The World of Children: Foreign Cultures in Nineteenth-Century German Education and Entertainment 9781789202793

Citation preview

The World of Children Twentieth-Century German Documentary Photography Reconsidered

Studies in German History Published in Association with the German Historical Institute, Washington, DC General Editor: Simone Lässig, Director of the German Historical Institute, Washington, DC, with the assistance of Patricia C. Sutcliffe, Editor, German Historical Institute Recent volumes: Volume 24 The World of Children: Foreign Cultures in Nineteenth-Century German Education and Entertainment Edited by Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß Volume 23 Gustav Stresemann: The Crossover Artist Karl Heinrich Pohl Translated by Christine Brocks, with the assistance of Patricia C. Sutcliffe Volume 22 Explorations and Entanglements: Germans in Pacific Worlds from the Early Modern Period to World War I Edited by Hartmut Berghoff, Frank Biess, and Ulrike Strasser Volume 21 The Ethics of Seeing: Photography and Twentieth-Century German History Edited by Jennifer Evans, Paul Betts, and Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann Volume 20 The Second Generation: Émigrés from Nazi Germany as Historians Edited by Andreas W. Daum, Hartmut Lehmann, and James J. Sheehan Volume 19 Fellow Tribesmen: The Image of Native Americans, National Identity, and Nazi Ideology in Germany Frank Usbeck Volume 18 The Respectable Career of Fritz K: The Making and Remaking of a Provincial Nazi Leader Hartmut Berghoff and Cornelia Rauh Translated by Casey Butterfield Volume 17 Encounters with Modernity: The Catholic Church in West Germany, 1945–1975 Benjamin Ziemann Translated by Andrew Evans Volume 16 Crime and Criminal Justice in Modern Germany Edited by Richard F. Wetzell Volume 15 Germany and the Black Diaspora: Points of Contact, 1250–1914 Edited by Mischa Honeck, Martin Klimke, and Anne Kuhlmann For a full volume listing, please see the series page on our website: http://berghahnbooks.com/series/studies-in-german-history

The World of Children Foreign Cultures in Nineteenth-Century German Education and Entertainment

S Edited by Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

First published in 2020 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2020 Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. cataloging record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Control Number: 2019031881 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78920-278-6 hardback ISBN 978-1-78920-279-3 ebook

Contents

List of Figures vii Acknowledgments viii Introduction Children, the Nation, and the World   Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

1

Part I. Official Knowledge Chapter 1 New Words and the New World: Language and the Transnational Legacy of Joachim Heinrich Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere 37   Kirsten Belgum Chapter 2 Images of Land and Sea: Experiencing the World as Adventure through Theodor Dielitz’s Travel Anthologies for Young Readers, 1841–62   Matthew O. Anderson Chapter 3 World Knowledge in Textbooks for French-Language Teaching in the Nineteenth Century in Germany   Regina Schleicher Chapter 4 The World at War in German Textbooks: Knowledge of the World Conveyed in Representations of War   Andreas Weiß Chapter 5 When Nippon Became Prussian: The German Image of Japan in Nineteenth-Century Textbooks   Maik Fiedler –v–

57

81

93

113

vi | Contents

Part II. Literary Knowledge Chapter 6 Thrilling Hearts and Winning Minds: The Representation of Monarchy, Navy, and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Juvenile Adventure Fiction   Miriam Magdalena Schneider Chapter 7 Knowing Others as Selves: German Children and American Indians   H. Glenn Penny Chapter 8 “Don’t You Take Pity on Your Little Brothers and Sisters in China?” Missionary Literature for Children and the Distribution of Relational Knowledge in Imperial Germany   Katharina Stornig

137

159

182

Part III. Knowledge in Entertainment Chapter 9 Around the World in a Jiffy: Humorous Treatments of Around-theWorld Travel in German Children’s Books and Games   Emer O’Sullivan

203

Chapter 10 The Rise of the Trading Card: Collecting the World before World War I 228   Judith Blume Chapter 11 A World Made for Exploration: Germans and Their Toys, 1890–1914   David Hamlin

252

Conclusion Kaleidoscope and Lens: Re-envisioning the Past through the History of Knowledge 272   Simone Lässig Index 295

Figures

  2.1. Illustration for “Die Jagd des grauen Bären” (1873) 71   2.2. Cover illustration for Amerikanische Reisebilder (1885) 73   3.1. Untitled human figure from Lehrbuch der französischen Sprache (1897) 86   3.2. “Le printemps” (The Spring) from Lehrbuch der französischen Sprache (1897) 87   5.1. Map comparing Japan and England (1916) 119   5.2. Relative distribution of religions, 1800–1918 122   5.3. Relative distribution of “industrialization” and “Germany,” 1800–1918 123   6.1. Book cover of Carl von der Boeck’s Des Prinzen Heinrich von Preußen Weltumseglung (n.p., ca. 1882) 139   6.2. Set of trading cards about Prince Heinrich’s Journey to China (1900) 147   7.1 and 7.2. A view into the Karl May Museum and a report on its reception—father and son taking in the displays 161   7.3. A report on the Sarrasani Circus honoring Karl May (ca. 1930) 164   7.4. A report from the Volkszeitung on Buffalo Bill’s “Wild West” show and its reception 167   7.5. Inside the Berlin Museum für Völkerkunde 173   9.1. Wilhelm v. Breitschwert, Lord Pudding (1868) 209   9.2. Heinrich Hoffmann, Des Herrn Fix von Bickenbach Reise (ca. 1879) 213   9.3. Arpad Schmidhammer, Mucki (1905) 218   9.4. Arpad Schmidhammer, Mucki (1905) 220 10.1. Liebig trading card series: “Das Fleisch-Extract in Afrika,” no. 0179 (1891) 234 10.2. Liebig trading card series: “Die Zuckerfabrikation,” no. 0480 (1900) 235 10.3. Liebig trading card series: “Bekannte Binnenseen,” no. 0482 (1901) 237 10.4. Liebig trading card series: “Zur Geschichte des Eisens,” no. 0895 (1913) 238 10.5. Album for Liebig Cards (ca. 1890) 241 10.6. Album with cuts from sheets of pictures (ca. 1850) 242 – vii –

Acknowledgments

A collection of essays like the present work involves a tremendous cooperative effort, and we owe a debt of gratitude to several individuals for their indispensable assistance in various aspects of the project. Together with Simone Lässig, Robert Strötgen, head of the Digital Library Department at the University Library of Braunschweig, developed the initial ideas that finally led to this book, and Ernesto DeLuca supported this project as head of the Digital Humanities Department at the Georg Eckert Institute in Braunschweig. Ingrid Tomkowiak, professor of popular literature and media in the Institute for Social Anthropology and Empirical Cultural Studies at the University of Zurich, was crucial in the initial conceptualization of the volume; she also connected us with excellent contributors and provided expertise on the history of children’s literature. Mischa Honeck, visiting professor of history at the University of Duisburg-Essen, graciously gave us feedback and advice on the history of childhood. David Lazar, senior editor at the GHI and wordsmith par excellence, helped us tinker with the titles. GHI interns Chris Buchholz and, above all, Lukas Doil and Emily Woessner spent countless hours proofing source citations or finalizing the index. And, last but not least, Patricia C. Sutcliffe, the GHI’s in-house editor for the Berghahn series, brought the conception of the volume to fruition not only through her deft editing of the entire book but also through her expert management of the project, with all the communication among the editors, contributors, and the publisher that entailed, soliciting additional articles, assisting with the content review, and translating the introductory and concluding essays into such lucid prose, which allowed the editors to focus on content rather than English form. Finally, we would like to express our appreciation to all of the authors for seeing this volume through to completion, and to the anonymous reviewers, whose suggestions, implemented here, significantly improved the final manuscript. Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß, September 2019

– viii –

Introduction Children, the Nation, and the World Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

S “What Hutten once said about his own era: ‘The sciences are blossoming, minds are rejuvenated, it is a joy to be alive,’ can also, in a certain sense, apply to our own era, in which culture has made gigantic strides thanks to the never-resting drive of the human mind to conduct research.” These words could be found in the German Textbook of World History published in 18971—a book that adumbrated the fundamental categories of knowledge in the nineteenth century and, in the process, ascribed a key role to breathtaking developments in science and technology. In all areas of the sciences, among the civilized peoples, there is an active rivalry, with the liveliest activity in the field whose results also benefit practical life in the great areas of the natural sciences. Physics, chemistry, technology are working these days— one almost no longer wishes to say “with steam” but rather: “with lightning speed.” Railway networks, steamship lines, telegraph cables, wiring harnesses span the globe and bring peoples—by means of the press, which has become a world power—into a tremendous interaction through which every new achievement of mental activity just as well as the material successes of industriousness quickly become a common good of the world. Craft and art, technology, luxury, medicine are deriving the richest profit from the results of careful research as well as from the spirit of experimental enterprise. As bold researchers penetrate into foreign areas of the earth, illuminate the darkness of the “black portions of the Earth” in Africa, and strive to reach the Land of the Midnight Sun via steamships and airships, science is opening up the hidden secrets of nature. … Carried away by the ceaselessly turning flywheel of the times, man hardly allows his gaze to stop and rest on the past, the Now moves and excites him

Notes from this chapter begin on page 22.

2 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

so ­vigorously, and he is less occupied with the question of “what was?” than with the question of “what will come?”2

Contemporaries, like later historians, shared this view, characterizing their own century as a time in fast motion, with knowledge of the world multiplying at breakneck speed and the term “future” acquiring a whole new meaning. The transition from estate-based to middle-class society launched a revolution of knowledge that accelerated rapidly at the turn of the twentieth century.3 No doubt, it was as socially and culturally relevant as the arrival of the digital age. The Enlightenment provided the most important impetus for this revolution by fostering a new understanding of the world based in rational explanations. To know what held the world together at its core—this quest was a driving force not only for literary figures, exemplified by Goethe’s Faust, or scholars in the traditional sense but also for the emerging educated middle class. This era saw the creation and expansion of knowledge networks as people sought to exchange information with other advocates of rational perception of the world outside of circles they could reach via their personal contacts. Expanded publication and translation activity made it possible for literate contemporaries to access a growing store of “foreign knowledge.” Driven by scientific curiosity or commercial interests, missionary and civilizing zeal or colonial ambition, or a complex mix of motivations, more and more people traveled to or even settled in different and sometimes distant regions of the world. Those who did not travel themselves were drawn by this knowledge into the new, middle-class clubs and reading associations where they could expand their own learning in a circle of like-minded people and tap into foreign worlds. The German idea of Bildung4— lifelong striving for self-fulfillment, civilization and expansion of knowledge— forged people’s identities and provided the cultural kit for a social group that wished to communicate beyond the borders of the German principalities and estate-based society in order to make sense of the present and the future. They also wished to have an emancipating effect and to increase knowledge within society to foster progress.5 Whereas the aura emanating from knowledge and science grew much stronger following the Enlightenment, the universalism of the late eighteenth century gradually gave way to nationalization in the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Although the shift away from universalism toward the nationstate was framed by and went along with empire building and imperialism and did not necessarily replace transnational, regional, or local perspectives of orientation and patterns of knowledge passed down from former generations,6 it stimulated the development of new patterns of inclusion and exclusion for a society undergoing comprehensive social, economic, cultural, technological, and political changes. Questions about national characteristics, common historical roots, and cultural achievements permeated more and more fields, even if in

Introduction | 3

subtle ways. What could create a new kind of community and distinguish it from “others” while excluding those who did not belong? The contributions to this volume reflect this dynamic and its effects on the knowledge that was available. They begin with the thesis that the patterns for ordering this rapidly growing and diverse new knowledge changed over the nineteenth century, as did the priorities for interpreting and standardizing it. The newly forming nation-states became more consolidated even as they increasingly interacted and, in some cases, formed or expanded their empires. Thus, the world was brought closer together by international trade relations, migration movements, and scholarly networks, new forms of publicity and travel, as well as colonial activities.7 Global visions and real globalization processes began to mutually influence one another especially at the end of the nineteenth century in both tense and dynamic ways, fueling national self-confidence. Contemporaries noted this ambivalence as well. For example, a 1904 history textbook for secondary schools claimed that the recently concluded nineteenth century was shaped by the great boom of the sciences, mainly the natural sciences in combination with technology. The latter then reconfigured the entire intellectual, political, societal and economic life of the cultured peoples from the ground up. … The railway and steamship have diminished distances dramatically and, moreover, can transport people and goods in masses. The telegraph and the telephone, undersea cables, wireless long-­ distance communications a[nd] that sort of thing enable an intellectual exchange— even a physical one with the telephone—for which the barriers of space and time nearly disappear. Consequently, this provides a cause for peoples to come much closer to one another than was the case in earlier centuries, and to exchange their material products and intellectual achievements to an increasing degree.

In the author’s view, culture, science, and trade were transforming modern man more and more into a world citizen. In the world economy, however, only those nations can be influential that have high efficiency, people, and money power. For this purpose, those who are connected by the same language and heritage will also strive for political unity in order to be able to face other peoples in as closed a manner as possible. Thus, a requirement of the new-fangled “world economy” is the “national economy” and “nationalist movements” emerge. Civilized humanity is entering the age of nationalism.8

The increase in knowledge brought about by the discovery and colonization of the world demanded new modes of sorting and standardization.9 This was especially true for schools, which were interested in the canonization of knowledge for didactic, pragmatic, institutional, and political reasons.10 Other actors, spaces, and media through which knowledge could be circulated also sought new ways of organizing the abundance of new knowledge to reach young

4 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

Germans, who must have been searching near and far for orientation in the world around them. More recent studies are comparatively unanimous in assuming that the school as a modern institution generated important requirements for the modern nation as a community of communication; in the nineteenth century, one’s nation became—as Jürgen Osterhammel put it—“the most comprehensive life-world framework for most people.”11 At the same time, more ways of interpreting the world, and of interweaving national and other emblems of belonging, emerged. This was especially so in the German Empire, where “world” categories encountered a frail and incompletely formed nation-state, and the relationship between what was foreign and what was familiar repeatedly had to be renegotiated. The editors and authors of the present collection start with this idea and address an issue that was central for German history in the nineteenth century. While authors like Abigail Green have sought to understand whether and how particular and national cultures converged and competed in nineteenth-­century Germany,12 this volume analyzes the place the wider world had within this matrix and the ways the world “entered” the German nation. Which (parts of the) world—and whose world—were integrated into emerging national knowledge archives, and which ones were lost or suppressed? This volume thus focuses not on the genesis of modern science through the experience of the world but on the barely researched question of what world was formed in everyday discourses. It also explores how the information and fragments of knowledge that circulated in these discourses shaped the popular images that ordinary Germans could make of the world (and their nation). Our authors analyze widely available social stores of knowledge, as well as how constant they were and how they changed, from various disciplinary approaches and for very different arenas and media of knowledge production and circulation. In so doing, they make new considerations and concepts in the history of knowledge fruitful for a transnational and global German history. Moreover, by specifying media and children as its two analytical axes, this volume addresses the broad scope of contemporary discourses and the diversity of available knowledge while maintaining a specific conceptual basis. All of the contributions dwell at the intersection of these two axes. By analyzing various media that began to spread mid-century, as well as cultures, values, and modes of interpreting the world all typical of the time, the authors come closer to the ideas that German children and adolescents made of their world in a time of tremendous upheaval. Without claiming to be comprehensive or to know which elements of socially available knowledge these different young actors actually absorbed, the contributions address a research lacuna by presenting tableaus of socially debated or legitimated knowledge that likely influenced the worlds that larger groups of Germans, and particularly German children, lived with and imagined at that time.

Introduction | 5

Our focus on children and adolescents is not merely a pragmatic choice. Rather, it pays tribute to the fact that childhood and youth are genuine historical phenomena; the concepts of “child,” “teenager,” and “adult” change according to time, space, and social settings as much as the social meaning of childhood and youth do.13 Since the history of childhood is a relational category always linked to the history of adults, the field calls for attention from specialists outside of its usual boundaries and should be considered an integral part of social and cultural history.14 The decision to address childhood in this way in this volume derives from the historical value attributed to this group in societal discourses and constellations during the period it focuses upon—the period between the Enlightenment and the First World War. A rough demographic snapshot alone suffices to illustrate the historical and historiographical relevance of children and adolescents. Compared to the present, the nineteenth century was decidedly young: Children under fourteen comprised only one-tenth of the total population in Germany in 2015,15 but they made up more than a third on average in the German states between 1822 and 1911. In 1890, 45 percent of the population across the empire was under the age of twenty,16 and youths were even more concentrated in urban areas—that is, the most dynamic and modern spaces. Children and adolescents embodied the future of society in the Wilhelmine era from various perspectives. The cultural fixation on youth—which shaped all sociocultural and political milieus—and the great extent to which “youth” also became a symbol of the vitality and innovative potential of the nation have been well studied and demonstrated.17 Yet even before this, the Enlightenment largely defined itself in terms of the child. According to Silvy Chakkalakal, the child became “a figure of cultural transition,” an emblem that acquired central significance for the self-understanding of leading Enlightenment thinkers, then of educated citizens, and finally of other groups in a society oriented toward middle-class norms and life plans.18 Children symbolized the transition and encounter of various but closely connected cultural spheres because they were both natural and social beings. Since children were regarded as vacillating between savagery and civility as they matured, they also served as projection screens for new societal designs and ideas about the order of the world. It was assumed that barely “civilized” social groups—just like children—could be educated, refined, and thus raised to a new cultural level. In the “pedagogical” eighteenth century, shaped by a belief in the fundamental educatability of nearly all people, the understanding of childhood and youth as independent life phases was formed. This understanding continues to exert an influence in our times, even if it is continuously reformulated.19 A pedagogy developed that translated specifics of how children became familiar with the world into didactic models and practical actions. This pedagogy aimed to expose children to the most varied stimuli so that they could learn about their world in age- and developmentally appropriate ways. How could

6 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

one strengthen children’s creativity, emotionality, and imagination? How could one allow their individual potential to blossom, but also steer them along adult-­ defined paths? These questions preoccupied not only parents and teachers but also publishers and printers, toymakers and exhibition curators, and later also the advertising industry, not to mention the state, in increasingly gender-specific ways.20 One implication of the emergence of pedagogy as a crucial science of the eighteenth century was that children and childhood were treated in an ever more scientific fashion during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Pedagogy would become a driving force of novel professional and scientific fields like pediatrics, psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, a “thirst” for child-related data still unusual at that time, and the child study movement as it developed at the end of the nineteenth century.21 This volume’s focus on children and adolescents is also relevant because an image of youth developed in this period that impacted the entire society by the end of the century: youth came to be seen as a spiritual power standing outside of a society and yet embodying its future, precisely because of its temporary liminal position.22 “Youth,” as Mark Roseman puts it, “became a cultural label, a projection or a repository” whose interpretation in the German territories of the early nineteenth century was all the more influential because another projection—that of the nation—was so fragile.23 Finally, our focus on children and adolescents is particularly relevant because of the tremendous role the growth in compulsory schooling played in the period under consideration; state formation and mass schooling were two closely related fundamental processes of the nineteenth century. School as an institution ultimately became a state matter, and once it was implemented, compulsory schooling also changed even ordinary people’s ideas about childhood as a specific life phase, disconnecting it from work and the labor market.24 Around 1900, there were almost nine million pupils in the German Empire. Whereas the total population had increased by 174 percent between 1822 and 1896, the proportion of those attending school grew far more dynamically—by 266 percent.25 Education and training were no longer the privilege of families or religious institutions but had become a state matter from the time children reached the age of six. In the nineteenth century, the state established a monopoly in the field of institutional education and knowledge transfer; this monopoly, which still shapes Germany’s educational landscape today, is also related to the role of teachers and of the media used to convey knowledge in schools. In the midst of the exponential rise in compulsory schooling, new tendencies emerged that Swedish suffragist and educator Ellen Key called an entry into the “Century of the Child”; it is closely tied to the development of the so-called reform pedagogy and the modern youth movement, but also to the Social Democratic education program—and it gives further weight to the focus of this volume: children and adolescents, as future citizens of the state, drew the

Introduction | 7

attention of the state and society, which were intensely interested in finding the appropriate framework for educating the next generation as it would determine the course of the society and the nation. In this context, the pedagogy of the Enlightenment and its revolutionary perception that childhood and youth could be regarded as distinct phases in human life once again became interesting— albeit within a fundamentally different interpretive frame.26 Nationalism became a mass phenomenon in the Wilhelmine era, at which point it blended together with a race discourse that had partly been generated in the eighteenth century already but was now utilized within a different context. The research literature noted this development early on but long regarded it as a project of the (educated) middle-class elites.27 More recently, there have been added calls to investigate the structural change of national thinking also “from below” and from other underexamined perspectives. The question this volume asks about the knowledge of the world available to children in Germany between the Enlightenment and High Imperialism offers such a perspective. All of the contributions together give an impression of images of the world that developed for children and adolescents in an era when processes of accelerated globalization coincided directly with the educational revolution and growing nationalism, when optimism about progress and fears of crises, the forging of new social spaces and the dissolution of traditional life worlds, growing poverty, and the creation of the middle class all equally shaped everyday life, and elements of opening up and limiting world knowledge and interpretations of the world were closely intertwined on many levels: How did educational and popular media deal with the new abundance of knowledge? Which stores of knowledge were taken up anew in the reservoir of societal knowledge—conceived of for children and, thus, defined as central to the future—and which lost relevance? How did the media analyzed here represent other nations and cultures, and what semantics and narrative structures did they use to transmit knowledge or images about them? In other words, which explicit or implicit patterns of world interpretation were encoded within these media? These are just some of the questions addressed in this interdisciplinary volume, which brings together historical scholarship and literary studies. Likewise, this volume dwells at the intersection of four very productive but largely unconnected fields of research—research on nation and empire in German history prior to 1918, the history of childhood, research on the history of intentional children’s and youth literature and other media addressed to specific audiences, and, finally, the history of knowledge. How the contributions can contribute to developing this expanding field will be taken up in the concluding essay.

8 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

Entangled Globalization and Nationalization Processes When the Enlightenment distanced itself from naïve piety and superstition and called for reason, a new understanding of knowledge as a product of rational explanations of the world emerged. The constant increase of new knowledge was supposed to be useful to societies by helping to secure their wealth, and also facilitate individual fulfillment and progress. “Progress,” in turn, was one of the fixed points that nineteenth-century European societies were devoted to. They saw it as part of their self-appointed mission to “civilize” not only the uneducated and culturally backward members of their own country but also foreign peoples. In this, nationalistic and imperial-European perspectives became entangled in an interesting way. For example, pupils in Silesia, Poznan, and West Prussia were supposed to develop an appreciation for the civilizational attainments that Prussia gave to these former Polish areas. In accordance with the myth of empty space established in the colonial rhetoric of the time and also with the nearly ever-present understanding of cultural and moral superiority, textbooks for these provinces portrayed Poland in the time prior to 1772 as a wilderness or abandoned land in which the “impoverished and dirty people … mutely and sluggishly” lived their lives “without discipline, without law, without a master” until—following the topos of the extremely well-organized, hard-working, and benevolent Prussians—Prussian civil servants, craftsmen, doctors, lawyers, and teachers brought them culture and order. On the global level, the task of helping to form culture and civilization was interpreted more as a supranational one. In his Schulgeographie of 1882, Alfred Kirchhoff noted that the powerful European nations “spread their Christianity with missionaries and gradually their entire civilization and culture among the indolent people of the earth” with their “backward” civilizations.28 Beyond these comprehensive changes in the understanding of progress and civilization, the industrial revolution, modernized agriculture, and unparalleled population growth of the nineteenth century all undermined the relevance of traditional social ties and provoked individualization processes. The traditional social order began to dissolve, and the legal, social, cultural, and knowledge systems that had structured people’s lives for many generations rapidly lost meaning. Simultaneously, a small educated middle class formed and grew increasingly important in cultural terms, peasants were liberated, and an industrial workforce emerged, so that society became ever more urban and technological. All of these changes, in conjunction with other fundamental processes of modernization, facilitated not only the movement of ideas but also of people, so that more and more individuals encountered previously foreign peoples and groups. To be sure, many people stayed in place, yet connectedness, mobility, and migration counted among the key novelties of the nineteenth century along with the explosion of knowledge and the media. There had been migration of many

Introduction | 9

sorts before, but it reached new proportions when the system of estates dissolved: while people moved only on a small scale at first, by the middle of the century, there was mass emigration from Europe. At the end of the 1840s, about 250,000 Europeans left for other world regions every year; from 1904 to 1914, it had grown to an average of 1.3 million annually.29 Over the course of the nineteenth century, 55 to 60 million Europeans left the continent either temporarily or permanently—most of them in the direction of North America.30 Between 1840 and 1880, about 15 million Europeans were already drawn to this New World, about 4 million of them Germans. Whether these people emigrated, continued beyond North America, or returned to the German lands, all of them moved between geographical and cultural spaces, becoming enmeshed in new communication networks. This extended already existing trade, scholarly, and missionary relationships and, consequently, also increased the available societal knowledge about other world regions and realms of experience considerably: in Joachim Oltmer’s estimation, emigrants to America alone sent more than 100 million letters to Germany between 1820 and 1914. These were often widely circulated among relatives and acquaintances, reaching a multitude of recipients and possibly sparking or strengthening a general interest in foreign worlds. In some social circles, they may have had a greater impact even than other contemporary media.31 Those who traveled for research purposes also spurred interest in the wider, unknown world. Many of them wrote reports in popular media about their own or other Europeans’ discoveries, sometimes out of an entrepreneurial spirit, and sometimes to make themselves and their trips more important. Thus, they helped to increase ethnological and geographical knowledge, especially. Yet other groups, too, like merchants and missionaries, diplomats and colonial officials, craftsmen, farmers and engineers, emigrants, colonially motivated settlers, and political exiles had come to move about almost everywhere in the world,32 and they all formed specific but also entangled networks of communication. By the end of the eighteenth century, the exchange of books, pamphlets and newspapers, pictures, and other objects of knowledge intensified and extended far beyond limited territories. This exchange fueled contemporaries’ passion for collecting, as well as the founding of the first public museums, which followed upon the royal cabinets of curiosities. Publications, toys, and visual materials, and especially those designed for children, multiplied and were widely disseminated as part of this process.33 Everywhere, new spaces of communication and knowledge production emerged—also for Germans, who began to emigrate into the world well before the 1880s, when the German Empire was preparing to become a colonial power. Recent research has shown how much German territories were connected to the Atlantic world and also to the slave trade; it has revealed the colonial fantasies that inspired Germans before German colonies came into being.34 This research also

10 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

points to worldwide contraction, entanglement, and networking of social interactions affecting broad swaths of the population in the middle of the nineteenth century. These processes accelerated from the 1870s, finally penetrating into everyday life in Germany at the latest during this phase. Foreign goods appeared in German markets, colonial objects and foreign people were included in exhibitions, and, from 1910, new steamships could cross the Atlantic in a week, turning it from an ocean into merely a “great pond.”35 All of these new developments furthered the contraction of spaces and processes of globalization.36 Those who wished to find orientation in an ever larger and encroaching world had to understand this new world better, even if their social relations were limited to the local area. Such orientation was especially important for children, whose lives then as now were largely oriented toward the “future” and shaped by contingency. At the same time, setting oneself apart from “others” seemed just as essential as the question of what differentiated Germans (or also Prussians, Saxons, Bavarians, etc.) or Europeans from others, as well as what united them and could unleash inclusive forces. In the last several years, research has convincingly demonstrated that nationalization and globalization were mutually determining and that many contemporaries saw the world as the next stage of civilizational development in relation to the nation, its historical mission, and its future.37 The defining and dissolving of boundaries should be understood as two sides of the same coin: modern nation-states should also be regarded as products of globalization.38 By undermining traditional patterns of order and perception, globalization advanced the search for the specifics of a nation and also fostered local and regional identification. In the German Empire, this was evident in the boom of the concept of Heimat, or home,39 which was far more important in elementary school curricula than the idea of the nation or even the world.40 This accords with the established research paradigm that nationalism and the dream of empire were primarily middle-class phenomena. Due to their lack of political power, members of the educated middle class, above all, were active in the publishing world and strove to find a national identity; these intellectual elites were the first to reflect colonial visions in their discourse.41 Yet various recent studies on German colonialism and colonial culture in the German Empire suggest that we might have to reassess this view, at least for the period after 1890, and to work out the essence as well as the dynamics of German nationalism more precisely beyond middle-class elites.42 In this context, children and the media produced for them provide a little-­ studied access point to the value of imperial thought and nationalism.43 Two topics should already be indisputable in light of the latest research. First, colonial attitudes and perceptions seeped into German society long before a German colonial policy directed beyond Europe emerged. They seeped in, for instance, through the idea of “Poland,” widely distributed geographical magazines, and new scholarly fields like ethnology.44 Second, it has become clearer that Germany

Introduction | 11

became a nation-state in the middle of a world of empires, so it should no longer be regarded as a delayed nation but rather as a “nationalizing state,” in Brubacker’s words,45 in that the nation was more an aspiration than a reality. The authors of this volume approach this aspiration by concentrating on children—that is, a social group that was particularly exposed to the normative knowledge of textbooks and other state-sponsored media. Yet they can also address the discrepancy between the norms and reality by analyzing non-state media for children from the realms of literature and entertainment. Some of these media may have challenged or undermined the nationalization project as well as the imperial-colonial ambitions of the state and the middle-class elites, while they may have also lent more weight to these projects than the school system and its canon of knowledge could have due precisely to their unauthorized nature.

The History of Children—An Entry Point to Cultural History The tremendous expansion of knowledge of the world and the undeniable influence of globalization forces in the decades before the First World War were not linear developments. These phenomena did not affect all societal fields and social strata to the same extent. In historical scholarship, heightened attention to transnational, transregional, and global dimensions of historical development does occasionally mask counterforces, gaps, and ambivalences within them; for example, whereas whole villages emigrated to new continents in the southern and northern regions of Germany, especially, with Germans becoming the largest group of immigrants in the United States in the early 1880s,46 numerous other village communities carried on in a traditional manner, with the people who lived in them relating their thinking and actions to the spaces that were close to their life worlds. Above all, in villages with a single-room schoolhouse, where the demands of agriculture shaped everyday life and parents at best only read almanacs, the Bible, and hymnals, if they were literate at all, knowledge about a wider world may well have remained rather limited even into the twentieth century. While this insight does not always come to the fore in the media analyzed in this volume, we do take it as a framework and a defining feature of the long nineteenth century that there were regional reworkings, gaps, and delayed developments in basic processes of modernization. From the bird’s eye perspective of an entire century, it is absolutely undeniable that mass literacy and compulsory schooling generated new spaces of knowledge, as well as the educational media related to them. These media then took a key position in the knowledge production of the society, resulting in a clear democratization and secularization of access to world knowledge. To be sure, secular and sacred power were once again allied in the German Empire; biblical allusions were firmly incorporated

12 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

into the scientific curricula, and pastors and priests continued to intervene in the school life of the villages.47 Yet the state elementary school, whose worldview was neutral, at least established itself as a binding model and norm demanded by society, advancing a knowledge system that was becoming more and more secular. However, one of the aforementioned ambivalences of compulsory schooling was that knowledge mediation became institutionalized and standardized. The state school became one of the most important formally legitimized producers and administrators of knowledge, although competing bearers of knowledge like the church, sociopolitical movements, popular mass media, and the emerging entertainment industry should not be forgotten. The state, which made decisions about curricula and the admission of teaching materials, directly and indirectly influenced which stores of knowledge were conveyed to which social groups, and which were not (any longer). In accordance with the structures of school as a space of knowledge production and the textbook as a knowledge medium, the expansion of access to education went along with increasing canonization and standardization, detemporalization, and simplification of knowledge.48 The elementary school—the only relevant school structure for most young Germans— along with the rational explanation of the world it propagated, underscored society’s moral-religious orientation and fostered discipline and a patriotic sensibility.49 Much of this also applies to the German states’ secondary schools in the nineteenth century. Around 1800, the first municipal citizens’ schools (Bürgerschulen/ Realkundliche Schulen) were established; in the mid-nineteenth century, these evolved into the scientific secondary schools (Realgymnasien), an alternative to classics-focused secondary schools (Humanistische Gymnasien), which laid important groundwork for later successes in German science and scholarship. “Like otherwise only in the military field,” Jürgen Osterhammel concludes, “Germany became the inspirer of the world in the field of education.”50 But to what extent did the world conversely inspire German teachers and pupils of this era? What did they experience inside and outside of school about Europe and other continents, and about the history and contemporary characteristics of the people who populated these areas? This volume seeks to address these open questions by using media produced especially for children51 as an access point not only to the knowledge reservoir of the educated but also to the everyday knowledge and discourses of large population groups. Social historians began publishing on the history of children and childhood in the 1960s.52 In the 1980s, under the influence of cultural history, this then became an independent, productive, and broad field of research. However, only in the last two decades have historians outside of the new subdiscipline of childhood and youth studies begun to recognize this extremely important social and cultural group, even though children are relatively “mute” in the classical sources of the discipline.53 As early as 1998, Joseph M. Hawes’s declared that “childhood

Introduction | 13

is where you catch a culture in high relief,”54 suggesting the tremendous potential of historical research into childhood for advanced historical questions: approaching historical processes from the perspective of children and their societies’ respective understanding of childhood and youth can highlight the priorities that those societies set for themselves, which visions of the future they developed, and how both of these changed over various periods and historical caesuras. Two methodological approaches contributed to the establishment of the field and, ultimately, to childhood research becoming an indispensable part of—and a particular analytical lens for—social and cultural history. Initially, research focused on how childhood has been constructed in various contexts and largely analyzed this phase of life as a product of definitions, standardizations, and visions of the adult world. Children’s own spaces of experience and agency played a subordinate role; they were the object of research. A second strand of research examined children as historical subjects, exploring configurations in which children appeared as willful, relatively autonomous actors—relative because this research also recognized age hierarchies and dependency structures and related them to children’s horizons of action.55 The latest research now merges the two, allowing childhood to “emerge” in the historical-dialectical interplay of discourses about children and children’s practices, and their reciprocal impact.56 For example, new studies on the history of leisure and youth organizations investigate not only adult educational concepts and disciplining practices but also intergenerational dynamics and the genesis of independent sociocultural spaces.57 Against this backdrop, our volume views children and youth as the target audience of media. Wherever the state of research and availability of sources make it possible, however, the authors also analyze whether or how adolescents, as active consumers of media-transmitted knowledge, influenced certain media and their structures. This is not equally possible for all of the media due to their specific nature and their entanglement with other factors. Other media and influences complemented or challenged every one of them because children and youth typically did not focus on a particular source but sought out and put together what they found worth knowing from a variety of sources. In other words, youth probably did not separate arenas of knowledge, such as literature, school, and mass culture, in their everyday lives nearly as much as adults or scholars did. It is likely that they were more tightly connected than other societal groups in an entanglement of competing and converging discourses and shaped by actors pursuing economic and political interests alongside pedagogical and educational ones. This entanglement began when modern mass media emerged beginning around 1850 and coincided with German society’s growing obsession with youth. Media addressed primarily or also to children58 offer an especially promising access point for a variety of research questions, such as when and how colonial discourse began to shape everyday culture, to what extent the archives of societal knowledge formed largely in the eighteenth century were changed by this

14 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

and other discourses, and how, in this context, knowledge, on the one hand, and entertainment, culture, and commerce, on the other, interacted. Children always stand in a dependent relationship to adults, so their autonomy is (and always has been) limited. Yet abundant evidence suggests that children influenced the formats and contents of media with their individual ways of adapting to the world and their expectations, thus—as, for instance, the contributions by Hamlin, and O’Sullivan in this volume indicate—also taking part in societal knowledge production. It stands to reason that historians can no longer understand children as passive recipients of media contents and as objects in their research but rather must take them seriously as willful actors, cultural translators, and producers of knowledge.

