeping for women, particularly cooking, was considered to be a revolutionary undertaking. According to leading left-radicals August Bebel, Peter Kropotkin and Lily

Braun, reformed housekeeping was “one of the foundations of (women’s) liberation.”635 In her writings, informed by Bebel’s Woman under Socialism, Braun quoted the anarchist

Kropotkin, who wrote that to “liberate women means not only to open the doors to the university, the court of law, and parliament for them; rather it means to free them from the cooking stove and washtub, it means creating institutions that will permit them to

…participate in public life.”636

To this end, it is worthwhile to consider implications of the general arrangement of space in a Ledigenheim for middle-class women, using the Alt Moabit building as an example, and to compare this to the form of reformist housing serving women gaining much attention circa 1900,637 the “housing cooperative”. In 1901 the Social Democrat and leading feminist Lily Braun described a housing cooperative as:

A housing complex enclosing a large and prettily laid out garden of about fifty or

sixty apartments, none of which contains a kitchen. There is only a small gas cooker

in a little room…there is a central kitchen on the ground floor which is equipped

with all kinds of modern labor-saving devices…the management of the entire

household is in the hands of an experienced housekeeper…meals are either taken in

records of Arbeitsnachweiseanstalten attached to women’s municipal Ledigenheime, such as the municipally supported Arbeiterinnenheim of M.-Gladbach (Hoppe , 308). 635 Lily Braun, “Women’s Work and Housekeeping” (1901) in Müller, Magda and Patricia A. Herminghouse, eds. German Feminist Writings (New York: Continuum, 2001), 93. 636 Braun, 93. This was also the stance of many feminist reformers in the United States and Britain, who also advocated for communal kitchens with attached residences. 637 This was favored by a number of Socialists and Feminists (both centrists and leftists of the latter group).

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the common dining room or carried to all the floors…heat is provided to the

apartments by a central heating system.638

Even a cursory examination of the paragraph above and the comparison of Braun’s specifications with the layout and spaces of Alt Moabit serves to illustrate the close relationship between the two housing types, from the central courtyard garden, to the number of rooms/apartments, the provision of central heat, the centrally located kitchen and dining hall, and even the housekeeper cum directress, which were all intended to free bourgeois women from household drudgery. The only significant difference is that the residents of the housing cooperative would be able to use the kitchen for the preparation of meals, aiding and supporting one another, thus saving time and energy, whereas in Alt

Moabit the women did not cook the main meals themselves, but were only allowed in the training kitchen and could use the small cookers on each floor. Nevertheless, the cooperative bears far more similarity to Ledigenheime for women than those for men, which took the preparation of food entirely out of the hands of the residents.639

In fact, this was an idea that was popular in Feminist circles on both sides of the

Atlantic, though the focus remained on the provision of communal kitchens and cooperative

638 Lily Braun, “Women’s Work and Housekeeping” (1901) in German Feminist Writings, ed. Magda Müller and Patricia A. Herminghouse (New York: Continuum, 2001), 90.

639 In addition, Braun planned that the inhabitants of the housing cooperative would socialize in the common rooms, “tastefully furnished rooms for social occasions”, where no alcohol was required to be purchased, including a reading room”. Here again, Braun’s idea of what social spaces were to be provided corresponds precisely with what was common within urban reform Ledigenheime for both men and women, even down to the fact that these homes never included the Trinkzwang, the obligation to purchase alcoholic beverages within eating and drinking establishments so detested by reformers associated with the temperance movement. In some way, Ledigenheime for working class men and women, despite their centrist-liberal supporters, sometimes restrictive rules and emphasis on moral standards, can be seen as more progressive than Braun’s proposed cooperative houses, which she admitted were generally planned for bourgeois circles, although she wanted this to be extended to the working classes (Braun, 91). Braun also seemed to be cognizant of reformist attempts at housing for single women, as she cites that “in England…there are houses in which single working women live and get fed in common”, though oddly did not mention contemporary German Ledigenheime for women, which had been in existence since the middle of the century, and in a more progressive variant since the 1870s, such as illustrated by the Stuttgart Arbeiterinnenheim (Braun, 91).

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housekeeping for middle-class housewives. Nevertheless, the forms these homes were to take and the rationale behind them echo the ideas of Braun. As early as 1868 in the United

States, advocates posited that not only would such institutions solve the “servant problem”, but would also free “intelligent and ambitious young women of moderate means” to re-enter the wider world as neither consumers nor servants, freeing them from being “burdens to society”640. This view was seconded by British supporters, such as Walter Lionel George, who stated that “There is no reason why we should not eat in common as do millions every day in hotels, boarding houses, restaurants and cafes”641, and feminists such as Clementia

Black, who stressed that “a servant-less existence” would aid in quelling labor unrest642, as well as allowing women to enjoy social interaction on a regular basis643.

This comparison indicates that reformed housing, in combination with professional work, was one of the most important elements in the relation of middle-class women to the public sphere. Thus, the arrangement of space related to the preparation of food in

Ledigenheime for skilled working, lower middle class and middle-class women is not as conventional as it may appear. Simply by enabling women to live “on their own” in a setting that was a combination of the public and private realms, but without the requirements of running a typical household, such as directing servants or laboring herself, Ledigenheime

640 “Cooperative Housekeeping” The Atlantic Monthly 22, no. 133 (November 1868): 520.

641 Walter Lionel George, “The Home” in Woman and Tomorrow (London: H. Jenkins, 1913), 85.

642 Clementina Black, A New Way of Housekeeping (London: W. Collins Sons and Co. Ltd, 1890), 24. Servantless there merely means that private people would not employ live-in help. Instead, cooks and maids would enjoy regular hours and be paid by the hour.

643 In addition, Black did warn that women needed to be involved in the running of the kitchens they would patronize, for otherwise one runs the risk of benevolent organizations dictating one’s actions, “…what, when and how we shall eat, who shall serve us, and what hours we shall keep…” (Black, 53). This was certainly a danger applicable to the Ledigenheime, though German commentators did not seem to recognize this.

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were more progressive socially than many of their (generally socially progressive) supporters may have gathered.

Conclusion

Although the supporters of the building of Ledigenheime for middle-class women generally construed them as nothing more than an economic and hygienic necessity, they formed an important basis for the transformation of German society. Significantly, the relative openness of female Ledigenheim residents’ lives, an openness that the building type was instrumental in facilitating, stands in sharp contrast to the way in which nineteenth and early twentieth century women’s interactions with the city have traditionally been considered by scholars, as well as by their contemporaries. In general, a respectable woman’s proper sphere was thought to be the home, and that only the fallen woman or lower working class woman was comfortable with public life. Men were traditionally actors on the stage of the city, participants in civic life, while women, particularly women of the lower middle and middle classes, were excluded from such interactions and were supposedly focused on individual concerns, not civic issues. Of course, the fact that women were supportive of, and integral to, the creation of Ledigenheime that would serve their own interests as well as the community belies such an assumption. In addition, the semi-public spaces of

Ledigenheime, socially acceptable for women residents to visit, as well as easily accessible to both residents and the general public, indicates the growing parity between men and women in Wilhelmine Germany, despite other discrepancies.644

644 Sally Booth cited that fact that in places where “socially valued space (was) accessible to both men and women, there tend(ed) to be more parity between the sexes” (“Reconstructing Sexual Geography” in House

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In short, these homes allowed women to take part in the larger world and the economic life of their country as never before and freed them from the familial home or specter of an unhappy marriage of convenience. Thus, one can view the Ledigenheim for single female working-class, lower middle class and middle-class residents as a transitional point leading from the familial home to the independent and individual apartment we know today. In fact, in some ways Ledigenheime for women were more socially revolutionary than the single apartment would prove to be, not only in the creation of communities of working women, but in a departure forever from the cloister, by the location and integration of these individuals within the larger community. The building of Ledigenheime was a step towards making middle-class women happier, healthier, and fuller participants in the public and economic life of Wilhelmine Germany.

Life: Space, Place and Family in Europe, ed. Donna Birdwell-Pheasant and Denise Lawrence-Zuniga. New York: Berg, 1999), 140).

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CONCLUSION

Ledigenheime Built During the First World War:

The Service of Workers Central to the War Effort

If the years leading up the First World War from circa 1890 can be considered the

Golden Age of Ledigenheim construction, particularly in regards to those serving the elite of the working class, Ledigenheime constructed during the First World War, recall an earlier era. While Golden Age Ledigenheime were intended to play a role in the reinvigoration of a threatened social class and to serve as an adjunct a larger project of the reform of German society, the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 shifted societal focus away from the cultural and social ills of the day and towards the defense of the nation645. As a result, the construction of reform Ledigenheime in all their variants came to a halt during the war years, and the emphasis shifted back to one the groups who had first engaged with the construction of Ledigenheime in the 1870s in order to house and control unskilled and semi- skilled workers, the large industrial companies of the Rhein-Ruhr region.

The growth of heavy industry during World War One, particularly those industries producing munitions and other war materials, resulted in an increase in the number of

645 This new emphasis on the nation at the expense of political and social reform is often referred to as the Burgfrieden, or “fortress peace”. Though this explicitly refers to the calling of a truce between warring political parties on the left and right in the interests of the German nation, it can be characterized as a lessoning of political tensions and sectarian concerns in the interests of national security and victory.

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workers required, and as had been the case nearly fifty years before, the majority of these workers were sorely in need of unobjectionable housing.646 The war also intensified the need for housing for women, as the war economy required that many more women began work outside of the home than had been previously employed, partially to replace their male counterparts fighting on the Eastern and Western Fronts647. Importantly, this focus did not abate with the cessation of hostilities and in the post-war years, and though the focus shifted somewhat to the housing of middle-class professional women, the housing of working women was afforded a great deal of attention.

However, as mentioned, unskilled and semi-skilled men working in heavy industry remained the primary focus of wartime advocates for the Ledigenheime, such as Krupp of

Essen, which was very active in the construction of large-scale, substantial and solidly constructed Ledigenheime for precisely this group of workers. For example, Krupp expanded the existing Menage, or location where men fed en-masse, of the Germania-Werk and Zeche Hannover-Hannibal into a building that not only housed up to 1,128 men, but could also feed an additional 1,672 men on the premises648. Additionally, Krupp built a large brick Arbeiterheim with room for 765 residents in 1916 near the Essen-West Bahnhof and

646 For example, in Essen, according to the records of Krupp, between the period of January 1914 to January of 1918, the number of workers housed in Krupp’s Ledigenheime rose from 1,178 to 24,000 (Richard Klapheck, Siedlungswerk Krupp (Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth Verlag, 1930), 144). By the winter of 1918, following Germany’s defeat, this number returned from 24,000 to 1,300 single workers needing housing (Klapheck, 1930, 146).

647 In fact, Klara Trost, in advocating for Ledigenheime for women subtitled her publication of 1918, Ledigen- Heime für weibliche Erwerbstätige, “eine Forderung aus der Kriegswirtschaft…” (Ledigen-Heime für weibliche Erwerbstätige; Eine Forderung aus d. Kriegswirtschaft mit Grundrißbeispielen (Hannover: Deutsche Bauhütte, 1918), 3). This subtitle translates to, “a requirement of the war economy”, and to illustrate the increasingly prominent role of women, particularly in war industries, she reported that of the 6000 Krankenkassen in the Reich in 1918, half the members, numbering 4,600,651 were women. However, Trost did expect that at the conclusion of the war (which she assumed Germany will win), most working women would return to the familial home and marriage (Trost, 3). This is clearly in line with the writings of most authors, who saw women’s tenure in the workforce as largely temporary, a condition that would cease with marriage and motherhood.

648 Klapheck, 1930, 152.

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number six tramline649, which in a similar manner to the Germania-Werk building, was not only capable of feeding 3,000 workers, but was easily accessible to all Krupp’s workers650.

Certainly, the Kruppian administration felt that they were making an investment in the future of their company via the construction of such large and permanent Ledigenheime.

They appear to have fully expected that Germany would be victorious in the war, and that such substantial investments in worker’s housing would benefit Krupp in the long term651.

This focus on the construction of aesthetically appealing and permanent Ledigenheime was attributable to the fact that Krupp was not only benefitting from the war economy, but that the company also retained most of its pre-war staff, including the company architect, Robert

Schmohl652, who was known for his design of well-planned and well-built company housing.

