ABSTRACT “JUST FOR ME”: BOURGEOIS VALUES AND ROMANTIC COURTSHIP IN THE 1855 TRAVEL DIARY OF MARIE VON BONIN by Margaret Estelle Breidenbaugh This thesis considers the origins of the embourgeoisement of the mid-nineteenth-century German aristocracy through the lens of the summer 1855 travel diary of twenty-year-old Landedelfräulein (country noble maiden) Marie von Bonin, the oldest daughter of Maria Keller and landowner and politician Gustav von Bonin. Scholars of German history have often contended that the influence of middle-class values on German nobles originated with print culture and socio-political movements. While this thesis neither contradicts, nor focuses on these claims, it examines the ways that the lived experiences of everyday people also gave birth to middle-class values. Focusing on the themes of Heimat (home), travel and education, and romantic courtship, this thesis concludes that Marie’s bourgeois views were not revolutionary; rather, they exemplified the influence of middle-class values on the mid-nineteenth century German aristocracy. “JUST FOR ME”: BOURGEOIS VALUES AND ROMANTIC COURTSHIP IN THE 1855 TRAVEL DIARY OF MARIE VON BONIN A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of History by Margaret E. Breidenbaugh Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2018 Advisor: Erik Jensen Reader: Steven Conn Reader: Nicole Thesz © Margaret Estelle Breidenbaugh 2018 “JUST FOR ME”: BOURGEOIS VALUES AND ROMANTIC COURTSHIP IN THE 1855 TRAVEL DIARY OF MARIE VON BONIN by Margaret E. Breidenbaugh has been approved for publication by The College of Arts and Science and The Department of History ________________________________ Advisor: Erik Jensen ________________________________ Reader: Steven Conn ________________________________ Reader: Nicole Thesz Table of Contents List of Figures iv Dedication v Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Marie in Place: The Landedelfräulein on Heimat, Heimweh, and the Spa Town 16 Chapter 2 Marie in Motion: Thrills, Contentment, Subversion, and the Bildungsreise 30 Chapter 3 Marie in Love: Female Agency in Romantic Courtship 48 Epilogue 69 Bibliography 73 Appendix 1––A Note on Translation 80 Appendix 2––Glossary 81 Appendix 3––Bonin Ahnentafeln 82 iii List of Figures Fig. 1. Max von Kracht (attributed), inscribed leaf, July 9, 1855 64 iv Dedication In memory of Stanley Planton (1947-2017) v Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Miami University Department of History for supporting this project. I am especially grateful to Wietse de Boer (Department Chair) and Daniel Prior (Director of Graduate Studies) for their guidance. I am also indebted to Amanda McVety for her candid critiques of early chapter drafts. Thank you to Steven Conn (History) and Nicole Thesz (Department of German, Russian, Asian, and Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures) for serving as additional readers. The biggest thank you of all goes to my academic adviser Erik Jensen, a mentor who believed in the unique character of my project from our first meeting in the spring of 2015. I would also like to thank public history faculty, Helen Sheumaker and Nishani Frazier, who showed me that it is possible to write meaningfully about interesting people without sacrificing argument. Thank you to Jacky Johnson, Bill Modrow, Justin Bridges, and Elizabeth Maurer, of Walter Havighurst Special Collections and Archives, who gave me many opportunities to grow as an archivist and challenged my thinking about research and writing. Thank you to Lisa Munro, my online #ShutUpAndWrite mentor. I could not have written this thesis without the guidance and support of the Howe Writing Center’s manager, Kate Francis. Thank you to the many researchers, archivists, and curators I met in Germany during J-Term 2017. Everyone was eager to help me. I am especially indebted to Gudrun Schäfer (Village Councilwoman, Brettin), Antonia Beran (Director, Kreismuseum Jerichower Land-Genthin), Ulrich and Susanne Freund (descendants of Marie von Bonin’s brother, Giesbert), the staff at the Grüner Baum Hotel and Restaurant in Brettin, and my Airbnb hosts in Switzerland, Mallorca, and Germany. I cannot find adequate words to express my thanks to Erin, Hannah, and Heather, my fellow 2018 graduates. Thank you for being incredible colleagues, scholars, critics, and friends. To the class of 2017: thank you for welcoming me in 2015 as an honorary part of your cohort. Special thanks to Zach Golder for speaking German with me. Thank you to my officemates, Leigh Winstead (‘17), Hannah Blubaugh (‘18), and Austin Hall (‘19), for academic and emotional support. To the family of Stan Planton––Margie, David (Lori), and Ben (Isabel): I want you to know that Stan believed in an earlier version of this project, a historical fiction novel. His passionate dedication to reading and critiquing my manuscript, and his expert research suggestions, inspired me to give the project new life as a