Changing Media Transmitting the World to German Children The Enlightenment generated many new media and spaces for interacting and sharing information about the world. This well-documented process went far beyond the larger urban centers.59 Communal reading in families and in the semi-public reading groups and clubs also became widespread.60 It was in these contexts that an oft-described transition in reading habits occurred. Whereas people had previously engaged in close, intensive, and repetitive reading of a few, mostly religious, books, they began to read extensively from constantly new and changing materials. This cultural shift, which started around 1850, promoted exposure to new worlds and ideas, and often made such exposure possible at all. Latin texts rapidly declined in importance while the number of secular and German-language publications exploded. Between 1800 and 1846, nearly 300,000 books were listed in book exhibitions; between 1856 and 1900, this number more than doubled (661,700), whereas 416,500 books were produced in the short span from 1900 to 1914.61 At the same time, the kinds of publications multiplied. From the end of the eighteenth century, in addition to educational Enlightenment literature, encyclopedias, and older religious and popular prints, there were reports about scientific discoveries, geographical treatises and philosophical tracts, travelogues, fiction and prose, new sorts of texts on religious edification and education, biographical works, and often historical or naturalist treatises for home and school. Increasingly, many such works were also translated from other languages. In addition, a special literature for children and youth emerged. In the mid-­ nineteenth century, both textbooks for schools as well as popular magazines and family newspapers, like the especially successful Westermanns Monatshefte and the Gartenlaube,62 which published a special edition for children between the ages of seven and fifteen from January 1886 to December 1891, became more important, and around 1900 the market for illustrated magazines, dime-store

Introduction | 15

novels, and pulp magazines finally took off. Much-maligned as “trash and pulp literature,” these genres tended to address young people, much like the rising film industry in the late German Empire. As a result, adults reflected on them with skepticism, unease, and also harsh criticism.63 We know a great deal about these and other changes in the media market from research into early book and reading history, from the history of literature with its subdiscipline of children’s and youth literature, as well as from the more recent field of media history. We know considerably less, however, about the use of media outside of the upwardly mobile middle class, which has been a primary focus of scholarship on this era. Supplemental studies on the working class only appeared at the height of social history research in the 1970s and 1980s,64 so the reading habits of the rural population or the lower middle class have hardly been analyzed in depth.65 For the pre-Wilhelmine period, it is still difficult to assess which media were actually broadly consumed. Although studies in media history try to examine practices of adaptation, interpretation, and transformation of media contents for the eighteenth and nineteenth century as well, there are still high methodological hurdles and a dearth of reliable sources. When reading the contributions in this volume, which address central aspects of media transformation in the long nineteenth century, one must keep in mind that there were larger and smaller gaps between the norm of literacy—established in the late eighteenth century—and its practice, even among the nobility and the burghers of German towns. In the first half of the nineteenth century, members of the urban middle classes seldom inherited any books other than Bibles, hymnals, and prayer books.66 In and of themselves, however, such findings do not allow for exact conclusions about literacy rates because private book purchases and subscriptions to magazines were not widespread practices well into the early imperial period, even among the middle classes. The things Germans read mostly came from a rapidly expanding network of urban private lending libraries, and later also the adult education, workers’, and union libraries,67 which successfully competed with church libraries and those of other religious institutions.68 After 1880, when many publications became far cheaper and book production veritably exploded,69 the German Bürgertum and other parts of the middle classes also began to enjoy home libraries.70 Nonetheless, the number of borrowed books continued to increase, indicating that the circle of readers expanded once again near the end of the nineteenth century—particularly among young skilled ­laborers and workers.71 At this time, Germans were already witnessing and participating in another media revolution that was closely tied to the development of a consumer society72 and thus affected the everyday lives of broad swaths of the population.73 Two developments are particularly worth mentioning for understanding the contributions to this volume: First, new technologies helped to lower the costs of both existing publication formats and the establishment of new ones, which fostered the development of mass media. Second, the lower costs

16 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

enabled previously marginal groups to become consumers of these media—such as the lower classes, women, and youth74; the rise of trading cards for different classes and age groups is just one telling example. Since media supply also reflects consumer demand, both media producers and media consumers influenced societal discourses, though in different ways. Accordingly, the agency of the “masses” objectively increased when the mass media market emerged. Just how much these groups could influence media and discourses depended largely on the genre and the extent to which that genre’s market could address them as consumers. In the case of textbooks, for example, the influence of the primary users was quite limited.75 Although textbooks became a mass medium— perhaps the first mass medium ever, because hardly anyone could get around them once general compulsory schooling had been implemented—the authorities largely determined what they contained. To be sure, authors and teachers’ interest groups were occasionally able to articulate their own ideas of relevant knowledge and educational formats for presenting the material,76 and textbook authors had some freedom in selecting information and writing texts. Yet publishers who wished to survive in the expanding textbook market had to gain or keep the support of education-savvy parents, teachers, schools, and teacher seminars as buyers, so they still had to orient themselves toward state frameworks and expectations, as defined in curricular and examination requirements, and toward the approval processes for educational materials. Consequently, textbooks primarily represent the knowledge that states and societies—depending on their political system—categorized as relevant to their present and future, knowledge that they wished to pass on to the next generation and thus inscribe in the society’s cultural memory. Textbooks may well have been the only secular publications available at all to many children in nineteenth-century Germany. Nevertheless, despite their salience, children’s images of the world were shaped by many different media. There were religious writings and songbooks that parents owned, as well as literature targeting children’s needs and potential, as well as the educational aims of adults. Over the course of the century, such literature became more differentiated and widespread, yet most works, especially those that appeared before 1880, were of such high quality in terms of their format, typography, illustrations, binding, and paper stock that they could hardly reach the “masses.” A large share of the literature listed in the classic handbooks of research on children’s and youth literature was published for children of “the educated classes” and mostly read by them. Although some works around 1800 targeted “the youth of all classes” or “children of the rural population” and wished to reach a wide segment of the populace, these were exceptions and, in most cases, unsuccessful. Brockhaus’s Pfennig-Magazin für Kinder (Penny Magazine for Children), founded in 1834, with reports from faraway lands and treatises on their history and nature, was one successful example. Children’s and juvenile literature could only be characterized

Introduction | 17

as “popular” after the first third of the nineteenth century, when less wealthy families could also access it via public libraries and ever cheaper editions. Textbooks differed from popular reading materials not only in terms of their social reach but also in their basic formats and the context of their reception. Textbooks prepared knowledge intentionally and largely in nonfictional forms, unless they were reading anthologies and religious books. In children’s and juvenile literature, by contrast, fictional texts prevailed, although nature and geographical nonfiction also developed as genres, beginning in the Enlightenment.77 As the developmental psychology of the time discovered special characteristics of each age and gender, such literature was generated in relation to these: it was supposed to appeal to children’s curiosity and imagination by being very visual, animating them to continuously expand their knowledge in an entertaining and exciting manner.78 Some publishers used special features of children’s adaptation to the world as a “detour” for introducing new information and entertainment media for educated adults, as well. For example, Friedrich J. Bertuch literally illustrated knowledge about foreign peoples and natural spaces, as well as reports on the latest inventions and discoveries, in his encyclopedically designed Bilderbuch für Kinder (Picture Book for Children); the 237 individual issues published between 1790 and 1839 contained about 6,000 etchings. Silvy Chakkalakal interprets Bertuch’s picture book as both reflecting and prompting an ever more scientific mode of observing the world: being connected to children gave such pictures and visualizations positive connotations so that they could also be woven into adults’ everyday lives.79 In an era when the boundaries between science, the public, and education were essentially fluid, children’s literature apparently functioned as a laboratory for communicating knowledge in society, and in middle-class families especially; knowledge about foreign and exotic peoples and places played an important role in this. Textbooks remained a part of this development as long as they were designed more for use at home or in private lessons; illustrations were too expensive to be used extensively in school textbooks for mass use. Nevertheless, many textbook authors worked hard to make their texts current and grounded in science.80 As a result, the distinctions between children’s and juvenile literature and textbooks for children only arose around 1850. Textbooks represent state-formed stores of knowledge that children were obliged to encounter in didactically structured spaces and collective settings. Children’s and juvenile literatures, by contrast, stand for popular, often aesthetically structured knowledge presented to children in an entertaining way, which they consumed individually in private spaces. Children’s and juvenile literature was implicitly rather than explicitly educational; it was not nearly as bound in its nature and had a different claim to truth than the obligatory information in textbooks. In the early nineteenth century, the two functions tended to be more blended, as we will see especially in the

18 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

contributions by Kirsten Belgum, Matthew Anderson, and Miriam Schneider, which focus on works that aimed to educate and entertain simultaneously. From the Enlightenment, children had come ever more into focus as bearers of knowledge who should be shaped early on, so it was only natural that the stores of knowledge children had easy access to were increasingly controlled, and that pedagogues as well as politicians and other actors generated reading materials to shape the views of the youth. The House of Hohenzollern, as Schneider shows in this volume, for instance, tried to forge an affective bond between children and the ruling family by means of a refined literary propaganda comprised of adventure novels in which princes played an important role. Anderson highlights a pedagogue’s clever use of travel anthologies to excite his pupils about the wider world beyond the classroom, and Belgum explores how an educational reformer utilized a highly popular story from England to spur pupils to study foreign languages while educating them on how best to behave right at home. Religious communities, too, used literature for persuasion, as Stornig’s analysis of special missionary literature for children shows. Yet perhaps even more, it was “street vendors … cigarette and convenience stores, kiosks at train stations and elsewhere”81 where children of all classes encountered dime-store novels and trading cards. The latter became an object of knowledge transmission that cut across generations and, thanks to their aesthetic form and strict categorization of image motifs, sparked a passion for collecting among young and old, as Judith Blume demonstrates in her article. Age differences were also blurred when it came to adventure tales about Winnetou and Old Shatterhand, Kara Ben Nemsi and Hadschi Halef Omar. Karl May’s imaginations of distant worlds had been sold more than 1.6 million times by 1913.82 Since dime-store novels were widespread among lower-class families, adolescents in these homes could easily access and read them frequently, just as working-class children could with their parents’ Social Democratic brochures and newspapers,83 although there were certainly regional and confessional differences.84 Along with changing media access, ideas about truth, validity, and authenticity changed as well.85 Katharina Stornig shows how missionary orders endeavored to generate knowledge especially for European children to persuade them to support missionary work. After that, they increasingly faced competition from other media and actors who claimed a particularly high degree of authenticity, including ethnological exhibitions,86 colonial exhibitions, and, finally, ethnological museums. The ethnological exhibitions initially showcased exotic objects in a relatively unordered way, but the ethnological museums gradually developed into spaces of systematically ordered knowledge and, in some cases, also into institutions with an educational aim. We should not overestimate the value of museums as knowledge mediators for broad swaths of the population because they were largely middle-class places in the nineteenth century. Yet it was precisely the events and activities that

Introduction | 19

popularized colonial claims and cultures that fostered the democratization of exhibitions of the most varied kinds and allowed them to become a part of mass culture—not least on account of school excursions.87 No doubt, children were especially drawn to everything that was foreign and exotic in these venues because such things appealed to their imaginative powers and emotional responses more than textbooks did. Stories about Indians, above all, were extremely successful in Germany, as H.  Glenn Penny demonstrates in his contribution. In such popular uses of the exotic, knowledge was generated by means of entertainment and excitement—and not only in the metropolises. For example, as Wolfgang Fuhrmann researched, the restaurant and business owner Carl Müller presented the residents of the Thuringian royal seat of Altenburg with a collection of exotic products and ethnographic objects from the African colonies. At first he displayed them in his shop windows, but from 1905 they were exhibited in a small colonial museum that he regularly invited school classes to visit. Müller, one of the early protagonists of colonial film and thus of visual culture, who knew how to combine colonial enthusiasm efficiently with business interests, also made his restaurant a site of entertainment and education.88 The so-called human zoos or ethnological exhibitions, first organized by Carl Hagenbeck in 1874, also claimed to entertain and to educate to the same degree.89 They presented people from foreign ­cultures—from Scandinavia and America to the overseas colonies— along with their supposed everyday practices. Although these exhibitions were certainly orchestrated events largely staged in zoological gardens—that is, sites of natural science education—the organizers often managed to evoke an impression of particular authenticity and, thus, to cast themselves as trustworthy purveyors of knowledge, as suggested by the high number of visitors. Many of those in attendance were members of the local middle class who were keen on education. Similar touring exhibitions were also very well attended.90 This blending of scientific practice and popular knowledge gave media entrepreneurs and experts of the most various kinds an attractive opportunity to present their own knowledge to the “average man” or child. Media success then dictated the standards of acceptable knowledge. Geographers and producers of atlases from the 1870s, for example, could no longer lag behind Stieler’s Hand-Atlas (handy world atlas), which August Petermann had revised for the Perthes publishing house. And Arnold Hirt managed to further develop woodcuts, which his father Ferdinand Hirt had encouraged, to such an extent that works of the publishing house Ferdinand Hirt & Sohn, such as F. Hirts Bilderschatz zur Länder- und Völkerkunde (F. Hirt’s Treasury of Images on Geography and Ethnology), decisively shaped visual representations in general, influencing the motifs on trading cards, for example. These examples, along with several of the contributions collected in this volume, make clear just how much concepts and perceptions of what was authentic and

20 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

reliable, and, thus, also of what was considered knowledge, changed depending on the respective historical contexts.

Structure of the Book In an effort to do justice to the various types of media and knowledge of the world children encountered, the volume is divided into three sections arranged by typologies of knowledge, followed by a concluding chapter that addresses the relationship between the contributions and the currently expanding field of the history of knowledge, including intriguing questions for further research. Whereas this introduction has highlighted some of the important research into the history of childhood, the nation, empire, and the world in German history prior to 1918, and of children’s media that inform our perspective, it has not thoroughly addressed the connections to the history of knowledge because this relatively new field, which provides an opportunity to connect the other fields with one another more than has previously been done, requires a more in-depth and programmatic discussion. Nonetheless, it is our interest in the history of knowledge that forged the three typologies: official knowledge, literary knowledge, and knowledge in entertainment. To be sure, the distinctions among the various types of knowledge are rather fluid, and were even more so in the (early) nineteenth century, before widespread state-sponsored schooling emerged. While many of the contributions could easily fit into more than one category, the categorization should provide a basic orientation. The first part, “Official Knowledge,” looks primarily at media created by educators and pedagogues in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, before state schooling had commenced (Belgum on Campe, and Anderson on Dielitz’s travel anthologies), and then later, at the knowledge propagated in textbooks created for the emerging school system (Schleicher on French-language textbooks in Germany, Weiß on the portrayal of war in German textbooks, and Fiedler on Germany’s image of Japan in textbooks). As varied as these media were, they all conveyed knowledge from the top-down in a sense. The second section on “Literary Knowledge” then takes up the analysis of various kinds of literature and literary spaces. More than textbooks, but like the more literary endeavors of the pedagogues Campe and Dielitz of the first section, literature, and especially novels, appealed to readers because of their entertainment value and the emotional identification they enabled with their characters. The section begins with literature that was still quite closely connected to state actors and mediated a state-sanctioned and -desired view of the world designed to bind readers emotionally to the state (Schneider on royal travel fiction featuring Prince Heinrich of Prussia). Popular literature was driven to some extent

Introduction | 21

by consumers, so it can reflect more than state-driven media also the images consumers held and wished to maintain about people from other cultures, that is “Others” (Penny on images of Indians in German novels). Missionary literature, too, contributed to this “Othering” by reinforcing hierarchical worldviews, even while it, like other literature, encouraged emotional identification (Stornig on missionary literature). The third section then moves even further away from state-sponsored activity, dealing primarily with entertaining forms of transmitting knowledge beyond popular literature, specifically games (O’Sullivan), trading cards (Blume), and toys (Hamlin). Like popular literature, these media had a strong commercial component and could, thus, be more influenced by the consumers, in these cases most especially children. These contributions highlight ways that knowledge had to be adapted to fit the media’s formats and also show that children, in playing with the toys, cards, and games, creatively appropriated the knowledge in their own ways, which gave them some “agency” over the knowledge. This section also illustrates the breadth of media forms through which the wider world entered Germany and became part of the world of German children. The articles juxtaposed here together demonstrate the variety of media for children, and sometimes how children acquired or reinterpreted the information or knowledge they obtained from them. Nevertheless, there are clear differences between the sections: whereas “official” knowledge allowed for far fewer interpretations, entertainment media thrived precisely on the abundance of different interpretations. This collection is a first step toward a more comprehensive mapping of the discursively produced world(s) for children and adolescents in the various phases of the long nineteenth century—almost all the media that were important for children prior to World War I beyond the family and the church are addressed. Yet it is only a first step in that the findings, for the most part, are merely juxtaposed. Perhaps it will be inspiring and will ultimately lead to several of these media being integrated into the same investigative approach and analyzed in terms of their entanglements with one another—within a history of knowledge. Simone Lässig is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Braunschweig. From 2006 to 2015 she served as director of the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research. She is on leave from both positions since she was appointed the director of the German Historical Institute in Washington, where she has made digital history, the history of knowledge, and the history of migration foci of research. In her current research projects she focuses on Jewish history, religion and religiosity, and family and kinship. Among her numerous publications is the award-winning book Jüdische Wege ins Bürgertum: Kulturelles Kapital und sozialer Aufstieg im 19. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 2004).

22 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

Andreas Weiß is currently an assistant professor of history at Helmut-SchmidtUniversität – Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg. He studied modern and contemporary history, sociology, and Southeast Asian studies at Humboldt University, Berlin, and the Universidad de Cantrabria, Santander, Spain. His dissertation Asiaten in Europa: Begegnungen zwischen Asiaten und Europäern (Schöningh, 2016) is on a transnational topic, comparing debates on modernity and decadence between Asians and Europeans in turn-of-the-century Great Britain and the German Empire. His recent research focuses on connections between the European and the non-European world, exploring how these shaped European representations and knowledge of that world since the nineteenth century, as well as on European institutions during the Cold War, especially in exchange with Southeast Asia.

Notes This chapter was written in German and translated by Patricia C. Sutcliffe, who also translated all quoted material originally in German.   1. Throughout this book, as in this instance, the German term Lehrbuch will be rendered as “textbook,” although books for school curricula rather than university studies are meant.  2. Widmann, Dr. Johannes Bumüllers Lehrbuch der Weltgeschichte (1897), 716–17. Ulrich von Hutten (1488–1523) was a German scholar in the Reformation era who became a follower of Martin Luther and a critic of the Roman Catholic Church.   3. Gall and Schulz, eds., Wissenskommunikation.   4. Mosse, “Jewish Emancipation: Between ‘Bildung’ and Respectability.”  5. Mosse, “The Meaning of Bildung”; Hettling and Hoffmann, Der bürgerliche Wertehimmel; Lässig, Jüdische Wege.  6. Confino, Nation as Local Metaphor; Green, Fatherlands; Dickinson, “German Empire.”  7. Lüsebrink, Das Europa der Aufklärung.  8. Lorenz, Lehrbuch der Geschichte für Mittelschulen (1902), 320–21.   9. Anne Kwaschik’s new study, Der Griff nach dem Weltwissen (2018), looks specifically at knowledge practices from the late nineteenth century through the Cold War to scrutinize just such processes of categorizing and containing knowledge from outside the Western European world, as well as the colonial and area studies that emerged from these. 10. For a collection of studies on the processes of canonization in children’s literature, in particular, in various periods and countries, see Kümmerling-Meibauer and Müller, eds., Canon Constitution and Canon Change. 11. Osterhammel, “Transnationale Gesellschaftsgeschichte,” 475. 12. Green, Fatherlands. 13. An early basic study on the history of the concept adolescence is Kett, Rites of Passage. See also Mitterauer, Sozialgeschichte der Jugend; Alexander, Guiding Modern Girls; Boucher, Empire’s Children. 14. Hawes and Hiner, “Hidden in Plain View”; Cunningham, Children and Childhood; Stearns, Childhood in World History.

Introduction | 23

15. The exact values were 10.88 percent under fourteen and 15.9 percent under twenty. https://de.statista. com/statistik/daten/studie/1365/umfrage/bevoelkerung-deutschlands-nach-altersgruppen/ 16. In 1911, four-fifths of the society was younger than forty-five years of age; see Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte: 1800–1866, 110; idem, Deutsche Geschichte 1866–1918, 30–31; Hohorst et al., Sozialgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch, 24; Blackbourn, Long Nineteenth Century, 265. 17. Savage, Teenage; Roseman, Generations in Conflict; Reulecke, Männerbünde; Kerbs and Reulecke, Handbuch der deutschen Reformbewegungen; Koebner, Janz, and Trommler, Der Mythos Jugend. 18. Chakkalakal, Die Welt in Bildern, 10. 19. Schulz, “Der ‘Gang der Natur’ und die ‘Perfektibilität’ des Menschen,” 18–19; Wolff, “Childhood and the Enlightenment.” 20. For example, Prussian regulations called for teachers and textbook makers to present the material in such a way that children would find it interesting and take it in. National history, e.g., was not supposed to be taught as a mere listing of facts and figures but, rather, was supposed to appeal to pupils and “grab” their emotional side with narration, songs, and poetry. See Gernert, Schulvorschriften, xxviii–xxix, 23; Kennedy, “Singing about Soldiers.” 21. See Smuts, Science and the Service of Children; von Oertzen, “Science in the Cradle”; Schumann, Raising Citizens; Fass, End of American Childhood, esp. 86–126. 22. Whaley, “Ideal of Youth”, 47–68; Gillis, Youth and History. 23. Roseman, “Introduction,” in Roseman, Generations in Conflict, 9–11, 13. 24. For middle-class and bourgeois families, see Budde, Auf dem Weg ins Bürgerleben. 25. Engelsing, Analphabetentum und Lektüre, 105. 26. The selection of appropriate educational methods and instructional media was supposed to prioritize the “nature” of the child; the pedagogy was to utilize rather than repress the children’s imagination and adventurous spirit. 27. The role the educated middle class played in shaping the propagation of nationalism was long considered a German particularity. Cf. Friedrichsmeyer, Lennox, and Zantop, The Imperialist Imagination, 19. 28. Kirchhoff, Schulgeographie (1882), 28. 29. Oltmer, Globale Migration, 47; Hoerder, Cultures in Contact; Curtin, Death by Migration; Moch, Moving Europeans; Collinson, Europe and International Migration; Hochstadt, Mobility and Modernity; Fitzpatrick, Purging the Empire; Geddes, The Politics of Migration. 30. Oltmer, Globale Migration, 17. 31. Ibid., 22.; Helbich, Kamphoefner, and Sommer, News from the Land of Freedom; Helbich and Kamphoefner, Germans in the Civil War; Borges and Cancian, “Reconsidering the Migrant Letter”; Lyons, Writing Culture; Lehmkuhl, “Heirat und Migration in Auswandererbriefen”; Rößler, “Massenexodus,” 151–52, emphasizes how important these letters were, particularly to the lower classes, as they did not yet have many printed works at their disposal. Examples of other media include emigration guidebooks, travel and adventure literature, picture-filled advertising posters for emigration agencies, etc.; Zahra, Great Departure. 32. Blackbourn, “Germany and the Birth of the Modern World.” 33. See Brunken et al., Handbuch: Von 1800 bis 1850; Brunken et al., Handbuch: Von 1850 bis 1900; Eckhardt, “Imperialismus und Kaiserreich”; see also the relevant chapter in Schikorsky, Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. Wangering and Seifert, Der rote Wunderschirm, provides a clear overview of the various genres. 34. Zantop analyzed fiction and nonfiction texts from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in search of latent colonialism, colonial fantasies, and images. She found that the colonial project had already begun for educated readers as an armchair fantasy at that point, emerging in the imaginative world of print; Zantop, Colonial Fantasies. 35. This metaphor is used, for example, in a textbook for secondary schools: Schönborn, Geschichte für Mittelschulen (1911), 67.

24 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

36. Oltmer, Globale Migration, 14; Conrad, Globalisierung und Nation; Dickinson, “German Empire.” 37. Conrad, Globalisierung und Nation. 38. On the interactions between globalization and nationalism, see, e.g., Bayly, Birth of the Modern World, esp. 199–243. 39. On the connection between globalization and localization, see Middell and Naumann, “Global History and the Spatial Turn”; on the boom of the Heimat concept, see Confino, “Nation as a Local Metaphor”; idem, Nation as a Local Metaphor; Applegate, Nation of Provincials; Blackbourn and Retallack, Localism; Boa and Palfreyman, Heimat; on the highlighting of the local to promote national identity in school readers for children, see Kennedy, “Visual Representations and National Identity.” 40. Gernert, Schulvorschriften. 41. Zantop, Colonial Fantasies. 42. Dickinson, “German Empire,” 129, even regards an “imperial revision of German history” as vital. In slight contradiction to this thesis of a special path for Germany, see the two essays by Naranch and Eley in their edited book German Colonialism in a Global Age, 1–44. 43. In addition to the abovementioned works, there are also studies by Hans-Heino Ewers: “Kinderund Jugendliteratur von der Gründerzeit bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg”; “Kindheit und Jugend in eiserner Zeit”; O’Sullivan, “Picturing the World for Children.” 44. Ther, “Deutsche Geschichte als imperiale Geschichte.” However, things looks quite different in the various disciplines that are generally associated with modern imperialism (medicine, anthropology, ethnology)—and colonial stereotypes do not necessarily mean that colonial attitudes were adopted; on this, see also Weiß, Asiaten in Europa. 45. Smith, “Introduction,” 8. 46. After the American Civil War, Germans comprised the largest immigrant group until the early twentieth century; almost 90 percent of Germans who left the empire emigrated to the United States; see Heideking, Geschichte der USA, 200–201. 47. Hammerstein, “Elementarschulen”; and Wolbring, “Weltorientierung durch Schulwissen.” 48. Gall and Schulz, Wissenskommunikation, especially Wolbring (see preceding note). 49. It is interesting to note that in the relevant sources (decrees, school regulations, curricula, textbooks), the term “national sensibility” seldom occurred until the First World War; vaterländisch education and Heimat were used instead. Klöcker and Apel, Schulwirklichkeit in Rheinpreußen; Meissner, Die Nationalisierung der Volksschule; Jacobmeyer, Das deutsche Schulgeschichtsbuch; Berg, Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte. 50. Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt, 1132. 51. There is already a variety of special studies on the history of literature and education available on this. 52. Ariès, Centuries of Childhood. 53. Fass, Children of a New World, 2–3, offers an outstanding overview of the history of research on this. See also the review essay: Field, “Why Little Thinkers Are a Big Deal.” 54. Quoted in Russakoff, “On Campus, It’s the Children’s Hour,” Washington Post, November 13, 1998. 55. Maynes, “Age as a Category”; Gleason, “Avoiding the Agency Trap.” 56. The range of topics extends from “children” and “youth” as transnational social formations to intercultural translation efforts of children and their ability to make their way into foreign spaces as “soft colonizers.” Zahra, Lost Children; Boucher, Empire’s Children; Pomfret, Youth and Empire. 57. Other research contexts in which the social and political relevance of children as historical subjects has been addressed include studies on international relations, political participation, historical delinquency, and war experiences. Mobility studies, too, have begun to determine

Introduction | 25

the role that children and adolescents play in the initiation, management, and handling of migration processes. Honeck and Rosenberg, “Transnational Generations”; Fieldston, Raising the World; DeSchweinitz, “Waked Up to Feel”; Grinspan, Virgin Vote; Norwig, Die erste Europäische Generation; Eckelmann, “Freedom’s Little Lights” (forthcoming); Fass, Damned and the Beautiful; Kurme, Halbstarke; Mackert, Jugenddeliquenz; Kalb, Coming of Age; Chatelain, South Side Girls; Marten, Children and War; Stargardt, Witnesses of War; Kucherenko, Little Soldiers; Honeck and Marten, More than Victims; Chinn, Inventing Modern Adolescence; Knörr, Childhood and Migration; Jorae, Children of Chinatown; Fass, Outside In; Jobs and Pomfret, Transnational Histories of Youth. 58. “Specific children’s and juvenile literature” refers to publications written for the younger generation only, and “intentional children’s and juvenile literature” to publications intended for children and adults. 59. See, for example, the international project Mapping the Republic of Letters, http://republicofletters.stanford.edu/. 60. Engelsing, Der Bürger als Leser; idem, “Die Perioden der Lesergeschichte in der Neuzeit.” On Jewish efforts at education and reading groups, see Lässig, Jüdische Wege. 61. Engelsing, Der Bürger als Leser, 117. 62. Belgum, Popularizing the Nation. 63. Maase, Die Kinder der Massenkultur; regarding popular literature, pulp fiction, and youth culture, see also Ritzheimer, Trash, Censorship, and National Identity. For a broader perspective, see Springhall, Youth, Popular Culture and Moral Panic. 64. Jefferies, Imperial Culture in Germany; Reuveni, Reading Germany; Ross, Media and the Making of Modern Germany; Fullerton, Foundations of Marketing Practice. For the working classes, see Abrams, Workers’ Culture in Imperial Germany; Lidtke, Alternative Culture. 65. Even Jost Schneider does not devote attention to farmers in the nineteenth century and only a short section to workers; see Schneider, Sozialgeschichte des Lesens. 66. Pöggeler, “Printmedien im Kinder- und Jugendleben,” 117; Bayer, Minderheit im städtischen Raum. 67. Engelsing, Analphabetentum und Lektüre, 125; Martino, Die deutsche Leihbibliothek; Langewiesche, Zur Freizeit des Arbeiters. 68. Engelsing, Analphabetentum und Lektüre, 142. 69. In the five decades after 1856, about four times as many publications appeared as in the four decades after 1800. Engelsing, Analphabetentum und Lektüre, 117; Jacobmeyer, Das deutsche Schulgeschichtsbuch. 70. Engelsing, Analphabetentum und Lektüre, 136. 71. Rolf Engelsing gathered comprehensive data for Bremen, showing that the number of people who borrowed publications increased tenfold between the founding of the empire and the First World War. The specific breakdown of the readership by likely age, class, and gender is very instructive. See Engelsing, Analphabetentum und Lektüre, 145. 72. Haupt and Torp, Die Konsumgesellschaft in Deutschland. 73. Maase, “Massenmedien und Konsumgesellschaft.” 74. For a later period (1917–1950), see Cook, Commodification of Childhood. 75. When “consumers” could be addressed at all, they were the teachers and those who represented their interests. Nonetheless, one aim was to provide interesting lessons for pupils, so pupils, too, had a minimal influence in this respect; see also Bowersox, “Classroom Colonialism”; Meissner, Die Nationalisierung der Volksschule. 76. E.g., Bowersox, Raising Germans in the Age of Empire, chap. 2 (54–80). 77. Rutschmann, “‘Der Schweizerische Robinson.’” 78. The tensions between literature for education and edification and for entertainment have continued to the present day. Hans-Heino Ewers, an influential figure in the history of

26 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

children’s l­iterature in Germany, pursues precisely such tensions in his collection of essays about West  German children’s literature since the 1970s: Ewers, Literaturanspruch und Unterhaltungsabsicht. 79. Chakkalakal, Die Welt in Bildern, 10. On pictures as a knowledge medium, see also Stafford, Artful Science; as well as te Heesen, Der Weltkasten. 80. Whereas Basedow primarily presented the world that adults were likely familiar with to children in his philanthropic-encyclopedic primer, Bertuch illustrated what was still unknown to many parents. Chakkalakal, Die Welt in Bildern, 8. 81. Jäger, “Medien,” 491; on this, see also Maase, Die Kinder der Massenkultur. 82. Jäger, “Medien,” 488. 83. See Graf, “Literarisierung und Kolportageroman,” 284. On pulp fiction and the social distribution of media in general, see Jäger, “Medien.” 84. Maase and Kaschuba, Schund und Schönheit, 89; Hölzl, “Arrested Circulation.” 85. Geppert, Jensen, and Weinhold, eds., Ortsgespräche. According to this study, innovations in media technology and the increasing dynamism of society from the late nineteenth century led to a fundamental structural shift in communication and a change in the concept of reality (10); see also Honold, “Pfadfinder,” in the same volume; Fuhrmann, Imperial Projections; Wolter, Vermarktung des Fremden. 86. Laukötter, “Das Völkerkundemuseum”; Penny, Objects of Culture; Kundrus, Moderne Imperialisten; Zimmerman, “Science and Schaulust”; idem, Anthropology and Antihumanism. 87. Geppert, Fleeting Cities. An interesting work on the later period is Hahnemann, Texturen des Globalen. 88. Müller organized special performances for children, showed short educational films, and combined films and presentations with fairy tale films. In addition, he drew other filmmakers to his hometown—they showed the Altenburg public British and French productions (Fuhrmann: “They were integrated into an educational programme whose quality was generally not questioned,” 56). Fuhrmann, Imperial Projections, 55. 89. Dreesbach, Gezähmte Wilde; Thode-Arora, Für fünfzig Pfennig um die Welt; Ames, Carl Hagenbeck’s Empire of Entertainments; Debusmann and Riesz, Kolonialausstellungen. 90. Wolter, Vermarktung des Fremden. Nonetheless, an oft-repeated criticism was that visitors only came out of a “desire for sensation” and would not adopt the knowledge that was intended to be transmitted; see Geppert, Fleeting Cities.

Bibliography Primary Sources Kirchhoff, Alfred. Schulgeographie. Halle a. S.: Waisenhaus, 1882. Lorenz, Karl. Lehrbuch der Geschichte für Mittelschulen. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1904. Schönborn, Heinrich. Geschichte für Mittelschulen: Erstes Heft: Bilder aus der vaterländischen Geschichte. 4 vols. Leipzig: Teubner, 1911. Widmann, Simon. Dr. Johannes Bumüllers Lehrbuch der Weltgeschichte: Dritte Periode. Zeitalter der Kämpfe um bürgerliche und nationale Freiheit sowie um die Gesellschaftsordnung (1789 bis jetzt). 7th ed. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1897.

Introduction | 27

Secondary Sources Abrams, Lynn. Workers’ Culture in Imperial Germany: Leisure and Recreation in the Rhineland and Westphalia. London: Routledge, 1992. Alexander, Kristine. Guiding Modern Girls: Girlhood, Empire, and Internationalism in the 1920s and 1930s. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017. Ames, Eric. Carl Hagenbeck’s Empire of Entertainments. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008. Apel, Hans-Jürgen, and Michael Klöcker. Schulwirklichkeit in Rheinpreussen: Analysen und neue Dokumente zur Modernisierung des Bildungswesens in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Cologne: Böhlau, 1986. Applegate, Celia. A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. Ariès, Philippe. Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. Trans. Robert Baldick. New York: Vintage Books, 1962. Bayer, Tilde. Minderheit im städtischen Raum: Sozialgeschichte der Juden in Mannheim während der 1. Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: Jan Thorbecke, 2001. Bayly, Christopher A. The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. Belgum, Kirsten. Popularizing the Nation: Audience, Representation, and the Production of Identity in Die Gartenlaube, 1853–1900. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. Berg, Christa, ed. Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte. 5 vols. Munich: Beck, 1987– 2005. Blackbourn, David. The Long Nineteenth Century: History of Germany 1780–1918. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003. ———. “Germany and the Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1820.” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute 51 (Fall 2012): 9–21. Blackbourn, David, and James Retallack, eds. Localism, Landscape, and the Ambiguities of Place: German-Speaking Central Europe, 1860–1930. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Boa, Elizabeth, and Rachel Palfreyman. Heimat—A German Dream: Regional Loyalties and National Identity in German Culture, 1890–1990. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Borges, Marcelo J., and Sonia Cancian. “Reconsidering the Migrant Letter: From the Experience of Migrant to the Language of Migrants.” History of the Family 21, no. 3 (2016): 281–90. Boucher, Ellen. Empire’s Children: Child Emigration, Welfare and the Decline of the British World, 1869–1967. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Bowersox, Jeff. Raising Germans in the Age of Empire: Youth and Colonial Culture, 1871–1914. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. ———. “Classroom Colonialism: Race, Pedagogy and Patriotism in Imperial Germany.” In German Colonialism in a Global Age, edited by Bradley Naranch and Geoff Eley, 170–86. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Brunken, Otto, Bettina Hurrelmann, Maria Michels-Kohlhage, and Gisela Wilkending. Handbuch zur Kinder- und Jugendliteratur: Von 1850 bis 1900. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2008. Brunken, Otto, Bettina Hurrelmann, and Klaus-Ulrich Pech. Handbuch zur Kinder- und Jugendliteratur: Von 1800 bis 1850. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1998.

28 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

Budde, Gunilla-Friederike. Auf dem Weg ins Bürgerleben: Kindheit und Erziehung in deutschen und englischen Bürgerfamilien 1840–1914. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994. Chakkalakal, Silvy. Die Welt in Bildern: Erfahrung und Evidenz in Friedrich J. Bertuchs “Bilderbuch für Kinder” (1790–1830). Göttingen: Wallstein, 2014. Chatelain, Marcia. South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015. Chinn, Sarah E. Inventing Modern Adolescence: The Children of Immigrants in Turn-of-theCentury America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009. Collinson, Sarah. Europe and International Migration. London: Pinter, 1993. Confino, Alan. “The Nation as a Local Metaphor: Heimat, National Memory and the German Empire, 1871–1918.” History and Memory 5, no. 1 (1993): 42–86. Conrad, Sebastian. Globalisierung und Nation im deutschen Kaiserreich. Munich: Beck, 2006. Cook, Daniel Thomas. The Commodification of Childhood: The Children’s Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. Cunningham, Hugh. Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500. 2nd ed. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2005. Curtin, Philip D. Death by Migration: Europe’s Encounter with the Tropical World in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Debusmann, Robert, and János Riesz, eds. Kolonialausstellungen, Begegnungen mit Afrika? Frankfurt am Main: IKO, 1995. DeSchweinitz, Rebecca. “Waked Up to Feel: Debating Slavery, Debating Childhood in Antbellum America.” In Children and youth during the Civil War Era, edited by James A. Marten, 13–28. New York: New York University Press, 2012. Dickinson, Edward Ross. “The German Empire, an Empire?” History Workshop Journal 66, no. 1 (2008): 129–62. Diner, Dan, and Moshe Zimmermann, eds. Disseminating German Tradition: The Thyssen Lectures. Leipzig: Leipziger Univ.-Verl., 2009. Dreesbach, Anne. Gezähmte Wilde: Die Zurschaustellung “exotischer” Menschen in Deutschland 1870–1940. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2004. Eckelmann, Susan. “Freedom’s Little Lights: The World of Children and Youth in the U.S. and Abroad during the Civil Rights Era.” PhD diss., Indiana University, 2014. Eckhardt, Juliane. “Imperialismus und Kaiserreich.” In Geschichte der deutschen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, 2nd ed., edited by Reiner Wild, 179–219. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2002. Engelsing, Rolf. “Die Perioden der Lesergeschichte in der Neuzeit.” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 10, no. 3 (1969): 946–1002. ———. Analphabetentum und Lektüre: Zur Sozialgeschichte des Lesens in Deutschland zwischen feudaler und industrieller Gesellschaft. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1973. ———. Der Bürger als Leser: Lesergeschichte in Deutschland von 1500–1800. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1974. Ewers, Hans-Heino. “Kinder- und Jugendliteratur von der Gründerzeit bis zum ersten Weltkrieg.” In Kinder- und Jugendliteratur: Von der Gründerzeit bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg. Eine Textsammlung, edited by Hans-Heino Ewers and Myriam Mieles, 5–21. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1994. ———. Literaturanspruch und Unterhaltungsabsicht: Studien zur Entwicklung der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur im späten 20. und frühen 21. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2013. ———. “Kindheit und Jugend in eiserner Zeit: Anmerkungen zur Kinder- und Jugendliteratur 1914–1918.” In “Wir spielen Krieg”: Patriotisch-militaristische Früherziehung in Bilderbuch

Introduction | 29

und Spiel 1870–1918, edited by Silja Geisler and Beatrix Mühlberg-Scholtz, 63–71. Mainz: Stadt Mainz, 2014. Fass, Paula S. The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920’s. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. ———. Outside In: Minorities and the Transformation of American Education. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. ———. Children of a New World: Society, Culture, and Globalization. New York: New York University Press, 2007. ———. The End of American Childhood: A History of Parenting from Life on the Frontier to the Managed Child. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016. Field, Corinne T. “Why Little Thinkers Are a Big Deal: The Relevance of Childhood Studies to Intellectual History.” Modern Intellectual History 14, no. 1 (269-80): 269–80. Fieldston, Sara. Raising the World: Child Welfare in the American Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Fischer-Tiné, Harald, ed. Anxieties, Fear and Panic in Colonial Settings: Empires on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Fitzpatrick, Matthew P. Purging the Empire: Mass Expulsions in Germany, 1871–1914. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Friedrichsmeyer, Sara, Sara Lennox, and Susanne Zantop. The Imperialist Imagination: German Colonialism and Its Legacy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998. Fuhrmann, Wolfgang. Imperial Projections: Screening the German Colonies. New York: Berghahn Books, 2017. Fullerton, Ronald A. The Foundations of Marketing Practice: A History of Book Marketing in Germany. London: Routledge, 2015. Gall, Lothar, and Andreas Schulz, eds. Wissenskommunikation im 19. Jahrhundert. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2003. Geddes, Andrew. The Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016. Geppert, Alexander C. T. Fleeting Cities: Imperial Expositions in Fin-de-Siècle Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Geppert, Alexander C. T., Uffa Jensen, and Jörn Weinhold, eds. Ortsgespräche: Raum und Kommunikation im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2005. Gernert, Dörte. Schulvorschriften für den Geschichtsunterricht im 19./20. Jahrhundert: Dokumente aus Preußen, Bayern, Sachsen, Thüringen und Hamburg bis 1945. Cologne: Böhlau, 1994. Gillis, John R. Youth and History: Tradition and Change in European Age Relations 1770– Present. New York: Acad. Press, 1981. Gleason, Mona. “Avoiding the Agency Trap: Caveats for Historians of Children, Youth and Education.” History of Education 45, no. 4 (2016): 446–59. Goschler, Constantin, ed. Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit in Berlin, 1870–1930. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2000. Graf, Andreas. “Literarisierung und Kolportageroman: Überlegungen zu Publikum und Kommunikationsstrategie eines Massenmediums im 19. Jahrhundert.” Jahrbuch der KarlMay-Gesellschaft (1999): 191–203. Green, Abigail. Fatherlands: State-Building and Nationhood in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Grinspan, Jon. The Virgin Vote: How Young Americans Made Democracy Social, Politics Personal, and Voting Popular in the Nineteenth Century. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2016.