Of course, Krupp was a giant even among the heavy industrial companies with a long history of innovation in employee housing. In contrast, less established and less prosperous companies, even while they were profiting from the war economy, appear to have favored quickness and cheapness of construction above aesthetic considerations.

Instead, the Ledigenheime built by such companies, were simply a means to house the great influx of workers, and as such, bore great similarity to proto-Ledigenheime of the mid-

649 Klapheck, 1930, 153. This building was five stories high, albeit including the ground floor and attic level, and was capped with a hipped roof. The fairly severe neoclassical appearance of the whole was enlivened with attached brickwork pilasters on the central, slightly protruding portico, and horizontal light colored stone bands wrapping the entire façade and dividing the second and third floors. The attic floor, consisting entirely of stonework and a nearly continuous ribbon of windows was also set back from the main façade by about a foot. Finally, the ends of the symmetrical building were enriched by semi-circular three story additions set on large pilasters forming a covered arcade. Unfortunately, the interior plans of this building were destroyed along with the majority of the Krupp archival materials in the Second World War.

650 Richard Klapheck, Neue Baukunst in den Rheinlanden (Düsseldorf, 1928).

651 Of course, this was not the case, though Krupp did attempt to hold on to as much of its workforce as possible in the lean immediate post-war years, and extraordinary efforts were made to keep workers who had been with the company before 1914.

652 Schmohl surrounded himself with a large team of talented individuals, including a young Hannes Meyer, who most certainly worked on these wartime projects.

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nineteenth century rather than the Kruppian models being constructed nearby (They certainly had little to no similarity to the reform Ledigenheime built in great numbers from

1890-1914). For example, the Ledigenheim Steinkohlen-Bergwerk Zollverein on

Drostenbusch Str. 15 in the Gemeinde of Schonnebeck (Greater Essen), while dating to 1918, only provided residents with semi-private bedrooms (two individuals to a room of 2.5 by 4 meters), and no rooms for relaxation or enjoyment were included, aside from a massive central dining room653. In keeping with the relatively simple provisions for residents, the exterior of the building was similarly architecturally unimpressive, recalling military barracks, an effect that even Baumeister Spetzler of the Bochumer Verein sought to mitigate as early as the 1870s in the creation of the Stahlhausen Ledigenheim, as discussed in chapter four.

Additionally, as had been the case for employer built Ledigenheime built during the middle to the end of the nineteenth century, it was not atypical for the majority of Ledigenheime built during the First World War to be relatively isolated from single-family housing, while being placed extremely close to the workplace654.

Yet, before one was to entirely consider the typical Ledigenheim constructed by an employer during the First World War to be an entirely regressive undertaking, largely do to their relative lack of aesthetic sophistication, one must consider the extenuating circumstances of the war, which essentially replicated the massive movement of individuals to very similar employment opportunities than began in the 1860s and intensified in the

1870s. Thus, the primary focus of the builders of most wartime Ledigenheime was simply to house their rapidly growing workforce with buildings that were relatively simple to construct

653 Twentyeight rooms in each wing with fourteen positioned along each side of the central hall, which was ventilated with a shafts to the roof located halfway along the length of the 35-meter long hallway (Stadtarchiv Essen 143 2677, Rep. 124).

654 For example, the Buschstrasse Ledigenheim, built in 1916 by the Zollverein AG, was positioned not more than one-hundred meters to the south of the industrial buildings and mine shafts, and less than twenty meters to the east of them (Stadtarchiv Essen 143 2677, Rep. 124).

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in terms of time and money. However, while this was essentially an emergency housing measure, it does not mean that the buildings were shoddily built or that they did not meet the most modern requirements. For example, the archival materials pertaining to the

Ledigenheim located at Buschstrasse 25 in Essen-Stoppenburg, built by the Zollverein AG in

1916, clarify the great amount of paperwork that had to be filed with the local government, as well as the number of inspections pertaining to health, overall safety and fire safety that had to be conducted to obtain a building and occupancy license655.

Ledigenheime Constructed During the Weimar Period: A Second Golden Age?

The victory of the French, English and Americans in the First World War not only resulted in a humiliating defeat for the Germans and their Allies, but also a total transformation of the political and economic situation, from dissolution of the monarchy and the birth of the Weimar Republic, to the loss or occupation of territories that had been central to German economic growth656. In short, the immediate postwar years were those of intense economic uncertainty, a situation that directly resulted in a relative dearth of

Ledigenheime supported by employers.

Instead, the Weimar Republic was marked by a renewed interest in the wellbeing of the average citizen, particularly the middle and working classes, leading to a reconsideration of the place of municipal government in the provision of housing, something that directly

655 The Direktion of the Steinkohlen-Bergwerk “Zollverein” had to write for approval to build from the Gemeinde (Buergermeister-Amt Stoppenberg), and this permission was given on Jan. 17, 1916 following a building inspection on Nov. 20, 1915. In the case of each inspection, a “Formular” would be filled out by the inspector enumerating which points pertaining to health, safety and fire-safety that had been met, and which were lacking. These forms also also included specifics on the materials to be used in construction and how the drainage, supply of water, heat and ventilation would be employed (Stadtarchiv Essen 143 2677, Rep. 124).

656 The Ruhr was occupied by French and Belgian troops between 1923-25 and Upper Silesia was ceded by plebiscite of 1921 to the newly formed countries of Poland and Czechoslovakia.

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impacted the construction of Ledigenheime bearing great similarity to those constructed by municipalities and reform organizations during the “era of reform”, 1890-1914. In fact, municipalities largely picked up where industrialists, municipalities and reform organizations had left off in 1914, a course of action heightened by the Social Democratic mandate of many German cities657. Generally, these governments attempted to link Ledigenheime to the larger community as one element out of many in the construction of larger groupings of housing and services, something that was exhibited in Ledigenheime constructed by illustrious figures of modern architecture working for both cities and reform organizations, such as: Bruno Taut in Berlin, Hans Scharoun in Breslau, Bernhard Hermkes in Frankfurt and Wilhelm Riphahn in Cologne. In addition, and in a sharp divergence from earlier practice, single women became a focus of much of the discourse surrounding the construction of Ledigenheime, particularly as this pertained to single women of the lower- middle and professional classes. These women gained from the advances that had been made in both employer built and municipally or reform organization funded Ledigenheime for men, as well as the new visibility of women in the workforce during the war658.

However, this second golden age of Ledigenheim construction659, made possible by municipal investment, as well as advances in construction technology and investigations into the minimum dwelling, was relatively short lived, only lasting from roughly 1919-1929. After

657 It appears that employers were more than happy to allow municipalities to take their place, not only due to the immediate postwar decline in production that necessitated cutbacks in workers and administration, but also due to the fact that employers had always favored municipal involvement as a way to minimize their expenditure on social welfare programs.

658 Although there had been some Ledigenheim construction for women before 1918, on the part of both employers and reform groups, women were generally an afterthought and the construction of homes for single women along the Ledigenheim model never approached the numbers for men, even though their plight was exceedingly dire. This topic was dealt with in detail in Chapter Five.

659 This is as opposed to the first period of concentrated municipal activity from 1900-1914.

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all, advancements in modern and inexpensive housing of the single person contained the seeds of the decline of the Ledigenheim, and the associated rise of the minimum apartment for a single person660.

Ledigenheime of the Immediate Post War Period: A Traditional Model

This continuation of the pre-war reform Ledigenheim building type, made possible by the renewed activity of reform organizations in alliance with municipalities, can be clarified by the examination of two representative examples dating to the early 1920s, the

Waldenserstrasse Ledigenheim of Berlin-Moabit (1919) and the Lindenhof Settlement

Ledigenheim in Berlin-Schöneberg (1919-1920). In particular, the Waldenserstrasse building took a (by now) traditional approach to housing single men in the years following the First

World War, a fact that is unsurprising considering that its construction was largely supported not only by the city of Berlin, but also by the Verein Ledigenheim E.V., the reform organization that had built the Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim in Berlin-Charlottenburg nearly fifteen years before661. Certainly, the Waldenserstrasse building not only utilized the same exterior style popularized around the turn of the century, that of um 1800, but also included all the elements that had been employed in the Dankelmannstrasse building, from a large number of single bedrooms to pleasant reading rooms and conversation rooms, though the inclusion of these provisions was no longer cutting-edge by 1919, and their inclusion would almost certainly have been taken for granted when the latter building was

660 Of course, the Ledigenheim form, loosely construed as the Dom-Kommuna, had a second Renaissance in the Soviet Russia, in the service of the creation of a new society, as will be discussed shortly in this conclusion. 661 This building, as discussed in detail in Chapter Two, was heralded at the time of its construction as providing a model for future reform Ledigenheim construction.

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constructed662. Yet, if certain basics were included due the extent that they had become part of the building typology of this variant of the Ledigenheime, the Waldenserstrasse building did include numerous advancements that made life within the Ledigenheim even more restful and pleasant for its residents.

Namely, the designers of the Waldenserstrasse building sought to encourage residents to utilize the Ledigenheim’s garden spaces by not only increasing the size of the rear courtyard by two and a half times over what had been provided to Dankelmannstrasse residents663, but they even included an elegant fountain sculpture in this courtyard for the men’s enjoyment664. The Waldenserstrasse building also included a roof garden of twenty one by ten meters that was not only to provide the residents not only with a place to relax in the fresh air, but also to sunbathe665, a habit that was gaining rapidly in popularity in the

1920s among the general public, and one that had been popular among reformist circles from the turn of the century.

Additionally, elegantly appointed rooms on the interior of the building, such as the reading room with its painted frieze-like decoration and sandstone wall fountain666, went well beyond the basic provision of housing for residents. In fact, every attempt was made to provide for the comfort of the residents, from the positioning of bathrooms intended to

662 For example, the majority of the 202 bedrooms were intended for single occupancy, with 183 of the 237 residents residing in such rooms, while only six residents lived in doubles and forty-eight in triples. Additionally, all bedrooms were fully furnished with a good bed, linens and running water, while the rent of 10- 12 Marks per month included room cleaning, central heat and electric light. The use of the reading room, air baths and foot baths were free, and showers could be taken a low price, as could breakfast, which cost no more than ten Pfennig daily and included tea, cocoa, coffee or milk and one buttered roll or two unbuttered ones (Julius Schnaubert, Ledigenheime für Berlin (Charlottenburg: Lehsten, 1918), 28.

663 Schnaubert, 30.

664 This was created by the Berlin sculptor E. Morin (Schnaubert, 37).

665 Small rooms where the men could undress and dress were included. Of course, if one did not want to sunbathe, one could position oneself under the attached pergola that provided shade (Schnaubert, 38).

666 Schnaubert, 32.

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minimize noise and disturbances to residents667, to the inclusion of a covered passage that led from the public dining hall to the private spaces of the Ledigenheim668, rather than requiring residents to walk through exposed courtyards for access to facilities open to the public, as had been the case with the Dankelmannstrasse building669. Finally, special loggias were included for the cleaning and airing of shoes and clothing670, elements that had not been included in the Dankelmannstrasse Ledigenheim.

Yet, while the Waldenserstrasse Ledigenheim was notable for the adaptations and updates employed for the benefit of residents, the Ledigenheim of the Lindenhof Siedlung can be examined for the way by which its architect, Bruno Taut, sought to continue, and even to underscore, the links between a reform Ledigenheim and the community. Taut did so not only by locating the Ledigenheim in a settlement, but how precisely he situated the building within the settlement. The Ledigenheim was a freestanding structure located on the fringes of the Lindenhof settlement, positioned where the Eythstrasse met the

Domnauerstrasse, though Taut took care to moderate the somewhat isolated position of the building by essentially recreating it as a gatehouse through which all residents of the settlement could pass. In fact, the side facing away from the settlement recalled a medieval fortress, complete with towers and turrets, which seemed to guard the settlement, while Taut utilized a simplified version of the popular reform style of um 1800 on the settlement side, not only mitigating the massiveness of the building but underscoring the fact that it was a

667 Schnaubert 32.

668 Schnaubert, 30.

669 In the latter case, the residents had to walk through a courtyard and passage leading to the Dankelmannstrasse and then turn around and return through another passage and courtyard to access the Volksbibliothek (a comparison between the two public dining halls is not apt because one did not need to go outside to enter the Dankelmannstrasse building).