thesis. To Janis Tremain and Kenneth Breidenbaugh: Mom and Dad, thank you for raising me in an environment filled with research and writing. Between genealogy and “cemeterying” with Mom and watching Dad work on his MFA and PhD in the history of art, I basically couldn’t not follow this path (double negative, I know). To Nate and Heather, the best and most supportive siblings I could ever hope for (dangling participle). To my spouse, Ryan Bland, for putting up with long days, nights, and weekends and barely seeing each other (no Oxford comma), cooking basically all meals, doing the dishes and laundry, and being proud of me anyway. I don’t think I will ever be able to make it up to you. vi Introduction On December 20, 1858, late in the afternoon, Garrison Chaplain Krauss, a representative of the German evangelical church in the Prussian capital, visited Gustav von Bonin’s apartment on Friedrichsstraße in Berlin. The chaplain was there to perform the baptism of Gustav’s infant granddaughter, Maria Johanna Frieda Auguste von Kracht. The child’s given names derived from three living women and one recently deceased, her mother Marie. More than a dozen close family members were gathered to witness the venerable ceremony. The names of these Taufzeugen (sponsors) were recorded in a register book. The first name to appear in this book belonged to Johanne Kohlbach, the infant’s great-grandmother. Next were the infant’s grandfather Gustav and grandfather Kracht, a lieutenant. Also in attendance were two of Gustav’s brothers, his maiden sister Auguste, and his daughter Frieda. The second half of the sponsor list included the infant’s great-uncle Keller, cousin Johanne Pieschel, great-aunt Schulze, uncle and great-aunt Kracht, a Mrs. von Werthern and last, another lieutenant––how could it be anyone but the infant’s father, Max von Kracht? ––whose given name and surname fell victim to an ink smudge.1 Two aspects of the infant von Kracht’s baptismal record strike me as significant. First, the order in which the Taufzeugen appear suggests a hierarchy of relatives important to the Bonin–Kracht noble family alliance. Johanne Kohlbach and Gustav von Bonin’s respective first and second positions on this sponsor list demonstrate that they played key roles in the infant’s life, a reflection, I would argue, of their devotion to the late Marie. Second, while in most cases no more than three sponsors attended nineteenth-century German evangelical baptismal ceremonies, fourteen people watched as the infant von Kracht received God’s blessing from the chaplain. The high number of sponsors demonstrates that these aristocratic families could afford and were willing to pay additional fees to have the church accept more than the maximum number of sponsors.2 It also suggests that there was something unusual about this baptism. 1 “Deutschland Geburten und Taufen, 1558-1898,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ ark:/61903/1:1:NP89-2YM : November 28, 2014), Maria Johanna Frieda Auguste Von Kracht, December 20, 1858; citing ; FHL microfilm 477,850. 2 Families had to pay the church 6 Groschen per sponsor in excess of three. Handbuch über die Religions- Kirchen-, geistlichen und Unterrichts-Angelegenheiten im Königreiche Preußen, 687, https://books.google.com/books?id=DWtDAAAAcAAJ. A later publication also specified the maximum of three sponsors. Das Sakrament der Taufe, 261, https://books.google.com/books?id=oVUPAAAAQAAJ. 1 The obvious anomaly was the absence of the child’s mother, Marie. Although death in childbed was not uncommon in mid-nineteenth-century Germany, the loss of a twenty-three- year-old daughter, sister, wife, and mother would devastate any family. Still, despite Marie’s early death, nothing about her life was atypical. The present thesis asserts that she was in fact quite the opposite––an everyday German woman. What is unusual about Marie is that she left behind a 144-page diary chronicling her travel experiences from late May to mid-August 1855. On the morning of May 30 of that year, Marie and members of her immediate and extended family climbed aboard a wagon in Brettin, their home village fifty miles west of Berlin, riding to the train station in nearby Genthin. Next, they traveled nearly five hundred miles southwest––a thirteen-hour journey by train––stopping in Paris for nine days to enjoy the recently-opened Exposition Universelle des produits de l’Agriculture, de l’Industrie et des Beaux-Arts de Paris (Paris Universal Exposition of Agricultural Products, Industry and Fine Arts), an exciting spectacle by Marie’s accounting. But the larger purpose of the family’s summer travels was recuperation; after a five-day visit with various aunts, uncles, and cousins in the region of Hamm sixty miles northeast of Cologne, Marie and her family spent a month each in the spa towns of Bad Ems (near Coblenz) and Bad Soden (near Frankfort). On August 14, seventy-six days after leaving Brettin, Marie returned home.