30 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

Hahnemann, Andy. Texturen des Globalen: Geopolitik und populäre Literatur in der Zwischenkriegszeit 1918–1939. Heidelberg: Winter, 2010. Hammerstein, Notker. “Elementarschulen als Träger der Wissenskommunikation im 19. Jahrhundert.” In Wissenskommunikation im 19. Jahrhundert, edited by Lothar Gall and Andreas Schulz, 63–80. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2003. Haupt, Heinz-Gerhard, and Claudius Torp, eds. Die Konsumgesellschaft in Deutschland 1890– 1990: Ein Handbuch. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2009. Hawes, Joseph M., and N. Ray Hiner. “Hidden in Plain View: The History of Children (and Childhood) in the 21st Century.” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 1, no. 1 (2008): 43–49. Heesen, Anke te. Der Weltkasten: Die Geschichte einer Bildenzyklopädie aus dem 18. Jahrhundert. Göttingen: Wallstein, 1997. Heideking, Jürgen. Geschichte der USA. 2nd ed. Tübingen: Francke, 1999. Hettling, Manfred, and Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann. Der bürgerliche Wertehimmel: Innenansichten des 19. Jahrhunderts. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000. Hochstadt, Steve. Mobility and Modernity: Migration in Germany, 1820–1989. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999. Hoerder, Dirk. Cultures in Contact: World Migrations in the Second Millennium. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002. Hohost, Gerd, Jürgen Kocka, and Gerhard A. Ritter. Sozialgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch. Vol. 2: Materialien zur Statistik des Kaiserreichs 1870–1914. Munich: Beck, 1975. Hölzl, Richard. “Arrested Circulation: Catholic Missionaries, Anthropological Knowledge, and the Politics of Cultural Difference in Imperial Germany, 1880–1914.” In Anxieties, Fear and Panic in Colonial Settings: Empires on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, edited by Harald Fischer-Tiné, 307–44. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Honeck, Mischa, and James Marten, eds. More than Victims: War and Childhood in the Age of the World Wars. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Honeck, Mischa, and Gabriel Rosenberg. “Transnational Generations: Organizing Youth in the Cold War.” Diplomatic History 38, no. 2 (2014): 233–39. Honold, Alexander. “Pfadfinder: Zur Kolonialisierung des geographischen Raums.” In Ortsgespräche: Raum und Kommunikation im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, edited by Alexander C. T. Geppert, Uffa Jensen, and Jörn Weinhold, 137–56. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2005. Jacobmeyer, Wolfgang. Das deutsche Schulgeschichtsbuch 1700–1945: Die erste Epoche seiner Gattungsgeschichte im Spiegel der Vorworte. 3 vols. Berlin: LIT, 2011. Jäger, Georg. “Medien.” In Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte, 5 vols., edited by Christa Berg, 4: 473–500. Munich: Beck, 1987–2005. Jefferies, Matthew. Imperial Culture in Germany, 1871–1918. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Jobs, Richard Ivan, and David M. Pomfret, eds. Transnational Histories of Youth in the Twentieth Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Jorae, Wendy Rouse. The Children of Chinatown: Growing Up Chinese American in San Francisco, 1850–1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. Kalb, Martin. Coming of Age: Constructing and Controlling Youth in Munich, 1942–1973. New York: Berghahn Books, 2016. Kamphoefner, Walter D., and Wolfgang Johannes Helbich. Germans in the Civil War: The Letters They Wrote Home. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

Introduction | 31

Kamphoefner, Walter D., Wolfgang Johannes Helbich, and Ulrike Sommer. News from the Land of Freedom: German Immigrants Write Home. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991. Kennedy, Katharine. “Visual Representations and National Identity in the Elementary Schoolbooks of Imperial Germany.” Paedagogica Historica 36, no. 1 (2000): 224–45. ———. “Singing about Soldiers in German Schools, from 1890 to 1945.” Paedagogica Historica 52, nos. 1–2 (2016): 76–91. Kerbs, Diethart, and Jürgen Reulecke, eds. Handbuch der deutschen Reformbewegungen: 1880– 1933. Wuppertal: Hammer, 1998. Kett, Joseph F. Rites of Passage: Adolescence in America 1790 to the Present. New York: Basic Books, 1977. Knörr, Jacqueline, Jana Pohl, Angela Nunes, and Barbara Meier, eds. Childhood and Migration: From Experience to Agency. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2005. Koebner, Thomas, Rolf-Peter Janz, and Frank Trommler, eds. “Mit uns zieht die neue Zeit”: Der Mythos Jugend. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1985. Kucherenko, Olga. Little Soldiers: How Soviet Children Went to War, 1941–1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina, and Anja Müller, eds. Canon Constitution and Canon Change in Children’s Literature. New York: Routledge, 2017. Kundrus, Birthe. Moderne Imperialisten: Das Kaiserreich im Spiegel seiner Kolonien. Cologne: Böhlau, 2003. Kurme, Sebastian. Halbstarke: Jugendprotest in den 1950er Jahren in Deutschland und den USA. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2006. Kwaschik, Anne. Der Griff nach dem Weltwissen: Zur Genealogie von Area Studies im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018. Langewiesche, Dieter. Zur Freizeit des Arbeiters: Bildungsbestrebungen und Freizeitgestaltung ­österreichischer Arbeiter im Kaiserreich und in der Ersten Republik. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1979. Lässig, Simone. Jüdische Wege ins Bürgertum: kulturelles Kapital und sozialer Aufstieg im 19. Jahrhundert. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004. Laukötter, Anja. “Das Völkerkundemuseum.” In Kein Platz an der Sonne: Erinnerungsorte der deutschen Kolonialgeschichte, edited by Jürgen Zimmerer and Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst, 231–43. Bonn: BPB, 2013. Lehmkuhl, Ursula. “Heirat und Migration in Auswandererbriefen—Die Bestände der Nordamerika-Briefsammlung.” L’Homme—Europäische Zeitschrift für Feministische Geschichtswissenschaft 25, no. 1 (2014): 123–28. Lidtke, Vernon L. The Alternative Culture: Socialist Labor in Imperial Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Lüsebrink, Hans-Jürgen, ed. Das Europa der Aufklärung und die außereuropäische koloniale Welt. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2006. Lyons, Martyn. The Writing Culture of Ordinary People in Europe, c. 1860–1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Maase, Kaspar. “Massenmedien und Konsumgesellschaft.” In Die Konsumgesellschaft in Deutschland1890–1990: Ein Handbuch, edited by Heinz-Gerhard Haupt and Claudius Torp, 62–78. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2009. ———. Die Kinder der Massenkultur: Kontroversen um Schmutz und Schund seit dem Kaiserreich. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 2012.

32 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

Maase, Kaspar, and Wolfgang Kaschuba. Schund und Schönheit: Populäre Kultur um 1900. Cologne: Böhlau, 2001. Mackert, Nina. Jugenddelinquenz: Die Produktivität eines Problems in den USA der späten 1940er bis 1960er Jahre. Konstanz: UVK, 2014. Marten, James. Children and War: A Historical Anthology. New York: NYU Press, 2002. Martino, Alberto. Die deutsche Leihbibliothek: Geschichte einer literarischen Institution (1756– 1914). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1990. Maynes, Mary Jo. “Age as Category of Historical Analysis: Agency and Narratives of Childhood.” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 1, no. 1 (2008): 114–24. Meissner, Andrea. Die Nationalisierung der Volksschule: Geschichtspolitik im niederen Schulwesen Preussens und des deutschsprachigen Österreich, 1866 bis 1933/38. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2009. Middell, Matthias, and Katja Neumann. “Global History and the Spatial Turn: Form the Impact of Area Studies to the Study of Critical Junctures of Globalization.” Journal of Global History 5, no. 1 (2010): 149–70. Mitterauer, Michael. Sozialgeschichte der Jugend. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1986. Moch, Leslie Page. Moving Europeans: Migration in Western Europe since 1650. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. Mosse, George L. “Jewish Emancipation: Between ‘Bildung’ and Respectability.” In The Jewish Response to German Culture: From Enlightenment to the Second World War, edited by Jehuda Reinharz and Walter Schatzberg, 1–16. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1985. ———. “The Meaning of Bildung: A Concept in Universality.” In Disseminating German Tradition: The Thyssen Lectures, edited by Dan Diner and Moshe Zimmermann, 15–27. Leipzig: Leipziger Univ.-Verl., 2009. Naranch, Bradley, and Geoff Eley, eds. German Colonialism in a Global Age. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Nipperdey, Thomas. Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1866: Bürgerwelt und starker Staat. Munich: Beck, 1983. ———. Deutsche Geschichte 1866–1918: Arbeitswelt und Bürgergeist. 2nd ed. Munich: Beck, 1991. Norwig, Christina. Die erste europäische Generation: Europakonstruktionen in der Europäischen Jugendkampagne, 1951–1958. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2016. Oertzen, Christine von. “Science in the Cradle: Milicent Shinn and Her Home-Based Network of Baby Observers, 1890.” In “Beyond the Academy: Histories of Gender and Knowledge,” edited by Christine v. Oertzen, Maria Rentetzi and Elizabeth S. Watkins. Special issue, Centaurus: An International Journal of the History of Science and Its Cultural Aspects 55, no. 2 (May 2013): 175–95. Oltmer, Jochen. Globale Migration: Geschichte und Gegenwart. Orig. ed. Munich: Beck, 2012. Osterhammel, Jürgen. “Transnationale Gesellschaftsgeschichte: Erweiterung oder Alternative?” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 27 (2001): 464–79. ———. Die Verwandlung der Welt: Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Special ed. Munich: Beck, 2011. O’Sullivan, Emer. “Picturing the World for Children: Early Nineteenth-Century Images of Foreign Nations.” In Imagining Sameness and Difference in Children’s Literature: From the Enlightenment to the Present Day, edited by Emer O’Sullivan and Andrea Immel, 51–70. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

Introduction | 33

Penny, H. Glenn. Objects of Culture: Ethnology and Ethnographic Museums in Imperial Germany. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. Pöggeler, Franz. “Printmedien im Kinder- und Jugendleben des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts.” In Kind und Medien: Zur kulturgeschichtlichen und ontogenetischen Entwicklung einer Beziehung, edited by Max Liedtke, 99–153. Bad Heilbrunn: J. Klinkhardt, 1997. Pomfret, David M. Youth and Empire: Trans-colonial Childhoods in British and French Asia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016. Reulecke, Jürgen. “Ich möchte so einer werden wie die …”: Männerbünde im 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2001. Reuveni, Gideon. Reading Germany: Literature and Consumer Culture in Germany before 1933. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006. Ritzheimer, Kara L. “Trash,” Censorship, and National Identity in Early Twentieth-Century Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Roseman, Mark, ed. Generations in Conflict: Youth Revolt and Generation Formation in Germany 1770–1968. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Ross, Corey. Media and the Making of Modern Germany: Mass Communications, Society, and Politics from the Empire to the Third Reich. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Rößler, Horst. “Massenexodus: Die neue Welt des 19. Jahrhunderts.” In Deutsche im Ausland, Fremde in Deutschland: Migration in Geschichte und Gegenwart, edited by Klaus J. Bade, 148–57. Munich: Beck, 1992. Rutschmann, Verena. “‘Der Schweizerische Robinson’—eine erzählte Enzyklopädie.” In Populäre Enzyklopädien: Von der Auswahl, Ordnung und Vermittlung des Wissens, edited by Ingrid Tomkowiak, 159–74. Zürich: Chronos, 2002. Savage, Jon. Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture. London: Pimlico, 2008. Schikorsky, Isa. Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. Cologne: DuMont, 2003. Schneider, Jost. Sozialgeschichte des Lesens: Zur historischen Entwicklung und sozialen Differenzierung der literarischen Kommunikation in Deutschland. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004. Schulz, Andreas. “Der ‘Gang der Natur’ und die ‘Perfektibilität’ des Menschen: Wissens­ grundlagen und Vorstellungen von Kindheit seit der Aufklärung.” In Wissens­kommuni­ kation im 19. Jahrhundert, edited by Lothar Gall and Andreas Schulz, 15–40. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2003. Schumann, Dirk, ed. Raising Citizens in the Age of the Child: The United States and German Central Europe in Comparative Perspective. New York: Berghahn Books, 2010. Smith, Helmut Walser. “Introduction.” In The Oxford Handbook of Modern German History, edited by idem, 1–28. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Smuts, Alice Boardman. Science in the Service of Children, 1893–1935. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. Springhall, John. Youth, Popular Culture and Moral Panics: Penny Gaffs to Gangsta-Rap, 1830– 1997. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998. Stafford, Barbara Maria. Kunstvolle Wissenschaft: Aufklärung, Unterhaltung und der Niedergang der visuellen Bildung. Amsterdam: Verlag der Kunst, 1998. Stargardt, Nicholas. Witnesses of War: Children’s Lives under the Nazis. London: Jonathan Cape, 2005. Stearns, Peter N. Childhood in World History. New York: Routledge, 2006. Ther, Philipp. “Deutsche Geschichte als imperiale Geschichte: Polen, slawophile Minderheiten und das Kaiserreich als kontinentales Empire.” In Das Kaiserreich transnational: Deutschland

34 | Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß

in der Welt 1871–1914, edited by Sebastian Conrad and Jürgen Osterhammel, 129–48. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004. Thode-Arora, Hilke. Für fünfzig Pfennig um die Welt: Die Hagenbeckschen Völkerschauen. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1989. Tomkowiak, Ingrid, ed. Populäre Enzyklopädien: Von der Auswahl, Ordnung und Vermittlung des Wissens. Zürich: Chronos, 2002. Wangerin, Wolfgang. Der rote Wunderschirm: Kinderbücher der Sammlung Seifert von der Frühaufklärung bis zum Nationalsozialismus. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2011. Weiss, Andreas. Asiaten in Europa: Begegnungen zwischen Asiaten und Europäern 1880–1914. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2016. Whaley, Joachim. “The Ideal of Youth in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany.” In Generations in Conflict: Youth Revolt and Generation Formation in Germany 1770–1968, edited by Mark Roseman, 47–68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Wolbring, Barbara. “Weltorientierung durch Schulwissen: Unterricht und Erziehung an Frankfurter Elementarschulen im Kaiserreich.” In Wissenskommunikation im 19. Jahrhundert, edited by Lothar Gall and Andreas Schulz, 81–110. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2003. Wolff, Larry. “Childhood and the Enlightenment: The Complications of Innocence.” In The Routledge History of Childhood in the Western World, edited by Paula S. Fass, 78–100. London: Routledge, 2013. Wolter, Stefanie. Die Vermarktung des Fremden: Exotismus und die Anfänge des Massenkonsums. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2005. Zahra, Tara. The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s families after World War II. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. ———. The Great Departure: Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World. 1st ed. New York: Norton, 2016. Zantop, Susanne. Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family, and Nation in Precolonial Germany, 1770–1870. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997. Zimmerer, Jürgen, and Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst, eds. Kein Platz an der Sonne: Erinnerungsorte der deutschen Kolonialgeschichte. Bonn: BPB, 2013. Zimmerman, Andrew. “Science and Schaulust in the Berlin Museum of Ethnology.” In Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit in Berlin, 1870–1930, edited by Constantin Goschler, 65–88. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2000. ———. Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Part I

Official Knowledge

S

Chapter 1

New Words and the New World Language and the Transnational Legacy of Joachim Heinrich Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere Kirsten Belgum

S for the use of those, which are learning the english —Joachim Heinrich Campe, Robinson, the Younger, 17891

Few stories have had the long-lasting and geographically widespread influence of the tale of Robinson Crusoe, the rebellious young Englishman, the sole survivor of a shipwreck who spends years stranded on a distant deserted island. The original Robinson was, of course, the creation of English novelist Daniel Defoe (1660–1731), whose character came to life with the novel’s first publication in 1719. As a story of resourcefulness and resilience in the face of the dangers of travel, it presented ideals of the early Enlightenment: autonomy and self-authority, experience, and experimentation in the name of gaining knowledge.2 It was enormously successful in the English language, published in at least thirty distinct editions by 1800.3 But it also created an immediate international sensation; within two years it was translated into French, German, and Dutch, and by the end of the eighteenth century into many other languages of Europe.4 The story eventually inspired dozens of imitators in all major cultures of Europe, becoming a paradigmatic example both of the European fascination with distant and unfamiliar lands and, in its dissemination, of the interconnectedness of the modern world. As popular as Defoe’s novel was, it was not until the later eighteenth century that this story of travel and geographical adventure was adapted specifically for young readers. In 1779, in the context of a remarkable and much-discussed movement of pedagogical reform, not one but two German educators chose the Notes from this chapter begin on page 52.

38 | Kirsten Belgum

character and adventure of Robinson Crusoe as part of an innovative pedagogy.5 By far the most successful version was crafted by Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746–1818), titled Robinson der Jüngere (Robinson the Younger). If the background and sources for Campe’s project were themselves profoundly and complexly transnational, so, too, did its use, reception, and distribution connect this German educational resource to other systems for exploring and knowing the world. Its immediate popularity is evidenced by the pirated editions that soon appeared in German cities and the numerous editions that appeared in translation for children in other countries.6 Beyond such editions, however, the work became popular on the border between cultures. In Germany and elsewhere, it was repeatedly adapted as a resource for foreign-language instruction.7 This chapter builds on the work of scholars who have addressed the pedagogical, social, and ideological implications of Robinson der Jüngere in order to examine its specifically transnational character. It suggests that Campe’s educational story was an element of the growing pedagogical attention to teaching modern foreign languages in Germany. As a result, in addition to attracting young readers to an adventure story, the work integrated the wider world into the lives of young children by focusing on vocabulary. At the same time, it used the domain of language learning as a means for young readers to access and make sense of that world.

Educational Reform: The Philanthropic Movement The context for Campe’s revision of the Robinson Crusoe story lies in the educational reform movement that was a direct outgrowth of Enlightenment thought in Germany. After studying with critical theologians, such as Johann Salomo Semler (1725–1791) in Halle, Campe accepted his first teaching appointment as tutor for the prominent von Humboldt family. Although he interrupted this work briefly to serve as a minister and chaplain in the military, he soon turned to education permanently. In 1776 he was invited to join the Philanthropinum in Dessau, an educational institution that had been founded just a few years earlier (in 1774) by the reformer Johann Bernhard Basedow with the goal of radically altering children’s education. Basedow outlined his major pedagogical principles in diverse theoretical writings and integrated them into his four-volume Elementarwerk published the same year. His great-grandson Max Müller would later summarize this agenda as moving away from the wasted time spent with memorization and translation of words that children did not understand.8 Rather, Basedow’s materials were intended to provide for a basic knowledge of things as well as words, for education through experience, which should teach children to read without irritation or distraction. New ideas regarding the importance of play in the individual child’s development discussed in David Hamlin’s

Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere | 39

contribution to this volume emerged from the group of educational reformers connected to Basedow’s institution. This curricular innovation also included the study of nature, ethics, and reason; encouraged self-awareness and an unbiased investigation of religion; and integrated an understanding of bourgeois society and commerce.9 Basedow’s Philanthropinum was an attempt to implement these new ideas for young learners from various backgrounds, including poor children, and simultaneously to train teachers in the same setting. Although this educational experiment had some detractors, it became a driving force in public discussions about pedagogy in the next decades. Some criticism focused on the rather prickly personality of Basedow; after a brief encounter with him, the philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder notoriously remarked that he would not give him calves to educate, let alone humans.10 Interpersonal differences also led to problems at the Philanthropinum. Basedow soon ran into conflicts with some of his colleagues, and personal disagreements led Campe to leave Dessau shortly after arriving there. Yet Campe had already collaborated with Basedow to promote the philanthropic ideas by launching the first pedagogical periodical in Germany, the Pädagogische Unterhandlungen. Thus, despite the challenges experienced in Basedow’s institution, its innovations gained popularity among educators and drew sustained interest from cultural commentators. By the spring of 1778, Campe was applying philanthropic educational principles in a small school he had established just outside Hamburg, where he taught children from several prominent Hamburg merchant families. To be sure, this educational setting was rather rarified by modern standards. The schooling took place on a piece of property purchased by the wealthy Johann Jakob Böhl, and by 1780 Campe could report to his friend and supporter Gotthold Ephraim Lessing that he was able to support his own family and employ three assistants to teach just twelve pupils.11 Yet Campe’s ambitions for impact in the field were much greater. He continued his educational writing and publishing, including of Robinson der Jüngere in two volumes in 1779 and 1780.12

Revisions for Young Readers: Campe’s Version In keeping with the growth of travel writing in the eighteenth century, Campe’s work used a story of adventure to impart his ideas to young readers and their mentors, both of whom he addresses in its foreword. Like Defoe’s model, Campe’s version tells the story of a European, but in this case a young German, who breaks out of the expectations of his family, goes to sea, is shipwrecked, and struggles to stay alive amid privation and danger. After a few years this protagonist rescues a native from pursuers, names him Freitag, and educates him in European ways. His small society expands with European survivors of another shipwreck before he is ultimately rescued and returns to his hometown of Hamburg with Freitag

40 | Kirsten Belgum

to start a trade. In addition to the shift in the protagonist’s nationality, Campe’s core narrative differs from Defoe’s in two key regards: it is told in the third person and is introduced and repeatedly interrupted by an extensive frame narrative. In this structural innovation, a father figure relates the story of Robinson and his adventures to young listeners, inserting frequent moral admonitions about leading a life guided by the principles of diligence and industriousness, making reasoned decisions, conducting oneself with order and regularity, and maintaining faith in providence.13 These principles are not only discussed but also modeled in the frame narrative by the children who occupy themselves with useful tasks, such as shelling peas, while they listen to the story. They pose (and sometimes answer each other’s) questions about Robinson’s adventures and also about the world they live in. This new structure thus adapts a popular adventure story to young readers or listeners in two ways. First, the work’s structure divides the story of Robinson into thirty “Evenings,” each constituting an easily digestible segment, suited to the attention span and reading pace of young readers. Second, the inclusion in each segment of comments and activities of the family in the frame narrative allows the reader of Campe’s book to identify not only with Robinson but also with the children listening to his adventures and struggling to make moral, social, and geographic sense of them. In his introduction, Campe emphasizes in italics two modes of use for his work: “It should serve adult friends of children for reading aloud and should only be put into the hands of those children who have already achieved sufficient proficiency in reading.”14 In other words, in the philanthropic model, it was important to prepare and contextualize a distant adventure in the wider world for children. Scholars have foregrounded diverse aspects of this contextualization in the process of explaining the prominence and long-lasting influence of what has been considered the founding work of German children’s literature. Reinhard Stach has examined in detail the pedagogical design of the frame narrative and its use of Socratic questioning.15 Reiner Wild acknowledges the importance of Enlightenment pedagogy in Campe’s work, attributing its success to the emphasis on initiation, the process of the protagonist breaking out of and then re-integrating into European society.16 Matt Erlin foregrounds Campe’s campaign to combat the dangerous fashion of overheated “sentimentalizing,” which Erlin describes as “an imbalance between subject and object in which things take on human qualities and exercise a kind of domination over the individual.”17 His reading suggests that we need to see Campe and his work as participants in a vigorous conversation about commodity culture in the late eighteenth century.18 Others have pointed to the key ways in which Campe’s protagonist differs from that of Defoe’s. First, Campe’s Robinson is not involved in African or Brazilian adventures. Second, during his first years on the island he has no European tools at his disposal. Third, his ordeal lasts for nine instead of twenty-four years. As

Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere | 41

already mentioned, he has also been transformed into a German from Hamburg. For Susanne Zantop this makes Campe’s protagonist not only the hero of a children’s adventure story but also the ideal German colonizer.19 Whereas Defoe’s protagonist articulates his possession of the indigenous Friday as “my savage” in a way that suggests no contradiction between hierarchy of power and romance, Campe’s narrative is careful to avoid any such feminized attraction. His young Robinson treats Freitag as a friend and teaches him new skills (such as how to milk llamas), but Robinson still occupies the role of king when it is warranted. Zantop argues that the German’s organizational achievements on the island represent the two major projects of colonization: domesticating natives and excluding those whose savagery is beyond remedy.20 But Campe’s Robinson also can avoid the atrocities of the African slave trade or the Brazilian plantation system. Thus, in contrast to the excesses of Spanish, British, or French imperialism, he can serve as a positive figure for a German colonial fantasy because he is not a despotic ruler but rather, like Frederick the Great of Prussia, the “first servant” of the state. While this reading of Robinson der Jüngere is compelling, it focuses predominantly on the role of colonial imagination. In exposing the process of cultural annihilation at the root of Campe’s story of the world, Zantop notes how Freitag’s language, culture, identity, and even physiognomy are gradually replaced by those of his German counterpart.21 Yet that focus distracts one from an educational objective that was much closer at hand for middle-class German children of the eighteenth century. The pupils in Campe’s small educational institute, who were inscribed into the frame narrative, were children of prominent Hamburg merchants. Indeed, Johann Jakob Böhl, who initially convinced Campe to settle in Hamburg in 1778 and had four sons in Campe’s school, was the head of one of the premier trading companies in all of Europe. Hanseatic merchant families were interested in preparing their offspring who attended Campe’s school for a profession in business and trade. Within the boundaries of his philanthropic orientation, Campe was happy to contribute to that mission. Seen from that vantage point, the world of knowledge he presented to children focused on acquiring the language of modern European life and work. Thus, almost paradoxically, the exotic adventures of Robinson on his distant island served the interest of helping young Germans, and eventually other European children, to master a modern, transnational vocabulary with which to talk about their European world as much as about exotic distant islands. Campe’s work was thus predominantly transnational in a European context.

42 | Kirsten Belgum

Transnational Sources for Campe’s Story The extensive German conversations about pedagogical innovation in Campe’s time, as evidenced by the emergence of Badedow’s Philanthropinum and similar experiments, should not distract us from the profoundly transnational character of the ideas Germans were developing. The transnational context of what Campe called his “neues Kinderbuch” begins with its sources.22 He not only selected a bestselling and highly acclaimed English novel as his model, but he also expressly justified his choice by referring in the introduction three times to Rousseau’s Emile, or on Education, an important touchstone for educational innovation in eighteenth-century Germany more generally.23 S. Chester Parker refers to the schools started by Basedow and his contemporary Christian Gotthilf Salzmann (1744–1811) as “a very important and influential movement organized in Germany to carry out some of the practical reforms in methods of teaching which had been suggested in Rousseau’s Emile.”24 What made Campe’s work an international bestseller for children, however, is connected to the ways in which he altered the work—an alteration that was not necessarily what Rousseau might have chosen. Mary Bellhouse has identified two major elements that attracted Rousseau to Defoe’s narrative about Robinson Crusoe. Rousseau did not rewrite or adapt Robinson Crusoe himself, but his writings suggest which aspects of the story appealed to him. One, Bellhouse explains, was the intensive relationship of the protagonist to nature.25 This was certainly an element that appealed to Campe as well and part of his reason for denying his young protagonist access to Western tools or implements for the first part of his time on the island. It is also no doubt connected to the setting for Campe’s frame narrative in his Robinson der Jüngere, where a pater familias sits down in the open air under an apple tree to relate the adventure story of Robinson. Rousseau’s other interest in the story of Robinson Crusoe was tied to his thoughts regarding the importance of solitude in education. Indeed, Bellhouse points out that the abridged version Rousseau would have his pupil Emile read begins with the shipwreck and ends with arrival of the ship that will rescue Robinson from the island.26 This means that the protagonist’s many encounters with sailors, captains, and other members of European society before and after his time on the island were not relevant for Rousseau. Campe, by contrast, not only includes these elements but also focuses on them as moments to teach his readers or listeners about the implements of European life. Additionally, he strengthens the social aspect of education through the intensive and repeated engagement of the young children in the frame narrative as listeners and participants in discussing Robinson’s story and its relevance to their world. Precisely the extent of this frame narration should make us take it seriously as Campe’s premise for creating the work. In many sections, each one labeled as an ordinally numbered “Evening,” 40 percent or more of the text is devoted

Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere | 43

not to the story of Robinson but rather to a description of conversations in the learning community within the frame narrative. Those conversations typically address matters of relevance in the daily lives of its members. Some sections have little dialogue among the children and elders such as Evenings 10 and 11, but many contain much more: in Evening 8—4.75 of 11 pages; in Evening 9—8.5 of 13 pages; in Evening 12—4 of 9.5 pages.27 The centrality of this social network not only distinguishes Campe’s educational mission from that described by Rousseau, it also ties language learning and vocabulary building to community and social connection, even though Robinson’s story is predicated on isolation and solitude.

Dialogic Models Despite scholarly interest in the frame narration Campe introduces in his Robinsonade, few scholars have looked for the sources of this important element. Annette Keck has characterized this dialogic structure as “living word,” suggesting that it would also be ideally suited for reading aloud to children not yet ready to read on their own.28 More recently, Nikola von Merveldt has attended to the linguistic training that Campe’s dialogue-based frame narrative provides its young readers. She points, in particular, to the scenes in which young Robinson uses physical objects and gestures to teach Freitag to speak German.29 Yet there are two likely sources of inspiration for this narrative device that have received little attention in Campe scholarship or the field of children’s literature, and, notably, both are from women authors. One was the work of Elise Reimarus, the literary daughter of the notable Hamburg patrician, theologian, and educator, Samuel Reimarus. Almut Spalding has carefully traced the close contact between Elise Reimarus and Campe, including the early essays Reimarus published in Campe’s philanthropic journal, Pädagogische Unterhandlungen. Significantly, Spalding notes, Campe provided an epilogue for one of Reimarus’s devotional dialogues for young readers, which took the form of a conversation between a mother and daughter.30 It seems that Campe also, with Reimarus’s permission, revised these dialogues slightly (“remelted” them is the term he used) for republication as the fifth chapter of a volume he published titled Sammlung einiger Erziehungsschriften (Collection of Some Educational Writings) in 1778.31 As Spalding points out, contemporary readers who did not have a copy of the original Pädagogische Unterhandlungen at hand would not have known who the original author of these dialogues was. She concludes that, ironically, Campe contributed “to the slow, but steady process of erasing Elise Reimarus’ name from literary and pedagogical history,” despite being her friend and supporter.32 Just one year later Campe would use a similar dialogic format to present the story of Robinson Crusoe to young German readers.

44 | Kirsten Belgum

The other inspiration for Campe’s use of the dialogic frame narration came from abroad and may even have given him the idea of presenting his work simultaneously in German and in translation as a resource for language learning. In the 1750s, the French woman Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (1711–80) was working as a governess in London, where she wrote and published numerous texts in French for young readers. The most successful and popular of her works was Magasin des Enfants, an anthology of tales that included myths from antiquity as well as Bible stories. Its subtitle indicates that the shorter elements in the work were introduced and linked via didactic “dialogues between a wise governess and several of her pupils.” As with Campe’s “Father,” the teacher is not named, only given the moniker “Mademoiselle Bonne.” Also as in Campe’s later work, the pupils are introduced by name, and they engage both with the governess and with each other, often assisting each other by providing details about the world, including geographical knowledge. In talking about the northeast of France, one girl explains the term “The French Low-countries”: “One calls them French, because there are Dutch Low Countries, and those that belong to the House of Austria.”33 New terms, such as “the principal families of Europe,” are provided in italics, a practice Campe also adopts. Finally, the structure of Leprince de Beaumont’s volumes provides a model for Campe as well: each volume is divided into segments according to numbered days, such as “Vingt-deuxieme Journée,” just as Campe would divide his Robinson according to numbered “Evenings.” Campe would have been familiar with Magasin des Enfants since it was published in Germany in translation in Leipzig as early as 1760, and also appeared in Frankfurt in the original language by 1776 “for children who wanted to learn French,” just a few years before Campe created his Robinson.34

Words and Vocabulary The attention to community and social interaction implicit in the narrative frame of Robinson der Jüngere is directly tied to a second major innovation of Campe’s narrative: the focus on the acquisition of new vocabulary. Like Leprince de Beaumont, Campe selectively italicized numerous words to which the reader should pay particular attention. These include names and geographical locations. Some designate people, places, or phenomena related to Robinson’s adventure, such as “Guinea traveler,” “the Caribbean Islands,” “hurricane,” “cocoanut tree,” or “lava.”35 Others introduce to the children in the story, and, by extension, to the child reader, additional words related to distant parts of the world that have nothing directly to do with Robinson’s travel; they might be related to other ships that he encounters, but more importantly they give the narrator an opportunity to introduce small geography lessons, including the act of pointing out places on a map: “to Quebec—look here, to this place in America.”36

Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere | 45

Some of the emphasized terms are part of a more general discussion of geography as a beneficial educational activity. This includes important knowledge about the earth, such as the latitudes of the tropics in the case of “Ceylon.”37 It involves references to contemporary English voyages to the islands of “New Zealand”38 and the islands inhabited by the “Tahitians” in the South Pacific,39 indicating that Campe interspersed information from other travel writing into his version, including Georg Forster’s description of Captain Cook’s second voyage around the world that had just appeared in 1777. Such digressions were a key element of Campe’s pedagogical system. The father figure as narrator, in reminding his auditors in one such instance how far they have digressed from their main story, explains the larger lesson: “Look how our mind in a single leap can suddenly move to another place that is many thousand miles distant from us!”40 Still other italicized terms introduce places that were geographically much closer to German readers: the “Mouth of the Thames,” the “Straight by Calais,” and even “Travemünde,”41 suggesting that it was just as important to introduce young readers to local knowledge as it was to inform them about the distant world. This connection to the lives of the readers also pertains to terms young Robinson used on his exotic and distant island that they also needed to learn about in their own world, such as “foremast,” “lever,” “rollers,” or “chisel” and “rasp.”42 These terms occur not only at the beginning of the work but are also interspersed throughout Robinson’s adventures and inspire conversations among the characters in the frame narrative about work and daily life. Finally, these italicized words were not clustered close together in the text but were spaced well apart so as not to overwhelm the learner.43 New terminology also plays a central role in the work’s structure. Typically the introduction of new words leads to further conversation within the frame narration. When the father introduces a new word, there is a brief interruption by one of the children asking for clarification. The frame narrative provides an explanation of the word, sometimes one that comes from the father, but often from one of the other children, who translates it in terms that the first child will understand. This is true for explanations of geographical places but also for many implements Robinson makes. A typical example is that from the “Evening 18,” when the father mentions that Robinson plans to install palisades to protect himself and Freitag from attack: Father: “He only needed to dig a broad and deep ditch around the row of trees surrounding his castle, and line the inner edge of it with palisades? [sic]” Frizchen: “What are palisades?” Johannes: “Oh, you forget something so easily! Don’t you remember the pointed posts that father planted around that ravelin in our little fortress,—see, those are palisades.” Frizchen: “Oh, right. So, go on!”44

46 | Kirsten Belgum

Not only is the new word italicized to highlight it as a vocabulary item; it is also followed by an explanation. In subsequent paragraphs the father uses the word two more times to reinforce the children’s understanding. Such interjections parallel the moral lessons about respecting elders, exhibiting self-restraint, and performing hard work that pervade the frame narrative as well. This method of expanding the reader’s vocabulary uses the listening children in the frame narrative and their conversations as a learning device. The question-and-answer format makes the work ideally suited for adaptation as a medium for expanding the knowledge through language and thus for use as a foreign-language primer. Beyond its connection to the structural aspect of Campe’s work, the introduction of new vocabulary highlights the relevance of this story about travel and geographic adventure for the lives and future of its readers. As Richard Apgar has explored in detail, Robinson der Jüngere presents a story of adventure in the name of training children in the ethos, work habits, and mindset of the middle-class German citizen. Along with other works by Campe, it disciplines its readers, he argues, “by subtly combining the autonomy modeled within their pages with a highly prescriptive set of behaviors and beliefs.”45 The element of vocabulary building supports this argument. Even the italicized words in the core story about young Robinson focus less on issues of colonial enterprise than on matters of farming, animal husbandry, and cultivation, such as those about tree grafting with its elaborate terminology: stock, head, propagate, shoot, cion, turpentine, grafting-wax, etc.46 Indeed, in this case, the narrator even points out that such terms are useless to Robinson, since his island lacks trees that have branches. Terminology related to travel—transportation, ships, sailing, crews, destinations, routes, maps, reports on the sea voyage—can also be seen as an integral part of the practical vocabulary of a future merchant. Perhaps one of the most immediate connections to commercial activity in this regard occurs in the scene in which the young children in the frame narration practice the professional use of language. They demonstrate the art of written correspondence, of composing a respectful letter in the proper tone. As an adept pedagogue with an instinct for raising pupils’ awareness step by step (scaffolding, one might call it today), Campe’s narrator reads aloud the simplest letter first, the one transcribed by the mother for the youngest listener, who happens to be a girl and cannot yet write. This example is followed by letters that include increasingly articulate and refined phrasing and elements, such as respectful salutations and the proper method for including the date. The final letter is a model approximating an example of professional correspondence. It is written by an advanced student who can also tolerate the slight corrections and additions suggested by the father as mentor.47 As with the majority of the vocabulary items, the emphasis here, albeit with implications for colonial trade, is on preparing for a career in European commerce.

Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere | 47

Learning Modern Languages Given Campe’s attention to language, it is not surprising that translation was an integral part of his project in several respects. First, Campe transposed Defoe’s longer and much more detailed version from German into English, which included making the protagonist a German.48 As important, however, was the process of adapting the story to suit younger readers, which also meant simplifying the language of Defoe’s work. Campe comments on this explicitly in his introduction, and it was apparent to his readers as well. A later translator of the work, John Timaeus, recognized this in his English edition from 1799. Regarding the letters that the young children in the frame story write to Robinson, Timaeus noted: “These letters, together with a great deal of the questions and answers throughout the book, are literally such as have been made and wrote [sic] by the children.”49 That Campe’s work foregrounds the acquisition of new terminology in German by young readers was not lost on contemporary reviewers of the work, either. A review that appeared in the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek in 1780 of the second volume of Campe’s work highlights this aspect as a particularly useful resource for children: “In this way, for example, children are instructed in the meaning of: palisade, accumulation, seashore and the right of shipwreck, bankruptcy, horizon, wreckage, and slave trade, among other things.”50 The result, the reviewer concluded, is that Campe’s Robinson will be a highly useful work.51 In keeping with its emphasis on practical education, the philanthropic movement modified the place of language learning in the curriculum for children in two ways. First, it challenged the reliance on books and reading in favor of applied methods of language learning. This included, as Friedericke Klippel has shown, the use of pictures and models as well as grammar books.52 It also promoted the use of the target language on the part of the teacher from the earliest lessons and proposed that children learn vocabulary not by rote memorization but in meaningful contexts.53 In his own writings on language education, Campe agreed with these innovations and took them even further. He dismissed the focus on early grammatical instruction in favor of a more “holistic” learning method and more “natural” learning processes.54 This meant more emphasis on reading and speaking and the acquisition of vocabulary in context, that is, encountering new lexical items in substantive and communicative connections.55 This applied approach included the use of dialogic material,56 something that Campe made into a centerpiece of Robinson der Jüngere, which matched the preference of Basedow and others both for oral and conversational teaching as well as for cultural and literary texts over grammar books.57 It also echoed the approach of Leprince de Beaumont. The second major shift in language learning was the philanthropists’ focus on the learning of practical languages, that is, those currently spoken in Europe. Basedow considered the learning of modern foreign languages alongside Latin

48 | Kirsten Belgum

to be an important element of children’s education. Again Campe and one of his close associates, Ernst Christian Trapp, went even further.58 Trapp authored some of the most extensive contributions on the role of language learning in the Allgemeine Revision, a sixteen-volume compendium of educational reform that Campe edited between 1784 and 1792. The importance of language study, in particular foreign-language study, is indicated by the amount of space the serial work devoted to that one subject. While the contributions across the sixteen volumes included a wide range of general educational advice, proposals regarding early education, discussions of teaching methods and foundational principles, school types, and means to prevent masturbation, the subject that received the greatest attention was the study of language. In addition, four of the last volumes consisted of a German translation of Rousseau’s Emile with numerous notes. In his essay on language, which comprised volume 11 from 1788, Trapp argued that all children should learn French as their first foreign language, not Latin. French was important, he insisted, due to its general utility and practicability.59 After French, Trapp deemed the most useful languages for careers in business at that time to be English, Italian, and Spanish. Latin, he suggested, could always be added later if pupils were going to become scholars. Trapp’s view presupposed a specific class interest—that of a growing and globally connected merchant class. His educational guidelines were geared toward young learners, like Campe’s pupils in Hamburg, who would eventually move into positions in trade and would use these languages to conduct their business affairs.

A Transnational Vocabulary: Foreign-Language Editions Campe had already incorporated the ideas articulated by Trapp into his publication plans for Robinson der Jüngere. As we have seen, Campe viewed his work as a means for providing children with moral guidance and lessons about patience, perseverance, and humility, and for introducing young children to relevant terminology in German. But from the beginning, it was clear that he also saw the work’s potential as a resource for other pedagogical purposes. Directly on the heels of the publication of the first half of the work in German, Campe created and published a French translation of it. He even promoted this translation in the introduction that accompanied the complete (two-volume) German edition.60 The fact that Campe published his own French version of Robinson der Jüngere, with the title Le Nouveau Robinson, alongside and at the same time as his German edition demonstrates that he also considered it a useful vehicle for teaching children a modern foreign language.61 Together with the notions promoted in philanthropic essays, the model for the use of simple fictional stories as language primers predated Campe. As we have already suggested, Campe may have been influenced by the French work

Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere | 49

that Leprince de Beaumont published for English children in the 1750s. While Leprince de Beaumont presented texts for language learning in her native French, however, Campe first had to translate his. If the German original was a way to systematically build the vocabulary of young readers (along with new concepts and practices) in their native language, it could also serve to teach them vocabulary in a foreign language according to the model of the philanthropic school. These words were not learned in isolation, or via rote memorization, but rather in the context of Campe’s didacticized narrative about Robinson on his island and in the frame story that is loaded with contextualized descriptions. Even though the French in this first edition was quite rough, a fact that was noted by an early reviewer, the work’s usefulness as a tool for practicing a foreign language was abundantly clear.62 The translation of Robinson der Jüngere into French (and English) began with Campe himself, but it soon took on a life of its own, as the number of editions and translations expanded. Ullrich lists ten editions of Campe’s work that appeared in French in different German-speaking cities between 1780 and 1794.63 All of these would have been meant for German speakers learning French. These editions also introduced diverse approaches to presenting the foreign language. An influential version published in Frankfurt in 1787 included numerous glossed vocabulary items in German at the bottom of each page.64 The first three pages of text contain a total of 248 words with 54 of them, including many basic terms, glossed. This format suggests that the edition was intended for German children who had only recently begun to acquire French reading knowledge. It also reinforced the editor’s claim in his translator’s note that the publication aimed to alleviate the serious lack of reading material for German youth learning French. A slightly different approach was taken just one year later in multilingual Switzerland. In 1788, a dual-language edition of the work appeared in Fribourg.65 As its title page announced, it was intended for the young readers of “both nations,” that is, for native speakers of both languages, not just to help German speakers acquire knowledge of French but also for native French speakers to acquire German. Each page of German was published opposite a page of French so that students could follow along directly and refer to the story in their native language as necessary, without even needing to turn the page to find the relevant passage. Likewise, various editions appeared in English to assist young Germans, including future merchants, in acquiring that language. Again, Campe’s own edition in English translation started the trend, and the Frankfurt publisher Kessler produced one that was heavily glossed, just as he had for the French version. By the end of the century, Campe’s work was so popular for language learning that another translator commented on it: he had encountered the first edition in English “in several soi-disant academies and boarding-schools of Germany, where it was used with considerable success.”66 If, as we have already seen, translators

50 | Kirsten Belgum

of these editions were particularly alert to Campe’s use of language that children were able to master, they were at the beginning of a trend that would endure well into the nineteenth century. Regina Schleicher’s contribution to this volume on French language texts for German children in the late nineteenth century identifies a similar practice. Simplicity and everyday topics constituted effective resources for language learning, even when the subjects of such work also introduced the learner to the wider world.

Literary Celebrities Campe’s views about language learning were most directly relevant for youths with future careers in business. The professional path of Niklaus Böhl, the eldest son of Campe’s Hamburg sponsor Johann Jakob Böhl, took him to England at age fourteen for additional education and one year later to Cadiz, Spain, where he worked in his father’s trading house.67 In other words, his life as the scion of a highly successful Hamburg merchant family was thoroughly international. From that Spanish trading center, the twenty-year-old Böhl, who corresponded frequently with his former teacher, was alert to the spread of Campe’s story. In 1790 he eagerly wrote Campe that he was sending him a Spanish translation of Robinson der Jüngere that had just appeared there.68 Precisely this transnational class of businessmen is the audience Trapp had in mind when he wrote that children should learn French before Latin. Trapp’s and Campe’s philanthropist approach to language learning was tied to the processes of modernization and globalization that were already making themselves felt in merchant centers such as Hamburg and environs. It was a small but important step to present that world to children. An anecdote involving this same Niklaus Böhl attests to the intense, perhaps unprecedented, popularity of Campe’s work. It also suggests that Campe’s frame narrative, apart from the core story of Robinson’s adventure, was highly successful as a source of identification for generations of young readers. The story recounts that even later in his life Niklaus Böhl was famous as the character “Johannes” from Campe’s story. His identity was so well known that schoolchildren in Mecklenburg (where Böhl lived for a time) would gather around him in order to see face to face the “Johannes” they knew so well from Campe’s story.69 Although he was not the title character, “Johannes” played a memorable role as a notable participant in Campe’s retelling of the Robinson Crusoe story, and that role conferred on him a kind of celebrity status. Similar stories regarding the book’s fame and its author’s celebrity stem from encounters Campe himself had. In one he related how in 1785 numerous children “from the best homes” in Frankfurt insisted on accompanying him, like the pied piper of Hamelin, through Frankfurt’s streets.70 Another story from

Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere | 51

the same trip took place in a small rural southern German town, where Campe heard of a young boy who had been given a copy of Robinson der Jüngere by the local pastor. One Sunday evening the youth had begun reading it aloud in the local pub, where it so engaged his audience that soon the whole village showed up each week to hear another episode, often staying past midnight to do so. Clearly, Campe’s pedagogical adventure text modeled on the example of children from the rising business class was also accessible to and popular among German children (and adults) in a remote rural setting. The author commented that news of this enthusiastic reception pleased him more than any superlative review in a prestigious national journal would have.71 The fact that Campe included these anecdotes in his own series of travel stories through Germany intended for young readers points to his self-marketing savvy. And yet, they also suggest that the eighteenth-century pedagogy of episodic tales about the wider world embedded in a familiar frame narrative enjoyed an audience that extended beyond the merchant class of youngsters he was paid to teach.

Conclusion To be sure, Campe’s memorable and popular telling of the Robinson Crusoe story tapped into the European interest in adventure travel and geographical curiosity that Defoe’s novel had attracted as well. Matthew Anderson’s contribution in this volume shows how this interest continued and grew in the course of the nineteenth century. In Campe’s case, such stories were also put in the service of innovation in pedagogy, including the emphasis on learning modern foreign languages. This approach, however, was not without its critics. Campe’s contemporary Karl Wezel ridiculed the work as overly didactic and preachy. In the foreword to his own adaptation of Defoe’s Crusoe, Wezel railed against Campe’s version. He dismissed literature that was written more simply for children as suffering from a “weak, watery, bad style, full of disgusting repetition, and caressing expressions.”72 He also scoffed at Campe’s aspiration to use the story of Robinson to combat a current cultural fad, “the ruling fever of sentimentality.”73 But the market proved Wezel wrong and Campe right. Wezel’s version of Robinson Crusoe for young readers was not republished or translated.74 By restructuring the story and adding the pedagogical setting of the frame narrative, Campe chose to promote interest in the useful elements of the story. This included foregrounding the acquisition by children of knowledge about the world close at hand as well as in distant places. It also meant teaching children how to name and talk about the objects in their world. Campe’s interest in young Germans reading his new work in French or English was an integral part of that overall objective. This does not refute the idea that Campe’s work was a revealing indicator of the colonial imagination of the German middle class well into the

52 | Kirsten Belgum

nineteenth century. It does, however, suggest that the popularity of the late eighteenth-century adventure story for German children was tied to the inclusion of familiar and useful settings from Germany as a backdrop for the world. Kirsten Belgum is Associate Professor in the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She has published on nineteenth-century German realism, popular culture, periodicals, encyclopedias, geographical literature, transatlantic cultural transfer, and visual cultural studies. Her books are Interior Meaning: Design of the Bourgeois Home in the Realist Novel, and Popularizing the Nation: Audience, Representation, and the Production of Identity in Die Gartenlaube, 1853–1900. She is currently working on a book-length project on geographical imagination in the nineteenth century.

Notes   1. Statement on the title page of the English edition of Joachim Heinrich Campe’s Robinson, the Younger published in Frankfurt by Kessler in 1789.   2. Hartog, “Authority and Autonomy.” More recently, John Bender discussed the grounding of Defoe’s novel in “experiment-based experience” in the context of the scientific revolution. Bender, “Novel Knowledge,” 295–96.  3. Ullrich, Robinson und Robinsonaden, 3–12.   4. Ibid., 43–55.   5. For a discussion of the differences between the two eighteenth-century German adaptations and a later Swiss one, see Blamires, “Deutsche Kinderbuchbearbeitungen.” For a discussion of the controversy between Wezel and Campe, see Wild, “Die aufgeklärte Kinderliteratur.”  6. Ullrich, Robinson und Robinsonaden, 67–75.   7. An early translation into French was published in London as well as in France. Campe, Le Nouveau Robinson (London/Versailles: Poinçot Libraire; Paris: Nyon le jeune, 1785). Other editions were created for Danish and Dutch children learning French and English, such as Campe, Robinson the Younger (Copenhagen: P. M. Liunge, 1795); and Histoire abrégée de Robinson Crusoë (Zutphen: H. C. A. Thieme, 1809).   8. Müller, “Basedow,” 120.   9. Ibid., 118–19. 10. Letter from Herder to Johann Georg Hamann from 1776. Cited in Heinze, Zwischen Wissenschaft und Profession, 292. Heinze discusses the critical response to the movement and its political motivation in detail. 11. Stach, Robinson der Jüngere als pädagogisch-didaktisches Modell, 108. 12. Campe’s stated reason for publishing the work in two volumes was to keep the space between lines and letters appropriate for young readers, while also not exceeding a magnitude of twenty sheets. Campe, Robinson der Jüngere, zur angenehmen und nützlichen Unterhaltung für Kinder (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981), 12. All passages from the work are cited from this Reclam edition and, when quoted, translated by the author into English. The financial viability of this project

Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere | 53

also mattered to Campe. In a letter he wrote to Johann Arnold Ebert in Braunschweig requesting help in finding subscribers, Campe bemoaned the fact that two pirated editions had already appeared by November 1780. See Schmitt, Briefe, 270. 13. Such admonitions occur repeatedly throughout the work: “Industriousness … is the mother of many virtues” (170), “reasonable considerations” (176), “Order and regular division of the hours of the day” (178). 14. Campe, Robinson der Jüngere (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981), 6. 15. Stach, Robinson der Jüngere als pädagogisch-didaktisches Modell, 135–48. 16. Wild, “Aufklärung,” 76. 17. Erlin, “Book Fetish,” 365. 18. Ibid., 374. 19. Zantop, Colonial Fantasies, 112–13. 20. Ibid., 112. 21. Ibid., 117. 22. Schmitt, Briefe, 215. 23. Campe, 8–10. 24. Parker, “Experimental Schools,” 215. 25. Bellhouse, “On Understanding Rousseau’s Praise,” 133. 26. Ibid., 130. 27. These numbers are based on a tabulation of lines of text in the Reclam edition. 28. Keck, Buchstäbliche Anatomien, 91–92. 29. Merveldt, “Multilingual Robinson,” 8. 30. Spalding, Elise Reimarus, 299. 31. Ibid., 230. 32. Ibid., 231. 33. Leprince de Beaumont, Magasin des Enfants, 16. 34. Schwaben, Der Frau Maria, iii. 35. Campe, Robinson der Jüngere (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981), 30, 60, 39, 63, and 130, respectively. 36. Ibid., 36. 37. Ibid., 82. 38. Ibid., 188. 39. Ibid., 255. 40. Ibid., 82. 41. Ibid., 27, 33, 24, respectively. 42. Ibid., 39, 136, 236, and 252, respectively. 43. Italicization also emphasizes moral conclusions, such as on the final page of the first volume in which the characters summarize the main character’s situation and the mistakes he had made: “‘Poor Robinson,” some of them sighed afterward; ‘Praise God!’ said the others, ‘that he is now freed from his suffering!’” Ibid., 161. 44. Ibid., 223–24. 45. Apgar, “Taming Travel,” 5. 46. Campe, Robinson der Jüngere (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981), 138. 47. Ibid., 108–10. 48. It is unclear if Campe translated from an English-language edition of Defoe’s novel or used an existing German translation. 49. Campe, Robinson the Younger (Brunswick: Schulbuchhandlung, 1800), 124n. 50. “Robinson Krusoe, neu bearbeitet,” 557. 51. Ibid., 558. 52. Klippel, Englischlernen, 216. 53. Ibid., 210.

54 | Kirsten Belgum

54. Ibid., 203. 55. Ibid., 208. 56. Ibid., 219. 57. Ibid., 211–14. 58. Campe recommended Trapp for a position in the Dessau Philanthropinum and then invited him to Hamburg in 1783. Trapp eventually also followed Campe to Braunschweig, where they served together in the school’s administration. According to the late nineteenth-century education historian Leyser, “[Trapp] counts among those Campe held particularly close to his heart.” Quoted in Austermann, Die “Allgemeine Revision,” 45. 59. Trapp, “Über den Unterricht in Sprachen,” 222. 60. Campe, Robinson der Jüngere (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981), 14. 61. Orgeldinger, in her study of Campe’s approach to language purification, talks about his interest in foreign languages but does not include his French or English translations of Robinson der Jüngere in her list of his “works” for the years 1779, 1780, or 1781. Orgeldinger, Standardisierung und Purismus, 398–99. 62. The review in the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek comments that the French version, “as we would think, seems to smack somewhat of the German here and there.” See “Robinson Crusoe, neu bearbeitet; Robinson der Jüngere,” 287. 63. Ullrich, Robinson und Robinsonaden, 70–71. 64. Campe, Le Nouveau Robinson (Frankfurt: Kessler, 1787), xv. 65. Campe, Le nouveau Robinson (Fribourg: Eggendorffer, 1788). 66. Timaeus, ix. 67. Klose, “Böhl v. Faber.” 68. Schmitt, Briefe, 140. 69. “Even in his old age, an entire class of schoolchildren once gathered in Mecklenburg in order to see the Johannes they knew from the Robinson [book] face to face.” Klose, “Böhl v. Faber,” 59. 70. Campe, Sammlung, 222–23. 71. Ibid., 284. 72. Wezel, Robinson Krusoe, 16. 73. Ibid., 9. 74. Hörner and Heinz list the first new edition after 1795 as an East German one from 1979; Wezel, Robinson Krusoe, 316. David Blamires suggests that Wezel’s social commentary in his Robinson Krusoe, such as his criticism of the agrarian land-leasing system, was too progressive for his time. Blamires, “Deutsche Kinderbuchbearbeitungen,” 220.

Bibliography Apgar, Richard B. “Taming Travel and Disciplining Reason: Enlightenment and Pedagogy in the Work of Joachim Heinrich Campe.” PhD diss., University of North Carolina, 2008. Austermann, Simone. Die “Allgemeine Revision”: Pädagogische Theorieentwicklung im 18. Jahrhundert. Bad Heilbrunn: Julius Klinkhardt, 2010. Bellhouse, Mary L. “On Understanding Rousseau’s Praise of Robinson Crusoe.” Canadian Journal of Social and Political Theory 6, no. 3 (Fall 1982): 120–37. Bender, John. “Novel Knowledge: Judgment, Experience, Experiment.” In This Is Enlightenment, edited by Clifford Siskin and William Warner, 284–300. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.

Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere | 55

Blamires, David. “Deutsche Kinderbuchbearbeitungen von Defoes Robinson Crusoe.” In Beiträge zur Rezeption der britischen und irischen Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts im deutschsprachigen Raum, edited by Norbert Bachleitner, 217–30. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000. Campe, Joachim Heinrich. Le Nouveau Robinson, pour server a l’amusement et a l’instruction des enfants de l’un et de l’autre sexe. Vol. 1. London/Versailles: Poinçot Libraire; Paris: Nyon le jeune, 1785. ———. Sammlung interessanter und durchgängig zweckmäßig abgefaßter Reisebeschreibungen für die Jugend. Vol. 2. Wolfenbüttel: Schulbuchhandlung, 1786. ———. Le Nouveau Robinson: Pour Servir a l’Amusement et a l’Instruction des Enfans; Enrichi de Rémarques Allemandes; à l’usage de ceux qui apprennent le françois. Vol. 1. Frankfurt: Kessler, 1787. ———. Le nouveau Robinson: pour server a l’amusement et a l’instruction des Enfans. Allemand et François a l’usage des deux nations. Vol. 1. Fribourg: Eggendorffer, 1788. ———. Robinson the Younger. Frankfurt: Kessler, 1789. ———. Robinson the Younger. Illustrated with Danish notes. Firt [sic] Part. Copenhagen: P. M. Liunge, 1795. ———. Robinson the Younger. Translated from the german [sic]; A New Edition by John Timaeus. Brunswick: Schulbuchhandlung, 1800. ———. Robinson der Jüngere, zur angenehmen und nützlichen Unterhaltung für Kinder. Edited by Alwin Binder and Heinrich Richartz. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981. Erlin, Matt. “Book Fetish: Joachim Heinrich Campe and the Commodification of Literature.” Seminar 42, no. 4 (November 2006): 355–76. Hartog, Curt. “Authority and Autonomy in Robinson Crusoe.” Enlightenment Essays 5, no. 2 (1974): 33–43. Heinze, Kristin. Zwischen Wissenschaft und Profession: Das Wissen über den Begriff “Verbesserung” im Diskurs der pädagogischen Fachlexikographie vom Ende des 18. bis zur Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Opladen: Budrich UniPress, 2008. Histoire abrégée de Robinson Crusoë. Partagée en leçons et destinée à être traduite en hollandois par Matthieu van Oort. 2nd ed. Zutphen: H. C. A. Thieme, 1809. Keck, Annette. Buchstäbliche Anatomien: Vom Lesen und Schreiben des Menschen— Literaturgeschichten der Moderne. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2007. Klippel, Friedericke. Englischlernen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert: Die Geschichte der Lehrbücher und Unterrichtsmethoden. Münster: Nodus Publikationen, 1994. Klose, NN. “Böhl v. Faber, Johann Nikolaus.” In Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 3:59–61. Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1876. Leprince de Beaumont, Jeanne-Marie. Magasin des Enfants; ou Dialogues entre une sage Gouvernante et Plusieurs de ses Élèves de la premiére Distinction. London: J. Haberkorn, 1857. Merveldt, Nikola von. “Multilingual Robinson: Imagining Modern Communities for MiddleClass Children.” Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature 51, no. 3 (July 2013): 1–11. Müller, Max. “Basedow, Johann Bernhard.” In Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 2:113–24. Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1875. Parker, S. Chester. “Experimental Schools in Germany in the Eighteenth Century.” Elementary School Teacher 12, no. 5 (January 1912): 215–24. Orgeldinger, Sibylle. Standardisierung und Purismus bei Joachim Heinrich Campe. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999.

56 | Kirsten Belgum

“Robinson Crusoe, neu bearbeitet; Robinson der Jüngere.” Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek 40, piece 1 (1780): 280–88. “Robinson Krusoe, neu bearbeitet; Robinson der Jüngere.” Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek 43, piece 2 (1780): 552–58. Schmitt, Hanno, ed. Briefe von und an Joachim Heinrich Campe. 2 vols. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1996. Schwaben, Joachim Johann, ed. Der Frau Maria de Prince de Beaumont lehrreiches Magazin für Kinder zur richtigen Bildung ihres Verstandes und Herzens. Leipzig: M. G. Weidmanns Erben und Reich, 1767. Spalding, Almut. Elise Reimarus (1735–1805), The Muse of Hamburg: A Woman of the Enlightenment. Würzburg: Könighausen und Neumann, 2005. Stach, Reinhard. Robinson der Jüngere als pädagogisch-didaktisches Modell des philanthropistischen Erziehungsdenkens: Studie zu einem klassischen Kinderbuch. Ratingen: A. Henn, 1970. Timaeus, John. “Preface.” In Joachim Heinrich Campe, Robinson der Jüngere, vii–ix. Translated from the german [sic]; A New Edition by John Timaeus. Brunswick: Schulbuchhandlung, 1800. Trapp, Ernst Christian. “Über den Unterricht in Sprachen.” In Allgemeine Revision des gesamten Schul- und Erziehungswesens von einer Gesellschaft praktischer Erzieher, edited by Joachim Heinrich Campe. Vol. 11. Braunschweig: Rudolph Gräffer, 1788. Ullrich, Hermann. Robinson und Robinsonaden: Bibliographie, Geschichte, Kritik: Ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden Litteraturgeschichte, im besonderen zur Geschichte des Romans und zur Geschichte der Jugendliteratur. Part I. Bibliographie. Weimar: Emil Felber, 1898. Wezel, Johann Karl. Robinson Krusoe. Edited by Wolfgang Hörner and Jutta Heinz with Jochen Zwick. Heidelberg: Mattes Verlag, 2016. Wild, Reiner. “Die aufgeklärte Kinderliteratur in der Literaturgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts: Zur Kontroverse um die Robinson-Bearbeitungen zwischen Joachim Heinrich Campe und Johann Carl Wezel.” In Aufklärung und Kinderbuch: Studien zur Kinder- und Jugendliteratur des 18. Jahrhunderts, edited by Dagmar Grenz, 47–78. Pinneberg: Raecke, 1986. ———. “Aufklärung.” In Geschichte der deutschen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, edited by Reiner Wild, 43–95. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2008. Zantop, Suzanne. Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family, and Nation in Precolonial Germany, 1770–1870. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997.

Chapter 2

Images of Land and Sea Experiencing the World as Adventure through Theodor Dielitz’s Travel Anthologies for Young Readers, 1841–62 Matthew O. Anderson

S The reservoir of European knowledge about the rest of the world grew immensely during the nineteenth century. As the quantity and availability of this information increased, so too did the challenge for authors, publishers, parents, and educators to effectively filter, adapt, and re-present it for young readers. Susanne Zantop observes that the economy of global knowledge in pre-colonial nineteenth-century Germany was driven by “a totalizing impulse to amass information, order it synchronically into geographies, diachronically into histories, and vertically into hierarchies of moral and cultural development, and make this structured information accessible to all strata and ages of the educated bourgeois public.”1 Often intertwined with these processes of textual (re)organization, new methods of visualization impacted knowledge dissemination and consumption in the nineteenth century. The expanding genres of German children’s literature offer particularly vibrant viewpoints onto these converging developments. For example, in the 1840s, the German children’s book publisher Winckelmann & Sons (Winckelmann & Söhne) began to release a variety of extensive anthologies by Theodor Dielitz that redacted, repositioned, and revisualized commercially successful travel narratives for an audience of young (male) readers. These collections advertise exciting diversion, virtuous role models, real-world description, and a basis in the authenticity of eyewitness reports. Furthermore, they privilege visual excitement as the foundation for everything else: life-and-death encounters act as focalizing lenses that filter out extraneous descriptive detail and narrow the reader-viewer’s focus to the immediate experience of travel as adventure. Notes from this chapter begin on page 75.

58 | Matthew O. Anderson

The following case study explores how pedagogical, textual, and visual foci converge in Theodor Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea (Land- und Seebilder, 1841–62), a nineteen-volume collection of adventurous travel excerpts for young readers. In the first section, it positions these works relative to the fluctuating pedagogical status of middle-class adventure. Then, it considers the two focalizing lenses created by the text’s producers—first by Theodor Dielitz, who refocused and rewrote adult travel narratives for a new audience and purpose; second, by Theodor Hosemann and the publisher Winckelmann & Sons, who further filtered Dielitz’s adaptations through their own visual idiom. Finally, the study highlights the relationships between explicit pedagogical aims and their textual and paratextual realizations as a means to explore the collection’s cumulative presentation of foreign travel as a series of dangerous, exciting, and sometimes educational experiences.

From Vilified to Virtuous: Changing Attitudes toward Adventure The literary market in mid-nineteenth-century Germany was flooded with a variety of overlapping travel narrative genres, each vying for prominence as prime purveyors of authentic, global knowledge to young, middle-class readers. Though the eyewitness travel accounts from the likes of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, John C. Frémont, or Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied were adapted, published, and widely disseminated in Germanophone Europe as intentional children’s literature,2 their commercial popularity paled in comparison to that of more stimulating adventure narratives. As Heinrich Pleticha and others have observed, this trend allowed the colorful figures of desperados and rangers—not eyewitness researcher-explorers—to dominate the perspectives of young Germans on the New World during the middle of the nineteenth century.3 This was a significant new development. Once an eighteenth-century bourgeois bugaboo, adventure had gradually but dramatically acquired a new pedagogical and literary status over the span of just a few decades. Klaus-Ulrich Pech’s historical overview of nineteenth-century German children’s literature, Kinder- und Jugendliteratur vom Biedermeier bis zum Realismus, outlines a paradigmatic power shift in the forces guiding the development of children’s book production, from pedagogues to publishers. In his view, the old Enlightenment model of an entertaining and instructive travel literature for children gradually disintegrated over the course of the nineteenth century and was succeeded by a commercialized, literary-aesthetic children’s adventure literature. Regarding changes to children’s travel narratives, he claims that this process of disintegration had already reached an advanced stage by the middle of the nineteenth century: “The adventure elements were thrust so forcefully into the foreground that

Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea | 59

everything pedagogical began to melt into mere entertainment.”4 In other words, the long-standing Horatian guiding principle of prodesse et delectare—to educate and entertain—was only half of what it used to be. The threat of this imbalance was deeply concerning for mid-century pedagogues, who held long-standing bourgeois anxieties about exposing impressionable youths to the corrosive moral influences of unchecked, impetuous escapism. Yet the greater challenge of adventure is tied much less to its content than its episodic structure—at its core, an adventure narrative can be simply defined as a protagonist-centered series of exciting, action-filled depictions of dangerous situations and their resolutions.5 In his essay “Das Abenteuer,” Georg Simmel notes that an adventure is not defined by its content but by the form of experience it presents. Its atmosphere is always one of “unconditional presence” (unbedingte Gegenwärtigkeit), which Simmel defines as the “acceleration of vital processes to a point that has neither past nor future and therefore accumulates vitality so intensely that the specific events [in question] frequently become relatively irrelevant.”6 Adventure for Simmel is not, however, merely a break in normal life processes but rather something that is missing clear connections to the rest of life; it is an insular experience defined by its own beginning and end—not by any connection to the past or future. The extreme priority given to this experience of unconditional presence is what separates adventure from other travel narrative types.7 The primary challenge that authors had faced for decades was how to integrate such isolated adventure episodes into a cohesive pedagogical framework. For example, successful eighteenth-century Robinsonades had often deployed extensive framing devices to prevent uncontrolled affective identification with the experience of adventure: the dangerous and tension-filled situations could never themselves be the end, but always served as a means of reaffirming bourgeois values.8 Popular children’s magazines exploited the formal affinities between adventure episode and serial publication and relied on smaller-scale content interventions to “inject” a modicum of pedagogical value into their works. From Pech’s literary-historical perspective, if the former containment strategy appears an assertive—if heavy-handed—pedagogical offensive against adventure, the latter seems like a strategic retreat to a sociopolitically and commercially safe base of virtue ethics, a concession of the educator’s high ground to publishers wanting to cash in on the genre’s success. Seen in this light, Theodor Dielitz’s series of travel anthologies, the Images of Land and Sea, is typical Biedermeier: it lacks critical perspective and political courage and is fundamentally compromised by commercial forces. It encapsulates a key transitional moment, but one that Pech—echoing the anxieties of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century pedagogues around the changing mode and mass of child reading—interprets negatively as evidence of the inevitable disintegration of the robust German children’s literature of the Enlightenment.

60 | Matthew O. Anderson

Clearly this last point is exaggerated. My purpose here is not to challenge this historical metanarrative but rather to make a case for a more nuanced perspective, one that not only takes individual works at their word but also considers the importance of visual paratexts in contributing to their overall presentation. Rather than assuming that Dielitz’s works are pedagogically or aesthetically compromised by their form, content, and the socioeconomic contexts of their production, this study proceeds from the assumption that they actively make pragmatic compromises between ideal pedagogical values and the shifting institutional and commercial circumstances integral to their effective dissemination. Theodor Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea connects serial adventure narratives to moral virtue via multiple, layered visualizations of immediate, subjective experience.9 The following sections explore these textual and visual filters that the author, illustrator, and publisher apply to the corpus of Western European travel literature in order to create a coherent, commercially successful series of children’s anthologies.

Theodor Dielitz and the Authorization of Adventure “The role of the educator is to rhythmize the soul to [moral] virtue.”10 These words, given during his 1841 address, “On the Educational Power of the School,” to the faculty of the Königliche Realschule zu Berlin, rather poetically encapsulate Gabriel Maria Theodor Dielitz’s pedagogical vision. For Dielitz, the two overarching aims of formal education—to foster knowledge of the real world through systematic instruction and to acclimate students to a harmonious moral life within the state—establish the rhythm, and the teacher the rhyme.11 “By means of example and disciplinary action,” he states, “the educator seeks to restrain the child’s baser instincts and foster the higher ones and, in doing so, he paves the way for morality, which, as we have yet to show, can only be brought forth through education.”12 Positive role models and corrective practices—interventions from above—are the preferred means to achieving this harmony. Dielitz embodied this urge to lead by example in both arenas of his professional life. While working at the Königliche Realschule zu Berlin, Dielitz devoted his extracurricular activities to publishing works for both educators and students. Like many of his mid-century contemporaries, he was keenly aware of the challenges posed by the sheer volume of unfiltered information available to the (young) public and sought to address them, both from within the institutional framework of the Prussian school system as an educator and in the commercial publishing sphere as an author of children’s books. While his pedagogical musings and instructional materials remain largely forgotten today, his Images of Land and Sea enjoyed immediate and sustained success. The next section lays out

Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea | 61

the pedagogical aims and aesthetic frames that define Dielitz’s vision across his adventure anthologies.

Envisioning Images of Land and Sea Three primary aims inform Images of Land and Sea, each of which is either presented in the preface to each volume or can be inferred from the author’s general perspectives on educational vocation. First, his adaptations sanction certain adventure narratives (and their thematic foci) as appropriate reading material for children. By claiming a subset of the available adventure literature as intentional children’s literature (and more specifically as German children’s literature), he interposes and asserts himself (and his pedagogical principles) as a trustworthy guide and mediator for child readers and their parents. A second, structural aim positions such acceptable children’s adventures in a subordinate, supplementary relation to the official regime of knowledge found in school curricula. This positions certain authorized adventure narratives within the hierarchy of institutionalized (curricular) information. Dielitz’s third aim extends into the adult futures of his intended readership: reading his travel excerpts should serve to prepare young readers for future encounters with their unaltered source texts. The series of glimpses he gives into these works is intended as a more permanent filter, bending both child and adult reading (and viewing) preferences toward authenticated source materials.