670 Schnaubert, 33.

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residential building671. In fact, Taut positioned the wings of the building to curve around the plaza placed outside of the settlement, as if protectively embracing potential residents (of both the Ledigenheim and larger Siedlung), and also serving to funnel them into the settlement through the passage at the center of the Ledigenheim on the ground floor.

Of course, in addition to its function as a gatehouse, the Lindenhof Ledigenheim also contained a store for residents of the settlement and a restaurant open to the public in the manner of most pre-war reform Ledigenheime. Significantly however, earlier

Ledigenheime had never so explicitly clarified the relationship between a Ledigenheim and its community. Previously, most provisions for the general public had merely been included in the Ledigenheim with little advertisement of this inclusion, while Taut’s project took the role of the reform Ledigenheim as a resource for the surrounding community to a symbolic level, advertising this through the very form employed and its placement within the landscape of the reform settlement.

Nevertheless, despite these adaptations to the existing reform Ledigenheim typology, one really should consider the Waldenserstrasse and Lindenhof buildings not only as formally similar to its pre-war reformist predecessors, but as projects largely driven by the same impetus as had guided the creation of reform Ledigenheime built between 1890-1914.

Just as had been the case in the pre-war world, the supporters of post-war reform

Ledigenheime not only sought to elevate the habits and lifestyle of the residents, but also to serve the larger community through the inclusion and integration of these buildings and their provisions for the public good (public kitchens and libraries) in the surrounding neighborhood.

671 While the style of um 1800 was used for public buildings, it recalled domestic architecture, and in this instance, a Biedermeier era townhouse.

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The Embrace of the Neues Bauen in Ledigenheim Construction

While the Ledigenheime mentioned thus far, those constructed during the early

Weimar period, essentially remained adaptations of a late nineteenth century building type, whose a typology and visual vocabulary had been largely perfected around the turn of the century, Ledigenheime built in the later 1920s proved that these bonds with the past were loosening. This was exemplified by an embrace by architects and designers of an entirely new aesthetic sensibility in the design of Ledigenheime, namely the employment of

International Modernism, and the Neues Bauen in particular. Not only did one see the beginning of a decline of an existing visual language of the Ledigenheim building type by the middle of the 1920s, but a moving away from this model of housing single people to one that we are more familiar with today.

This shift in sensibility was clearly illustrated by the construction of buildings clearly intended to single people, but that were no longer termed Ledigenheime by their supporters.

While the verbal distinction between Ledigenheime and Ledigenwohnungen, such those built by

Goettel for the Heimstatt settlement of Berlin-Mariendorf of 1930, may seem slight, the fact that a different word was used in reference to housing for single people indicates that the supporters of the Heimstatt Ledigenwohnungen sought to distance themselves from their project from the existing model. Indicating a clearer break from the traditions that had been developed over the previous forty plus years concerning the housing single people, these

Ledigenwohnungen were essentially apartment blocks, rather than Ledigenheime672. Firstly, they were not recognizable as housing for single people, and in fact the four

Ledigenwohnungen buildings of the Heimstatt Siedlung, with eighteen apartments in each,

672 For example, there were three apartment sizes on offer to potential residents, all of which offered residents a chamber, cooking niche, entry hallway and bathroom.

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were identical to the surrounding Zeilenbau apartment buildings for families, such as the contemporaneous housing blocks Goettel constructed in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde. Secondly, and in stark contrast to the model provided by the Ledigenheim, there were no communal facilities for either residents or the surrounding community within the building. In fact, the only facilities that were on offer were a public bathhouse and laundry, both located nearby, but not on the premises. Thus, instead of the creation of a community, or pseudo-familial grouping of single individuals, single people were to exist as independent individuals. They were to be treated no differently than family units and thus were to be afforded the same level of privacy and autonomy, the implications of which will be addressed at the conclusion of this chapter.

Now, how is this transition to be understood? Why would those who had traditionally supported Ledigenheime turn to another model by the end of the 1920s?

Certainly, the exterior style chosen for a Ledigenheim, particularly those supported by reform organizations and municipalities, had always kept pace with what was favored amongst reformers. Thus, a transition from the style of um 1800 popular from circa 1890-

1914 to the avant-garde styles favored by progressives in the late 1920s is not surprising.

The new style would have been compelling as the clean lines of Neues Bauen buildings connoted purity, something supporters would have been keen to embrace considering the emphasis placed on hygiene in mass housing from the 1850s on. Additionally, the style’s supposedly rational basis and much vaunted inexpense (not entirely accurate, as it turns out), would also have been of interest to reformers with an eye to the bottom line, for after all, as covered extensively in chapter one, housing for single people was not to be confused with charity.

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However, it was not the style chosen for these buildings that marked them as entirely different from their predecessors, but the internal organization of space and lack of communal facilities. Yet, one does not need to look very far to see that this shift in emphasis from communal space to individual space actually derived from an existing model.

In fact, the seeds of the dissolution of the Ledigenheim were held within a variant of the

Ledigenheim that had derived from turn of the century reformist models for men, but that had been adapted to the particular needs of middle class professional women. Buildings such as the Lehrerinnenheim of Berlin-Pankow, as well as the numerous buildings constructed along these lines for women in the 1920s, provided an acceptable and tested model for housing single people that was essentially a compromise between the Ledigenheim and the single-occupancy apartment.

Ledigenheime for Women in the 1920s and the Dissolution of a Housing Type

While the housing of middle class and professional women had been worrying to reformers before the First World War673, the war had intensified these concerns and the plight of the female work force in obtaining decent housing became a source of much consternation amongst reformers674. In an expansion of the pre-war practice of building municipal Ledigenheime, reformers in the 1920s increasingly advocated for this housing type

673 This is discussed in depth in chapter five.

674 Suzanne Suhr, writing as late as 1930, highlighted the pressing problem of housing the female white collar labor force of 1920s Germany, writing that “the female white collar worker is the typical working woman of the masses…just as in former years, when the movement of women’s work was from housekeeping to factory work, today the movement is from factory work to white collar work”. Suhr also highlighted the fact that not only were these workers increasingly drawn from the bourgeoisie, but that this new work did not necessarily pay more, and often paid less than factory work (“The Social Condition of Female White Collar Workers” (1930) in German Feminist Writings, ed. Magda Mueller and Patricia A. Herminghouse. New York: Continuum, 2001, 100).

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as a solution to the problem of housing white-collar and professional women. Certainly, their construction was heavily subsidized by the municipalities headed by Socialist governmental administrations, in keeping with numerous other housing projects undertaken in Frankfurt am Main, Cologne and Berlin. As before the war, these buildings were to be specific to the particular class and profession of the residents675, and were to remain homes away from home. More importantly however, these buildings for single women (even before the war!) utilized new technologies to miniaturize the household, allowing for the replacement of less expensive communal facilities with private kitchens and living areas. A closer reading of several Ledigenheime for women constructed along these lines in the early and then mid

1920s will help to clarify this transition from a true Ledigenheim to a single residency apartment.

In a leafy district on the western edge of Charlottenburg, overlooking a large park and enclosed pond, one can still see the Ledigenheim der Postgehilfinnen676, also known as the

Hedwig Rüdiger Haus, built on the corner of Hebartstrasse 17 and Dernburgstrasse 58 in

Lietzensee/Charlottenburg in 1924-25 by the architects Sucksdorf and Spalding677. On first glance, the three dark brick buildings of six stories appear somewhat different in appearance to most pre-war Ledigenheime, or even the post-war Lindenhof or Waldenserstrasse buildings. Not only did this post-war Ledigenheim complex consist of three separate

675 Although these Ledigenheime were nominally “free”, open to all and supported in part by municipalities, they remained self-selective via the rents charged and the location of the buildings within middle-class neighborhoods (or settlements).

676 The west wing was destroyed in the Second World War, but the rest of the complex remains.

677 Each of the five upper floors of the central cross-shaped Gartenhaus (garden house) building held eight Wohnungen (apartments) arranged along a central stairwell, while the two Eckhäuser (corner houses) contained six residences per floor. This arrangement ensured that all the apartments had ample light, air and views over the surrounding gardens (though not all the rooms received the same amount of light, owing to the positioning of the buildings)677. Of course, the location of the rooms and the quality of light available also helped to determine the rent, which varied between 25 and 40 Marks monthly (Bauwelt 16 (1925): 487-488).

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buildings and was far taller than earlier variants, it explicitly did not reference the style of um

1800. However, these stylistic differences are not what made the Hedwig Rüdiger Haus notable, particularly as this impacted later Ledigenheim/Ledigenwohnung construction.

Instead, in keeping with pre-war Ledigenheime for professional women, each woman had a private balcony, large sitting room, a sleeping “niche”, and a cooking space (supplied with gas), the latter two of which could be closed off from the sitting room678. Essentially, as had been their single pre-war sisters, but not brothers, the residents were supplied with what can be considered an apartment suite.

However, what truly was illustrative of the transition away from the traditional

Ledigenheim form towards the single occupancy apartment, was that unlike all other earlier formulations of housing for single people, even those for professional women, no dining hall was included in the Hedwig Rüdiger Haus. In fact, no communal facilities at all, aside from shared hallways, entrances and water closets were included, and in this last case, the water closets were only shared with one other resident679.

Further Ledigenheime built for women at the end of the 1920s even more clearly illustrated not only the increased numbers of municipally supported Ledigenheime for women, but the even greater technological advances and expectations of privacy that helped to make the traditional Ledigenheime obsolete. Additionally, these buildings employed a recognizable visual vocabulary of reform that no longer referenced the style of um 1800 or even a proto-modern building like the Hedwig Rüdiger Haus, but was aligned with avant- garde experimentation in architecture. In particular, the two Ledigenheime für Berufstätige

Frauen (for women in professional employment) built in 1929-30 by Architect Dipl.-Ing.

678 Bauwelt 16 (1925): 487.

679 Bauwelt 16 (1925): 487.

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Bernhard Hermkes and Ferdinand Kramer for the city of Frankfurt am Main and the

Frauenwohnungsverein of Frankfurt on the Adikesalle and Platenstrasse served as markers of this change, as buildings constructed in keeping with the most current trends in architectural modernism.

The Adikesallee and Platenstrasse buildings both served as good examples of the embrace of the Neues Bauen in Frankfurt under the leadership of Ernst May, from their requisite flat roofs and white stucco covered brick exteriors accented by black painted metal details, to the east-west orientation of the long and narrow buildings that identify them as

Zeilenbau. More importantly however, the Adikesallee building still included some communal spaces, albeit few, while the Platenstrasse building can be considered almost entirely to be an apartment building with no provisions for communal activities. For example, the residents of Adikesalle shared living rooms, small kitchens and bathrooms, though only with two to four other individuals680, and while a planned gymnasium and shared electric laundry were

680 What this meant was that there were forty-three units or suites for 120 women that ranged in size from 60- 102 square meters (“Ledigenwohnungen in Frankfurt a. Main”, Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung 49, no. 12 (March 20, 1929): 184). The interior also reflected the new aesthetic, as it was built along “der rationellste Weg” possible. This meant that the building was constructed as inexpensively as possible (Bauwelt 16 (1925): 497). To this end there were two sizes of living suites, each of which could be sectioned off internally through curtains or built-in dividers. The larger of the two suites, totaling 90 square meters, included a living room of 16.5 square meters, by which one could access a private balcony of three square meters, and a bedroom of 5.70 square meters that was sectioned off from the main room via a moveable divider. The main living room also provided access to an attached bathroom and WC of 3.25 square meters, a kitchen measuring 3.15 square meters, and an entryway of 2.40 square meters (Bauwelt 16 (1925), 497). The smaller of the apartment suites, totaling 67 square meters, consisted of a living room of 14.85 square meters, washroom and WC of 1.10 and 1.0 square meters respectively, kitchen of 2.25 square meters, and a balcony stretching the entire length of the apartment. In every other respect besides dimensions, the apartments were the same, as all plans indicated a desk, table, and couch (Bauwelt 16 (1925): 497). However, it does not appear that they are built-in in Platenstrasse, as was the case with Adikesallee.). The main living room also included two “well ventilated” wardrobes for clothing and linens, as well as a bed that could be folded up and hidden (while still remaining ventilated), something that was particularly useful if the resident sought to move the partitions and increase the size of the living room for entertaining (Bauwelt 16 (1925): 498).