Exotic Experiences, Virile Virtues, Authentic Adventures The preface to the first of Dielitz’s adventure anthologies, Life Portraits (Lebensbilder, 1840), advertises visual exoticness, moral virtue, and authenticity as the most significant qualities guiding his process of selecting and adapting adventure narratives for children. Each of these is nominally reader-oriented: they are meant to reflect the general interests and experiences of a pubescent or prepubescent male audience. Alongside grand views of nature, the likes of which “only a select few can experience with their own eyes,” Dielitz promises a series of “circumstances” that will “lay bare the virile pursuits and struggles of mankind.”13 Such examples, he claims, will function as models for his readers to emulate and will “have all the stronger effect upon them, since the narrated events are—nearly without exception—true down to the smallest detail.”14 Appeals to the exotic, the virtuous, and the authentic are made early and often throughout each volume. Virtue and authenticity may rest at the top of Dielitz’s educational agenda, but they are neither the first nor the loudest claims made. The individual volume titles are rife with an array of spatial-geographical, ethnographic, and perspectival “exoticness.” Regional varieties are the most frequent, but they range in

62 | Matthew O. Anderson

specificity from the straightforward and descriptive—American Travel Images (Amerikanische Reisebilder, 1853), Regional Images (Zonenbilder, 1852), Britannia (1856), and Hispania (1860)—to the Eurocentric—Across the Ocean (Jenseits des Oceans, 1857), The New World (Die neue Welt, 1856), and East and West (Ost und West, 1855)—and even the mythical, as in Atlantis (1862).15 A few highlight specific, topographical features—the Images of Land and Sea (1841) for example— while others accentuate the mode or activity of travel: Travel Images (Reisebilder, 1843) and Treks & Hunting Expeditions (Streif- und Jagdzüge, 1851). Still others emphasize unique visual foci—The Sketchbook (Das Skizzenbuch, 1844), Nature Images & Travel Sketches (Naturbilder und Reiseskizzen, 1848), Cosmoramas (Kosmoramen, 1849), and Panoramas (Panoramen, 1849)—some of which make direct reference to popular mid-century visual media. Only two titles explicitly emphasize the human subjects inhabiting these spaces: Life Images (Lebensbilder, 1840) and Ethnic Portraits & Landscapes (Völkergemälde und Landschaftsbilder, 1846). As a set, then, Images of Land and Sea promises the reader a wide variety of exotic places, people, and perspectives. While Dielitz delivers on the first two counts, his “purposeful” selection of “appealing sketches, in which instructive accounts and descriptions are tied to exciting events,” privileges these “exciting events” as the dominant focal perspective through which everything else is perceived.16 The “exciting events” and exotic “descriptions” serve to capture the reader’s attention and enrich his perspectives, but they are also meant to serve a higher purpose: the positive moral formation of young readers. Dielitz believes that exhilarating examples of courage, tenacity, charity, and faith will be most beneficial to this end. As noted previously, this strategy was by no means new. However, by the 1840s, strategies for habitualizing moral behavior through affective identification had become subtler since the eighteenth century.17 Rather than relying on heavyhanded frame narratives or intrusive narrator commentary to guide the reader toward the proper conclusion, Dielitz leans on (then) commonly held developmental reading models that privileged travel narratives as the ideal reading material for pubescent males. In his own words, the author defines this time of youthful exuberance as one of ideals, of striving toward both the distant and the infinite, and seeks to align the experiences of his own (unproven) protagonists with the experiential horizons of his intended readers.18 Everything becomes a trial, an obstacle, a challenge, and Dielitz transforms exotic spaces into proving grounds, encounters with unknown Others into tests of the young protagonist’s virile attributes. The young reader and the focalizing figure are meant to share the affective experience of initiation—in whatever geographic context it may occur.19 This strategy of affective identification is further amplified by the brief and episodic structure of the volumes. According to Peter Hasubek and others, the rapid succession of episodes is analogous to the pubescent and prepubescent phases of heightened mental desire.20 The brevity of each sketch, its focus on a

Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea | 63

central climactic event, and the selective inclusion of peripheral details adding to the strange, exotic, and dangerous circumstances at hand all further accentuate the proximity between diegetic and exegetic experience.21 Harnessing affective, psychological “relatability” to moral ends seems to be Dielitz’s primary means of reaching his audience. However, he also goes to great lengths to proclaim the veracity of his narratives: they are, he says “nearly without exception, true down to the smallest detail.”22 While he was allegedly offered the chance to travel abroad in a state capacity, there is no evidence to suggest that Dielitz himself ever traveled to any of the places he references. The author—like the rest of the reading public—is utterly dependent on the quality (and veracity) of his “eyewitness” sources as the primary guarantors of the geographical and ethnographical “authenticity” of his stories. To this end, he selectively borrows from successful contemporary travel writers, most notably the French author Gabriel Ferry; Anglophone writers Thomas Mayne Reid, William Gilmore Simms, James Fenimore Cooper, and Frederick Marryat; and contemporary Germanophone successes Charles Sealsfield, Friedrich Gerstäcker, and Ludwig Bechstein. He also claims to derive many of his other stories from English, French, and German literary magazines, though he only—and infrequently—mentions two sources by name: The Magazine for Foreign Literature (Das Magazin für ausländische Literatur) and The Karlsruhe Conversation Paper (Das Karlsruher Unterhaltungsblatt). In spite of—or perhaps due to—the widespread acclaim and perceived credibility of these sources, Dielitz is often coy when discussing both his material starting points and the adaptation process. For the most part, he is careful to acknowledge established writers by name—and often makes explicit references to the specific chapters or sections of works that he has borrowed from—but he is frequently vague regarding magazine and newspaper sources. In one instance, he claims that “a few sections are entirely my own work, the rest, on the other hand, are borrowed from the reports of English, French, and German travelers, and have only been altered by me with regard to the form dictated by the goal of this book.”23 At other times, his lack of clarity seems intentionally flippant: anticipating concern for absent references to the “exciting events” at the center of his narratives, Dielitz casually remarks that “if a name is missing,” then “the tale was taken from some magazine or other.”24 In any case, there is a considerable discrepancy between the amount of material explicitly attributed to a particular author or work—approximately 30 percent of the total page count—and the rest, which is only implicitly accounted for.25 This figure does not include countless details conspicuously added—sometimes organically, often rather clumsily—to bring some supplemental descriptive “fiber” to the narrative as it progresses toward the exciting moment. A cynical explanation for the discrepancy is that, by being intentionally unspecific, Dielitz could use the status of celebrated sources as cover for both the

64 | Matthew O. Anderson

accuracy and quality of his adaptations. Another, more likely, explanation is that the veracity of the stories simply did not matter to many readers (or authors), so long as the claim to authenticity had been made at some point.26 His publisher, Winckelmann & Sons, seems well aware of this. For example, in the preface to the sixth edition of Nature Images & Travel Sketches (1890), the editors observe that the Dielitz anthologies have remained appealing to their audience over the years, even when “circumstances in the depicted regions have changed in some respects.”27 Here, we see a pragmatic adjustment from the criterion of authenticity to that of being authenticated or authorized, one that also alludes to broader shifts in the status of information under the auspices of two institutional gatekeepers: the publisher and—as the next section will explore—the school.

Adventure as Extracurricular Supplement While Dielitz was a successful children’s author, he did not—like some of his mid-century contemporaries—scratch out a living solely as a so-called mass-production author (Vielschreiber or Polyscribent). He was, first and foremost, a teacher. His career at the Königliche Realschule zu Berlin began in 1835, when he accepted a teaching post for history and geography. Over time, Dielitz rose within the institutional hierarchy, becoming a professor in 1844, superintendent—of all Berlin schools—in 1846, member of the Prussian National Assembly in 1848, and eventually succeeding August Spilleke as headmaster of the Königliche Realschule in 1849.28 All of Dielitz’s travel anthologies were produced parallel to his active employment in these institutional roles. As the previous section asserts, one of Dielitz’s primary goals with Images of Land and Sea is to interpose himself as an arbiter of “good” adventure. A secondary goal—and one not mentioned in the anthologies themselves—is to position these works and their consumption into a complementary, symbiotic relationship to the structured dissemination of knowledge in the school setting. The ideal connection to his own institutional framework was through the subject of geography, which was only taught from the sexta to the obertertia, or the first five years of secondary education.29 The age demographic for these lessons overlaps neatly with that of his target audience of (roughly) nine- to fifteen-year-old middle-class male students. Given the relatively brief emphasis on the subject within the overall curriculum,30 it is easy to see how the institutional impulse to present a complete, synchronic world geography (Zantop) would be frustrated by the sheer volume of available material. Dielitz grapples with this problem most explicitly in his brief Outline of World History for Gymnasia and Realschulen (Grundriss der Weltgeschichte für Gymnasien und Realschulen, 1850), in which he attempts to provide a concise summary of world history in a single volume. Despite his avowed goal to finally create a “manageable” history book for students, he must concede defeat on

Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea | 65

the very first page of his preface: he too has erred by including too much rather than too little.31 A solution to this problem appears in his historical anthologies, where Dielitz explicitly advances supplemental leisure reading as an appropriate extension of the official history curriculum. By exhibiting an array of fascinating historical details in his anthologies, Dielitz claims, he can paint vivid portraits of historical heroes that far exceed the “faint outlines” offered by history lessons. This supplementary role is also intended to establish a positive feedback loop between curricular and extracurricular learning—again by recourse to affect regulation. Ideally, this would feed directly into the immediate experience of the student, but it can also serve as an introduction to younger readers: while the texts seem tailored toward his own history students, Dielitz assures all of his readers that the works are embedded in a series of descriptions, so that “even those without any previous historical knowledge” will find them “intelligible and appealing.”32 In this instance it is the pedagogical mission of shaping extracurricular interest(s)—not the specific contents of the stories—that link the curricular to the extracurricular. The same relationship applies to the Images of Land and Sea, whose organizing principle is more than a mere extension of the geography curriculum. In fact, one of Dielitz’s implicit organizational goals is precisely the opposite: to supplement the monotonous, systematic treatment of particular geographical regions with something formally distinct. He does so structurally in two ways: first, by ensuring that successive stories set in the same region do not share the same content focus (for example, they use a different type of exciting event); and second, by limiting the length of each individual narrative as much as possible.33 Dielitz also appears ashamed to present too many successive stories with content from the same corner of the globe. For example, in the preface to Treks & Hunting Expeditions (1851), he admits that he has “dedicated a more significant amount of space to the Orient than in previous [volumes],” but he immediately reassures the reader that it also contains “travel depictions and hunting scenes from other parts of the world, so that it is not lacking in variety.”34 Fleeting, focused narratives and vacillating forms present information in brief, easily digestible bites that can be enjoyed in a variety of settings at leisure. By situating Images of Land and Sea as a supplement to institutional learning, Dielitz acknowledges that two spheres of knowledge production—one curricular and one commercial—were becoming more distinct, and that significant influence in both spheres was necessary to achieve his overall pedagogical aim. Images of Land and Sea effectively positions itself as a vital but supplemental reservoir of authenticated global knowledge for young male readers, an authorized filter for the excess of entertaining extracurricular narratives circulating the pre-colonial German knowledge economy that builds critical interest in global knowledge but always feeds back into the institutional control of the school curriculum.35

66 | Matthew O. Anderson

Repetitive Reading, Repetitive Viewing While the formal, thematic, educational, and entertaining elements of these works all converge on the experience of the young male reader and his moral formation, Dielitz also considers the long-term commercial impacts of his works vis-à-vis the travel literature genre. In the preface to Regional Images (Zonenbilder, 1852) the author alludes to another extracurricular desire: to use his adaptations as a bridge that will “revitalize a taste for reading travelogues” by winning over younger readers.36 In effect, Dielitz wants to steer his target audience’s current and future textual preferences—eyewitness, reportage-length travel narratives with detailed descriptions centered on exciting events—toward these same criteria for the long term. As the subsequent sections will illustrate, these works seek to train future readers by recalling previous viewing experiences—specifically, of illustrated children’s books they read when younger. What Dielitz offers his (pre)pubescent readers is less a series of travel narratives and more a collection of adventure impressions, a repetitive series of ephemeral glimpses intended not only to reflect but also to focalize the interests, desires, and experiential horizons of young male readers. The titles, subtitles, and prefatory outlines are rife with all manner of visual descriptors, ranging from the general—depictions (Darstellungen), images (Bilder), paintings (Gemälde), portrayals (Schilderungen), sketches (Skizzen), and scenes (Szenen)—to the genre-specific: cosmoramas (Kosmoramen), panoramas (Panoramen), and landscapes (Landschaften).37 Yet unlike the isolated objects often presented in ABC books or encyclopedia sets, the images in Dielitz’s stories are fundamentally active. The repeated emphasis on the climax of each story acts as the focalizing lens through which everything else is always filtered.38

Theodor Hosemann and the Bilderfabrik of Winckelmann & Sons Illustrations play a prominent role in Images of Land and Sea, as they do in all of the books published by Winckelmann & Sons. In her biography of the Berlin illustrator Theodor Hosemann, Ingeborg Becker aptly describes the publishing house as a veritable Bilderfabrik, a factory for producing images.39 Throughout its 100-year existence (1828–1929), the publishing house became best known for its extensive and diverse catalogue of visual products for children: school maps, blueprints, plans, instruction manuals for drawing and painting, coloring books, Volksbilder, portraits, pictures of saints, Bilderbögen (sheets of pictures, often in a series), theater decorations, peepshow images, and, of course, illustrated children’s books.40 The quality and sheer diversity of their offerings are likely what enabled Winckelmann & Sons to produce exclusively for a child readership.41

Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea | 67

The publisher’s success would have been impossible if not for the prolific efforts of the illustrator Theodor Hosemann. After he had learned his art at Arnz & Company’s lithographic institute in Düsseldorf, Hosemann followed Johann Christian Winckelmann to Berlin in 1828 to become the official “in-house” illustrator for the latter’s new publishing enterprise, Winckelmann & Sons. As the principle illustrator for the publisher, Hosemann had a regular commission of eight lithographs per book, each of which he both designed and drew on the stone.42 In this capacity, Hosemann illustrated approximately half of the publisher’s picture books, including all of Theodor Dielitz’s anthologies for young readers.43 Considering the early commercial successes of Winckelmann & Sons, it may well be feasible to posit young readers whose own reservoirs of visual imagery had been nourished on a steady diet of Hosemann’s lithographs since before they could read.44 As suggested above, their potential as a perspectival bridge beyond the intended age demographic of the Dielitz volumes is equally conceivable. While his “Views of Berlin” (“Berliner Ansichten”) have been well received by generations of art historians, Hosemann’s illustrations for Dielitz’s adventure anthologies are not generally praised for their aesthetic refinement. The most charitable critics describe them as “quite pedantic” and “drily instructive,” while others claim that the very act of producing them at all damaged the lithographer’s artistic reputation in a “not insignificant manner.”45 Others see in Hosemann a casualty of the growing economic necessity of continuous productivity—sometimes referred to as the “factory activity” of mid-century publishers—which often led to substantial decreases in the quality and variety of both illustrations and their textual guidelines.46 Unassailable aesthetic quality, however, does not appear to have been a significant criterion to his readers, and even his staunchest critics admit that Hosemann’s illustrations contributed significantly to the wide distribution and extended print runs of the Dielitz anthologies.47 Furthermore, if trends among book collectors are any indication, the sustained commercial popularity of these works testifies to their immediate and sustained appeal.48 The emphasis on clarity, accuracy, and simplicity—all typical means by which nineteenth-century illustrators tried to curate visually digestible and pedagogically valuable images for children— in Hosemann’s work “betrays no [grand] artistic ambitions,” but his strategic restraint plays a significant role in further guiding interpretation.49 The intended effect is to foster immediate interpretive accessibility: by refraining from any and all fantastical elements and rooting the portrayals of such unusual elements firmly in the solid ground of reality, the young reader is left to “transform that which [is] read into real experience.”50 Combined with a high degree of verisimilitude vis-à-vis the depicted content, Hosemann’s stylistic program appears to complement the author’s emphasis on accuracy by giving visual witness to the eyes of the reader. The relationship between text and illustration (Theodor Dielitz and Theodor Hosemann) here is straightforward,

68 | Matthew O. Anderson

hierarchical (that is, text determines image), and complementary: by providing the reader with the appropriate focal lens for viewing the narrative, its illustrations behave predictably relative to their established textual parameters. Dielitz’s own pedagogical goals and interpretive decisions do have a strong influence on the Hosemann lithographs that appear beside them in Images of Land and Sea, but—to borrow an expression from W. J. T. Mitchell—the specific nature of the “weave, the relation of warp and woof” between word and image is more complex than it appears.51 To unravel some of this complexity, the following touches on the most significant textual and visual interweavings across Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea.

Visualized Virtues and Paratextual Provings Hosemann’s illustrations share interpretive priorities similar those of Dielitz’s adaptations. Ultimately, they aim to elevate the exciting event and valorize the particular set of virtues necessary to prevail in that moment, without sacrificing accuracy. For Hosemann, clarity of form belies clarity—and hierarchy—of function, and is intended to prevent interpretive ambiguity. By cleanly and prominently depicting key figures and their exegetic relationships in the compositional foreground and leaving extraneous, topographic details to the background and periphery, each illustration allows the reader to both identify the prioritized focus and identify with the immediate experience—or experiencer—it presents. The illustrator’s staging of this identification process relies on highly theatrical visual conventions stylistically linked to the other products produced at the lithographic institute. The attention to details in costume—as well as the individual posturing, theatrical stage blocking, and perspectival flatness of the backdrops—bear strong resemblance to the picture sheets that Winckelmann & Sons regularly released for younger audiences.52 In fact, the visual spectrum was fluid between their products—as Sebastian Schmideler notes, the publisher’s first children’s books were essentially compilations of stock images “loosely bound” into picture books.53 In both instances, the illustrator clearly and simply presents pivotal moments as a means for pushing the narrative forward. Like Hosemann’s picture sheets, these presentations of arrested action lean heavily on simple, dramatic positioning to establish the stakes—and roles—for everyone in the scene. They deploy arresting moments as a spectacular means to envelop the reader-viewer in the immediacy and excitement of the exegetic adventurer’s experience. In a similar fashion, the privileged status Dielitz accords to the “exciting events” at the heart of his stories preselect the individual scenes that Hosemann chooses to illustrate. Most of the time, Hosemann chooses to visualize the “moment of truth”—the point at which the circumstances are most dire, the outcome hangs

Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea | 69

in the balance, and the protagonist must prove himself equal to the challenge. Substantially fewer illustrations present static models not overtly connected to the narrative moment of truth but depicting characters as archetypes at the story’s onset or conclusion.

Moments of Choice, Moments of Truth Like the exciting events that anchor each story, Hosemann’s eight, hand-colored illustrations are exceptionally prominent in each volume of Images of Land and Sea. Unlike his Bilderbogen, they are also relatively rare: even given the concise, often bare-bones nature of the individual stories, the average volume is 316 pages long, yielding a quantitative image-to-text ratio of about 1:40. The relative infrequency of the lithographs both intensifies expectations of their quality and highlights the importance of the illustrator’s choice in determining not only what and how but also when to visualize the text—and when not to. The precise placement or timing of a given visual intervention within the narrative chronology—in other words, the illustrator’s moment of choice—is central to understanding how the image and text intersect and further Dielitz’s aims. In his studies of illustration in English literature, Edward Hodnett highlights the moment of choice as the most important concern when considering illustrations of novel-length works. For Hodnett, the central question facing the illustrator is always “Which of all the possible moments of choice are the ones that are most significant in terms of contributing to the reader’s understanding of the text and of reinforcing the emotional effects sought by the author?”54 In Images of Land and Sea, Hosemann’s moment of choice is most often the protagonist’s climactic moment of truth. In the majority of his illustrations (80.67 percent of the total), Hosemann’s composition hinges neither on individual adventurers nor on the proving ground but on the narrative moment of proving, itself. The instant portrayed is always the instant immediately before all is decided: the hunter takes aim to strike, the captive struggles to escape before the guard returns, the puma prepares to pounce. Given the narrative guidelines, this is perhaps not so surprising. After all, Dielitz’s adaptation principles had already refocused the narratives into vehicles for “viewing” virtue in action, such that even when the text is not illustrated, the “moment of truth” is structurally focalized. The textual stage has been set at this point, the figures visually arranged in such a way that the focus is squarely on the question, “How can he possibly prevail?” In tandem with the text, the illustration cues the reader-viewer to possible answers by accentuating the type and magnitude of peril that must be overcome, setting up the inevitable follow-up during the falling action in which the narrator or protagonist waxes pedagogic on the remarkable courage, steadfastness, or decisiveness displayed by the heroic adventurer. Rather than being positively encoded

70 | Matthew O. Anderson

in the protagonist directly, this is most frequently established by magnifying the most lethal components of the threat he must overcome. In other instances, the reactions and expressions of diegetic “extras”—most often seen screaming, fleeing, or otherwise openly advertising their fear—act as visual counterpoints to the (visibly) less flappable hero. In the former case this is often extremely direct, as in figure 2.1, where the gray bear’s most intimidating characteristics—its hulking mass, claws, and glowing, red-colored eyes—loom above the prominent but prone foreground figure. The hunter—identifiably young in age and European in dress—is in position, his weapon primed and aimed, but he has yet to pull the trigger. Both these details and the overall composition identify the focal figures and establish the precise shape and stakes of their conflict clearly and unambiguously. They also present the moment of truth as a moment of potential identification with the focalized protagonist. The scene’s third-person perspective is not identical to that of the hunter but is extremely close to it: we see everything that he sees but from a safe, disembodied distance. The reader, who inches closer to the diegetic adventurer’s experiential horizon with every step the latter takes, is positioned as a voyeuristic shadow, a disembodied companion stalking the hunter as he stalks his own quarry. This relationship further extends what Roland Barthes describes as a visual-verbal process of relaying, where both text and image attempt to grasp the same object: “Here language … and image are in a complementary relation; the words are then fragments of a more general syntagm, as are the images, and the message’s unity occurs on a higher level; that of the story.”55 In this case, the unity is found in the experience of the story: it is the intense immediacy of the moment of truth, the vivifying, vicarious experience of something eminently relatable in form but unattainable in content. To this end, the various focusing lenses—textual adaptation, lithograph, and the reader’s engagement with both— layered here act as mutually reinforcing relayers. Taken together, they amplify the congruency between the diegetic angst felt by the textual adventurer at the moment of truth, the visual presentation of its tension, and the reader’s investment in sharing that experience to such a point that all three interpretations of the “source material” converge around that instant.56 Of course, these layers don’t always align quite so neatly. In the previous example, the reader is offered a direct diegetic surrogate to identify with (and through), but this is not always the case. For example, non-native protagonists are always viewed head-on, as a spectacle to be observed, not emulated. This proving is a demonstration of skill in a detached moment of truth less readily available to vicarious identification from the reader.57 In other instances, established heroes are presented in profile. Rather than the engaging experience of unconditional presence, they advertise an image of a potential future self, one who has proven himself a man.58

Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea | 71

Figure 2.1.  Illustration for “Die Jagd des grauen Bären.” Photographic reproduction by Jens Tremmel, © DLA-Marbach. Original lithograph by Theodor Hosemann. In Atlantis, 2nd ed., by Theodor Dielitz. Berlin: Winckelmann & Söhne, 1873, 210.

72 | Matthew O. Anderson

Framing Repeat Exposures The in-text illustrations connect readers to individual stories, but other images shape their expectations of the volume as a whole. Six of the eight total illustrations for each volume are embedded within the textual narrative they accompany, but the framing visual presentations for each volume—the title images, frontispieces, and book covers—each play a heightened role in focusing the reader’s initial expectations before the first story ever begins. Title images and frontispieces function largely as advertisements and present the narrative world through easily recognizable adventure archetypes: a big game hunt, an ambush by hostile animals or natives, a shipwreck, or an adventurer setting up camp. In many cases, the small title vignettes are (and may likely have been) interchangeable generic scenes made en masse and ready to insert where needed. Despite this potential flexibility, the overall selection, form, and design of this visual front matter remains virtually unchanged over a succession of print editions—in some cases ten or more. The only major change is one of process, from hand-colored lithography to chromolithography; the compositions themselves retain the form and focus of Hosemann’s originals from the 1840s to the 1890s, even if they drop off in quality. By contrast, the cover designs changed dramatically over the same period. As the stories and illustrations had received largely superficial updates, the cover became an important means of extending sales past the perceived point of market saturation: in the preface to the seventh edition of Travel Images (1881), Winckelmann & Sons acknowledge the importance of attractive, external appearance in “winning new friends” for the volume.59 The exciting, exotic, and often violent cover illustrations of late-century editions—particularly toward the end of the Dielitz print runs in the 1880s and 1890s—clearly sought more direct participation in colonial visual trends.60 In most cases, this simply meant that a scene from one adventure narrative served as an advertisement for the whole collection. In other instances, for example in figure 2.2, the cover accentuates the geographic and ethnographic variety, offering tantalizing glimpses of exciting encounters with the exotic. Here a variety of compositional demarcations accentuate the core tensions at play, four quadrants splitting hunters from hunted, natives from Europeans. The overall composition—named by the banner title and geographically depicted by the globe centerpiece—presents a dangerous New World, where the predator might become prey at any moment. This small detail makes the cover illustration unique: it is the only visualization across the entire series to relate the immediate experience of travel to an abstract, cartographical presentation of a global region (hemisphere). Here we see one of the casualties of the extreme focus on adventure impressions: any geographical perspective beyond the viewer’s immediate gaze. Hosemann’s illustrations are generally so foregrounded in the actor-adventurers and their dangerous

Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea | 73

Figure 2.2.  Cover illustration for Amerikanische Reisebilder. Photographic reproduction by Jens Tremmel, © DLA-Marbach. Artist unknown. In Amerikanische Reisebilder, 5th ed., by Theodor Dielitz. Berlin: Verlag von Winckelmann & Söhne, 1885.

74 | Matthew O. Anderson

entanglements that there is quite literally no space to explore beyond them on the page. Unlike many Romantic illustrations, where human agents are spatially and thematically overwhelmed by the scale and sublimity of Nature, all natural landscapes are reduced to stage-like, canvas backdrops—shorthand, peripheral means of evoking a concrete space where the adventure can occur without getting in its way. There is little time in any of the anthologies for reflection of this sort: the world that Dielitz and Hosemann present is a space defined and refined by decisive action, not deep contemplation. Readers are expected to identify with the depicted agents, admire them for their (explicitly stated) virtues in the line of fire, and learn to internalize such traits. Though readers may pick up some information about the world and its inhabitants, it is nearly always an uncomfortable palpitation in the steady beat of heart-pounding adventure.

Conclusion While his works certainly sold well, it is unclear if Dielitz’s adventure gambit was a pedagogical success. It is, at its core, a pragmatic compromise between pedagogical and commercial principles made to compete for the leisure-time attentions of pre-teen German readers. It was also one that Dielitz did not take unwittingly. By exploring his work’s justification, as well as the mechanisms through which it focuses and presents the world for its readers, I have aimed to better understand why Dielitz & Co. decided that the attempt was worthwhile in the first place. With his Images of Land and Sea, Theodor Dielitz acknowledges the dangers of an unregulated popular travel literature for young readers, as well as the logistical impossibility of circumscribing the glut of global travel information with a school curriculum. This leads him to make a calculated compromise: to embrace exciting events culled from authentic travel narratives as the primary means of achieving his pedagogical goals beyond the classroom. A series of adaptations narrows the focus of this leisure-time mode of experience and distinguishes it from the school curriculum. In Images of Land and Sea, each successive lens or filter applied to the raw material of the adventure narrative is anchored by and visualized through the exciting event and, more specifically, the moment of truth. These moments not only visualize each individual story through its focal point but also assert such climactic challenges as the core experience of travel.61 For their part, Theodor Hosemann’s illustrations do a faithful job of focusing a refracted set of texts onto the author’s primary pedagogical aims. However, they do not expand beyond the scope dictated by these aims and further defined by Dielitz’s narrative adaptations; they further pre-filter the reader’s focus on one mode of experiencing the world.62 This focus necessarily precludes many peripheral contexts, especially contemporary sociopolitical

Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea | 75

themes driving some of the source text narratives, perhaps encouraging readers to adopt the model of “negative armchair tourism” that Schneider identifies in this volume.63 Such absences mark the final piece to Dielitz’s compromise: by positioning his works as non-necessary supplements to curricular presentations of world geography, he can reasonably justify their narrow focus. The Images of Land and Sea volumes are by no means comprehensive in scope but point toward that horizon. By utilizing repeated, ephemeral impressions to generate interest in other regions of the world, they aim to guide readers toward future, deeper engagements with those regions as students, and after their formal education is over as adult readers. In other words, the ends justify the scenes: by presenting what is necessary to survive the ordeal today, they preserve their virtue as valuable supplements for tomorrow. Matthew O. Anderson is a doctoral candidate in Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he also works as editorial assistant for the academic journal German Studies Review. His dissertation, “Bildung and Bilder?: Text, Illustration, and Adventure in Popular German Children’s Books of the Early Nineteenth Century,” explores the intermedial and international nexes of visuality, genre, and reading in historical German youth adventure literature. Further interests include processes of genre formation, adaptation, and consumption; illustration and identity formation in children’s and popular literature; and German and Swedish literature. He has also translated several children’s books, including Andreas Steinhöfel’s If My Moon Were Your Sun (Walden, NY: Plough, 2017).

Notes I would like to thank Dr. Dietrich Hakelberg, Dr. Nicolai Riedel, and Julia Maas for their assistance in navigating the Heinz Neumann Sammlung at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach (DLA); Professor Julia Benner and Dr. Sebastian Schmideler for their constructive critiques of early drafts; and Professor Kirsten Belgum for first introducing me to Theodor Dielitz. All translations of German quotations are my own.  1. Zantop, Colonial Fantasies, 35.   2. For a more precise definition, see Ewers, Fundamental Concepts of Children’s Literature Research.   3. Pleticha, “Reiseliteratur,” 158. For an in-depth study on how these roles were made culturally presentable and politically saleable during the “Age of Adventure,” see Schneider in this volume.  4. Pech, Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, 282–83.   5. Hasubek, “Abenteuerbuch,” 7.

76 | Matthew O. Anderson

  6. Simmel, “Das Abenteuer,” 53.   7. See also Best, Abenteuer—Wonnetraum aus Flucht und Ferne; and Fohrmann, Abenteuer und Bürgertum.   8. See Belgum’s analysis of the framing devices of robinsonades in her contribution to this volume.   9. Cf. Schmideler, “Das bildende Bild,” 19–20. 10. Dielitz, “Ueber die erziehende Kraft der Schule” (1841), 11. 11. Ibid., 7. 12. Ibid., 10. 13. Dielitz, Lebensbilder (1840), “Preface.” 14. Ibid. 15. Dielitz’s five “historical” anthologies— Germania (1840), Greece & Rome (Hellas und Rom, 1841), The Middle Ages (Das Mittelalter, 1847), The Heroes of Modernity (Die Helden der Neuzeit, 1850), and Teutonia (1854)—rely more heavily on mythic-heroic allusions than their contemporary, travel-literary analogues. 16. Dielitz, Amerikanische Reisebilder (1856), “Preface.” 17. See Brüggemann and Ewers, Handbuch zur Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, 26. 18. Dielitz, “Ueber die erziehende Kraft der Schule,” 19. 19. Cf. Seidler, “Theodor Dielitz’ Land- und Seebilder,” 71. 20. Hasubek, “Abenteuerbuch,” 7. For a systematic study on the same topic, see Hölder, Das Abenteuerbuch. 21. This percentage, along with subsequent references to statistical data on the Dielitz volumes, is derived from a 17-volume data set generated with the Dielitz anthologies in the Sammlung Heinz Neumann (a more than 5,000-volume collection of historical adventure literature) at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach. A simple comparison across the 17-volume data set yields an average of 7.68 pages per chapter. On average, each volume contains 46.29 chapters and has a total length of 316 pages. 22. Dielitz, Lebensbilder, “Preface.” 23. Ibid. 24. Dielitz, Ost und West (1855), “Preface.” 25. Page percentage values were generated for each volume based on the author’s explicit reference to sources in both the prefatory matter and table of contents. Across all volumes, a sum total of 1,649 of 5,372 pages of material—or 30.6962 percent— was explicitly linked to an identified source. 26. For a more in-depth study of constructed authenticity, see Penny’s contribution to this volume. 27. Dielitz, Naturbilder u. Reiseskizzen für die Jugend (1890), “Preface.” 28. Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 5 (1877), s.v. “Dielitz, Gabriel Maria Theodor,” retrieved December 20, 2017, from https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd11610130X.html#​ adb​ content. 29. In contemporary German Gymnasien, this roughly corresponds to grades five to ten (the Unterand Mittelstufen), or from between the ages of ten and sixteen. 30. Like most of its contemporaries, the curriculum at the Königliche Realschule focused primarily on classical languages (Latin, Greek, Hebrew) and applied sciences (mathematics and physics), with additional courses in religion, French, history, and philosophy. 31. Dielitz, Grundriss der Weltgeschichte (1836), iii. 32. Dielitz, Die Helden der Neuzeit (1850), “Preface.” 33. Brüggemann and Ewers, Handbuch zur Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, 34. 34. Dielitz, Streif- und Jagdzüge für die Jugend (1851), “Preface.” 35. For more on state-sanctioned, curricular knowledge, see Weiß’s contribution to this volume. 36. Dielitz, Zonenbilder für die Jugend (1852), “Preface.” 37. Cf. Schmideler, “Verlag Winckelmann & Söhne,” 9.

Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea | 77

38. Cf. Seidler, “Theodor Dielitz’ Land- und Seebilder,” 71. For more on the relationship between mental and material visualizations, see Schmideler, “Das bildende Bild,” 14. 39. Becker, Theodor Hosemann, 11. 40. Wegehaupt, Der Verlag Winckelmann & Söhne, 8. 41. Ibid., 5. 42. Hundert Jahre Winckelmann & Söhne, 4. 43. Wegehaupt, Der Verlag Winckelmann & Söhne, 7. 44. Schmideler claims that lithography’s presentational innovation(s) shaped the visual perspectives of entire generations. “Verlag Winckelmann & Söhne,” 1. 45. Wirth, Theodor Hosemann, 10; Geister, ed., Druckgraphische Arbeiten von Theodor Hosemann, iii. 46. Künnemann, “Hosemann, Theodor,” 572. 47. Rabenstein, “Dielitz, Theodor Gabriel Maria,” 314. 48. Seyffert, “Theodor Hosemann,” 6. 49. See Ries, “Illustration im Kinder- und Jugendbuch,” 306. 50. Brieger, Theodor Hosemann, 45. 51. Mitchell, Iconology, 43. 52. There is also a strong connection between Hosemann’s style and the ethnographic ABCs of nations that O’Sullivan references in this volume, which is especially prominent in depictions of ethnic alterity, as in figure 2.2. 53. Schmideler, “Verlag Winckelmann & Söhne,” 4. 54. Hodnett, Image and Text, 8. 55. Nodelman, Words about Pictures, 30. 56. For another example of reader-hero identification, see Weiß’s contribution in this volume. 57. The visual and textual presentation of ethnic alterity is frequently uncritical and—in this case, where South American natives appear in suspiciously similar guises to their African counterparts—driven much more by the demands of convenience than accuracy. However, as Penny notes in this volume, the presentist tendency to replace one subset of ethnic markers with another often renders such inconsistencies invisible or irrelevant to the undiscerning reader. 58. Often by reference to the past: these visual emphases are much more frequent in Dielitz’s few historical anthologies than in his adventure collections, perhaps acknowledging the ossification of biographical data points into mythological character traits. 59. “… neue Freunde für die Reisebilder zu gewinnen.” Dielitz, Reisebilder (1881), “Preface.” 60. For an exceptional survey of the visual development of this trend in the field of advertising, see Ciarlo, Advertising Empire. 61. For an extensive exploration of the panoramic elements of Dielitz’s anthologies, see Seidler, “Theodor Dielitz’ Land- und Seebilder,” 71–80. 62. Schmideler notes that text and illustration are in a complementary relation here: the text “tickles” the reader’s desire for the exotic (providing mental visualizations), while the illustrations (material visualizations) serve to satisfy his desire to “see” (Schaulust). “Verlag Winckelmann & Söhne,” 11. 63. Cf. Seidler, “Theodor Dielitz’ Land- und Seebilder,” 71. See Schneider’s contribution to this volume.

Bibliography Primary Sources Dielitz, Theodor. Grundriss der Weltgeschichte für Gymnasien und Realschulen. Berlin: Verlag von Duncken & Humblot, 1836.

78 | Matthew O. Anderson

———. Lebensbilder. Der Jugend vorgeführt von Theodor Dielitz, Oberlehrer an der Königl. Realschule. Mit 8 illuminirten Bildern. Berlin: Verlag von Winckelmann u. Söhne, 1840. ———. Land- u. Seebilder für die Jugend bearbeitet von Theodor Dielitz, Oberlehrer an der Königl. Realschule. Mit 8 fein illumin. Bildern. Berlin: Verlag von Winckelmann u. Söhne, 1841. ———. “Ueber die erziehende Kraft der Schule.” In Jahresbericht über die hiesige Königliche Realschule, 1–27. Berlin: A. W. Hayn, 1841. ———. Die Helden der Neuzeit. Erzählungen aus der neueren Geschichte für die reifere Jugend von Theodor Dielitz, Director d. Königstädtischen Realschule in Berlin. Mit 8 fein illuminirt Bildern nach Th. Hosemann. Berlin: Verlag von Winckelmann & Söhne, 1850. ———. Streif- und Jagdzüge für die Jugend bearbeitet von Theodor Dielitz, Director der Königstädtschen Real-Schule in Berlin. Mit 8 fein colorirten Bildern. 6th ed. Berlin: Verlag von Winckelmann & Söhne, 1851. ———. Zonenbilder für die Jugend bearbeitet von Theodor Dielitz, Director d. Königstädt’schen Real-Schule in Berlin. Mit 8 fein colorirten Bildern. Berlin: Verlag von Winckelmann & Söhne, 1852. ———. Ost und West. Neue Land- u. Seebilder für die Jugend bearbeitet von Th. Dielitz, Director der Königstädtischen Realschule in Berlin. Mit 8 illuminirten Bildern v. Th. Hosemann. Berlin: Verlag von Winckelmann & Söhne, 1855. ———. Amerikanische Reisebilder für die Jugend bearbeitet von Theodor Dielitz, Director der Königstädtischen Real-Schule in Berlin. Mit 8 feinen Farbendruck-Bildern nach Th. Hosemann. 2nd ed. Berlin: Verlag von Winckelmann & Söhne, 1856. ———. Atlantis: Bilder aus dem Wald-u. Prairieleben Amerika’s für die Jugend bearbeitet von Theodor Dielitz, Director der Königstädtischen Real-Schule in Berlin. Mit 8 colorirten Bildern nach Th. Hosemann. 2nd ed. Berlin: Verlag von Winckelmann & Söhne, 1873. ———. Reisebilder. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Th. Dielitz, Direktor der Königstädtischen Realschule in Berlin, Mit Farbendruckbildern nach Th. Hosemann. 7th ed. Berlin: Verlag von Winckelmann & Söhne, 1881. ———. Naturbilder u. Reiseskizzen für die Jugend bearbeitet von Theodor Dielitz, Director der Königstädtschen Real-Schule in Berlin. Mit 8 feinen Farbendruck-Bildern nach Th. Hosemann. 6th ed. Berlin: Verlag von Winckelmann & Söhne, 1890.

Secondary Sources Becker, Ingeborg. Theodor Hosemann: Illustrator—Graphiker—Maler des Berliner Biedermeiner: Ausstellung der Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz mit Beständen der Sammlung Wilfried Göpel, 1.6. -23.7.1983. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1983. Best, Otto F. Abenteuer—Wonnetraum aus Flucht und Ferne: Geschichte und Deutung. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1980. Brieger, Lothar. Theodor Hosemann. Ein Altmeister Berliner Malerei. Munich: Delphin, 1920. Brüggemann, Theodor, and Hans-Heino Ewers. Handbuch zur Kinder- und Jugendliteratur von 1750-1800. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1982. Ciarlo, David. Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. “Dielitz, Gabriel Maria Theodor.” In Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 5 (1877). Retrieved December 20, 2017, from https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd11610130X.html#ad bcontent.

Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea | 79

Doderer, Klaus, ed., Lexikon der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. 3 vols. Weinheim: Beltz Verlag, 1975–1979. ———. Lexikon der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. Ergänzungs- und Registerband. Weinheim: Beltz Verlag, 1982. Ewers, Hans-Heino. Fundamental Concepts of Children’s Literature Research: Literary and Sociological Approaches. Translated by William J. McCann. New York: Routledge, 2009. Fohrmann, Jürgen. Abenteuer und Bürgertum: Zur Geschichte der deutschen Robinsonaden im 18. Jahrhundert. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1981. Geister, Wolfram, ed. Druckgraphische Arbeiten von Theodor Hosemann. Berlin, 1975. Hasubek, Peter. “Abenteuerbuch.” In Lexikon der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, edited by Klaus Doderer, 1:7–9. Weinheim: Beltz Verlag, 1975–1979. Hodnett, Edward. Image and Text: Studies in the Illustration of English Literature. London: Scholar Press, 1982. Hundert Jahre Winckelmann & Söhne. Ein alter Berliner Verlag. 1828–1928. Leipzig: G. Kreysing, 1928. Hölder, Anneliese. Das Abenteuerbuch im Spiegel der männlichen Reifezeit: Die Entwicklung des literarischen Interesses beim männlichen Jugendlichen. Ratingen: A. Henn Verlag, 1967. Künnemann, Horst. “Hosemann, Theodor.” In Lexikon der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, edited by Klaus Doderer, 1:571–72. Weinheim: Beltz Verlag, 1975–1979. Mitchell, W. J. T. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. Nodelman, Perry. Words about Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988. Pech, Klaus-Ulrich, ed. Kinder- und Jugendliteratur vom Biedermeier bis zum Realismus. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1985. Pleticha, Heinrich. “Reiseliteratur.” In Lexikon der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, edited by Klaus Doderer, 3:157–60. Weinheim: Beltz Verlag, 1975–1979. Rabenstein, Gerlinde. “Dielitz, Theodor Gabriel Maria.” In Lexikon der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, edKlaus Doderer, 1:314–15. Weinheim: Beltz Verlag, 1975–1979. Ries, Hans. “Illustration im Kinder- und Jugendbuch.” In Lexikon der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur: Ergänzungs- und Registerband, edited by Klaus Doderer, 296–308. Weinheim: Beltz Verlag, 1975–1979. Schmideler, Sebastian. “Das bildende Bild, das unterhaltende Bild, das bewegte Bild: Zur Codalität und Medialität in der Wissen vermittelnden Kinder- und Jugendliteratur des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts.” In Kinder- und Jugendliteratur in Medienkontexten: Adaptation— Hybridisierung—Intermedialität—Konvergenz, edited by Gina Weinkauff, Ute Dettmar, Thomas Möbius, and Ingrid Tomkowiak, 13–26. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2014. ———. “Verlag Winckelmann & Söhne (1828–1934).” In Kinder- und Jugendliteratur: Ein Lexikon. 45. Ergänzungslieferung, edited by Kurt Franz, Günther Lange, and Franz-Josef Payrhuber, 1–16. Meitingen: Corian, 2012. Seidler, Andreas. “Theodor Dielitz’ Land- und Seebilder: Panoramatisches Erzählen und die Konstitution des bürgerlichen Subjekts in der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts.” In Die Zeitalter werden besichtigt: Aktuelle Tendenzen der Kinder- und Jugendliteraturforschung; Festschrift für Otto Brunken, edited by Gabriele von Glasenapp, Andre Kagelmann,and Felix Giesa, 71–80. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2015. Seyffert, Curt A. “Theodor Hosemann.” In Lexikon der Reise- und Abenteuerliteratur, edited by Friedrich Schegk and Heinrich Wimmer, 11:1–51. Meitingen: Corian, 1990.

80 | Matthew O. Anderson

Simmel, Georg. “Das Abenteuer.” In Das Abenteuer und andere Essays, edited by Christian Schärf, 39–57. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2010. Steinbrink, Bernd. Abenteuerliteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland: Studien zu einer vernachlässigten Gattung. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1983. Wegehaupt, Heinz, ed. Der Verlag Winckelmann & Söhne. Berlin 1830–1930. Münster: Geisenheyer, 2008. Wirth, Irmgard. Theodor Hosemann: Maler und Illustrator im alten Berlin. Berlin: Berlin Museum, 1967. Zantop, Susanne. Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family, and Nation in Precolonial Germany, 1770–1870. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997.

Chapter 3

World Knowledge in Textbooks for French-Language Teaching in the Nineteenth Century in Germany  Regina Schleicher

S The construction of world knowledge played an increasingly important role over the course of the nineteenth century in foreign-language instruction materials for young pupils. Along with educational reforms, teaching materials themselves also changed over the second half of the nineteenth century. Songs and images increasingly began to be incorporated into teaching materials, supplementing the already well-established use of literary texts. A variety of exercises steered the processes of acquiring knowledge about the country associated with the language being learned, in this case primarily France. The manner in which pupils’ world knowledge was constructed was closely connected to changes in educational methods and a greater orientation toward the learners. The result was frequent reference to the lives and experiences of children and youth, for example, through the selection of appropriate literary texts and songs. This chapter addresses French-language teaching materials from different methodological schools of thought that appeared in the late 1800s. It will focus on textual and musical elements, as well as accompanying images presented via wall charts also utilized for other subjects.

World Knowledge and Techne Nineteenth-century children’s and youth literature was closely connected with the concept of techne, which pertains to skills for completing particular tasks. Techne adopted the classic idea of learnable rules or methods for writing poetry and, in principle, for any human activity.1 By the start of the eighteenth century, Notes from this chapter begin on page 90.

82 | Regina Schleicher

this concept formed the basis for advice literature on a wide range of topics. More nonfiction genres applying this concept then emerged, from travel accounts and popular science writing to philosophy and encyclopedias,2 making the eighteenth century a sort of “laboratory of non-fiction.”3 While this can be regarded as the first phase in the history of nonfiction, it must also be seen as a continuation of seventeenth-century developments, because advice literature constitutes an important nonfiction genre.4 Nonfiction was, thus, not an innovation in the nineteenth century; however, the positive and critical manner in which it was received and reflected upon was, indeed, new.5 The idea of teaching readers particular life skills showed up in nineteenth-century children’s and youth literature as well. World knowledge—in the form of “everyday routines,” “theories of everyday life,” “knowledge about institutions,” “technical expertise,” “everyday psychological knowledge,” and “knowledge of language”6—was both connected to techne and yet separate from it. In publications for children and youth, knowledge about the world was linked to relaying rules about right and wrong and how to live a good life. When techne was applied to foreign-language instruction, it referred to knowledge about the process of acquiring a foreign language, including both knowledge about methodology and sociocultural awareness, and not just grammatical rules. Below, I will sketch out the forms of world knowledge and techne transmitted by foreign-language teaching materials in the nineteenth century. I will show the extent to which texts and images in the teaching materials instructed children and youth about everyday behavior and identify elements of advice directed at children and youth in these materials.

Developments in Teaching Materials for French-Language Instruction Nineteenth-century teaching materials reflected significant changes that occurred in foreign-language pedagogy. Because French was the most frequently taught modern language at that time and into the twentieth century, examining teaching materials for this language allows one to effectively trace breaks and continuities. By the mid-nineteenth century, French had become a requirement or an elective at nearly all Gymnasien and played an important role, along with Italian, at Realschulen as well. Not until the end of the nineteenth century would English begin to establish itself in classrooms as a modern language. The dominance of the synthetic grammar-translation method, which influenced French-language instruction methods into the 1970s, showed the decisive influence of the teaching of ancient languages, in particular Latin, on modern languages. The grammar-translation method conceives of the grammar of a language as a building constructed by a series of logical rules. Instruction primarily

Textbooks for French-Language Teaching  | 83

transmits rules and practices them by means of translation exercises. The communicative aspects of language learning are given little attention. The skills relating to speaking a language are derived entirely from the principle of deduction that undergirds every other element of the language-learning process. The best-known resource for this method as applied to French in that era was the textbook by Carl Ploetz published in 1848 and frequently republished thereafter.7 It took the tremendous effort and tenacity of reform-minded philologists to implement new, innovative teaching methods that better suited people’s needs for acquiring and speaking modern languages. These philologists, who were not yet part of the reform pedagogy movement but certainly shared some of its ideas, tried to introduce the direct method in foreign-language teaching. From the 1860s onward, this method was used especially at Oberrealschulen focused on modern languages and at girls’ schools, so that the principle of induction gained ground against the traditional deduction-based grammar-translation method. After this, Louvier’s (1862/64) and Lehmann’s (1868) teaching materials came to be utilized more and more.8 The modern language reform movement, which was cautiously asserting itself at this time, ensured that instruction in modern languages gave greater weight to spoken fluency, and thus, by necessity, to pronunciation. To pursue this goal, and to teach language structures, instructors incorporated imitation into lessons alongside the older approach of transmitting explicit knowledge about grammatical rules. Instruction began to take place in the target language. At the same time, ever more textbooks appeared,9 which are now both an important source for reconstructing language learners’ world knowledge and for making a content-based assessment of techne elements in French-language textbooks from that era. Visual instruction, likewise attributable to the direct method, also became important to teaching modern languages, putting into practice concepts Erasmus of Rotterdam and Johann Amos Comenius had already advocated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.10 Images were increasingly used to promote discussion in instructional environments and to build vocabulary, so more and more teaching materials, including textbooks such as those of Duccoterd (1868), Alge (1887), or Rossmann and Schmidt (1892),11 had illustrations. Large wall charts designed for use in multiple school subjects could also be used for teaching foreign languages. Visual instruction put emphasis on pupils’ motivation. In 1894, Prussia finally authorized new teaching materials along these lines, initiating a gradual—and long-lasting—transition away from the methodical-didactic concepts derived from the teaching of the classical languages. The new foreign-language teaching methods also transformed the types of texts in textbooks. Selections for these new publications included excerpts focusing more on everyday life and dialogue. Fables and fairy tales also played a greater role. Songs and rhymes were employed in order to promote fluency, an objective of the direct method. In the process, authors and publishers were careful to

84 | Regina Schleicher

ensure that the texts were age appropriate. Texts about the history and culture of the country, which were taken directly from original French sources, were only used for the higher grades and for more advanced language learners. The teaching materials distributed more widely among the schools of the German Empire likewise slowly shifted in their orientation toward the new methods, as Gustav Ploetz, the son of the abovementioned Carl Ploetz, argued in 1893: “In selecting and working through these new pieces [reading passages], I took into account the needs of everyday life and the immediate environment of the pupils …”12 The selection of texts showed how publishers and textbook authors perceived pupils’ attitudes about themes such as school, family, house and home, house and garden, nature, the changing seasons, and biological and geographical knowledge. Historical knowledge was primarily conveyed using anecdotes. Preparation for the world of work was occasionally addressed.

Songs and Poems As fluency and pronunciation grew more important with the new methods, songs and poems likewise played a greater role in the new teaching materials starting around mid-century. Verses were carefully designed to rhyme, as this helped pupils understand pronunciation more intuitively. Poems and songs were kept relatively short so that pupils could memorize them more easily and present them in class. The topic of nature recurred frequently in songs, as it also did in text excerpts, but always under the mantle of conveying certain values. Berquin’s verses on the bee, for example, which Gustav Ploetz used in his 1897 elementary schoolbook, emphasized the insect’s work ethic and praised it as a model for young readers.13 This textbook also featured La Fontaine’s fables, such as “Le coq et la perle” (The rooster and the pearl) and “La cigale et la fourmi” (The grasshopper and the ant).14 Philipp Rossmann and Ferdinand Schmidt’s reform-minded Lehrbuch der französischen Sprache (Textbook of the French Language) first published in 1892 devoted an entire section not only to poems but also to songs with musical notes, all of which were also spelled out phonetically.15 It included well-known French folk songs such as “Au clair de la lune,” “Quand trois poules,” and, of course, “Frère Jacques” with sheet music for voice and piano. In addition, they presented “Le couvre-feu” from the opera Les Huguenots by Giacomo Meyerbeer.16 The selection of poems followed principles similar to those Gustav Ploetz utilized in his teaching materials. The fables about animals in verse form in the French teaching materials appear to reflect, first and foremost, the authors’ new intention of providing age-appropriate texts that would also motivate the pupils.

Textbooks for French-Language Teaching  | 85

Wall Charts and Illustrations In the classroom, Hölzel and Wilke’s wall charts, which had already been used in other subjects, played an important role in the new modern-language instruction practices, including, after initial hesitation, in the French-language classroom. Carl Griep, a teacher at a Realschule in Berlin, published a French-German vocabulary list to go with Wilke’s posters in 1858.17 Other publications for working with wall charts in the classroom environment followed.18 This does not necessarily mean, of course, that educational resources for wall charts and textbooks containing corresponding images were a widespread French-language instruction tool throughout the German Empire. Reinfried correctly points to a “nascent expansion”19 of the direct method and of visual instruction, with these materials naturally playing a role because of their presence in classrooms. Rossmann and Schmidt’s teaching materials contained, in addition to prints of wall charts, a large variety of images and image motifs with light cross-references to the fields of biology and geography.20 A robust reference to everyday life can be seen in most of the images in this textbook: French coins, native fruits, everyday items from middle-class or rural life, such as a clock, a lamp, or a sickle.21 Even the images of animals were primarily derived from pupils’ lived experience, including cows and lizards. Only the most well-known non-European animals, such as elephants and lions, were included.22 The primary goal was to connect to pupils’ lived experience. People were often depicted at work: at a construction site, working in the field, threshing in the barn, baking in the kitchen, and working metal in the smithy.23 However, factories and factory workers were not mentioned. Interestingly, the illustration in figure 3.124 moved somewhat away from the lived experience of the pupils, instead emulating sculpture of Ancient Greece to portray the human body. It presents a male body, depicted on the basis of a binary conception of gender with a muscular torso and muscular arms and legs. His head, facing downward to the left, just outside the view of the observer, has short curls, and his left hand extends forward, with a few fingers visible. The figure is clothed only in a cloak attached at the left shoulder and covering the stomach and pelvic area along with the genitals. The body parts are listed in French with text on and next to the figure. The classical emulation results from the sculpture-like representation of the figure’s head and his cloak, which resembles a Greek chlamys held together with a pin.25 This classical reference was necessary to legitimize the representation of a nearly unclothed body in light of the taboos associated with nudity26 prevailing at the time. Nonetheless, the image has a close connection to the everyday in that it names parts of the body and served as the basis for drills, with examples listed directly under the image. Only after these exercises does the textbook suggest grammar-based speaking practice with an exercise of shortening the

86 | Regina Schleicher

Figure 3.1.  Untitled human figure from Philipp Rossmann and Ferdinand Schmidt, Lehrbuch der französischen Sprache (Bielefeld and Leipzig: Velhagen & Klasing, 1897), 3.

article to “l” before a noun that begins with a vowel and a writing exercise to underscore this.27 Rossmann and Schmidt’s textbook also included the Hölzel wall charts that might also have been present in the classrooms in a larger format. These were depicted sideways to make them as large as possible in the book but in black and white. The Hölzel wall charts focused on the four seasons;28 they also portrayed different settings: at a farmhouse, in the city of Paris, in an Alpine mountain range, and in the woods.29 Figure 3.2,30 which represents a wall chart from 1885,31 gives an idea of the format and presentation. It depicts a spring scene of everyday life on the farm. Numerous people are pictured in the foreground: a young woman in profile in Sunday dress crossing a simple wooden bridge in front of a mill wheel from the left, a group of four dancing children with a dog in the middle, a farming

Textbooks for French-Language Teaching  | 87

Figure 3.2.  “Le printemps” (The Spring), from Philipp Rossmann and Ferdinand Schmidt, Lehrbuch der französischen Sprache (Bielefeld and Leipzig: Velhagen & Klasing, 1897), 9.

couple working in a fruit and vegetable garden to their right, and in the front a young woman feeding chickens, a boy leaning on a fence looking in the air, and an older woman sitting with a small child on the step of a farmhouse with an open door behind them. Another woman can be seen cooking through the open door. Smoke comes out of the chimney; to the left is a nest with several storks. A path to a mountainous landscape appears in the middle of the image behind the children. In the middle ground a man is shown working a field with oxen, and at a distance one sees a hiker with a walking stick. A church tower with a clock rises in the background behind fruit trees and the eaves of other houses, and on the horizon there is a mountain with a ruin and a mountainous landscape with snow-capped peaks. This form of illustration—which Reinfried correctly classifies as idyllic and romanticized32—can hardly be considered a regional study. The poster, which is reproduced in the textbook as well, was not designed specifically for French class. However, it is clear that these images could prompt discussion and provide an opportunity to practice vocabulary relevant to the world knowledge of young learners in rural areas. It is remarkable that, counter to reality, none of the children depicted are involved in work in the house, at the farm, or in the field. Life in the countryside also appears to present a fictional counterpart to the urban scene from the perspective of a middle-class urban student.

88 | Regina Schleicher

Prose In one of the introductions to his elementary textbook, author Gustav Ploetz clearly formulated a turn away from techne: The essential goal remains that the pupil can easily understand the story, and that his or her interest is captured and as a result easily retained; because the nature of the content naturally leads to the foreign language being internalized. This requires, in my opinion, the telling of a harmless incident, especially if a historical figure has a role to play, rather than a trivial story with moralizing content, which in its German form would leave the pupil completely cold, and is hardly made more appealing by being dressed up in a French costume of dubious authenticity.33

In other words, Ploetz was not interested in teaching language through deduction and rules but in having pupils pick up language intuitively by relating to and internalizing the content. Accordingly, the content needed to relate to their everyday lives. The first section in Gustav Ploetz’s textbook is like a storybook. It does not include reproduced or quoted texts but rather short passages that underline certain language structures and build up vocabulary. The texts also have a strong connection to everyday life. Dialogues, for example, revolve around situations from the school day or from a meeting between a German and a French pupil: I am German. I come from Cologne. You are French. Are you from Paris?—I come from Versailles.—Versailles is on the Seine, isn’t it?—No, my friend; this town is many miles from the Seine. My mother has a country home on an island in the Seine. In the summer, we are always in the country.—Are you rich, then?—My father is a skilled farmer and the countryside of France is very fertile.—Are you part of a large family?—My parents have a son and a daughter; so we are four.34

In this very friendly encounter, the conversants do not elaborate on the urban setting of Cologne but rather transition to the theme of the country house, once again accentuating rural life. A text directly following this dialogue addresses the Franco–Prussian War of 1870, referring to Versailles as the headquarters of Wilhelm I and praising the courage of both the German and the French soldiers from the German perspective. This short description of war emphasizes the suffering caused by the German occupation of French villages, and ends with the sentence: “Now we are at peace with the French.”35 The textbook seemed to be making a deliberate effort to show that there was no antagonism between the French Third Republic and the German Empire. A whole series of short passages addresses military themes. Historical themes, such as Alexander the Great or Wilhelm I, are less frequent.36 The more distant past is primarily presented in the form of anecdotes about historical figures or

Textbooks for French-Language Teaching  | 89

scenes, as in the representation of a fight between an Arab and a Spaniard during the occupation of Spain by the Moors, which ends with a swordfight and the death of the Arab. The Spaniard, fleeing from his own people, is taken in by another Arab and given protection, until his host discovers that he is sheltering the murderer of his own son. The Arab nevertheless allows him to stay the night but warns him that he will be his irreconcilable enemy by the next day.37 This choice between hospitality, with its high moral value, and the imperative of revenge for the killing of his son shows the Arab to be morally superior; he even offers protection to his worst enemy and warns him of his vengeance. Perhaps in this case, the positive image of an Arab serves as the counterimage to the (romanticized) Spaniard in order to invite the student to identify with one of the characters. It is also worth considering this story in the context of French colonial rivalry just before the Morocco campaign, considering that the Maghreb was a special focus of French colonial policy throughout the nineteenth century. Overall, however, this and other French textbooks addressed colonial themes with caution, so that they nearly faded into the background. In the end, though, it is noticeable that these anecdotal narratives ignore non-European parts of the world. At no point did Ploetz’s textbook explicitly explain the emerging colonialism of the German Empire or France’s Third Republic as a colonial power. Turning back to Rossmann and Schmidt’s Lehrbuch der französischen Sprache, we can see that sparse selection of reading passages, like the image selection, draws heavily on the everyday life of the pupils. As with Ploetz’s textbook, war and military themes form part of the content, such as the short prose text by Anatole de la Forge about a deserter in France.38 Nonfiction texts about historical occurrences (Julius Caesar and Vercingetorix, Joan of Arc) are likewise recounted in an anecdotal style.39 Only one instance can be classified as a reference to the context of colonial imagination, a seventeen-line text with the title “Un sauvage à Paris” (A savage in Paris), which tells a story about a showman on the Avenue des Gobelins.40 This passage announces the appearance of a special person and addresses colonial stereotypes in an unusual mixture: You will see … the terrible “Ca-pa-cou-tou,” the famous chieftain of a savage tribe in the mountains of Africa. These ferocious natives, who live in regions where the foot of man has never tread, feed on roots, live rabbits, or the butts of cigars.41

The “savage” presented proves to be the disguised runaway son of a Frenchman in the audience, and the entire story proves to be a show.42 Alongside stories such as these, which serve to entertain while also having a deeper meaning, there are texts that clearly express warnings for daily life, and are devoted entirely to transmitting techne. They depict a boy, for example, who does not listen to the warnings of his mother and gets stung by bees, a young apple thief, and even a child who is accidentally killed while playing with a gun.43

90 | Regina Schleicher

Conclusion On the whole, the teaching materials analyzed here followed a new understanding of the modern classroom in which learners were supposed to be motived to learn a new language and find interest in the subject matter. The idea of conveying techne through poems or short moralistic prose texts was still evident in French textbooks at the end of nineteenth century, in particular in Gustav Ploetz’s selection of literary texts. Only a small number of nonfiction texts for the more advanced pupils were devoted to the development of historical knowledge. The knowledge of the world that French-language instructional materials transmitted referred primarily to the shared lived experience of nineteenth-century children and youth in Germany and France. The dominance of nature and rural life as themes facilitated the emphasis on what was shared. Sources of conflict were either addressed cautiously or, like colonialism and colonial imagination, mostly ignored. Since French-language instruction that was methodologically reformed aimed to minimize obstruction to the acquisition of language skills, instructional content needed to be unencumbered, specifically in reference to moralistic aims. Nevertheless, despite this modernization, the aim of transferring specific sets of skills, or techne, continued to substantially influence the selection of texts. Regina Schleicher is an assistant professor of Romance studies and the coordinator of research projects in school education and teacher education at Bergische Universität Wuppertal (2016) and Universität Koblenz-Landau (2017–19). She was a research assistant at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt (2011–15) and received her PhD in 2007 with a dissertation on anti-Semitism in political caricature (Antisemitismus in der Karikatur: Zur Bildpublizistik in der französischen Dritten Republik und im deutschen Kaiserreich (1871–1914) (Peter Lang, 2009). Her research focuses on history of methodology of foreign-language teaching, interand transcultural approaches in foreign-language teaching, racism and anti-Semitism in the nineteenth century, and the iconography of political caricature.

Notes   1. Porombka, “Regelwissen und Weltwissen,” 13; Fuhrmann, Dichtungstheorie der Antike, 181.   2. Porombka, “Regelwissen und Weltwissen,” 8–9.  3. Ibid., 8.  4. Ibid., 9.

Textbooks for French-Language Teaching  | 91

  5. On this, see Diederichs, Annäherungen, 30–50.   6. Abraham and Launer, Weltwissen erlesen, 12.   7. C. Ploetz, Lehrbuch der französischen Sprache; Haß, “Methoden im Fremdsprachenunterricht,” 152; Reinfried, “Die direkte Methode,” 260; idem, Das Bild im Fremdsprachenunterricht, 89–92.  8. Louvier, Das erste/zweite Jahr französischen Unterrichts; Lehmann, Lehr- und Lesebuch der französischen Sprache; Reinfried, “Die direkte Methode,” 261.   9. Reinfried, “Die direkte Methode,” 261–64; idem, Das Bild im Fremdsprachenunterricht, 94–95. 10. Reinfried, “Die direkte Methode,” 263–64; idem, Das Bild im Fremdsprachenunterricht, 25–55; Viëtor, Der Sprachunterricht muss umkehren! 11. Ducotterd, Die Anschauung auf den Elementarunterricht; Alge, Leçons de Français; Rossmann and Schmidt, Lehrbuch der französischen Sprache. 12. G. Ploetz and Kares, Kurzer Lehrgang der französischen Sprache, iii. Emphasis in the original. 13. Ibid., 59–60. 14. Ibid. 15. Rossmann and Schmidt, Lehrbuch der französischen Sprache. 16. Ibid., 206–15. 17. Griep, La ville et la campagne; cf. Reinfried, Das Bild im Fremdsprachenunterricht, 87. 18. Reinfried, Das Bild im Fremdsprachenunterricht, 88. 19. Ibid., 99. 20. Rossmann and Schmidt, Lehrbuch der französischen Sprache. 21. Ibid., 11, 12, 16, 17, 27, 83. 22. Ibid., 23, 29, 161, 162. 23. Ibid., 37, 75, 113, 114, 117, 124. 24. Ibid., 3. 25. Gabriele Pasch, “Griechische Mode,” Vestus virum facit, last modified February 10, 2018, http://www.messala.de/griechische-mode.htm, retrieved on February 25, 2018. 26. On the movement to remove the taboo on nudity, see Templin, Medialer Schmutz. 27. Rossmann and Schmidt, Lehrbuch der französischen Sprache, 3–5. 28. Ibid., 9, 75, 93, 125. 29. Ibid., 135, 143, 153, 165. 30. Ibid., 9. 31. See Reinfried, Das Bild im Fremdsprachenunterricht, 110, fig. 14. 32. Ibid., 114. 33. G. Ploetz and Kares, Kurzer Lehrgang, x. 34. Ibid., 5–6. This is translated from the French by Regina Schleicher. 35. Ibid., 6–7. 36. Ibid., 19, 26–27. 37. Ibid., 51. 38. Rossmann and Schmidt, Lehrbuch der französischen Sprache, 61. 39. Ibid., 189–205. 40. Ibid., 163–64. 41. Ibid., 163. 42. Ibid., 164. 43. Ibid., 85–86, 105, 107–8.

92 | Regina Schleicher

Bibliography Primary Sources Alge, Sines. Leçons de Français: Leitfaden für den ersten Unterricht im Französischen: Unter Benützung von Hölzel’s Wandbildern für den Anschauungs- und Sprachunterricht. St. Gallen: Fehr’sche Buchhandlung, 1887. Ducotterd, Xavier. Die Anschauung auf den Elementarunterricht der französischen Sprache angwendet, nebst “Leseübungen” als Vorschule. Nach 16 Wilke’schen Anschauungs-Bildern bearbeitet. 3rd ed. Wiesbaden, 1881 [1st ed. 1868]. Griep, Carl. La ville et la campagne: Recueil de mots français avec traduction allemande, adaptés à l’explication des tableaux de M. Wilke. Berlin: Henri Sauvage, 1858. Lehmann, Ignaz. Lehr- und Lesebuch der französischen Sprache nach der Anschauungs-Methode und nach einem ganz neuen Plane, mit Bildern, unter Benützung der neuesten und besten französischen und deutschen Jugendschriften. Mannheim: Bensheimer, 1868. Louvier, Ferdinand August. Das erste/zweite Jahr französischen Unterrichts: Ein Beitrag zum naturgemäßen Erlernen fremder Sprachen. Hamburg: Grüning, 1863/64. Ploetz, Carl J. Lehrbuch der französischen Sprache. Erster Cursus oder Elementarbuch. Berlin: Herbig, 1848. Ploetz, Gustav, and Otto Kares. Kurzer Lehrgang der französischen Sprache: Elementarbuch. Ausgabe C. 4th ed. Berlin: Herbig, 1897 [1st ed. 1892]. Rossmann, Philipp, and Ferdinand Schmidt. Lehrbuch der französischen Sprache auf Grundlage der Anschauung. Bielefeld and Leipzig: Velhagen & Klasing, 1897 [1st ed. 1892]. Viëtor, Wilhelm. Der Sprachunterricht muss umkehren! Ein Beitrag zur Überbürdungsfrage. 3rd ed. Leipzig: O. R. Reisland, 1905. [1st ed. 1882, published under the pseudonym Quosque tandem].

Secondary Sources Abraham, Ulf, and Christoph Launer, eds. Weltwissen erlesen: Literarisches Lernen im fächerverbindenden Unterricht. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider-Verlag Hohengehren, 2002. Diederichs, Ulf. Annäherungen an das Sachbuch: Zur Geschichte und Definition eines umstrittenen Begriffs. Berlin, Hildesheim: n.p., 2010. Fuhrmann, Manfred. Dichtungstheorie der Antike: Aristoteles, Horaz, “Longin.” Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992. Haß, Frank. “Methoden im Fremdsprachenunterricht.” In Handbuch Fremdsprachendidaktik, edited by W. Hallet and F. G. Königs, 151–56. Seelze-Velber: Klett-Kallmeyer, 2010. Porombka, Stephan. “Regelwissen und Weltwissen für die Jetztzeit: Die Funktionsleistungen der Sachliteratur.” Arbeitsblätter für die Sachbuchforschung 2. Berlin, Hildesheim, 2005. https://www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb05-sachbuchforschung/files/2012/08/Arbeitsblaetter_ Sachbuchforschung_02.pdf. Reinfried, Marcus. Das Bild im Fremdsprachenunterricht: Eine Geschichte der visuellen Medien am Beispiel des Französischunterrichts. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1992. Reinfried, Marcus. “Die direkte Methode im Rahmen der neusprachlichen Reformbewegung: Ein historisch-genetischer und systemtheoretischer Beschreibungsansatz.” Französisch heute 3 (2007): 258–74. Templin, Christina. Medialer Schmutz: Eine Skandalgeschichte des Nackten und Sexuellen im Deutschen Kaiserreich 1890–1914. Bielefeld: transcript, 2016.

Chapter 4

The World at War in German Textbooks Knowledge of the World Conveyed in Representations of War Andreas Weiß

S “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”1 This motto from Horace’s Odes (III 2.13) shaped education for many textbook authors in the German Empire and was regarded as contributing to the thorough militarization of German society—which went enthusiastically into the First World War, full of contempt for the nation’s foes.2 Schools and their media seemed to be especially important in this development because textbooks were the only written sources for images and representations of the world that many lower-class children owned in the second half of the nineteenth century.3 While other media also made knowledge available to them—for example, adventure and discovery stories (see Schneider in this volume), trading cards (see Blume), the circus, ethnological expositions and Wild West shows (see Penny), (world) exhibitions and museums and zoos— textbooks were the only state-approved medium that transmitted worldviews and knowledge about the world. Textbooks, therefore, are a valuable source for exploring how state authorities tried to indoctrinate pupils and for determining which established facts these authorities wished to pass on as knowledge.4 This chapter shows that while narratives of war were a popular means for transmitting knowledge both about one’s own nation and about others and other nations in imperial German textbooks, they were not used to pursue the greater goal of militarizing the whole of society—something that seemed quite absurd for a society with a strict hierarchical division between the military and civilians. One could, perhaps, regard such narratives as a didactic tool for awakening pupils’ curiosity, but not something to glorify war in itself, as the Nazis did later. In this volume, Schleicher demonstrates that war piqued curiosity in French textbooks too, for example, which shows that wars were topicalized quite regularly; Notes from this chapter begin on page 106.

94 | Andreas Weiß

the significance of using heroes to popularize books and their content has been researched for other genres as well, most notably the broad spectrum of adventure literature.5 However, these textbook narratives from the empire’s different regions were far too disparate to launch a standard nationalization and a national spirit of self-sacrifice. The examples below explore the varied nature of the imperial school system. The chapter uses the discussion of a specific war, the American Civil War, to exemplify the variety of opinions and worldviews in the German Empire— which was no ideological monolith. In short, the German Empire mediated global knowledge within a national framework, but that knowledge was processed via different political and religious objectives. This chapter, therefore, engages critically with the established concepts of militarism and bellicosity that historians associate with Imperial Germany, and particularly with its role in the lead-up to the First World War. The chapter makes use of a digital collection of history and geography textbooks in the German language, coming from all regions of what would later be the German Empire.6 The corpus is as voluminous as it is diverse, representing the variety of educational paths in the empire.7 One should not forget that more than ninety-nine publishing houses edited more than seven textbooks each, the biggest of them publishing several hundred books, in this period. Moreover, while many narratives—for example, the Southern German ones—were reconciled with Prussian ones after 1900, important regional differences persisted.8 For a first overview, this rich corpus was searched with the help of digital tools (especially topic modeling) and a web-based search platform. The results were subsequently filtered for different categories, such as metadata (school type, gender, region, etc.), and analyzed in their distribution over time. This, for example, showed that in addition to the expected dominance of the German Wars of Unification and the Napoleonic Wars, the Thirty Years’ War and Sweden, as a dominant power of that time, also had a prominent position. Above all, history textbooks for secondary education contain these topics, as does a relevant group of books intended for elementary and middle schools.9 The examples used below were selected after a keyword query and come from top-ranked excerpts with a clear relation to the topic. The intention behind this was to guarantee a certain objectivity in the selection of the references. The digital tools mentioned above are quite useful for many problems but—like other sources—require a careful historical verification of sources to contextualize and classify the results.10

War and Bourgeoisie in the Nineteenth Century The dominance of war narratives in textbooks was not restricted to the German Empire. Throughout the nineteenth century, war seemed a useful topic for

The World at War in German Textbooks  | 95

passing on certain ideas to children, especially those about citizenship and patriotism; this was also true because other relevant knowledge, about inventions and discoveries, for example, could be included by connecting it to historical protagonists—and therefore making it more interesting.11 While teachers and textbook authors criticized the “person-centered representation” of history in contemporary pedagogical literature, many more believed this would help children identify with the heroic figures and, therefore, with the ideals and norms they exemplified. For instance, pedagogue Gustav Lindner wrote that “world history … [is] a history of wars and dynasties. … It remains silent about useful things and the inventions and arts of peace, which quietly introduce themselves into world history, to indulge to its heart’s content in the accounts of war and his atrocities.” Teacher Friedrich Neubauer, too, noticed after 1900 “that it may be regrettable that three-fourths of our historical lessons contain ‘fencing and killing,’ but it could not be changed; to lecture on cultural history as such is impossible and sterile.”12 This statement, in particular, reinforces the abovementioned argument that depictions of war supposedly made history classes more “vivid.” Emperor Wilhelm II personally encouraged German teachers and publishers to focus on national history—foremost the Wars of Liberation and Unification— to increase the prestige of his dynasty, the House of Hohenzollern, as well as to engender gratitude toward the dynasty that led to German unification. However, this was not the only reason, because the emperor as well as conservative teachers associated propagating the achievements of his dynasty in these wars with more general questions about which knowledge—and therefore, which worldview— should be taught to children and adolescents. Beyond the question of prestige and the appreciation of one’s own nation, Wilhelm II and conservative authors alleged that the focus on the dynasty’s achievements in war was crucial to the formation of an obedient subjecthood, as well as to countering social influences they regarded as harmful, like Social Democracy and Catholicism. Knowledge that children acquired in school, many contemporary pedagogues believed, would translate directly into social actions, so some of the authors who propagated heroic death in battle as the greatest sacrifice for the bourgeois nation-state focused on school lessons.13 However, Social Democratic teachers viewed these tendencies with skepticism. As Heinz-Elmar Tenorth demonstrated early on, Social Democrats’ reactions to the gentrification of the school system and the autocratic tendencies in politics were complex; though they were not aggressive, state authorities were nonetheless suspicious of them.14 While the influence of Social Democratic– leaning teachers was restricted mainly to the Volks- and elementary schools, these were the schools attended by the majority of pupils. It is often remarked that teachers in institutions for secondary education were overrepresented in organizations like the Pan-German League. This argument is not undermined but is relativized by the fact that these teachers did not educate the majority of German

96 | Andreas Weiß

pupils. Therefore, historians like Andrew Donson, who worked explicitly on war pedagogy and schools during the First World War, pointed out that few teachers could be regarded as militarists in a strict sense before 1914.15 Commentators abroad admired the German imperial educational model, even as they sometimes made fun of it. For example, a British Morning Post article stated, “We might learn from our Continental neighbors, especially from the Germans, who have profited so much by our example, both of what to do and of what not to do. Their best quality, to which they owe most, is their regard for knowledge—Wissenschaft—and for training—Mannszucht—to which must be attributed their large measure of success. … The British Democracy might take a lesson from the modest old Emperor and select its Member of Parliament a little less for connections, for wealth, or for talk, and a little more for knowledge and tried strength of character.”16 In his preserved copy, Emperor Wilhelm II himself underscored the latter part of this sentence twice. This English viewpoint was not uncommon at that time: the success of the German armies and industries were attributed to the German school education and university system, and the British parliament even discussed its adaptation. German textbooks’ focus on modern wars and the “heroic deeds” of the House of Hohenzollern was not only a reaction to social unrest and the rise of Social Democracy in Germany. It had a longer tradition in Prussian educational policy. As early as 1859, the local government of the Prussian Hohenzollern province advocated historical education oriented toward examples for the elementary schools, as this was believed to strengthen patriotism and secondary virtues such as diligence, obedience, discipline, and punctuality. To celebrate historic events deemed patriotic and valuable, the administration recommended special commemoration days to memorialize battles and victories and encouraged educators to recount these examples vividly. This focus on battles and glorious leaders is all the more remarkable because the government did not wish to foster extensive lessons in history classes aside from the history of the Bible.17 Nonetheless, some historians have singled out the 1860s as an important step toward the emerging bellicosity of German society.18 Thomas Nipperdey and Hans Mommsen repeatedly emphasized the high regard for battles and war in education to explain this development.19 These representations were associated with the bourgeoisie’s ambivalence toward the army and warfare. Wolfram Wette characterized the contemporary hope that the possible threat of armed militias would reduce the risk of war as “war prevention.”20 Jörn Leonhard, in examining processes since the eighteenth century, even argues that the modern understanding of the nation was borne of war. The idea of a people’s army engendered the democratization of the war, because now all citizens could be called to arms for the protection of the nation.21 This “democratization process” changed the interpretation of war as an action taken by princes into something in the interest of the nation, with a detour through the