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cut due to construction costs, a grand piano in a small theatre was included for the use of all the residents681.

In contrast, the second Ledigenheim for women in Frankfurt am Main built by the

Frauenwohnungsverein and the city of Frankfurt at Platenstrasse 31-69 consisted of sixty individual living suites (Wohneinheiten) with no spaces for communal use whatsoever. Each resident even had access to her own private laboratory-like kitchen682, and in fact, residents did not even have to share interior hallway space with one another, as they were even able to enter their residences from exterior hallways (Laufgänge) that ran along the entire façade of the building683. Essentially, the Platenstrasse building was unlike any Ledigenheim constructed before the end of the 1920s. Even though it was termed a Ledigenheim by contemporaries, one has a difficult time in thinking of it as anything other than an apartment

681 Susan R. Henderson, “Housing the Single Woman: The Frankfurt Experiment” JSAH 68, no. 3 (September 2009): 366). This last element is perhaps the clearest indication as to the class of the residents (in actuality and as intended), most of whom were teachers. After all, the rents were relatively high, and elegantly planned furnishings and grand pianos certainly did not indicate that cost-cutting for the purpose of housing a wider section of the population was at the forefront of the architects’ and planners’ minds. So, although Adikesallee and Platenstrasse were “free” municipally supported Ledigenheime, in that they did not specifically exclude anyone on the basis of class or profession, they were self-selective in that the location of the building and the rents charged precluded the majority of the population. This was also the case in Cologne, where the Wohnheim for single women in employment was located in the Zollstock settlement of 1927-30 was positioned amongst a number of communal buildings and apartments intended for the middle to lower-middle classes, consisting of Beamte and Angestellte, rather than the working classes (Werner Heinen and Anne-Marie Pfeffer, Köln: Siedlungen 1888-1938 (Köln: Verlag J.P. Bachem, 1988), 219.

682 Deutsche Bauzeitung indicated that the kitchens of Platenstrasse were of the most rational and up to date organization and construction, from the small electric (not coal!) cooker in the kitchen, to the provided worktable, ventilated food cupboard, sink with hot and cold water, cupboard with a section for shoes, built-in ironing board that could be put up, and built-in cupboard for utensils (Deutsche Bauzeitung 65 (1931): 498). Significantly, this type of kitchen was not a Wohnküche (living kitchen), but a space only for the preparation of meals and the small chores single residents would have to undertake for themselves, from ironing clothing to doing the dishes.

683 The stairwells and hallways were thus open to the elements and the view of the public. Only one element clearly from the past remained, the Hausmeisterwohnung, located inn the eastern wing of the building off the central entryway (Deutsche Bauzeitung 65 (1931): 498). This arrangement had some precedent, namely in Wilhelm Riphahn’s Wohnheim für Ledige, Berufstaetige Frauen at Zollstockweg 13 in the Zollstock Siedlung of 1927-30, which was constructed as a Laubenganghaus in a settlement that was a combination of the Neues Bauen and traditional means (Heinen and Pfeffer, 222). Interestingly, this building, constructed in 1929, was the only Laubenganghaus that Wilhelm Riphahn built before 1945 (222).

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block, considering that the markers of Ledigenheime had always been not only the provision of housing for single people, but the creation of community amongst a particular class or subgroup of single people via the provision of shared kitchens and spaces for education and relaxation.

Certainly, by the late 1920s, the luxury of privacy was becoming more widely available due to the miniaturization of household technology that meant that private kitchens and bathrooms were more inexpensive to construct and employ than ever before, though one should ask at what ultimate cost these luxuries were obtained. In this case, it appears that greater privacy was obtained at the expense of community, and although it is unclear if the residents of the Platenstrasse building considered this to be a loss, the proponents of traditional Ledigenheime certainly did684. So, while every resident of Platenstrasse was able to enjoy such advances in technology and far more privacy than ever before available to single women685, certainly when compared to earlier Ledigenheime built for men686, the removal of shared facilities and the increasing normalization of buildings that were essentially apartment buildings can be seen having direct bearing on dissolution of the

Ledigenheim building type as a model to use for the housing of single people687. However,

684 Certainly, there was a public outcry when the Weberplatz Ledigenheim of Essen was sold to the city in 1920 and ceased to exist and operate as a Ledigeneheim (Essen Stadtarchiv 155 229, Akten betreffend Evang. Ledigenheim Weberplatz), so it does appear that not everyone was happy with these changes.

685 Of course, this was all dependent upon potential residents’ ability to pay the rents charged, which ranged from 24 RM per month for first upper floor to 29 RM for the third upper floor, a fee that also included all utilities excepting the heating bill (Bauwelt 16 (1925): 499).

686 It is unclear whether or not this translated to greater ease in living, or even if the women missed the communal spaces that had been provided by earlier Ledigenheime.

687 Although one finds few if any Ledigenheime constructed after about 1931-1932, many of the reform organizations that backed the construction of Ledigenheime continued to exist into years following World War Two. In fact, the Verein Ledigenheim e.V., which supported both the Dankelmannstrasse and Waldenserstrasse Ledigenheime in Berlin was not dissolved until 1948 (Generalakten, Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 042, Nr. 26245, item no. 3.).

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as will be addressed in the final remarks of this work, it should be noted that this shift towards small basic apartments for single people around 1930 would have inconceivable without the attention paid to the specific needs of and dangers facing single people, the inroads made by the advocates of the Ledigenheim beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century.

The Transnational Implications of the Ledigenheim Building Type

Although we have seen that the Ledigenheim was slowly declining in popularity throughout the 1920s in Germany, with housing for single people was transitioning to another model, that of the apartment building, the Ledigenheim continued to serve as both a model and agent of change, a central and important component in the exchange of intellectual and social ideas between Germany and the rest of Eastern Europe in the 1920s.

In fact, the Ledigenheim building typology developed in pre-war Germany formed much of the basis of numerous housing experiments in the newly formed Czechoslovak Republic and

Soviet Russia.

Czechoslovakian Karel Teige, a left-leaning proponent of avant-garde Modernism tied to the creation of a new society, was greatly informed by the developments of the

German Ledigenheim, though he never stated this explicitly. In his groundbreaking book of

1932, The Minimum Dwelling, Teige enumerated his ideal form of housing for the new

Czechoslovakia. He dreamt of “an abode purged of the family-based household: a personal sleeping cubicle for one adult individual”, while meals would be served in a communal kitchen, and the rest of life was to be lived in the new centers of political and cultural life

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within the collective688. The resemblance between Teige’s minimum dwelling and the

Ledigenheim model is astounding, but perhaps to be expected, considering the German prototypes he drew from, which were either Ledigenheime or closely related building types.

For example, Teige cited Hannes Meyer’s room for two beds in a dormitory of an apprentice school in Bernau, near Berlin from 1928-1930, as “one of the purest and most accomplished examples of modern architecture…that serves as inspiration for the solution of collective dwelling”689. Of course, while the apprentice school is not a Ledigenheim per- say, Meyer was well acquainted with the housing type, considering that he had worked with

Robert Schmohl in the construction of Ledigenheime for Krupp in Greater Essen during the

First World War. This provides a link between the ideas of Teige, as informed by Meyer, and the Ledigenheim building type. In the construction of these Ledigenheime, Meyer would have gained the knowledge of the rational design of housing for single men (and boys), either in single rooms or rooms with several occupants. In addition, during his tenure as director of the Dessau Bauhaus, Meyer was involved in the development of multi-use furniture much admired by Teige, such as a clothes storage closet of 1930, which Teige clarified was specifically designated for single persons living outside of the family household, individuals who largely would have been served by Ledigenheime690. Considering Meyer’s experience with the construction and furnishing of the small individual spaces within

Ledigenheime, it is not surprising that he was interested in a rational examination of furnishings for singles. In fact, the use of multi-use and pared-down furnishings had been a central concern of reformers involved in the development of the Ledigenheim from the

688 Karl Teige, The Minimum Dwelling (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 365.

689 Teige, 259.

690 Teige, 266.

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1890s, as is clear in the plans for ideal Ledigenheim furnishings published by Father

Schweitzer in his 1911 book on Catholic Ledigenheime691. In addition, directly pointing to the German Ledigenheim precedent for his ideas, Teige depicted other rational spaces that could serve as models for the new Czechoslovak way of building, several of which were

Ledigenheime: Hans Scharoun’s Ledigenheim in the Breslau Wohnung und Werkraum exhibition of 1929, and Bernhard Hermkes’ aforementioned Ledigenheime for single working women in Frankfurt am Main692.

Soviet experiments on housing in the 1920s and early 1930s, namely collective apartment complexes, also drew directly from the example of the German Ledigenheim, through this knowledge was largely transmitted via German architects then active in Soviet

Russia. As El Lissitzky wrote in 1929, the challenges that the Soviet architect faced were daunting, as he was to create “…as a new standard of living a new type of housing unit which was not meant for unique individuals who stood in a state of conflict with one another, but for the masses…Cooking should be transposed from the individual kitchen into the communal culinary laboratory, the main meal into public eating halls…The goal today is to transform the housing unit from a collection of private apartments to a communal house.” To this end, the Soviets came the same conclusion as Teige in Czechoslovakia, that the individual dwelling cabin of about six to seven feet square, to be used only for sleeping and reading, was the ideal basic unit of their new society693.

691 Msgr. Dr. Schweitzer, Hospize und Ledigenheime der kath. Gesellenvereine (M. Gladbach, Volksvereins Verlag, 1911).

692 Teige, 330-331.

693 In 1929, Barsch and Vladimirov proposed a dwelling for 1,000 adults and 680 children along these lines (Teige, The Minimum Dwelling, 355 and Barbara Kries, “The Idea of the Dom Kommuna and the Dillema of the Soviet Avant Garde” Oppositions 21 (Summer 1980): 33).

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However, as the simple miniaturization of the traditional bourgeois apartment was neither a desired nor economical model, another model would have served as a guide to the construction of the Soviet communal house (Dom Kommuna). Under these circumstances, considering the strong ties between German and Soviet artists and intellectuals in the 1920s, as well as the defections of several German-speaking architects and theoreticians to Russia

(Ernst May and the aforementioned Hannes Meyer), it is very likely that Soviet architects drew from the precedent of the Ledigenheim.

After all, an image of a simplified single dwelling room of Bauhaus design under

Hannes Meyer appeared as a model worthy of emulation in a publication on projected communal housing in Soviet Russia694. As we have already determined the debt Meyer owed to his early employment at Krupp, this again links the Kruppian Ledigenheim type to this much later communal model. It is also telling that Soviet designers, despite their resolve to dissolve the nuclear family and create a larger societal family, never went so far as to build large sleeping halls, instead relying on the successful Ledigenheim model of single occupancy rooms combined with social gathering spaces. They also seem to have been cognizant of the fact that single people’s needs for (relative) privacy were as great as those within a family.

Of course, a direct credit of the Ledigenheim as the source of much inspiration would hardly have been admitted, not only because this would mean that their experiments were not unmitigated reflections of the new Soviet way of life, but also because the

Ledigenheim had arisen largely due to the mechanizations and support of groups the Soviets did not approve of: religious groups (Catholics), bourgeois reform organizations and employers. One must also take into account the extremely different goals these builders of

694 Teige considered the Ledigenheim as an embryonic form of the Soviet communal housing that arose in the 1920s (213). He also provided several images of Hannes Meyer’s work in the 1920s, which focused on the design of dormitory-type rooms (259, 265-266).

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communal housing intended to achieve. After all, if the Soviet model was to loosen the bonds of family to create a highly socially conscious proletarian class, the German

Ledigenheim was largely intended to strengthen the bonds of family, from protecting the nuclear family from the dangers of Schlafgängertum, to creating a safe and secure substitute for the patriarchal home that was intended to protect workers from slipping into the

Lumpenproletarian class, and until the 1920s, from falling into the arms of Social Democracy.