The World at War in German Textbooks  | 97

(international) civil war of the French Revolution. After the Wars of Liberation, a new form of bellicosity established itself in the territories of the German League, rejecting the wish for “Eternal Peace” of the late Enlightenment era.22 Heinrich Gottlieb Tzschirner described this new position pointedly in a way that still held traces of the enlightened representation of the war: “The state is the requirement for moral and intellectual culture …, and therefore war, the founder of states, is one link in the series of changes that support the education of mankind.” This focus on the state remained strong throughout the nineteenth century, even though citizens came to be involved in the “national” war and the increasing importance of “national-nationalistic” patterns of argumentation.23 As Karl Lorenz ascertained in 1904, the “mankind of culture … now [stepped] into the age of nationalism.”24 As these examples demonstrate, one can utilize textbooks to discover the changing attitudes toward war during the nineteenth century and to learn what narratives about war could teach about the world. There is a line from the universalistic narratives of the late Enlightenment, through the foundation of the nation-states, to social Darwinistic, even racist, imaginations. At the start of the nineteenth century, textbook narratives on war emphasized that kings and princes waged war in their own interests—and thus in their states’ interest. In the middle of the century, then, textbooks characterized wars as fought in the interest and for the benefit of the nation, whether for political, economic, or other reasons. By telling the histories of war this way, textbooks transformed emotions, especially concerning the question of national prestige and the defense of personal and national honor, into ever more important reasons for waging war. The final outcome of this was the idea of the “survival of the fittest,” according to which states and nations, too, were fighting for their (quasi-biological) survival.25 But many textbooks also clearly stated that wars could have negative effects on German children and their future. For example, they warned children that they could lose their parents and possessions, experience destruction and tax increases, and possibly lose their lives. The glorification of war became important for the development of new role models for citizens, and thus for new representations of masculinity. As Karl Volker Neugebauer wrote, war was “not only legitimate; in the understanding of the contemporaries it was regarded as a positive event that brought to the fore the highest virtues, like willingness to make sacrifices and love of one’s country, courage, and loyalty.”26 This new understanding redefined the relationship between the military and society. Whereas reformers and the liberal bourgeoisie, in particular, had considered war a means for change, and even an “engine of progress” in first half of the nineteenth century, they still were skeptical with respect to the aristocratic officer corps.27 During the German Empire, however, the officer corps gained respect through the success of the Wars of Unification, so the bourgeoisie developed stronger ties to the Prussian authoritarian state.28 It is

98 | Andreas Weiß

important to note that these ideas were “universalized” for all social strata during the nineteenth century, meaning that bourgeois values and knowledge repertoires were to apply to the lower classes, too.29 Critics of a state authoritarianism associated this with a specific German militarism, consisting of the dominance of the military over civilians and the transfer of military values to civil life and education. Prussia was seen as the prime example of this, especially in the constitutional form of the second half of the century.30 However, the idea that militarism ought to become an important topic in school education did not go unchallenged. As a handbook for pedagogy published in 1906 stated, “Militarism and school education stay together in a certain contrast. … To make mankind more human is the slogan of school education; to make humanity fit for the defense of the national goods is that of military education.”31 Some critics of German nationalism, like Robert Michels, decried the use of war narratives for the nationalization of the “masses” in school lessons. In his reflections on patriotism, he wrote, for example, The abstract cult of the fatherland, pompous, but through thousandfold repetitions effective, rarely misses its effect on unimaginative pupils through the portrayal of national heroism, which became custom in our schools in all levels. … Becoming ukaz, it monopolizes the confused thoughts of our youth, and if Hänschen becomes Hans, this weed proves itself for the most part as ineradicable.32

Nevertheless, wars became a topic not only because they could be presented in a “lively” way, but also because they mediated certain ideas of Germany’s position in the world and how that world could be described. Textbooks for lower schools rarely differed from those for secondary education, especially when they were written by the same authors and connected to older narratives of “world history.” There are many examples demonstrating that “world history” could be explained by wars. These ranged from the Greek campaigns against the Persians as a kind of forerunner of European defensive actions against the “other” and imperial Italian campaigns in the high medieval period and ended with the German Wars of Unification. Contemporary armed conflicts like the Russo–Japanese War were integrated, but this did not automatically change the Eurocentric worldview of the authors. This broad range of topics was typical for a time when Prussian Gymnasium teachers compared the Greek colonies of antiquity in the Mediterranean to European and Western colonialism since 1492.33 As Germany was a colonial “latecomer” and did not gain its colonies in wars against other European powers, the wars of other European states or empires, but also those of powers outside of Europe—like the American Civil War—were relatively highly represented in the textbooks, especially in those for secondary education. But critics repeatedly denounced this dominance of international wars and heroes and demanded a focus on German history.34

The World at War in German Textbooks  | 99

But why was war even such a prominent topic in the nineteenth century? The German emperor was not alone in thinking that children would learn a healthy lesson by understanding how nations were “forged.” The nineteenth century was the epoch of the new nation-states, which differed from the older dynastic states—not only as an ideological construct but also in reality because, in the imagination of the time, the modern nations were created in conflicts between states and people. During the nineteenth century, the idea that all “brothers” should live together in one nation and not be ruled by strangers became stronger.35 This was evident in such diverse movements as the establishment of new states in Central and South America, the Italian wars of unification, and the Mexican wars of independence.36 Thus, one could say that the creation of one nation-state imitated the creation of other ones, and every new nation to be founded followed the wars of the others. Just as England and France became great in the German imagination thanks to the wars they had won in the early modern period, so, too, did the German Reich have to prove itself in the wars of the nineteenth century. This tied in with the contemporary understanding of war: it was both a classical tool of politics (Clausewitz) and of change.37 Wars—this idea was to be transmitted to the children—were one of the fundamental conditions for the creation of the modern state, and they left their mark on both national and international history. Even if the historical focus was always a national one, a transnational gaze of mutual observation became a feature of the epoch as the end of the century marked the first peak of globalization in an age of increasing communication. Michel Foucault also analyzed this tension between diverse narratives about war as an analytical tool for the comparison of power relations between states—and even as “the foundation of relations in societies.”38 From a theoretical perspective, Foucault impressively demonstrated how closely the evolution of modern nations, with their discursive narratives of power and exclusion, was associated with narratives of and about wars; in this sense, “war stories” were a fundamental basis of our modern societies. Throughout the nineteenth century, European states came to realize more and more that their fate was also decided on non-European battlefields. For example, as the Seven Years’ War was won in skirmishes in America and India, Great Britain was victorious in the Napoleonic Wars because it could draw strength from resources inaccessible to the French. Put in terms of social Darwinistic discourse, European nations had to prove themselves in the colonial wars and in wars against non-European states. The 1904–5 Japanese victory over Russia is the best-known example; for contemporaries, the Ethiopian victory in the Battle of Adwa pointed strongly to the decadence and weakness of the newly founded Italian state. Therefore, the focus on military weaknesses, often exemplified in German textbooks by the Coalition Wars against France, determined the worldview in

100 | Andreas Weiß

many textbooks. Never again was Germany’s rise to greatness to be prevented. This is one reason the Wars of Unification were such an important topic. Every textbook published after 1871, even those critical of the new state or written by authors who had fought on the losing side, mentioned these wars and the deeds done there as positive examples for the youth. Textbooks intended for “girls’ schools” contained descriptions of female heroines like Queen Louise of Prussia or of Johanna Stegen, the “heroic maiden of Lüneburg.” Nevertheless, war and militaristic education were transformed into a part of civic education; the books themselves did not necessarily became more militaristic—even in comparison to other nations. This comparison is important if one critically engages with the still popular thesis of the German Sonderweg, namely, that the German Empire was especially war-hungry and anti-liberal, looking for adventures abroad as outlets for internal social tensions and, therefore, responsible for the outbreak of the First World War and National Socialism.39 Throughout the nineteenth century, war was regarded as a political aim, not as a social condition in the Hobbesian sense—at least by most authors. Pupils were supposed to be ready to defend their fatherland, but peace was to be preferred, in principle.40 Willingness to wage war was supposed to remind pupils that the German Empire was a relatively young nation, born on the battlefields, to use a contemporary expression. But pedagogically, it was more important that the depiction of wars and battles stimulate readers’ imagination, because wars were regarded as a vivid subject. One could connect the reasons and origins of the outbreak of wars, victories, and defeats with economic, social, and political history, totally in the sense of a full cultural historiography. Likewise, wars seemed to be unimaginable without a (national) enemy, as the well-known but rather overstretched topic of the “archrivalry” between France and Germany shows; depictions of war, therefore, say something about national stereotypes and worldviews. Wars were used to explain the rise and fall of states and nations and to exemplify certain political and economic developments, but especially historical change. Textbooks, and especially history textbooks, therefore, reflected an increasing tendency in the press at that time to use wars as a hook for reportage and because they were international events worth mentioning. The number of articles and the intensity of reporting rose especially when the regions where these wars took place were connected to German interests or, even more importantly, could be brought into relation with German emigration.41 The American Civil War is a good example of this. It featured prominently in many textbooks because it was the first modern war in history and, even more importantly for many textbook authors, because Germans contributed to the Northern cause. The United States had been the most important destination for German emigrants in the nineteenth century; reports on the life of the U.S. German community regularly appeared in the German press. Some of them made it clear that the United States was a rising power with the potential to become

The World at War in German Textbooks  | 101

a future world power. These depictions, especially those in textbooks, therefore mirrored the authors’ worldview, the knowledge they had about foreign countries, and how they wanted Germany’s position in the world to be represented to children. For example, by focusing on the German community in the United States, a textbook author could transform the Union victory into a German one. In these depictions, the origin and rise of a nation were often associated with the characteristic pains of birth.

The American Civil War Wars in the Americas always had their place in German history textbooks. Many textbooks, for example, had characterized the American War of Independence, the American Revolution, as having contributed to the decline of the first British empire. The Seven Years’ War (1756–63), too, a war about dominance in central Europe fought in the British and French colonies, which ended with the loss of most French colonies in North America and the rise of Great Britain as the greatest colonial power of its time, was often discussed quite broadly and treated as the first important colonial war. But the most important event in the textbooks in the latter part of the century was the American Civil War, because it was regarded as a war that created a modern nation, which the Germans were trying to do for themselves at the same time; moreover, constant parallels were drawn between the war-waging the modern United States had engaged in and the German Wars of Unification.42 Beyond this aspect, the American Civil War held such a prominent position in the transmission of knowledge about the Americas because it could be used to explain demographic and economic realities in the United States and, in a limited way, the nation’s history. It could also be used to exemplify the creation of the European colonial empires as well as international geopolitics in North, Central, and South America. In this way—and this seems a little bit at odds with a foreign conflict—the textbooks were also able to use these narratives to name the important reasons the German Empire had to rise to the position of an international power. The first history textbook that mentioned the American Civil War, published in 1862, was a book for “middle schools and home education.” The context into which the war was integrated was rather intriguing: a chapter on the history of Mexico, part of a broader story on the decline of European colonial rule in the Americas.43 In this it was no exception, because later textbooks presented the history in the context of the French intervention in Mexico and the failure of the second Mexican empire of the Habsburg prince Maximilian. Three interpretations about the reasons for the war competed but did not exclude one another: (1) a (Catholic) interpretation in the context of European wars; (2) a socioeconomic explanation; and (3) one more national-völkisch that overemphasized the

102 | Andreas Weiß

Germans’ contribution to the victory of the North—containing sometimes, even if rarely, the secondary point of integrating the Civil War into a history of global struggle for democracy and liberty. The first book mentioned above is special because it involved a comparatively complicated description, full of information. The listing of so many names and facts is unusual for a book intended for middle schools, as no one expected these pupils to go to university or choose a career in the higher civil service. One could assume that the textbook emphasized the depiction of the American conditions because the schoolchildren either had relatives in the United States or would someday emigrate there themselves (Baden, where Freiburg im Breisgau is located, was one of the most important regions of origin of German emigration to America), or that this knowledge would later be useful to them for commerce and trade.44 At the same time, this explanation preserved a “national” perspective since the text conveyed the idea that the destiny of Latin America in the nineteenth century was influenced by Great Britain, for the good of England—a perspective much appreciated within the German public.45 From the perspective of the history of knowledge, the context of this information may be seen as the most interesting part of these textbooks. The socioeconomic explanation for the secession of the South is worth a second look, as well as the German contribution to the victory of the North, because both are attributed to a common cause in the end: the immigration from Europe. The transfer of people from Germany—and with them their “knowledge”—brought a new lifestyle, as the textbooks say, a new form of thinking, and new industries from their country that helped transform the heretofore predominantly agrarian United States into an up-and-coming industrial nation.46 What is more, the German migrants in the German textbooks took not only modernity with them but also, through the experience of the 1848 Revolution, fighting experience and love for democracy and freedom. But it was not only the comparison with the past and with global expansion that structured the representation of this war. As information about the U.S. situation was relatively easy to obtain in Germany (mostly because of emigration), children needed to understand why these people had needed to emigrate. In this context, national weakness now became an important explanation, along with the freedom fight of 1848/49. Over time, the German contribution to the North was then reinterpreted as a continuation of the struggle between the “teutonic” and the “romanic” cultures in Europe.47 While these last allusions to an international cultural struggle were exceptions, the German “contribution” to the support of the United States was also projected into the past. Textbooks repeatedly emphasized that Germans contributed both to the foundation of the United States as well as to the victory of the North in the Civil War. A popular history textbook with a teleological ending provides an example of this:

The World at War in German Textbooks  | 103

Voluntary Germans already then stood on the other side, particularly a Friedrich Wilhelm v. Steuben, who as the organizer of the North American armed forces contributed so much to the achievement of the victory. And for this hotly contested freedom, a hundred thousand German volunteers later risked their lives in the Civil War, as it is the Germans in particular who keep their eyes open to the corrupting excesses of North American life.48

But, as the end of the quote makes clear, this German contribution to American history had a special meaning for the Germans themselves, because their position needed to be more acknowledged and would help to preserve Germanness on both continents.49 One narrative was not without risk for Prussia. One could apply the confrontation between the agrarian South and the industrialized North of the United States—that is, the rise of the bourgeois against a semi-feudal lifestyle—to regions of the German Empire itself. Moreover, many of the Germans who fought for the North in the Civil War were regarded as enemies of the Prussian monarchy. A good example of this is the various depictions of Carl Schurz, whose portrayal changed over time from an anti-Prussian but loyal revolutionary (Stuttgart 1896) who fled to America to become the most important leader of the Germans and a representative of Germanness in America (Berlin 1910), while at the same time becoming an American politician (Hanover 1911).50 One possibility for reducing these tensions emanating from Civil War descriptions, besides discussing U.S. economic relations, was to integrate the Civil War into larger international and political entanglements. One textbook described the Confederacy as anti-European. This was tied to the abovementioned inclusion of the war in the description of the French occupation of Mexico.51 Other accounts, such as Albert Gehrke’s Grundriß der Weltgeschichte für die oberen Classen höherer Lehranstalten from the Duchy of Brunswick (1878), described the South as the “home of the American nobility.” It attributed the war to the fact that this nobility had long controlled U.S. political matters but had lost this power because of the question of slavery, and this with the help of immigrants. Consequently, if only indirectly mentioned, this shift came about partly through Germans. Still, such accounts were rather rare.52 In this same textbook, this section on American history is immediately followed by the history of Germany “from 1848 until the foundation of the German League in 1866,” so that these events are framed in close historical connection. Other texts developed these ideas even further by using false historical depictions and stereotypes. A textbook by the director of a Realschule in Leipzig attributed the foundation of the plantation system in the South to the Spanish and called its white population a race aristocracy that despised work.53 This aristocratic attitude was then associated with their art of self-defense. That war is complicated, especially when international politics become part of it, was

104 | Andreas Weiß

shown by explaining the shift in the fortunes of the South: In the beginning, the South had the advantage through “military organization and leadership (General Lee)” but lost this over time because England and France (Germany’s “archenemies” in many textbooks) had to give in to public opinion at home and could no longer directly support the South.54 But while the South had more experienced officers, the North gained the upper hand, because it had more troops and money at its disposal. Although the volunteers in the Union were undisciplined in the beginning, they transformed during the war into members of a real army by going through a strict disciplinary regimen during training.55 This took up a topos that also existed for the national Wars of Unification.

Conclusion The examples related above demonstrate that the depiction of the American Civil War was used to explain historical processes of nation-building as well as economic and social developments. War was a time when the nation had to prove itself, when something could be learned about history. Nonetheless, the selected textbooks show that despite all the processes of reconciliation between Prussia, on the one hand, and the smaller states who lost in the German War of Unification, on the other, there was no overarching historical narrative in the Empire, and that the representations of the different wars were adapted for various intended audiences, which differed in their gender, regional, religious, and social composition. Especially in the regions where the revolution of 1848 was quite popular or in states that lost in the war of 1866, some textbooks perpetuated narratives that did not shed a positive light on Prussia and its wars. Still, some narratives were more dominant than others and established a sort of common knowledge. Therefore, the most important explanation for the beginning of the American Civil War was the question of slavery. Furthermore, the war was described as similar to a European war, not only when it was occasionally related to European interventions in the Americas. The victory of the North—the German element of this war, so to speak—was named as the reason for the rise of the United States to an international power around 1900 and could therefore be connected to the German national narrative. On the one hand, children were taught of the “German contribution” to the spread of modernity, liberty, and democracy through this war, a depiction at odds with the internal circumstances in the empire. On the other hand, they learned much about the interconnections of international politics; most books listed external factors and powers to explain the course of the war. Economic and social digressions were used to strengthen the various depictions of the American Civil War.

The World at War in German Textbooks  | 105

To bring the discussion back to the thesis of this chapter: the textbooks were able to transmit this information because they were framed in the form of war stories. By taking the American Civil War as an example, children learned a lot about the economic causes of the Civil War but not much about the reasons so many Germans went to America—knowledge they had to glean from other parts of the book or other sources. They learned that a modern nation that wanted to survive in the international power struggle had to be united, but they also learned that modern wars entailed great destruction and high numbers of casualties. These depictions, like the reasons given for the start of the war, strongly depended on the standpoint of the author—and on where these books were published. It was clear that the winners were the “modern” forces and the losers the traditionalists. But the example from Brunswick, whose population long opposed Prussia after its occupation in 1871, demonstrates that the defeated parties could also be positively connoted. Although the war as such was almost never criticized, cruelties and losses were frequently mentioned. In addition, when the destruction of war was mentioned, the advantages of peace were repeatedly emphasized. Retrospectively, we can only speculate what children learned from this. But the picture conveyed to them becomes clearer: the empire was a partly militarized society, always ready to defend the fatherland, but it was not war-hungry. While war was an acknowledged instrument of national and international politics, one should apply other media to reduce tensions before a war began. Still, the narrative children read in the textbooks contrasted with stories their parents or other adults told at home, especially in Southern Germany or in the states that lost in the Wars of Unification. In these regions, as Benjamin Ziemann has shown, for example, one did not find much war fever at the start of the First World War; the children there, it seems, had not internalized the willingness to sacrifice themselves for the nations, as so many textbooks—especially later ones—tried to communicate. As Donson and Verhey say, to explain the radicalization during the war, one has to search in the war itself and not in the school lessons, as textbooks emphasized the peaceful contributions to the cultural and economic “expansion” of the empire. At the same time, international history was told as a story of war. It has to be left to other analyses to determine whether if it was for these reasons that the political leaders during the First World War thought that United States, as a “German” nation, would not side with the Allies. Andreas Weiß is currently an assistant professor of history at Helmut-SchmidtUniversität – Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg. He studied modern and contemporary history, sociology, and Southeast Asian studies at Humboldt University, Berlin, and the Universidad de Cantrabria, Santander, Spain. His dissertation Asiaten in Europa: Begegnungen zwischen Asiaten und Europäern (Schöningh, 2016) is on a transnational topic, comparing debates on modernity and decadence between Asians and Europeans in turn-of-the-century Great

106 | Andreas Weiß

Britain and the German Empire. His recent research focuses on connections between the European and the non-European world, exploring how these shaped European representations and knowledge of that world since the nineteenth century, as well as on European institutions during the Cold War, especially in exchange with Southeast Asia.

Notes   1. “It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country.”  2. This viewpoint was advocated exceptionally forcefully in the 1980s. See, for example, Arbeitsgruppe “Lehrer und Krieg,” ed., Lehrer helfen siegen. Similarly, see the programmatic introduction to the section “Militär und Militarisierung”; see Berg, “Einleitung,” in Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte. I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers as well as Dr. Marcus Otto, Roman Nawka, and Dr. Tobias Becker for their critical remarks and for helping me improve my translation; the remaining errors are mine only.   3. Studies on the working class in Leipzig suggest that textbooks were the only books most families bought at all; Wittmann, Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels, 286, 289; for the importance of textbooks, see also the introduction to this volume. For “war literature,” see Schenda, Lesestoffe, 78–104; for a critical take on the connection between reading and ostensible imperialism, see Short, “Everyman’s Colonial Library.”   4. This is true of textbooks whose authors had clear Social Democratic leanings compared to conservative ones. Regional differences also come through: several Bavarian textbooks mention the Bavarian victims of the War in 1866 against Prussia.  5. For the connection between adventure literature and views of history, see, in particular, Pohlmann and Steinlein, GeschichtsBilder.   6. The examples quoted here come from a much bigger corpus, a collection of digitized textbooks in the German language: gei-digital.de/en. This bigger corpus contains over 5,836 books (status, November 12, 2018), from disciplines, among others, like history, geography, material history, and religion.   7. For the differences in the German educational system in this time and its inherent tensions, see Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, 3:1191, 1197; Kuhlemann, “Niedere Schulen”; Langbehn, German Colonialism, 184–92, 206–7; Verhey, Spirit of 1914, 9–10.   8. For example, Catholic textbooks did not attribute the decline of the Holy Roman Empire and its wars in Italy to the medieval Catholic Church. Sybel may be the most prominent example of the contemporary critical perspective on the Holy Roman Empire at that time; see, for example, Sybel, Die Deutsche Nation und das Kaiserreich (1862); in historiography, this debate was consolidated in the so-called Sybel-Fickers Debate; see Hildebrand, Das vergangene Reich, 16–17, where Hildebrand quotes Sybel’s remark that the old empire was an “Irrweg der deutschen Geschichte” [wrong track in German history].   9. In a list of fifty topics, wars in antiquity are quite prominent. All inquiries can be replicated at wdk.gei.de, where one can also find the topic lists. Generally, books for higher schools delve more into wars with more historical and “didactic” implications than books for lower schools. But for lower schools, too, classical “authors on war,” such as Thucydides and Clausewitz, are more prominently positioned, especially after 1880.

The World at War in German Textbooks  | 107

10. As this is a corpus processed for statistical methods like topic modeling, pages are also highly  ranked, which, while quite significant for the topic, contain no obvious direct ­connection to the theme, as they are associated only with specific key words; we have to ­mention that the topics were improved with the help of the topic of war. For the processing of the corpus and the problems associated with it, see Schnober and Gurevych, “Combining Topic Models”; Fechner and Weiß, “Einsatz von Topic Modeling”; Heuwing and Weiß, “Suche und Analyse.” 11. One finds such presentations still today, for example, when the French civil code is attributed solely to Napoleon Bonaparte and the discovery of the Americas or his conquests solely to Christopher Columbus. 12. Lindner, “Geschichte im allgemeinen,” (1884), 331; Neubauer, “Geschichtsunterricht auf höheren Schulen,” (1905), 491. For the broader topic of citizenship and war, despite its strong American perspective, see Dudink, Hagemann, and Clark, Representing Masculinity, esp. x; from a German perspective, see Frevert, Die kasernierte Nation; and Jansen, Der Bürger als Soldat. This topic was also analyzed in an investigation of children’s and juvenile literature; see Lukasch, Der muss haben ein Gewehr; Tomkowiak et al., An allen Fronten. 13. Schilling, “Kriegshelden,” 180, 183. 14. Tenorth, “Bildung als Besitz.” Some historians, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, but also in recent years, concluded from this agenda that educational policy was in part responsible for the start of the First World War. 15. On pan-Germans, an essential text is still Chickering, We Men Who Feel Most German; for a ­critique of the dominance of militaristic positions, see Donson, Youth in a Fatherless Land, 4–5. 16. PA AA: R 19.826 Newspaper article with marginalia by Emperor Wilhelm 1897–98, secret newspaper excerpts 1898, duplicate Morning Post of 5 February 1898 v S.M. 5/2 1. 17. “Behandlung des vaterländischen Geschichtsunterrichts in der Elementarschule,” Zentralblatt 1859, 182, Siemaringen, 22 January 1859, quoted in Gernert, Schulvorschriften, 23. 18. Leonhard, “Die Nationalisierung des Kriegs,” 83, 90. 19. See Schilling, “Kriegshelden,” 18–19. 20. Frevert, too, argues against the Sonderweg; see the review: Hämmerle, “Review: Ute Frevert, Die kasernierte Nation,” 298; Wette is quoted in Jansen, “Einleitung,” 12–13. 21. Leonhard, “Die Nationalisierung des Krieges,” 84. 22. See Janssen, “Krieg,” esp. 586–612; Janssen even claims that “nationalism and national war, seen as war per se, were the true heritage that the French Revolution gave to the Europe of the nineteenth century …” (591); Kant spoke of war “as the promoter of civilizational progress”; ibid., 594. 23. Ibid., 596–600; quoted in ibid., 586n89. 24. Lorenz, Lehrbuch (1904), 321. 25. Schultz describes this process for German geography teachers and calls it the “bellicose side of their stately resp. geo-Darwinistic understanding of the nation”; Schultz, “Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?,”492. For a contemporary presentation of this idea, see Lindner’s article “Nationalität und nationale Erziehung” [nationality and national education], in which he names Darwin as a reference for national development; Lindner, Encyklopädisches Handbuch (1884), 539. 26. Neugebauer, “Militärgeschichte,” 1:193; for newer interpretations of masculinity in Germany and the connections to narratives about war, masculinity, “heroic death,” and the duties of citizenship, see Vogel, Nationen im Gleichschritt; Frevert, Die kasernierte Nation, esp. 39–49; Jansen, Der Bürger als Soldat; Schilling, “Kriegshelden”; for the male youth as the desired audience for this narrative, see ibid., 15–16; for the roots of this development in the French Revolution, see Kruse, Die Erfindung des modernen Militarismus.

108 | Andreas Weiß

27. For the positive description of war in the bourgeoisie, see Langewiesche, “Fortschrittsmotor Krieg,” quoted here on page 24. 28. For the changed situation after the Wars of Liberation, but the positive description of the “people’s war” as “old German defensibility” and also on conservative militaristic ideology, see Ostertag, “Militärgeschichte im Zeitalter des Deutschen Bundes,” 1:129–41; and for the social meaning of the military, reflected especially in the “Einjährigen-Freiwilligen” [one-year volunteers], see Groppe, “Pädagogik im 19. Jahrhundert,” 40–41. 29. Groppe, “Pädagogik im 19. Jahrhundert,” 53–54. 30. Neugebauer, “Militärgeschichte,” 1:199. For the classification of this German militarism in the European context and the strong connection between liberalism and militarism, see Jansen, Der Bürger als Soldat; for the Prussian example, see ibid., “Einleitung,” 11–12, 13–18, as well as some articles in that volume. 31. Rein, “Militarismus und Schulerziehung,” 866, 867. 32. Quoted in Genett, Der Fremde im Kriege, 102. “Ukaz” meant decree in Imperial Russia. Hänschen becoming Hans here refers to young boys growing up, indoctrinated by this decree. 33. E.g., Groebe et al., Handbuch für den Geschichtsunterricht (1913), 97. 34. E.g., in Zillig, “Geschichtsunterricht in der Erziehungsschule,” (1905), 466–80. 35. Political participation in the nation definitely had a masculine connotation; also, the definition of “brother” remained unclear. 36. An essential text on this is still Anderson, Imagined Communities. 37. Langewiesche, “Fortschrittsmotor Krieg,” 4. 38. Foucault, Vom Licht des Krieges, 10. Foucault focuses on this issue especially in this work. I am indebted to Dr. Marcus Otto for this reference. 39. In this respect, this chapter follows the positions of John Philipp Short and Bernhard Porter, who clearly distinguished their position from those of Susanne Zantop and others by denying a direct link between Germans’ consumption of literature and other media and their expansionist attitudes and inclination toward violence against “foreigners”; for older positions in the literature, see note 1; for critical perspectives, see Porter, Absent-Minded Imperialists, 194–226. Several works, including Short, Everyman’s Colonial Library, 474; Weiß, “Der Kolonialkrieg”; Ziemann, Front und Heimat; Verhey, Spirit of 1914; and Donson, Youth in a Fatherless Land; have demonstrated the unenthusiastic reaction of the rural and working-class populations to the outbreak of the First World War. 40. “However, before 1914 almost no teachers … were militarists in the sense that they glorified war as a virtue in itself or viewed it as a primary means to solve international disputes”: Donson, Youth in a Fatherless Land, 4. This ambivalence is also visible in the German Empire’s self-­ proclaimed title as the Friedensmacht [peace power], which recurs regularly in the textbooks. 41. Methfessel, “Spreading the European Model.” 42. These authors, too, emphasize the importance of modern warfare (technological superiority, the use of railways, better cannons) for the victory of the North, themes that were important for the German self-narrative; e.g., Pfalz, Geschichte in ihren Grundzügen (1897), 214. 43. Bumüller, Die Weltgeschichte (1862), 402. No less than eighty-six books mention this war, thirteen of them as the “War of Secession.” 44. The expulsion of the March revolutionaries was already used in contemporary caricatures; from Baden alone 80,000 of those persecuted by the Prussian authorities emigrated, which comprised 6 percent of the contemporary population; see Deutscher Bundestag, Fragen an die deutsche Geschichte, 129. 45. These prejudices flourished especially during wars. Geiser, Das perfide Albion (ca. 1915), summarized this particularly incisively at that time. 46. Martens, Geschichte der Neuzeit (1895), 250; Thomas, Buch der denkwürdigsten Entdeckungen (1900), 34.

The World at War in German Textbooks  | 109

47. Thomas, Buch der denkwürdigsten Entdeckungen (1900), 34. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. 50. Klenk, Zeit- und Lebensbilder (1896), 37; Porger and Winter, Von der Französischen Revolution (1910), 79; Marquardt, Quellenlesebuch (1911), 61. 51. Lauer, Die Weltgeschichte (1881), 202. In general, German authors throughout the nineteenth century seem to have regarded civil wars and revolutions as an important theme in the context of war; see Janssen, “Krieg,” 604, 607–12. 52. Gehrke, Grundriß der Weltgeschichte (1878), 165. 53. Pfalz, Geschichte in ihren Grundzügen (1897), 210. 54. Klett and Treuber, Lehrbuch der Weltgeschichte (1897), 421. 55. Pfalz, Geschichte in ihren Grundzügen (1897), 211–12.

Bibliography Primary Sources Bumüller, Johannes. Die Weltgeschichte: Geschichte der neuen Zeit für Mittelschulen und zum Selbstunterricht. Part 3: Die neue Zeit. 5th rev. ed. Freiburg im Breisgau, 1862. Gehrke, Albert. Grundriß der Weltgeschichte für die oberen Classen höherer Lehranstalten. Part 3: Die Neuzeit. Wolfenbüttel, 1878. Geiser, Alfred. Das perfide Albion. Bielefeld, ca. 1915. Groebe, Paul, Th. Lenschau, and P. Pape, eds. Handbuch für den Geschichtsunterricht. Vol. 1. Leipzig, 1913. Klenk, J. G. Zeit- und Lebensbilder aus der neueren und neuesten deutschen und württembergischen Geschichte: Ein Handbüchlein zum Gebrauch des Lehrers an der allgemeinen Fortbildungsschule in Württemberg. Stuttgart, 1896. Klett, Theodor, and Oskar Treuber. Lehrbuch der Weltgeschichte für Oberklassen, 3: Neue Zeit. Stuttgart, 1897. Lauer, Friedrich. Die Weltgeschichte: Zum Schulgebrauch nach unterrichtlichen Grundsätzen bearbeitet. 7th ed. Gießen, 1881. Lindner, Gustav Adolf. Encyklopädisches Handbuch der Erziehungskunde mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Volksschulwesens. Vienna, 1884. Lorenz, Karl. Lehrbuch der Geschichte für Mittelschulen. Munich, 1904. Marquardt, Rudolf. Quellenlesebuch für den Unterricht in der Länder- und Völkerkunde: für Lehrerbildungsanstalten und Lehrer. Hanover et al., 1911. Martens, Wilhelm. Geschichte der Neuzeit: Lehrbuch der Geschichte für die oberen Klassen höherer Lehranstalten. Hanover, 1895. Neubauer, Friedrich. “Geschichtsunterricht auf höheren Schulen.” In Encyklopädisches Handbuch der Pädagogik, edited by W. Rein, 3:482–522. Langensalza, 1905. Pfalz, Franz. Die Geschichte in ihren Grundzügen: Ein Lehrbuch für die deutsche Schule und ein Lesebuch für das deutsche Haus. Vol. 4. Leipzig, 1897. Porger, Gustav, and Hans Winter. Von der Französischen Revolution bis zur Gegenwart. Berlin et al., 1910. Rein, Wilhelm, ed. “Militarismus und Schulerziehung.” In Encyklopädisches Handbuch der Pädagogik, 2nd ed., edited by idem, 5:866–69. Langensalza, 1906.

110 | Andreas Weiß

Sybel, Heinrich von. Die Deutsche Nation und das Kaiserreich: Eine historisch-politische Abhandlung. Düsseldorf, 1862. Thomas, Louis. Buch der denkwürdigsten Entdeckungen auf dem Gebiete der Länder- und Völkerkunde: Entdeckungen und geographisch bedeutsame Unternehmungen nach Auffindung der Neuen Welt bis zur Gegenwart, 10th ed. Leipzig, 1900. Zillig, Peter. “Geschichtsunterricht in der Erziehungsschule.” In Encyklopädisches Handbuch der Pädagogik, 2nd ed., edited by W. Rein, 3:466–81. Langensalza, 1905.

Secondary Sources Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1983. Arbeitsgruppe “Lehrer und Krieg,” ed. Lehrer helfen siegen: Kriegspädagogik im Kaiserreich mit Beiträgen zur NS-Kriegspädagogik. Berlin: Diesterweg-Hochschule, 1987. Berg, Christa. “Einleitung.” In Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte. Vol. 4: 1870–1918, edited by idem, 501–3. Munich: Beck, 1999. Bundestag, Deutscher, ed. Fragen an die deutsche Geschichte: Wege zur parlamentarischen Demokratie. 19th ed. Bonn: Deutscher Bundestag, 1996. Chickering, Roger. We Men Who Feel Most German: A Cultural Study of the Pan-German League, 1886–1914. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1984. Donson, Andrew. Youth in a Fatherless Land: War Pedagogy, Nationalism, and Authority in Germany, 1914–1918. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. Dudink, Stefan, Karen Hagemann, and Anna Clark, eds. Representing Masculinity: Male Citizenship in Modern Western Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Fechner, Martin, and Andreas Weiß. “Einsatz von Topic Modeling in den Geschichts­ wissenschaften: Wissensbestände des 19. Jahrhunderts.” Zeitschrift für digitale Geistes­ wissenschaften (2017), text/html Format. DOI: 10.17175/2017_005. Foucault, Michel. Vom Licht des Krieges zur Geburt der Geschichte. Berlin: Merve, 1986. Frevert, Ute. Die kasernierte Nation: Militärdienst und Zivilgesellschaft in Deutschland. Munich: Beck, 2001. Genett, Timm. Der Fremde im Kriege: Zur politischen Theorie und Biographie von Robert Michels 1876–1936. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2008. Gernert, Dörte. Schulvorschriften für den Geschichtsunterricht im 19./20. Jahrhundert: Dokumente aus Preußen, Bayern, Sachsen, Thüringen und Hamburg bis 1945. Cologne: Böhlau, 1994. Groppe, Carola. “Pädagogik im 19. Jahrhundert.” In Einführung in die Geschichte der Erziehungswissenschaft und Erziehungswirklichkeit, 3rd ed., edited by Klaus Harney and Heinz-Hermann Krüger, 37–70. Opladen, Bloomfield Hills: Barbara Budrich, 2006. Hämmerle, Christa. “Review: Ute Frevert, Die kasernierte Nation: Militärdienst und Zivilgesellschaft in Deutschland.” In Der Bürger als Soldat: Die Militarisierung europäischer Gesellschaften im langen 19. Jahrhundert; Ein internationaler Vergleich, edited by Christian Jansen, 298–304. Essen: Klartext, 2004. Heuwing, Ben, and Andreas Weiß. “Suche und Analyse in großen Textsammlungen: Neue Werkzeuge für die Schulbuchforschung.” In Digital Humanities in der internationalen Schulbuchforschung (Eckert.Expertise 9), edited by Maret Nieländer and Ernesto William De Luca, 145–69. Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2018. Hildebrand, Klaus. Das vergangene Reich: Deutsche Außenpolitik von Bismarck bis Hitler 1871– 1945. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1995.