Final Conclusions

What then was and is the legacy of the Ledigenheim? Was it merely a transitional housing model that mitigated the worst of the detrimental effects brought about by the rapid industrialization of nineteenth century Germany? Or was it a project with more far reaching ramifications? Considering the fact that the Ledigenheim was a building type supported by groups representing nearly every segment of the German population from the middle of the nineteenth century on, and was central to the emerging discourse on the multiple threats posed to society by rapid industrialization and modernization, its impact and importance cannot be discounted. It had developed from an isolated and emergency housing provision for singles to a recognizable model of reform tied to socially progressive employers, municipalities and other reformist groups. The construction of this building type brought attention to bear on the specific problems facing single people as well as aiding and ordering their lives. While it did not solve the problem of Schlafgängertum, which as we have seen, was largely the public argument for the building type’s widespread employment, the

Ledigenheim certainly mitigated some of the overcrowding amongst working class families and provided single individuals with a more comfortable and more hygienic home.

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Significantly, the Ledigenheim also served as a marker of and means by which government, particularly at the municipal level, engaged in matters pertaining to the support and provision of housing, which would be brought to the fore by the Social Democratic governments of the 1920s. This level of intervention into the lives of single people essentially set the stage for integrative housing construction that played an important role for both the individuals served and the surrounding communities.

Unfortunately, the larger goals of societal transformation sought by certain supporters of the Ledigenheim, goals that were thought to be achievable via the physical, moral and educational support of the youth of the nation, do not appear to have been met.

In fact, despite continued efforts on behalf of single individuals that reached from the mid- nineteenth century into the 1920s, and the Ledigenheim in particular, the lower-middle and artisan classes continued their decline in the face of an unstable and constantly shifting economy, something that would come to the fore through their embrace of reactionary politics in the early 1930s.

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APPENDIX ONE: CATALOG OF REPRESENTATIVE LEDIGENHEIME, INCLUDING ILLUSTRATIONS

Note that the Ledigenheime listed below are organized by their construction date. In every case, the variant of Ledigenheim is noted. Unless otherwise indicated, the intended residents were male.

Before 1870

Cologne-Zentrum-1852, 1865 (Catholic) Katholischen Gesellenhospitiums zu Köln (founded 1853): Zentralhospiz/Kolpinghaus near Minoritenkirche on Breitestrasse 108 Built in 1852, numerous additions: 1865-for 120 residents, inherited and expanded into Breitestr. 106 in 1884-for 250, final expansion in 1910 (included in this appendix under its iteration of 1910).

Cited in: -Msgr. Schweitzer, Hospize und Ledigenheime der kath. Gesellenvereine. (M. Gladbach: Volksvereins Verlag, 1911), 260. -Heinrich Festing, Adolph Kolping und sein Werk (Freiburg: Herder, 1981), 63.

Essen-1856/57 (Employer) Freistattstrasse Menage/Arbeiterkaserne (in Rheinhausen) First Phase: (1856/57)

Cited in:

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-Essen Stadtsarchiv

1870s

Bochum-1872-74 (Employer) Kost und Logierhaus Stahlhausen (1872-74) Erected by the Bochumer Verein for 1,200-1,500 workers Architect: Betribs-Bauabteilung O. Spetzler/A. Sartorius Amenities: two dining halls, bathrooms and nearby Menage (dining hall).

Cited in: -L. Abrahms, Workers’ Culture in Imperial Germany: Rheinland and Westphalia (London: Routledge, 1992), 16, 25. -Bauen in Bochum, Architekturführer (Bochum: Schürmann und Klagges, 1986), 58-59. -Zeitschrift für Baukunde 2, no. 4 (1879), 537-550 (very good plans). -Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 11- 12.

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Stuttgart-1874 (Protestant, Non-Employer) Ludwigstrasse 15, Herberge für Fabrikarbeiterinnen (1874) Verein zur Fürsorge für Fabrikarbeiterinnen (founded 1868) Confessional Protestant Non-Employer Built 204 beds: largely triple rooms over three upper floors

Cited in: -Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 73-74 (includes house rules).

Osnabrueck (near Münster/Dortmund)-1875 (Employer) Menagehaus der Arbeiterkolonie Georgs-Marienhütte bei Osnabrueck

Cited in: -Zeitschrift des Österreichischen Ingenieur- und Architekten-Vereins 27 (1875), 298- 302 (table 28).

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Essen-1870s (Employer) Freistattstrasse Menage/Arbeiterkaserne (in Rheinhausen) First Phase: (1856/57 and 1870s) Menage/Arbeiterkaserne for 1,600 men. Second phase: (1914-1918) Expansion of Menage into Arbeiterheim for workers of Germania-Werk and Zeche Hannover-Hannibal, for 1,128 men with possibility to feed 2,800 men.

Cited in: -Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 7-11, 29-32 (including house rules, plans and pictures).

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1890s

Krupp-Skilled Worker Housing—circa 1890 Built by Krupp in Essen Room for 30 men in two neighboring houses. Additional amenities in each house: library, workroom, cleaning rooms, bathrooms with showers and bathtubs, shared bowling alley.

Cited in: -Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 29-32 (images 16, 17).

Stuttgart-1890 (Free) Heusteigstr. 45, Stuttgart Arbeiterheim (1890) (Freizügig) Built by the Verein für das Wohl der arbeitenden Klassen and the Arbeiter-Bildungsverein 133 bedrooms: 26 singles, 107 doubles Additional amenities: library and reading room, central heat, electric light. Building plot: 26 by 63 square meters.

Cited in: -Deutsche Bauzeitung (November 5, 1892), 546. -Theodor Weyl and August Gärtner, Weyls Handbuch der Hygiene (Leipzig: Barth, 1912), 351-353.

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-Rundschau, Monatschrift für Jünglingspflege und Jungmänner-Mission: Organ der Nationalvereinigung der Evangelischen Jünglingsbündnisse Deutschlands 2, no. 9 (1911), 269. -Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 44-47 (images, plans, rules).

Frankfurt (Galluswarte)-1894-(Free) Arbeiterheim an der Galluswarte Built by Gesellschaft für Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen zu Frankfurt Architect Hans Rummel 16 rooms with separate “Schlafkabine” including bed, chair and wardrobe 8 individual bedrooms (traditional) Additional amenities: dining hall (serving 350-400 members of general public), reading room, bathrooms

Cited in: -Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 51-53.

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Cologne-Zentrum-1895 (Catholic) St. Josephshaus, Josephstrasse 17/19 (Severinsviertel) Founded by Katholischen Gesellenhospitiums zu Köln (the organization was founded in 1853). 76 beds, expanded in 1895 to house 90 men

Cited in: -Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 38-40 (includes house rules). -Msgr. Schweitzer, Hospize und Ledigenheime der kath. Gesellenvereine. (M. Gladbach: Volksvereins Verlag, 1911), 98. -Arbeiterwohl 12 (1892), 116-120.

Cologne-Anno Haus-1898 (Catholic) Anno-Haus Built by Katholischen Arbeiterverein 90 beds: 36 bedrooms with 2, 3 or 4 beds in each Additional amenities: two gathering rooms and a large hall with a stage.

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Cited in: -Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 33- 35.

Bibiella (OS)-before 1898 (Employer) Schlafbarake, Bibiella Bergwerk. Maximum capacity: 100 men. Four rooms for 25 workers each, one dining hall.

Cited in: -Baugewerks-Zeitung 30 (1898), 1064-1065.

1900-1914

Cologne-Zentrum-1903/04 (Catholic) St Antoniushaus, Dagobertstr. 32 (1903-1905) Built by Katholischen Gesellenhospitiums zu Köln (founded 1853) 195 beds: 10 single rooms, 10 doubles, three quad rooms, and the remainder of beds were arranged in triple rooms.

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Additional amenities: billiard room, reading room, dining room, drafting room, electric light and central heat.

Cited in: -Msgr. Schweitzer, Hospize und Ledigenheime der kath. Gesellenvereine. (M. Gladbach: Volksvereins Verlag, 1911), 21, 33, 53-60.

Mannheim-Walddorf-circa 1905 Mädchenheim Mannheim-Walddorf Architect Heinrich Gramlich of Mannheim 168 residents: 56 triple bedrooms Additional amenities: great hall with stage, dining hall, a children’s school, central heat and electric light

Cited in: -Baugewerkszeitung 39 (1907), 553-555.

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Cologne-Nippes/Longerich-1905 (Employer) Jacob Pallenbergs Arbeiterheim Architects Hans Verbeek and Balduin Schilling Built by the endowment (300,000 M) given to the Stadt Köln by the furniture manufacturer Josef Pallenberg on June 6, 1896. Ledigenwohnhäuser (separated by gender) served 9 men and 4 widows separately

Cited in: -Zeitschrift für Wohnungswesen 4, no. 1 (1905), 1-7.

Münster-1905 (Catholic) Aegidiusstr. and Grüne Gasse, Catholic Gesellenhaus in Münster i.W. Room for 52 residents 20 double bedrooms, 2 singles, 2 triples and 2 quads Amenities: Included a hall with a stage and classrooms

Cited in: -Msgr. Schweitzer, Hospize und Ledigenheime der kath. Gesellenvereine. (M. Gladbach: Volksvereins Verlag, 1911), 60-65.

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Berlin-Charlottenburg-1906-08 (Free) Danckelmannstrasse 49, Freizügige Ledigenheim Architect Rudolf Walter Built by a society on land given by the municipality. 342 beds: 282 single rooms, 12 doubles, 12 triples. Additional amenities: a branch of the municipal library, reading rooms, a common room, a restaurant, bathrooms, three stores on the ground level (cobbler, hairdresser, cigar shop).

Cited in: -Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung 31 (1911), 635. -Theodor Weyl and August Gärtner, Weyls Handbuch der Hygiene (Leipzig: Barth, 1912), 353-357. -50 Jahre Volkswohnheim Gemeinnützige Aktien-Gesellschaft in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Berlin (Basel: Länderdienst Verlag, 1955). -Berlin und seine Bauten (Berlin: Ernst und Sohn, Verlag für Architektur und Technische Wissenschaften, 2003), 333 (images 102-103). -Paul Ortwin Rave, Irmgard Wirth, and Hinnerk Scherper, Die Bauwerke und Kunstdenkmäler von Berlin-Charlottenburg (Berlin: Gebruder Mann Verlag, 1961), 199. -Deutsche Bauzeitung 59 (1925), 347.

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-Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung 45 (1925), 203. -Rundschau, Monatschrift für Jünglingspflege und Jungmänner-Mission: Organ der Nationalvereinigung der Evangelischen Juenglingsbündnisse Deutschlands 2, no. 9 (1911), 266. Die Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen von Gross Berlin (Berlin: Julius Springer Verlag, 1910), 326.

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Ulm-1907 (Free) Ledigenheim für Arbeiterinnen in Ulm, called “Marthaheim”. Rooms priced by the floor and the number of beds to a room. Rules listed. 118 beds: 6 singles, 6 doubles, 14 triples, 2 quads, 10 five-bed rooms Additional amenities: dining and relaxation room Plot: 1000 square meter building plot with room for a garden

Cited in: -Zeitschrift für Wohungswesen, 5, no. 24 (1907), 29-30.

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Lübeck-1908 (Catholic) Paradestrasse (near Catholic Cathedral and Arsenal), Catholic Gesellenhaus in Lübeck 53 beds: 24 bedrooms with included sinks Amenities: dining hall, gathering hall with space for 400 men, meeting room for the local Kolpinghaus organization, reading room, billiard room, bathrooms.

Cited in: -Msgr. Schweitzer, Hospize und Ledigenheime der kath. Gesellenvereine. (M. Gladbach: Volksvereins Verlag, 1911), 20, 65-67.

Berlin-Moabit-1909 (Free) Alt Moabit 38, Arbeiterinnenheim Architect H. Schweitzer Funded by the Verien Arbeiterinnen-Wohl and Verein Ledigenheim 100 beds: primarily single rooms Additional Amenities: coffee hall, reading room, dining hall, cooking classroom, lecture rooms/classrooms, library, veranda, fountain, central heat and electric light An attached Turnhalle (gym) was planned.

Cited in: -Die Architektur des XX. Jahrhunderts 9, no. 3 (1909), 42-44 (wonderful plans). -Der Baumeister 7, no. 8 (1909), 85-87 (tables 57-58).

Berlin-Pankow-1909 (Free) Wisbyer Strasse 43-44, b; Max-Koska-Str. 5-6, Lehrerinnenheim (1909-1910) Architects Mebes and Emmerich 50 residents in suites ranging from 1 to 3 rooms, each of which included: loggia, bathroom, double burner cooker. Additional Amenities: central kitchen, gathering spaces, central heat and electric light

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Cited in: -Mitteilungen des Rheinischen Vereins für Kleinwohnungswesen 8 (1912), 45-50. -Wasmuths Monatshefte für Baukunst (1915/16), 135. -Festschrift zum Fünfzigjährigen Bestehen des Beamten-Wohnungs-Vereins zu Berlin (Berlin: Feese und Schulz, 1950), 74, 96-97. -Berlin und seine Bauten (Berlin: Ernst und Sohn, Verlag für Architektur und Technische Wissenschaften, 2003), 333 (images 104-106).

Düsseldorf-1909 (Catholic) Kolpinghaus Düsseldorf, Blücherstr. 4-8 Housed 141 residents in 60 bedrooms: 12 singles, 22 doubles, 19 triples, 7 quads Amenities: dining hall with attached billiard room and reading room, drafting room, baths, bowling alley, central heat and electric light.

Cited in: -Msgr. Schweitzer, Hospize und Ledigenheime der kath. Gesellenvereine. (M. Gladbach: Volksvereins Verlag, 1911), 67-74.

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Cologne-Zentrum-1910 (Catholic) New Central Hospiz (1910) on the Breitestrasse 108 and Helenenstr. 400 residents: 75 triple bedrooms, 60 singles and the rest range up to 9 beds per room. 3945 square meter building lot Amenities: office rooms, office for the local Catholic organization, savings account office, health insurance account office, classrooms, employment agency, dining hall, two bowling alleys, a Turnhalle (gym), 30 shower stalls, in-house baker and butcher, central heat and electric light.

Cited in: -Msgr. Schweitzer, Hospize und Ledigenheime der kath. Gesellenvereine. (M. Gladbach: Volksvereins Verlag, 1911), 97-107. -Heinrich Festing, Adolph Kolping und sein Werk (Freiburg: Herder, 1981), 63.

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Hamburg-Rehoffstrasse and Herrengraben-1910 Ledigenheim of the Hamburger Bauverein Architects Vicenz and Behrens Entire complex consisted of one city block bounded by the Rehoffstrasse, Herrengraben and Pasmannstrasse. It included 171 familial apartments and the Ledigenheim Ledigenheim Amenities: dining hall, rest and relaxation rooms, bedrooms

Cited in: -Hamburg und Seine Bauten I (Hamburg: Boysen and Maasch Verlag, 1914), 583-588. -Fritz Schumacher, Die Kleinwohnung (Leipzig: Quelle und Meyer, 1919), 16-17.

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Altenessen-1910 (Catholic) Katholisches Gesellenhaus Altenessen, Lindenstr. 16 Housed 96 residents in 32 rooms. Amenities: meeting rooms, grand hall, dining hall, bowling alley, bathrooms, central heat and electric light

Cited in: -Msgr. Schweitzer, Hospize und Ledigenheime der kath. Gesellenvereine. (M. Gladbach: Volksvereins Verlag, 1911), 80-83.

Düsseldorf -1910/11 (Free) Ledigenheim in Düsseldorf on the Eisenstrasse Erected by the Düsseldorfer Verein “Volksheim” Architect is Baurat Johannes Radke of Hochbauamte Düsselldorf Construction costs were 422,000 M (this figure does not include the costs of purchasing land, which was bought for 150,000 M). Could accommodate 255 guests: 137 in single rooms, 56 in double rooms, 48 in triples and 14 in a sleeping hall. Includes a public library with reading room, and a restaurant with a gathering room and dining room. Basement has bathing fixtures and a bowling alley. Central heating and electricity overall, including guest rooms. Courtyards are oriented to the street.

Cited in: -Mittelungen des Rheinischen Vereins für Kleinwohungswesen. 6 (1910), 23-25. -Theodor Weyl and August Gärtner, Weyls Handbuch der Hygiene (Leipzig: Barth, 1912), 358-361 (with illustrations). -Msgr. Schweitzer, Hospize und Ledigenheime der kath. Gesellenvereine. (M. Gladbach: Volksvereins Verlag, 1911).

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Neuss-1910 (Catholic) Catholic Gesellenhaus Neuss a. Rhein 37 residents in 18 bedrooms Amenities: bowling alley, great hall, library, drafting room, dining room, bathrooms

Cited in: -Msgr. Schweitzer, Hospize und Ledigenheime der kath. Gesellenvereine. (M. Gladbach: Volksvereins Verlag, 1911), 74-80.

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Stuttgart-1910 (Free) ----(Please compare to Stuttgart Ledigenheim of 1890) Ledigenheim on Villa Strasse and Stuttgarter Strasse Built by the Verein für das Wohl der arbeitenden Klassen of Stuttgart Architect Baurat Karl Heegerer of Stuttgart with H. Mehlin and R. Reissing Old Ledigenheim erected 20 years before new building of 1910/11. 233 residents; 216 housed in doubles and 17 in single rooms.

Cited in: -Zeitschrift für Wohnungswesen 10, no. 7 (1912). -Die Bauwelt 19 (1913), 25-26. -Klara Trost, Ledigen-Heime für weibliche Erwerbstätige ; Eine Forderung aus d. Kriegswirtschaft mit Grundrißbeispielen (Hannover: Deutsche Bauhütte, 1918), 12. -Theodor Weyl and August Gärtner, Weyls Handbuch der Hygiene (Leipzig: Barth, 1912), 351-353.

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-Rundschau, Monatschrift für Jünglingspflege und Jungmänner-Mission: Organ der Nationalvereinigung der Evangelischen Juenglingsbündnisse Deutschlands 2, no. 12 (1911), 362. -Reichs-Arbeitsblatt 11, no. 6 (June 23, 1913).

Berlin-Weissensee-1911 (Free) Pistoriusstrasse and the Wölck-Promenade, Ledigenheim der Gemeinde Berlin- Weissensee (1911-1913)

284

Called the “Kommunalen Zentrum” Architect James Bühring 12 rooms for women (11 single rooms and one 2-person room) and 33 for men (29 single rooms and 2 rooms for two men each), with separate entrances for men and women Includes: dining hall, health insurance fund office (Krankenkasse), store rented to a bookseller, bathrooms and resting rooms.

Cited in: -Berliner Architekturwelt 13 (1911), 337. -Moderne Bauformen (1915), 214-218. -Berlin und seine Bauten (Berlin: Ernst und Sohn, Verlag für Architektur und Technische Wissenschaften, 2003), 333 (images 104-106). -Berlin Staatsarchiv -Theodor Weyl and August Gärtner, Weyls Handbuch der Hygiene (Leipzig: Barth, 1912), 359. -Reichs-Arbeitsblatt 11, no. 6 (June 23, 1913).

Essen-1912-1913 (Free) Weberplatz, Kaiser Wilhelm Ledigenheim Built by Evangelische Arbeiterverein of Essen Architects Kunhenn and Büssing

285

Building lot is 1110 qm, of which 1070 qm is built upon 200 residents: in single, double or triple rooms and one sleeping hall (Expanded to hold 290 beds in 1916) Amenities: Bowling alley, people’s kitchen, dining hall Central heat and electric light

Cited in: Essen Stadtarchiv -Wasmuths Monatsheft für Baukunst 2 (1915/16), 64. -Rheinische Blaetter für Wohnungswesen und Bauberatung 12 (1916), 40-43.

Hannover-1913 (Employer) Junggesellenheim of the Caoutschouc and Guttapercha Kompagnie (1909) Architects Stapelberg and Schermer of Hannover Turnhalle connected to Ledigenheim, erected in same block as) 4 Beamten-, 15 Werkmeister- and 64 Arbeiterwohnungen

Cited in: -Baugewerks-Zeitung, 45, no. 34 (April 26, 1913), 341-343.

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World War One Era (1914-1919 in this case)

Essen-1914/18 (Employer) Freistattstrasse Menage/Arbeiterkaserne (in Rheinhausen) First Phase: (1856/57 and 1870s) Second phase: (1914-1918) Expansion of Menage into Arbeiterheim for Germania-Werk and Zeche Hannover-Hannibal workers, for 1,128 men with possibility to feed 2,800 men Architects Schmohl and Hannes Meyer

Cited in: -Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 7-11, 29-32 (including Hausordnung for the Menage, plans and pictures).

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Frankfurt-1915 (Free) Schwedlerstr. 14/16, Maria Kayser Haus/Arbeiterinnenheim (1915) Built by Verein für Arbeiterinnenheime

Cited in: -Frankfurt Stadtarchiv

Essen-Stoppenberg/Katernberg-1916 (Employer) Buschstr. 25a, Ledigenheim Stoppenberg (1916)

Cited in: -Essen Stadtarchiv

Emanuelssegen Kolonie (South of Kattowitz)-1917 (Employer) Schlafhaus 128 residents minimum, housed in 8 or 12 man sleeping halls Dining hall and bathrooms

Cited in: -Moderne Bauformen 16 (1917), 66, 78-80. -Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 18. -Bau-Rundschau 21 (1918), 121-127.

288

Fürstengrube Kolonie (South of Kattowitz)-1917 (Employer) Schlafhaus

Cited in: -Moderne Bauformen 16 (1917), 66, 78-80. -Schlafstellenwesen und Ledigenheime (Berlin: Carl Henmanns Verlag, 1904), 18.

Berlin-Moabit/Tiergarten-1919 (Protestant, but open to all) Waldenserstrasse 31, Ledigenheim near Tiergarten (1919) Architects O. Kohtz and E. Schuetze Built by Verein Ledigenheim E.V.

Cited in: -Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung 39 (1919), 162-163. -Julius Schnaubert, Ledigenheime für Berlin (Charlottenburg: Lehsten, 1918), 18, 25-27. -Berlin und seine Bauten (Berlin: Ernst und Sohn, Verlag für Architektur und Technische Wissenschaften, 2003), 333 (images 107-109). -Berlin Staatsarchiv

289

Frankfurt-1919 (Free) Umbau of “König von Württemberg” Hotel into Ledigenheim (1919)

Cited in: -Frankfurt Stadtarchiv

Essen-Schonnebeck-1919 (Employer) Drostenbusch Str. 15, Ledigenheim III, Zollverein AG (1919)

Cited in: -Essen Stadtarchiv

290

Post World War One- (1920-1930s)

Berlin-Schoeneberg-1919/20 (Free) Eythstrasse 37, Domnauerstrasse, Ledigenheim in the Siedlung Lindenhof (1919-1920) Architect Bruno Taut, settlement designed by Martin Wagner

Cited in: -Albert Gut, Der Wohnungsbau in Deutschland nach dem Weltkrieg (München: F. Bruckman, 1928), 567-568. -Stadtbaukunst alter und neuer Zeit, 9 (1920), 136-139. -Moderne Bauformen 21 (1922), 290-292 (table 70) -Bauwelt 13 (1922), 241-243. -Cicerone 16 (1924), 652-654. -Kurt Junghanns, Bruno Taut (Berlin: Henschelverlag Kunst und Gesellschaft, 1970), 46 (images 84-86). -Berlin und seine Bauten (Berlin: Ernst und Sohn, Verlag für Architektur und Technische Wissenschaften, 2003), 334 (images 188-191)

Berlin-Prenzlauerberg-1921 (Free) Pappelallee 15/Brunnenplatz, Ledigenheim and Einkuechenhaus der Freireligioesen Gemeinde

291

Cited in: -Rheinische Blätter für Wohnungswesen und Bauberatung 17 (1921), 57. -Berlin Staatsarchiv

Berlin-Wedding-1921/24 (Free) Schönstedtstr. 1, Ledigenheim (1921-24)

Cited in: -Baugewerkszeitung (1923): 845-847. -Berlin und seine Bauten (Berlin: Ernst und Sohn, Verlag für Architektur und Technische Wissenschaften, 2003), 338 (images 188-119) -Berlin Staatsarchiv

Berlin-Charlottenburg/Lietzensee-1924 (Free) Hebartstrasse 17, Dernburgstrasse 58, Ledigenheim der Postgehilfinnen/Hedwig Ruediger Haus Architects Sucksdorf and Otto Spalding Six apartments on each floor, each with bed, cooking niche, balcony and shared hallway for every two residents Baths in the basement

Cited in: -Bauwelt 16 (1925), 487-488. -Berlin und seine Bauten (Berlin: Ernst und Sohn, Verlag für Architektur und Technische Wissenschaften, 2003), 334 (images 192-194)

Munich-1925 (Free) Bergmannstrasse 35, Ledigenheim (1925-27) Architect Theodor Fischer Built by the Verien Ledigenheim (founded March 12, 1913, though the home was not opened until June 1, 1927) 383 rooms, primarily single rooms

Cited in: -Munich Stadtarchiv, Archiv des Vereins Ledigenheim

292

-Theodor Weyl and August Gärtner, Weyls Handbuch der Hygiene (Leipzig: Barth, 1912), 359.

293

Cologne-Zollstock-1927 (Free) Siedlung Zollstock (1927-30) with Laubenganghaus, Wohnheim for ledige, berufstätige Frauen (Zollstockweg 13). Architect Wilhelm Riphahn Founded by the GAG (Gemeinnuetz AG für Wohungsbau) and Gemeinnützige Baugenossenschaft Köln Süd

Cited in: -Werner Heinen and Anne-Marie Pfeffer, Köln: Siedlungen 1888-1938 (Köln: Bachem, 1988). -Alexander Kierdorf, Köln: ein Architekturführer (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1999).

Breslau-1928/29 (Free) Colony Grüneiche, Ledigenheim WuWa Architect Hans Scharoun Featured in exhibiton Wohnung and Werkraum Single bedrooms: 26 meters squared Double bedrooms: 33 meters squared

Cited in: -Karel Teige, The Minimum Dwelling (Cambridge: MIT, 2002), 330.

Frankfurt-1930 (Free) Platenstrasse 31-69 and Adikesalle, Ledigenheim für Berufstätige Frauen Architects Bernhard Hermkes and Ferdinand Kramer Supported by Frauenwohnungsverein and Stadt Frankfurt

Cited in: -Austellungskatalog zum 100. Geburtstag von Bernhard Hermkes (Cottbus: Brandenburgische Technische Universität, 2003). -Deutsche Bauzeitung 65 (1931), 497. -Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung 12 (1929), 181. -Walter Müller-Wulckow, Die Deutsche Wohnung der Gegenwart (Königstein i. Taunus: Langewiesche, 1932). -Karel Teige, The Minimum Dwelling (Cambridge: MIT, 2002), 214, 221. -Frankfurt Stadtarchiv

294

Berlin-Moabit-1931 (Jewish) Agricola Strasse 18/19, Ledigenheim and Synagogue

Cited in: -Berlin Staatsarchiv

Berlin-Wilmersdorf/Schmargendorf-1938/39 (Free) Karlsbader Strasse 5-5c, Egerstrasse 3, Lehrerinnenheim Architects Mebes and Emmerich

Cited in: -Berlin und seine Bauten (Berlin: Ernst und Sohn, Verlag für Architektur und Technische Wissenschaften, 2003), 334 (image 198) -Festschrift zum fünfzigjährigen Bestehen des Beamten-Wohungs-Verein zu Berlin (Berlin: Feese und Schulz, 1950), 76, 106.

295

APPENDIX TWO: COMPREHENSIVE CATALOG OF LEDIGENHEIME

Note that the Ledigenheime are organized by type and subsequently by location. Date of construction, architect, and group funding construction are noted when known. Exact locations, when known, are bolded.

Freizügige Ledigenheime (“Free”- non-denominational emphasis):

Benrath Arbeiterheim (1898) Aktiengesellschaft fuer Gemeinnuetzige Bauten in Benrath

Berlin Alt Moabit 38, Arbeiterinnenheim (1909) Architect H. Schweitzer, Funded by the Verien Arbeiterinnen-Wohl.

Aschaffenburgerstr. 24, Damenheim Vereins zuer Errichtung von adligen Damenheimen

Bismarckstrasse 4, Verein Frauenheim Billige Wohnung for Alleinstehenden Damen in Two Houses

Brunnenplatz, Heim des Vereins zur Verbesserung der kleinen Wohnungen

Danckelmannstrasse (Charlottenburg), Ledigenheim (1906-08) Architect Rudolf Walter

Dernburgstrasse 58, Hedwig Ruediger Haus (1922, 1924-25)

Eythstrasse 37, Ledigenheim (1919-1920) Architect Bruno Taut (no longer extant)

296

Fredericia Strasse 2-3, Stuelpnagelstrasse, Rognitzstrasse, Junggesellenhaus with Grossgarage (1930-31) Architect Rudolf Mate

Greifswalderstrasse 225, Freizuegige Arbeiterinnenheime IV

Hebartstrasse, Ledigenheim der Postgehilfinnen (1925) Architect Sucksdorf

Hohenzollerndamm 35-36 and Mansfelderstrasse 25, Ledigenheim Architects Hans Scharoun and Georg Jacobwitz

Kaiserdamm 25/25a, Junggesellenhaus (1929) Architects Hans Scharoun and Georg Jacobwitz

Kaiserin Augusta Allee 23, Arbeiterinnenheim

Kottbuser Ufer 33, Freizuegige Arbeiterinnenheime III

Muehlenstrasse, Gesellenheim (Umbau) Architect Brunning

Pappelallee 15 (Prenzlauerberg), Ledigenheim and Einkuechenhaus der Freireligioesen Gemeinde

Pistoriusstr. and Woelck-Promenade, Weissensee Ledigenheim (1919) Architect James Buehring

Schoenstedtstr. 1, Ledigenheim (1921-24)

Waldenserstrasse 31, Ledigenheim near Tiergarten (1919) Architects O. Kohtz and E. Schuetze

Wundtstrasse 40-44 (previously Koenigsweg 17-18) Katholischer Frauenbund, Wohlfahrstschule and Ledigenheim 1931 (Expansion of a 1923-24 building)

Ledigenheim of Gartenstadt Siedlung Am Falkenberg (1913-14) Architect Bruno Taut

297

Ledigenheim, Berlin Tempelhof-Mariendorf (1930) Architect Jacobus Goettel

Lehrerinnenheim in Berlin-Zehlendorf (1921) Architects Mebes and Emmerich Ledigenheim Neukoelln

Jungesellenwohnung Architect Fritz Marcus.

Junggesellenwohnung Architect Rambald von Steinbuechel-Rheinwal

END of Berlin

Bremen Hansastrasse 122/124, Arbeiterinnenheim/Maedchenheim Verein Arbeiterinnenheim

Breslau Zimplerstrasse and Finkenweg, Grueneiche Siedlung Ledigenheim WuWa (Wohunung und Werkraum) (1928-1929) Architect Hans Scharoun

Cologne-Zollstock Zollstockweg 13, Wohnheim for ledige, berufstaetige Frauen (1927-30) Architect Wilhelm Riphahn

Dresden Hellerau Ledigenheim

Koenneritzstr. 9, Fabrikarbeiterinnenheim (1900) Verein fuer Fabrikarbeiterinnen

Düsseldorf Duesseldorfer Ledigenheim on Eisenstrasse

Flensburg Freizuegige Ledigenheim

298

Frankfurt Umbau of “Koenig von Wuerttemberg” Hotel into Ledigenheim (1919)

Galluswarte in Fabrikviertel, Arbeiterheim (1894) Gesellschaft for Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen of Frankfurt

Gneisenaustr.17, Arbeiterinnenheim (1918) (South Side of Hauptbahnhof) Verein fuer Arbeiterinnenheime

Hochstr. 28-30, Interconfessional Home in Frankfurt

Langstr. 25, Kriegsheim/Arbeiterinnenheim (1917) Verein fuer Arbeiterinnenheime

Mainzerlandstrasse 182, Heim I Verein fuer Arbeiterinnenheime Second Stockwerk built during WWI

Platenstrasse 31-69 and Adikesalle, Ledigenheim fuer Berufstaetige Frauen (1930-31) Architects Bernhard Hermkes and Ferdinand Kramer Frauenwohnungsverein and Stadt Frankfurt

Schwedlerstr. 14/16, Maria Kayser Haus/Arbeiterinnenheim (1915) In Osthafen area Verein fuer Arbeiterinnenheime

Solmsstrasse, near Bockenheimer Bahnhof, Ledigenheim (1909) Gesellschaft fuer Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen

Fürth (near Nuernberg) Freizuegige Ledigenheim

Hamburg Dorotheenstrasse 137, Arbeiterinnenheim (1912) Architect Alfred Loewengard

Langereihe 60, St. Pauli (Hamburg), Logierhaus Concordia (1892-93) Verien fuer Volkskaffeehallen in Hamburg

299

Nagelsweg, Ledigenheim for single Women and Girls Allgemeinen Detuschen Gewerkschaftsbundes Architects H. Distel and A. Grubitz

Norderstrasse, Martha Helenen Heim (1911-12) Architect Alfred Loewengard

Rehoff-Str. and Herrengraben, Ledigenheim Massenmietshaus of the Hamburger Bauvereins on the Herrengraben, Pasmannstrasse and Rehoffstrasse.

Kiel Freizuegige Ledigenheim (1914)

Munich Bergmannstrasse 35, Ledigenheim (1925-27) Architect Theodor Fischer Verein Ledigenheim

Theresienstr. 66, Arbeiterinnenheim (1891) Frauenverein “Arbeiterinnenheim”

Münster/Wanne Gesellenhaus Designed by Muenster based Bauberatung of Westfalia

Posen Freizuegige Ledigenheim

Strassburg i. Els. Freizuegige Ledigenheim

Stuttgart Heusteigstr. 45, Alte Stuttgarter Ledigenheim (1890) Verein fuer das Wohl der arbeiternden Klassen in Stuttgart

Neue Stuttgarter Ledigenheim (1910) Architect Karl Heegerer Verein fuer das Wohl der arbeiternden Klassen in Stuttgart

Ulm Ledigenheim for Arbeiterinnen, called Marthaheim

300

Confessional

Jewish:

Berlin Agricola Strasse 18/19, Ledigenheim and Synagogue (1931)

Grenadierstr. 15, Maennerheim Verein Israelitisches Heimathaus und Volkskueche

Catholic:

Aachen Arbeiterinnenhospiz (1880) Catholic (Franziskanerinnen)/Aachener Aktiengesellschaft fuer Arbeiterwohl

Altenessen Kath. Gesellenhospiz Altenessen (1910)

Berlin Niederwallstrasse 32, Catholic Arbeiterheim; St. Josephshospiz (1859, 1890)

Ruedersdorfer Strasse 45, Catholic Arbeiterheim: Leo-Hospiz

Schoenhauser Allee 182, Mariahilf Run by Graue Schwestern of St. Elizabeth

Waldstrasse 52, St. Elizabeth Stift, Hospiz and Damenheim

Wilhelmstrasse 122 and Koeniggraetzerstrasse 104, Neue Gesellenhospiz of St. Hedwigsgemeinde/St. Joseph Hospiz (1910) (Compliments older St. Joseph Hospiz at Niederwallstr. 32)

Wundtstrasse 40-44 (previously Koenigsweg 17-18), Katholischer Frauenbund, Wohlfahrstschule and Ledigenheim (1931) (Expansion of a 1923-24 building)

Bocholt Herz Jesu Hospiz (Run by Schwestern Unserer Lieben Frau)

301

Cologne Breitestrasse, Zentralhospiz near Minoritenkirche (1865 built, 1884-5 addition)

Breitestrasse 108, New Central Hospiz (1910) (renovation and expansion/Neubau)

Dagobertstr. 32, St Antoniushaus (1903-1905)

Josephstrasse 17/19 in Severinsviertel, St. Josephshaus

Logierhaus fuer Ladengehuelfinnen

Dortmund Hospiz for Kaufmaennische Gehuelfinnen and Beamtinnen Run by St. Josephinenstift/Vinzenzschwestern

Düsseldorf Kolpinghaus/Gesellenheim Duesseldorf

Vinzenzhaus Property of the Charitativen Vereinigung Run by Vinzenschwestern

St. Paulushaus (1894) Catholic Verien St. Paulushaus

Duisburg Catholic Arbeiterhospiz

Catholic Gesellenhaus (1888) Gesellschaft a.b.H. in Duisburg-Aktiengesellschaft Katholisches Gesellenhaus

Elberfeld Catholic Gesellenheim (1870)

Ermsdetten i. W. Kath. Gesellenhaus

Essen Catholic Gesellenhaus in Essen, Aktiengesellschaft “Katholisches Gesellenhaus”

302

Catholic Arbeiterheim St. Josefshaus

Freiburg in Breisgau Ladnerinnenheim St. Anna Stift/Vinzenzschwestern

Hilden in Rheinland Kath. Gesellenhaus

Karlsruhe Catholic Gesellenherberge

Kempen in Rheinland Kath. Gesellenhaus

Lübeck Kath. Gesellenhaus in Luebeck

Marxloh-Bruchhausen (Duisburg-Ruhr) Kath. Gesellenhaus

Munich Gesellenhaus of the Catholic Gesellenhausstiftung

Münster Aegidiusstr. and Gruene Gasse, Catholic Gesellenhaus in Muenster i.W. (1905)

Neuss Kath. Gesellenhaus Neuss a. Rhein (1910)

Hospiz St. Anna-Arbeiterinnenverein (linked to St. Quirinus Pfarrkirche)

Rüdesheim on the Rhein (on the Heerstrasse) Kath. Gesellenhaus

Stassburg i. E. Kath. Gesellenhaus/Ledigenheim fuer Handwerksgesellen, katholisches Gesellenhospiz in Strassburg i.E. (circa 1900)

Sterkrade in Rheinland/Westfalia Kath. Gesellenhaus (1910)

303

Stuttgart Kath. Gesellenhaus of the Catholic Gesellenverein in Stuttgart (1869)

Trier St. Josefstift Hospiz and Handelsschule (Schwestern vom Heiligen Joseph) For Women

Protestant in affiliation, but open to all in the manner of a Free Ledigenheim:

Berlin Waldenser Strasse 31 Ledigenheim Verein Ledigenheim E.V.

Cannstatt Arbeiterinnenheim des Evangelischen Vereins in Cannstatt

Cassel Fabrikarbeiterinnenheim des Deutsch-Evangelischen Frauenbundes

Essen Weberplatz, Kaiser Wilhelm Ledigenheim (1912/13) Evangelische Arbeiterverein of Essen

Leipzig Sophienstrasse 28, Daheim fuer Arbeiterinnen

Stuttgart Hauptstaetterstr. 140, Vereinshaus zum Haus Sachs (1905)

Employer Built (Confessional and Non-Confessional):

Aachen Arbeiterinnenheim, Streichgarnspinnerei H.O. Werner (1894) Non-Confessional Employer Built

Altena Arbeiterheim Lennestein, Basse & Selve Metallwerke

Arbeiterheim Linscheid, Basse & Selve Metallwerke

Aplerbeck

304

Schlafhaus, Aktien-Kommanditgesellschaft Aplerbecker Huette, Bruegmann, Weyland & Co. (1900)

Bärenstein Schlafhaus, Metallwerke G.m.b.H.

Barmen (near Wuppertal) Arbeiter Schlaf und Speisehaus for the Belegschaft der Gewerkschaft Barmen.

Beckingen a. Saar Schlafhaus and Maedchenhaus, Fr. Karcher & Co., G.m.b.H., Kleineisenzeugfabrik (1889 and 1898 (1903/04 expanded) respectively) Catholic Employer Built (Franziskanerinnen)

Biebrich a. Rh. Heim fuer Ledige Arbeiter, Chemische Fabrik von Kalle and Co.

Bielefeld Arbeiterninnenheim, Ravensburger Spinnerei (1871)

Bochum Kost und Logierhaus Stahlhausen (1872-74) Bochumer Verein Oscar Spetzler, Director of the Verein was Louis Baare)

Brottewitz on the Elbe Schlafhaeuser, for men and women respectively, Zuckerfabrik Muehlberg on the Elbe

Brueggen Arbeiterinnenheim, Brueggener Akteingesellschaft fuer Tonwarenindustrie (1899)

Cologne-Nippes/Longerich (near Merheim village) Jacob Pallenbergs Arbeiterheim (1905) Part of the Pallenberg Siedlung (1905-1912) Architects Hans Verbeek and Balduin Schilling Built by the Stiftung Pallenberg

Dieringhausen Arbeiterinnenheim, W.B. Siebel & Co. Kunstwollspinnerei (1895)

305

Dietrichsdorf near Kiel Ledigenheim/Logierhaus and Speiseanstalt, Howaldts Werke

Dillingen a. Saar Schlafhaus, Aktiengesellschaft der Dillinger Huettenwerke (1888)

Dinslaken (north west of Essen) Ledigenheim Lohberg (1914) Zeche Lohberg of Gewerkschaft Deutscher Kaiser

Dortmund Schlafhaus, Harpener Bergbau AG Arbeiterheim, Zeche Gneisenau (1889)

Düren Maedchenheim and Maennerheim with Garkuechen and Volkskuechen, Flachspinnerei von Schoeller, Buecklers & Co.

Ebersbach Arbeiterinnenheim, Martin & Soehne Baumwollspinnerei und Weberei (1898)

Ems (Hessen) Schlafhaus, Gesellschaft des Emser Blei und Silberwerks (1860/74)

Essen (Krupp) Essen-West Railway Station Ledigenheim in Rheinhausen (1916-1920)

Arbeiterheim Freistattstrasse (1914-1918)

Logierhaeuser fuer Ledige von Krupp in Essen (circa 1890)

Planckstrasse/Lordstrasse, Arbeiterheim Holsterhausen (1916)

Essen-Heisingen Westpreussenstr. Bergarbeiter Ledigenheim Karl Funke in Essen-Heisingen (1948)

Essen-Kray Schlafhaus, Westdeutsches Eisenwerk A.G. (1902)

306

Essen-Schonnebeck Drostenbusch Str. 15, Ledigenheim III, Zollverein AG (1919)

Essen-Stoppenberg/Katernberg Buschstr. 25a, Ledigenheim Stoppenberg (1916)

Freiburg in Breisgau Schlafhaus for Girls and Women, Seidenzwirnerei und Faerberei von Carl Mez & Soehne Protestant Employer Built

Gelsenkirchen Schlafhaus, Akteingesellschaft Schalker Gruben und Huettenverein

Hagen Schlafhaus, J.C. Soeding & Halbach

Hannover Junggesellenheim of the Caoutschouc and Guttapercha Kompagnie of Hannover (1909) Architects Stapelberg and Schermer of Hannover

Höchst am Main Schlafhaus (3), Farbwerke vorm Meister Lucius & Bruening

Hörde in Westfalien Schlafhaus, Hoerder Bergwerks und Huetten-Verein (1856)

Hüsten Schlafhaus, Huestener Gewerkschaft (1889)

Jena Schlafhaus, Glaswerk Schott & Genossen

Kriebstein in Sachsen Arbeiterheim for young workers, Papierfabrik von Kuebler & Niethammer (1899)

Lauchhammer (Brandenburg) Gesellenheim, @Lehrlingsheim and @Casino, Aktiengesellschaft Lauchhammer

307

Lennep Arbeiterheim and Maedchenheim, Kammgarnspinnerei von Johann Wuelfing & Sohn (1898)

Leverkusen (near Mülheim) Junggesellenheim, Farben Fabrik/Friedrich Bayer & Co.

Mainkur (near Frankfurt) Logierhaus (2), Anilinfarbenfabrik of Leopold Cassella & Co.

Mannheim-Walddorf Maedchenheim of the Jute Spinning works. Architect Heinrich Gramlich of Mannheim

Mechernich (near Aachen) Schlafhaus, Mechernicher Bergwerks Aktien Verein (1882)

Mettlach Mädchenheim, Schlafhaus and Speiseanstalt, Steingut und Mosaikfabrik of Villeroy & Boch (1870) Mädchenheim is Catholic Employer Built Borromaeerinnen run Maedchenheim

Milspe Arbeiterinnenheim, Altenloh Brinck & Co. (1898)

Mönchen-Gladbach Arbeiterinnenheim/Maedchenheim

Munich (Greater) Arbeiterheim in Jaegerndorf

Nachrodt Schlafhaus, Phoenix Aktiengesellschaft fuer Bergbau und Huettenbetrieb (1873)

Neusalz (currently located in Poland) Maedchenheim und Arbeiterheim for young men, Spinnerei of J.D. Gruschwitz & Soehne

Neunkirchen (near Trier) Schlafhaus, Gebrueder Stumm

Niederschelden

308

Schlafhaus, Aktiengesellschaft Charlottenhuette (1898)

Oberhausen Schlafhaus, Gutehoffnungshuette, Aktienverein fuer Bergbau und Huettenbetrieb

Oberlahnstein (near Wiesbaden) Schlafhaus, Gewerkshaft des Silber und Bleibergwerks Friedrichssegen

Ober-Schlesien Bergwerk Bibiella-Schlafbarake

Cosel-Schlafhaus/Burschenheim and Maedchenheim, Cellulosefabrik Feldmuehle Maedchenheim is Catholic (Kongregation St. Elizabeth) Employer Built

Emanuelssegen-Schlafhaus of Kolonie Emanuelssegen, Fuerstlich- Plessische Bergwerkdirektion (1917) Architect Malpricht

Freidenshütte-Schlafhaus, Oberschlesischen Eisenbahnbedarfs Aktien Gesellschaft

Fürstengrube-Schlafhaus of Kolonie Fuerstengrube, Fuerstlich-Plessische Bergwerkdirektion (1917) Architect Malpricht

Halbergerhütte-“Old” Schlafhaus Huettenbaumeister Architect F. Klein

Hohenlohehütte-Schlafhaus (3), Fuerstlich Hohenlohe’sche Berg und Huettenverwaltung

Kattowitz-Schlafhaus, Kattowitzer Aktiengesellschaft fuer Bergbau und Eisenhuettenbetrieb

Kattowitz-Schlafhaus, Handelsgesellschaft Ignatz Grünfeld, Baugeschaeft

Königshütte-Schlafhaus, Vereinigten Koenigs und Laurahütte

Lipine-Schlafhaus, Schlesischen Aktiengesellschaft fuer Bergbau und Zinkhuettenbetrieb

Paruschowiz-Schlafhaus, Aktiengesellschaft Silesia, Emaillierwerk und Metallwarenfabrik

309

Schwientachlowitz-Schlafhaus, Eisenwerks Bethlen-Falva, Aktiengesellschaft

Zawodzie-Schlafhaus, Aktiengesellschaft Ferrum

End of Ober-Schlesien

Saarbrücken-Völklingen Ledigenheim der Roechlingschen Eisen und Stahlwerke in Völklingen

Selbeck bei Saarn a.d. Ruhr (near Essen) Bergmannsheim zu Selbeck of the Selbecker Bergwerksverein

Stolberg Schlafhaus, Aktiengesellschaft der Spiegelmanufakturen und Chemischen Fabriken von St. Gobain, Chauny & Cirey

Offenburg Arbeiterinnenheim, Spinnerei und Weberei Offenburg, Akteingesellschaft Catholic Employer-Built, Run by Ordensschwestern

Osnabrück (near Muenster) Menagehaus der Arbeiterkolonie Georgs-Marienhuette near Osnabrueck

Quedlinburg Arbeiterinnenheim, Quedlinburger Textilindustrie

Rheinau in Baden Schlafhaus, Chemischen Fabrik Rhenania

Saarbrücken New Ledigenheim der Roechlingschen Eisen und Stahlwerke in Voelklingen (1909)

Schlafhaus of the Grube van der Heydt

Sohland Arbeiterinnenheim, Carl Stein, Knopffabrik (1899)

Ütersen Herberge, Alsenschen Portlandzementfabriken

Wetter a. Ruhr Schalfhaus, Peter Harkort & Sohn, G.m.b.H., Eisen und Stahlwerk (1898)

310

Wetzlar (Hessen) Schlafhaus, Buderussche Eisenwerke (early 1870s)

Wissen (near Köln) Logierhaus für unverheiratete Arbeiter in Wissen

311

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Historisches Archiv der Stadt Koeln Severinstrasse 222-228, 50676 Koeln

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