The World at War in German Textbooks  | 111

Jansen, Christian, ed. Der Bürger als Soldat: Die Militarisierung europäischer Gesellschaften im langen 19. Jahrhundert; Ein internationaler Vergleich. Essen: Klartext, 2004. ———. “Einleitung: Die Militarisierung der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft im 19. Jahrhundert.” In Der Bürger als Soldat: Die Militarisierung europäischer Gesellschaften im langen 19. Jahrhundert; Ein internationaler Vergleich, edited by idem, 9–23. Essen: Klartext, 2004. Janssen, Wilhelm. “Krieg.” In Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, edited by Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck, 3:567–615. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1982. Kuhlemann, Frank-Michael. “Niedere Schulen.” In Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte. Vol. 4: 1870–1918, edited by Christine Berg. Munich: Beck, 1999. Kruse, Wolfgang. Die Erfindung des modernen Militarismus: Krieg, Militär und bürgerliche Gesellschaft im politischen Diskurs der Französischen Revolution. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2003. Langbehn, Volker M., ed. German Colonialism, Visual Culture, and Modern Memory. New York: Routledge, 2010. Langewiesche, Dieter. “Fortschrittsmotor Krieg: Krieg im politischen Handlungsarsenal Europas im 19. Jahrhundert und die Rückkehr der Idee des bellum iustum in der Gegenwart.” In Unterwegs in Europa: Beiträge zu einer vergleichenden Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte, edited by Christina Benninghaus et al., 23–40. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2008. Leonhard, Jörn. “Die Nationalisierung des Kriegs und der Bellizismus der Nation: Die Diskussion um Volks- und Nationalkrieg in Deutschland, Großbritannien und den Vereinigten Staaten seit den 1860er Jahren.” In Der Bürger als Soldat: Die Militarisierung europäischer Gesellschaften im langen 19. Jahrhundert; Ein internationaler Vergleich, edited by Christian Jansen, 83–105. Essen: Klartext, 2004. Lukasch, Peter. Der muss haben ein Gewehr: Krieg, Militarismus und patriotische Erziehung in Kindermedien vom 18. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart; Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Kindermedien. Norderstedt: Books on Demand, 2012. Methfessel, Christian. “Spreading the European Model by Military Means?—The Legitimization of Colonial Wars and Imperialist Interventions in Great Britain and Germany around 1900.” Comparativ 22, no. 6 (2012): 42–60. Neugebauer, Karl Volker. Grundzüge der deutschen Militärgeschichte. Vol. 1: Historischer Überblick. Freiburg: Rombach, 1993. ———. “Militärgeschichte des Kaiserreiches 1871 bis 1918. Des Kaisers ‘schimmernde’ Wehr.” In Grundzüge der deutschen Militärgeschichte, edited by idem, 1:193–267. Freiburg: Rombach, 1993. Ostertag, Heiger. “Militärgeschichte im Zeitalter des Deutschen Bundes und der Einigungskriege 1815 bis 1871: Restauration, Revolution und Reichsgründung.” In Grundzüge der deutschen Militärgeschichte, edited by Karl Volker Neugebauer, 1:129–91. Freiburg: Rombach, 1993. Pohlmann, Carola, and Rüdiger Steinlein, eds. GeschichtsBilder: Historische Jugendbücher aus vier Jahrhunderten. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2000. Porter, Bernard. The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Schenda, Rudolf. Die Lesestoffe der kleinen Leute: Studien zur populären Literatur im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Munich: Beck, 1976. Schilling, René. “Kriegshelden”: Deutungsmuster heroischer Männlichkeit in Deutschland 18131945. Paderborn et al.: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2002. Schnober, Carsten, and Iryna Gurevych. “Combining Topic Models for Corpus Exploration: Applying LDA for Complex Corpus Research Tasks in a Digital Humanities Project.” In

112 | Andreas Weiß

Proceedings of the 2015 Workshop on Topic Models: Post-Processing and Applications, TM ’15, 11–20. New York: ACM, 2015. Schultz, Hans-Dietrich, “‘Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?’ Geographie und Nationalstaat vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg.” Geographische Rundschau 47, no. 9 (1995): 492–97. Short, John Phillip. “Everyman’s Colonial Library: Imperialism and Working-Class Readers in Leipzig, 1890–1914.” German History 21, no. 4 (2003): 445–75. Tenorth, Heinz-Elmar. “Bildung als Besitz—Erziehung als Indoktrination.” In PLOETZ: Das deutsche Kaiserreich, 1867/71 bis 1918; Bilanz einer Epoche, edited by Dieter Langewiesche, 159–65. Freiburg, Würzburg: Verlag Ploetz, 1984. Tomkowiak, Ingrid, et al., eds. An allen Fronten: Kriege und politische Konflikte in Kinder- und Jugendmedien. Zurich: Chronos, 2013. Verhey, Jeffrey. The Spirit of 1914: Militarism, Myth and Mobilization in Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Vogel, Jakob. Nationen im Gleichschritt: Der Kult der “Nation in Waffen” in Deutschland und Frankreich, 1871–1914. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997. Wehler, Hans-Ulrich. Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Vol. 3: Von der “Deutschen Doppelrevolution” bis zum Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges 1849–1914. Munich: Beck, 2008. Weiß, Andreas. “Der Kolonialkrieg im deutschen Schulbuch des Kaiserreiches.” In Portal Militärgeschichte, retrieved from http://portal-militaergeschichte.de/weiss_kolonialkrieg. Wittmann, Reinhard. Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels. 3rd ed. Munich: Beck, 2011. Ziemann, Benjamin. Front und Heimat: Ländliche Kriegserfahrung im südlichen Bayern 1914– 1923. Essen: Klartext, 1997.

Chapter 5

When Nippon Became Prussian The German Image of Japan in Nineteenth-Century Textbooks Maik Fiedler

S In the course of their nineteenth-century expansion, European colonial powers not only increased their influence and territory but also augmented their knowledge about the world. During this period, Asia assumed an increasingly important position on the political world map, and from the turn of the century onward, politically and economically significant regions of East Asia began to feature more frequently in German textbooks. Japan (also referred to at that time as Nippon), however, was a specifically unique case. “Certainly we have the peculiar situation, whereby all European cultures that had been engaged with Japan since the mid-sixteenth century, were starting from the same level; that is to say, from zero. Everything about Japan was new, and had to be newly compiled, recorded and processed.”1 This statement from Reinhard Zöllner, an expert on Japan, describes how the German image of Japan started to be reassessed as a result of Japan emerging from its political isolation in 1853/54 and how that image underwent a profound change rooted in the global explosion of knowledge. An established and integral part of the theory behind educational media research and the history of knowledge is that textbooks’ singular position as politically authenticated educational media, and their comprehensive distribution and use, make them useful sources from which to draw conclusions about typical, contemporary portrayals of people and the world, and specific concepts of knowledge. However, the extent to which textbooks change in response to shifts in social “truths” has, to date, rarely been addressed in research.2 Visions of Japan were a small yet enduring component of the overall European view of the non-European world. Germany’s view toward the East at any given time was also influenced by its perception of itself.3 The systematic comparison of textbooks for elementary Notes from this chapter begin on page 127.

114 | Maik Fiedler

school levels with other contemporary and widely consumed media provides interesting insights and the empirical basis for this chapter. The primary research questions are ostensibly the extent to which knowledge in schools depicted the contemporary “state of things” and how the portrayal of “Japan” compared with other knowledge about the country available within German society. The aim is also to demonstrate how textbooks’ positioning of Japan in the world could affect German children’s perception of their own position in the world. As a complex analysis of textbook production at that time would have been unrealistic, given the necessary brevity of this chapter, I have reconstructed how popular and academic knowledge was translated into geographic textbook knowledge on the basis of the three selected points of access: quantitative material, Japanese people and cultural practices, and scholastic ignorance during the nineteenth century. I selected the source material from the 907,068 pages (3,811 volumes) of digitized and fully searchable text available in the comprehensive collection of German-language history, geography, and natural science textbooks for the period from 1648 to 1918, held by the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research in Braunschweig. I compiled the research sample for the investigation of the transformation of Japan’s image with the help of the virtual research environment developed during the digital humanities project “Children and Their World” (wdk.gei.de). A simple frequency analysis for the period from 1800 to 1918 initially provided a sample of 6,139 pages addressing “Japan” from 1,463 volumes. In a relative comparison, the term “Japan” was traceable in textbooks, independent of subject, for elementary (1,124 pages), middle (927 pages), or high (1,751 pages) school institutions, which was analogous to the general corpora during this period,4 but a subject-specific comparison of the individual results revealed that the topic occurred much more frequently in the context of geographical knowledge in geography and science textbooks, as well as atlases (4,631 pages or 75 percent of all pages on “Japan”), than in history books (1,508 pages, or 25 percent of all pages on “Japan”), which, of course, was to be expected. Using a combined Information Retrieval request in the WdK tool, I was able to restrict the corpus to the 4,631 pages of geographical knowledge on Japan in books for elementary and middle schools and to hermeneutically examine them using diverse digital analytical tools5 and, with the present research questions in mind, investigate them with regard to differences between specific school types. The findings are presented below.

Historical Context and Response to Knowledge on Japan in Germany Before expanding on the findings, I will first provide an overview of the image of Japan in Germany at that time, as well as an outline of the historical

The German Image of Japan  | 115

developments in the nineteenth century relevant for the transformation of knowledge on Japan. Europeans knew about Japan long before the nineteenth century. Early maps depicted Japan under the name Cipangu, the name Marco Polo (1254–1324) gave it.6 Reports from Portuguese sailors and Jesuit missionaries7 increased European knowledge of Japan.8 A change in the country’s political situation, manifested by its rejection of Christianity and European missionaries, marked a temporary end to any cultural exchange of knowledge. The edicts to suppress the activities of the Spanish and Portuguese in the 1580s, which culminated in the expulsion of the Portuguese in 1639 and the transfer of the only remaining trading settlement of the Dutch East India Company to the island of Dejima, signaled the start of Japan’s isolation and its attempts to hermetically seal itself off from allegedly harmful external influences. In consequence, both external trade and cultural interaction with Europe were drastically reduced, and Germany’s image of Japan in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century thus came essentially to be shaped by individual sources based around the chokepoint on Dejima: principally figures such as Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716)9 and Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (1796–1866).10 The enforced opening of ports for trade by American Matthew Perry (1794– 1858) did not end Japan’s strict isolation policy until 1853/54—over two hundred years after it was introduced.11 The weakened shogunate was forced to accept the opening of the ports, and the subsequent opening of the country led to domestic political conflicts and the shogunate’s rapid loss of authority. Conservative factions under the leadership of high-ranking samurai succeeded in deposing the ruling Tokugawa shogunate at the beginning of 1868, both formally and practically, reinstating the authority of Emperor Meiji, who had been in internal exile.12 The resulting Meiji Restoration finally opened the country to foreign influences beyond simple trade. In the second half of the century, many Western academics and travelers arrived in Japan, producing many literary accounts upon their arrival back home, which indelibly influenced the European view of Japan. Germany played a very specific role in the transfer of knowledge from Europe to Asia. The Meiji rulers perceived the German Empire to be an exceptionally attractive model and used it as a paradigm for reform in the fields of medicine, law, and military affairs. It is, therefore, not surprising that the military general staff was modeled, in 1878, on the Prussian example. The German Empire’s constitution also provided the template for the new Japanese constitution, which was proclaimed in 1889.13 Western knowledge was quickly and successfully conveyed to Japan, enabling the country rapid access to the global economy and leading its focus to turn, in 1889, to foreign raw materials and key markets, as well as its own imperial objectives.14 Principally as a result of successful military campaigns, Japan was eventually accepted into the ranks of the great imperial powers in 1905.

116 | Maik Fiedler

Because the country’s isolation had given few Europeans firsthand experience of Japan, knowledge about the country had a very narrow base. Most reports essentially made up many aspects, including information about the inhabitants. In essence, the characteristics Jesuits described in the sixteenth century, such as the “highest degree of morality and intelligence, exemplary honesty, particularly in financial matters, a high level of artisan craftsmanship, well-proportioned physical appearance [as well as] complete emotional control,”15 were carried into the mid-nineteenth century.16 The influential commentator Kaempfer made particular statements about Japan as the European “surrogate paradise,”17 consequently shaping German knowledge of Japan.18 During the Enlightenment, racial preconceptions emerged,19 noting the “animal-like temper [and] unusual callousness” of the Japanese.20 However, positive stereotypes dominated among most of German society. Although foreignness was increasingly emphasized in academic debate on Asia from 1800 onward, Germans clearly did not view the Japanese as “evil foreigners” on the whole, despite the country’s exotic features, because they continued to consume its cultural products and generate positive reports. The positively tinted understanding of Japan was simply too deeply rooted in the German view of the world.21 The revised edition of Kaempfer’s travel report, which was released as a book for young people in 1850—still during Japan’s isolation—indicates the intense interest Germans had in Japanese matters.22 The opening of Japan changed the quantity and diversity23 of the information available in German media. The number of German-language publications and reports on Japan increased significantly after 1860 and truly exploded after 1890, broadening the knowledge base across all levels of society.24 Beyond travel reports, academic literature, and coverage in the mass media, world fairs, in which Japan regularly took part after 1867, also fed knowledge and information about Japan. Overwhelmingly represented by its textile products at such events, Japan seemed, “in the eyes of the Europeans … to be an exotic, unindustrialized country,”25 but this nevertheless inspired Japanese-like fashions across Europe.26 Increased imports of paint products, tea, and luxury objects also spurred mounting interest in the Far East. In the international art world, the development of Japonica represented a grandiose homage to the Far East.27 There was, however, never really a pronounced Japanese trend among young people, as witnessed for other regions of the world.28 Despite the overall popularity of Japan, though, illustrated postcards featuring the conflicts in Asia, which were available after 1900, conveyed a pejorative, racist, and negative image of Japanese society.29 The undertones permeating knowledge about Japan can be divided into two phases emanating from the unification of the German Empire in 1871. Retrospectively, historians regard the period between 1870 and 1895 as the “golden age” of German–Japanese relations due to the strength of the cultural relationship, although this view is rather romanticized. During this period,

The German Image of Japan  | 117

pro-Japanese comparisons with China, which had originated from before the opening of Japan, were frequently perpetuated. The German image of Japan in this phase of fledgling economic and political encounters was overwhelmingly positive. In contrast, in the second period, which extended from 1895 to 1918, there were political and economic tensions between Germany and Japan. This is also reflected in contemporary press reports. In 1895, reports in German daily newspapers started stoking fear of Japanese economic competition. Japan’s military success, in particular, prompted the mass media to reverse the country’s opinion.30 The First Sino-Japanese War of 1894/95 drew admiration, on the one hand, for Japan’s military might, yet, on the other, it generated fear of Japanese expansion and increased influence in East Asia, which, in turn, provoked alarm that German interests in the region would suffer. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5 definitively dispelled any remaining German admiration for Japan. The accent shifted toward the dangers of the “Yellow Peril” and the threat to German interests in East Asia, leading to the foregrounding of racist arguments during this period.

Japan in Textbooks We shall use elementary-level textbooks to reveal how knowledge is transformed and also to illuminate the changing interpretations of knowledge about Japan in schools in the context of dominant social discourses.

Characterization of the Other? School descriptions of Japan, in most cases, remained brief and very general prior to 1850, presumably resulting from the country’s isolation. In addition to spatially and geographically placing the country within the Asian nations, the core information usually consisted of descriptions of typical products, religions, and forms of government. Descriptions invariably mentioned the Japanese policy of isolation and the exception of the Dutch trading agreement, and referred to the capital city of Jeddo (Tokyo) as a “mega-city” with a million inhabitants. Comparisons between Japan and China, including evaluations of individual features specific to each country, were common, although descriptions of Japan were consistently more positive than those of China. The positive undertone can be attributed to the fact that Kaempfer’s reports formed the basis of knowledge about Japan until the middle of the century. The analysis of textbooks published before 1854 clearly shows that the body of knowledge underlying descriptions of Japan for school geography books was very static, as the texts are unerringly similar. One is forced to conclude that textbook authors consistently resorted to the same unnamed source.

118 | Maik Fiedler

In order to classify the Japanese people within a cultural world order, textbooks, both before and after 1854, turned to comparisons with China. However, by the second half of the century, changes emerged in the semantic construction of the comparisons. Descriptions based on race theories of Asia came to the fore, resulting in Japan being clearly distinguished from China in terms of its culture and civilization. This led to a fixed template of race definitions being established in textbooks and allowed explicit attributions of race and nation to be applied to specific population groups. After 1854, new knowledge about the Japanese population was added, altering the overall image of the country. On the one hand, a tendency to simplify ascriptions and to increasingly present the people, state, and territory as uniform entities with racial homogeneity could be discerned. On the other hand, attempts were also made to stay abreast of new knowledge by including, for example, references to the native population of the most northerly island, Jesso (Ainos).31 Admittedly, incorporating this expanding knowledge base required a differentiated and more heterogeneous racial classification. When Japan’s domestic politics began to stabilize at the end of the 1860s, textbook authors seem to have at least temporarily resolved the difficulties of classifying the population, referring to the Japanese, in geography textbooks, as belonging to the “Mongolian race” until the turn of the century.32 Japanese conquests at the beginning of the twentieth century and the manifestation of an imperialistic Japanese policy made the description and textbooks’ attribution of race and ethnicity much more complex. Now not only the native population of Jesso but also, given the establishment of a Japanese colonial empire, the inhabitants of the Kuril Islands (from 1875), Taiwan, (Formosa, from 1895), Sakhalin (from 1905), and Korea (1910) had to be incorporated into the description of the Japanese people. One description of ancestry given in schools around 1910 used new scientific knowledge to claim that the Japanese were closely descended from the Chinese, which, in turn, undermined the overwhelmingly positive evaluation of the Japanese nation that had heretofore prevailed.33 Lower echelons of Japanese society were said to have mixed with other racial families, a fact that was reflected in their physical appearance. This blending had then led to a deceleration or even a complete reversal of Japan’s civilizational and cultural progress.34 Without a doubt, Japan’s expanding global political power impacted these and similar assessments prevalent in the opening decades of the twentieth century. This image was also supported by the growing perception of the Orient as uncivilized and dangerous.35 The positive image of Japan as the “Prussia of East Asia”36 was largely reframed after 1900 to become the “Asian England.” This semantic joining of Japan and England reflected the increased competition between European states for dominance in the world. The comparison was made on several levels, both graphically and textually (see figure 5.1),37 and was problematic because, according to German textbooks, it had been Prussian/German expertise and assistance that had enabled Japan to rapidly

The German Image of Japan  | 119

Figure 5.1.  Map comparing Japan and England. Heinrich Harms et al., H. Harms Erdkunde in entwickelnder, anschaulicher Darstellung, vol. 3, part 1: Asien (Leipzig, 1916), 191. GEI-Digital, http://gei-digital.gei.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:0220 -gd-8960332. CC0 license, public domain.

evolve from being an isolated island nation to a global player. This approach implicitly forced Japan into a position of gratitude, perhaps even subservience, in relation to Germany. Before Japan opened up, Japanese culture was seldom discussed in Germany. It is conspicuous that Japanese culture was only mentioned after 1850, and then always in connection with the country’s new openness and adoption of European lifestyles. For this reason, and Japanese people’s allegedly strong desire to learn, textbooks after 1870 presented Japan as the most culturally developed Asian country. This translation of the Eurocentric perception of East Asian power relations in textbooks reflected, in particular, contemporary social knowledge and dominant opinions. This cultural discourse established a semantic proximity between Germany and Japan and, at least at the peak of German–Japanese relations between 1870 and 1895, elicited feelings of affinity. Germany’s and Japan’s ascendancy could be viewed as analogous. The leading discourse in the post-1870 textbooks’ descriptions of Japanese culture could be labeled “German cultural influence in Japan.” Contemporary travelers to Japan proudly documented the adoption of Prussian ways of life, and these were rapidly incorporated into textbooks, soon becoming the dominant

120 | Maik Fiedler

narrative. This pride in Japan’s cultural transformation comes through in descriptions regarding changes in nutrition.38 For example, Buddhist teachings widely prohibited consumption of “quadruped meat,”39 but reforms and a new, secular, orientation prompted the Japanese to learn to appreciate the positive effects of consuming meat from Europeans. In 1872, the emperor officially consumed meat for the first time and then publicly repealed the ban—a decisive move for this societal change.40 German doctors, such as the emperor’s personal doctor Erwin Bälz (1849–1913), particularly encouraged this shift and advocated meat consumption especially for soldiers.41 Around 1900, the discourse moved away from blatant German pride in cultural transfer, instead reflecting darker sides of Japan’s Westernization, like the loss of age-old traditions and the destruction of the natural habitats on Ainos. This development reveals that Europeans viewed the replication of their culture by a thoroughly exotic people, as they saw the Japanese, with interest but not completely positively due to the great dissimilarity between the cultures. After 1900, fear of the current and future economic potential of the small and only recently developed country became publicly discernible. Still, descriptions of cultural items, such as clothing, were interwoven with an implicit discourse reminiscent of the complex debate about preserving indigenous peoples, in which it was lamented that the cultural and modernization processes Germany and other European countries had exported to the “backward” areas of the world had irreversibly destroyed indigenous traditions and lifestyles. The Japanese were consistently portrayed as a people who highly valued education. From approximately 1900, this narrative blended with a racial theory claiming that the population displayed no creativity, despite its predisposed thirst for knowledge. This allegedly manifested itself in the Japanese only being able to imitate and copy. Creativity, the theory suggested, was the final, decisive stage of “social evolution,” so being deemed evolutionarily unable to master this process, the Japanese would never be on a cultural par with Europeans.42 This image was seized upon with renewed vigor after 1900 to artificially denigrate the rapidly expanding Japanese superpower and preserve an image of them being inferior to Europeans. When Japanese cultural traditions were addressed in textbooks, they were either depicted as overwhelmingly exotic or given Social Darwinistic meaning, and after 1900, such references generally disappeared altogether. For example, Japanese writing characters were described as having Chinese heritage in an oversimplified explanation. Sociocultural descriptions reflecting geographic knowledge expressed astonishment at Japan’s spartan lifestyle, with dwellings made from wood and paper, or at the permitted practice of bigamy for men, despite most being satisfied with just one spouse. The overriding emphasis on Japan’s positive development up to 1900 in German accounts enabled Germans to project diverse Western accomplishments

The German Image of Japan  | 121

and the superiority of their civilization in reflecting on a backward but promising country. It is, therefore, not surprising that the discourse on industrialization, modernization, and cultural transfer from West to East also featured heavily in textbooks. Against the backdrop of Germany’s increasing secularization, however, religious discourse played a marginal role. Although Japan’s persecution of Christians in the first half of the century was condemned and the country’s turn to widespread religious freedom after opening up was highlighted, cultural and economic factors overshadowed these observations. The portrayal of Japanese state religion and religious practices was sometimes marked by broad ignorance.

Common Templates From about 1870, modernization and secularization had become increasingly visible in German society. The opportunities that progress, globalization, and world trade provided, as well as the extrusion of the church from German children’s lives, were evident in German depictions of foreign worlds. The two diagrams below illustrate this projection of the self onto the Japanese world. Japan presented a valuable example for textbook authors who described it as having single-mindedly followed a path to modernization parallel to Germany’s, with Prussian-German support and the application of Prussian discipline. In addition, it had denounced religious zealousness as a constraint on modernization and had forced it into the background. Figure 5.2 shows how often religion was a topic in German elementary textbook entries on Japan.43 Christianity—presumably due to mentions of Japan’s persecution of Christians—occurred most frequently but became less significant at the same rate as other religious practices. The explosion of knowledge in mid-century resulted in widespread information on religion, which simply resulted from the reorientation of thinking and was reflected in fundamental changes in Japan’s image. Paganism was presented as cultural degradation while Shintoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism were seen as philosophical practices. It is perhaps worth mentioning that the reach of Shintoism and Confucianism was significantly underrepresented in geography textbooks. Confucianism was widely discussed in Germany as having much in common with a Western lifestyle, which may be one reason for the generally positive image of Japan. The underrepresentation of Shintoism, which became the official state religion44 in 1868, and the emphasis on Buddhism indicate the influence of idealized stereotypes of the Buddhist orient45 within knowledge production. Knowledge about religion related to Japan and the unfamiliar Japanese culture played less of a role by 1900 and was more marginal than it had been in mid-century. Thus, this analysis of knowledge about religions in Japan indicates that the perception and linguistic-discursive translation of information on religious contexts became less important in German textbooks in the closing third of the nineteenth century. Until the mid-nineteenth century, Germany closely

122 | Maik Fiedler

 
    
 
 






   




  


  
   




   

  
   
   
   
   
   
  


 
   
  


 
   
 


  

Figure 5.2.  Relative distribution of religions, 1800–1918. Created by Maik Fiedler.

observed Japan’s industrial development. Textbook mentions of it were divided into references to luxury exports important to Germany and Europe, such as silk, paint, porcelain, and paper. However, in comparisons of Germany and Japan, Japan was portrayed almost exclusively as an importer of goods. In addition to Western knowledge and ideas, it imported machines, locomotives, and communication equipment such as telegraph cables. Such information became considerably more prominent in textbooks after the 1880s (see figure 5.3).46 The increased depiction of Japan’s economic shift was, interestingly, accompanied increasingly by references to “German.” This suggests that the German-Prussian influence was highlighted disproportionately in comparison to all other Western nations concerning information about Japan. By describing Japan’s social, religious, and economic development, which was similar to what was taking place before the eyes of German children, the body of knowledge communicated about Japan produced direct points of reference, highlighted positive features associated with military traditions, and reduced feelings of unfamiliarity. Such knowledge portrayed the unfamiliar by reinforcing exotic stereotypes yet also created a sense of connection by explaining religious and economic processes of modernization. In all probability, Japan was a comparatively popular and interesting topic at that time precisely due to the globalization processes Germans were experiencing themselves.

Lack of Knowledge in Schools It is possible to identify didactic objectives and discourses by comparing what is omitted from or not included in textbooks with the information conveyed in

The German Image of Japan  | 123

 
    
 
 










 
 
 




  







 
   
   
   
   
   
  


 
   
  


 
   
 


  

Figure 5.3.  Relative distribution of “industrialization” and “Germany,” 1800–1918. Created by Maik Fiedler.

popular and academic media. Despite the meager flow of knowledge from the Far East at that time, there is no reference to specific knowledge gaps or uncertainties concerning Japan in textbooks prior to 1854.47 In textbooks from the 1860s and 1870s, though, this lack of knowledge was signposted. One natural science book from 1869, for example, admitted that “we still do not know enough about the interior” of the country.48 It appeared that the sudden explosion of knowledge had made the West realize its own previous ignorance. After 1880, such observations gradually vanished again, indicating both the growing professionalization of textbook authors and publishing houses (see the introduction to this book), and the successive filling in of such knowledge gaps. The treatment of the rickshaw in textbooks illustrates a false understanding of cultural history. This public form of transport was most likely based on an eighteenth-century French invention and was developed in the early 1870s by resourceful Westerners,49 specifically for European needs,50 particularly since Europeans were not able to use other palanquins or horse-drawn carriages. The usual palanquins were reserved for native dignitaries, and the European carriages were too wide for the streets. The invention of the “person carriage,” as the jinrikisha was called, was apparently so popular that this form of hired transport quickly spread throughout Asia. According to reports, Meiji Germans seldom used rickshaws as they viewed them as a symbol of Japan’s “semi-civilization.”51 The rickshaw was increasingly included in descriptions of Japan in geography textbooks after 1900, although its origins were not explained. It was therefore accepted as a genuine Japanese invention. It is immaterial whether its European origins were widely known, but the omission of this information performed an implicit function. The rickshaw’s textual and visual presentation in textbooks

124 | Maik Fiedler

epitomized Japan’s underdevelopment: drawings of Japanese “coolies” pulling the rickshaw underscored the social, cultural, and racial superiority of the Europeans utilizing them. Such a negative comparison of Japan with Europe was perhaps to be expected in the context of deteriorating bilateral relations and the increasingly negative depictions in textbooks generally. This image of the rickshaw became an established part of textbook knowledge in the first two decades of the twentieth century, when Japan had long been accepted into the league of great world powers. The emphasis on it made Japan appear antiquated, rigid, and backward-looking. Another example of knowledge purposefully left out of textbooks relates to the domestic political processes of Meiji-era Japan. Elementary-level textbooks, especially, included no explanation of societal developments, the political situation, or Japan’s complex social structure. References to widespread domestic resistance to Westernization, which were certainly known from travel reports, were also excluded. Such political protest was probably not included in textbooks as it would contradict the narrative of a strong, unified, and authoritarian nation. Clearly, one also did not want to propagate revolutionary ideas among children, as that could have presented an incalculable risk to the prevailing balance of power within the German Empire. In the geography textbooks, political processes were generally marginalized. Pupils were only supposed to receive rudimentary political knowledge in geography lessons, if at all. Apparently, there was no desire to teach pupils skills to develop their political maturity either, as suggested, for example, by the absence of information on Japan’s sociopolitical awakening and creation of a partisan landscape. Consequently, Japan’s domestic power reforms and rapid modernization were portrayed as processes that could only have been managed by the authorities. Although, as mentioned above, the books contained many stereotypes about the “cruel Japanese” and Japanese culture, widespread phenomena such as the rapid spread of poverty resulting from industrialization and the desperate living conditions of large sections of the population were not separately addressed. That Japan had announced such allegedly modern policies as personal freedom and social equality by 1871 was also omitted.52 Rather, textbooks presented Japan’s top-down modernization as a unique success story. The increasingly visible dark underbelly embodied in massive land losses, child labor, financial insecurity for farmers and day laborers, and the loss of workers’ rights was not revealed. Similarly, no textbooks mentioned Japan’s reduction in Westernization and return to traditions perceived as solely Japanese after 1890.53 Japanese emancipation could only be discerned in textbooks in references to the revision of unequal treaties54 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5, with the “unfaithful” foster child, Japan, being blamed for its estrangement from Germany. Germany’s increased aspiration to gain world power at that point and its imperial claims

The German Image of Japan  | 125

over East Asia (Kiautschou), which it saw as legitimate, explain the lack of any sense of guilt or responsibility. Common knowledge about the adoption of Western ways of living, such as the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1872 and 187355 and the establishment of the seven-day week in 1876,56 were apparently considered too mundane to be included as socially relevant knowledge. Elementary school knowledge about Japan, in contrast to that for higher levels, ultimately contained almost no history prior to the Meiji era. The focus on Japan’s contemporary history in material for elementary schools resulted from historiographical gaps and was similar to the ahistorical depictions of Africa also widespread at that time. Unlike Africa however, a glorious past full of tradition was ascribed to Japan. It was more or less portrayed as an inventor and innovator in ancient times, yet pupils were not given any specific information about those times. The limited supporting material57 for Japanese history was, itself, clear evidence of a strongly Eurocentric view of the world: non-European history was only included in school textbooks when it affected European interests. Readers must have perceived this as a demonstration of Japan’s inadequacy compared to European developments during the same period. This, in turn, reinforced the belief in Europe’s superiority over regions of the world previously viewed as modern and progressive.

Conclusion Comparing knowledge about Japan in textbooks with the underlying knowledge about Japan taken from travel reports, world expositions, and publications allows us to draw several important conclusions. Between 1800 and 1854, the textbook knowledge was based on both older and contemporary records, but most textbook authors in no way adopted the negatively connoted world image of Japan prevalent at the end of the eighteenth century. Rather, they depicted Japan in a predominantly positive light, and only the brevity of the entries and their speculative nature alluded to gaps in knowledge. Japan’s opening in 1854 prompted an “explosion of knowledge” about Japan in the West, such that textbooks then came to reflect a decidedly wider and more heterogeneous knowledge base. However, this broadening knowledge was then reduced over time to a confined pattern of explanation adapted to each respective level or type of school. This occurred on account of a combination of national and imperialist policies, established Eurocentrism, the growing acceptability of Social Darwinist thinking, the increased subjection of knowledge to bias, and the influence of historicism.58 Positive descriptions of Japan remained dominant in German textbooks until the end of the nineteenth century. Thus, Germany’s textbook image of Japan illustrates how political objectives were implicitly interwoven into knowledge designed for children, lending that knowledge an emotional edge. The ascent of

126 | Maik Fiedler

Prussian Germany fostered the increasing use of semantic links to stylize Japan as Germany’s natural global kin after 1854. Japan’s emancipation and reorientation from 1895, combined with the deterioration of the relationship between Germany and Japan, gradually eliminated the image of Japan as the Prussia of Asia from textbooks. The hierarchies of race established in knowledge about Japan in the 1870s provided the basis for a new image of Japan as the radical other, which, in turn, was shaped by German fears of a loss of imperial power. By 1905, the Prussian foster child, in both the eyes of the German public and textbooks, had become a non-European competitor in the great powers’ carving up of the world. This changing image of Japan demonstrates, like the contributions by Weiß, Anderson, and Schneider, how knowledge was disseminated with the aim of eliciting particular emotional responses. While it is difficult to determine the dominant opinions elementary schoolchildren had about Japan at the time, the change from a positive to negative tenor in the geography and natural science books around 1900 certainly identifies elementary textbooks as instruments for creating and consolidating a German national identity by differentiating Germans from foreigners. In contrast to higher school levels, the content of textbooks for elementary schools was simpler and more binary, and therefore was more able to support a stereotypical formation of bias. However, to confirm this supposition, a more detailed comparison of textbooks for primary and secondary schools would be required. Nineteenth-century textbook knowledge about Japan examined the country from a German national viewpoint. In addition, by emphasizing German participation in Japan’s development, such knowledge reinforced Germany’s inward identity as other Western nations were only assigned minor roles in Japan’s development. Moreover, the nationalized portrayal of knowledge about Japan prompted stereotypes and clichés featured in eighteenth-century textbooks, but largely absent from nineteenth-century ones, to reemerge. This, in turn, led to a narrowing of knowledge to reproducible images. Every type and layer of knowledge about Japan was increasingly categorized and oppositionally structured, conforming to a national and colonial narrative pattern. This one-dimensional narrative structure distorted the new, differentiated, and heterogeneous knowledge into a homogenous and uniquely German knowledge of Japan, which perpetually fed back into the German self-image through its semantic connections. Despite emphasis on individual nations, the European perspective was inherent when differences between the Orient and Occident were discussed. Elementarylevel textbooks communicated this clearly as different levels of civilization. The influence that contemporary political and economic trends had upon the portrayal of Japan and the increased speed at which knowledge was transformed allow us to postulate that geography textbooks, and the image of Japan gained from them, reflected the social situation at that time, the general knowledge base, and the Prussian zeitgeist. Although the knowledge established in elementary

The German Image of Japan  | 127

school textbooks is based upon fewer sources than that in textbooks for higher school levels, it reflects more closely what large segments of the population really knew about Japan. Therefore, Japan exemplifies a rapid shift in knowledge in German textbooks since similar transformation processes also occurred in relation to other topics, but still against the backdrop of an overriding explosion and expansion of knowledge. Maik Fiedler is a PhD student at the Institute of History at the Technical University of Braunschweig and a research assistant at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research in Braunschweig. His dissertation “Globalization of Knowledge? The World in German Textbooks from the 19th Century to the First World War,” investigates facets and processes of change in geography and historical knowledge on the basis of historical textbooks of the lower school system. In addition to the history of knowledge, his scholarly interests include everyday history of the early modern period, as well as its cultural and economic history, methods of digital history, and nineteenth-century expeditions.

Notes I would like to thank Nicola Watson for translating this chapter.   1. Zöllner, “Die preussische Japan-Rezeption,” 53.   2. See the introduction by Lässig and Weiß.   3. Ethnologists studying the parallel evolution of auto- and hetero-stereotypes have documented this repeatedly and methodically. See also Stagl, “Die Beschreibung des Fremden in der Wissenschaft”; and Kreiner, “Das Bild Japans in der europäischen Geistesgeschichte,” 14–15; see also Kohl, Entzauberter Blick.   4. Higher educational establishments 1,751; elementary educational establishments 1,124; midlevel educational establishments 927; teacher training establishments 548; girls’ schools 537; all educational establishments 534, nondenominational schools 21, deaf and dumb schools 5, [no information] 1527.   5. ConText (http://context.lis.illinois.edu/), voyant-tools (voyant-tools.org), wdk-explorer inclusive topic-Modelling (wdk.gei.de), and antconc (http://www.laurenceanthony.net/software/ antconc/)   6. See also Hartmann, Geschichte des modernen Japan, 11–20.   7. Led by Francisco de Xavier (1506–52), the journeys laid the foundation for Japan’s “Christian era.” See also Hall, Das japanische Kaiserreich, 140–42.   8. For an introduction, see Kleinschmidt, “Japan im Welt- und Geschichtsbild der Europäer.”  9. On the influence of Kaempfer on the European perception of Japan, see Bonn, Engelbert Kaempfer; Kapica, “Engelbert Kaempfer und die europäische Aufklärung”; Pekar, “‘AugenBlicke’ in Japan”; and Vollhardt, “Engelbert Kaempfers.”

128 | Maik Fiedler

10. Both are referenced in textbooks prior to 1854 as being knowledgeable about Japan. See, e.g., Cannabich, Hülfsbuch beim Unterrichte in der Geographie für Lehrer (1837), 682. 11. Hartmann, Geschichte des modernen Japan, 21. Earlier attempts to penetrate the isolationary policy all failed: see Kajima, and Hammitzsch, Geschichte der japanischen Außenbeziehungen; Bersihand, Geschichte Japans, 264–78; Hall, Das japanische Kaiserreich, 242–44. 12. Oberländer, “Von den ungleichen Verträgen zur Großmacht.” 13. On the German role, see Ando, Die Entstehung der Meiji-Verfassung. 14. For a short summary, see Kinder and Hilgemann, DTV-Atlas Weltgeschichte, 2:392; Hartmann, Geschichte des modernen Japan, 93. 15. Ueda, “Das Japanbild im historischen Wandel,” 10. 16. See Nafroth, Zur Konstruktion von Nationenbildern, 65–66. 17. Ueda, “Das Japanbild im historischen Wandel,” 11. 18. Osterhammel, “Reisen an die Grenzen der alten Welt,” 235–36; and Sarnowsky, Die Erkundung der Welt, 171–73. Annotated excerpts from this report can be found in Schwebell, Die Geburt des modernen Japan, 31–36. 19. These stereotypes derived primarily from the philosopher Christoph Meiners (1747–1810) of Göttingen. See Kreiner, “Deutschland—Japan,” 32–33. 20. See Meiners, “Über die Natur der Völker im südlichen Asien,” (1790). 21. See also Becker, “Der preußische Jurist Georg Michaelis,” 220–29. 22. Körber, Engelbert Kämpfers Reise nach Japan (1850). 23. In 1850, Felice Beato (1832–1909) began supplying photographs, mostly posed, for a market interested in the exotic. See Delank, “Japanbilder—Bilder aus Japan”; and Ehmcke, “Die Weltausstellungen in Paris, Wien und Chicago.” 24. For more information, see von Felbert, Die Wahrnehmung; Gebhard, Ostasienrezeption zwischen Klischee und Innovation; Geyer, “Deutschland und Japan im Zeitalter der Globalisierung”; Kapica, Japan in Europa; Pekar, Der Japan-Diskurs im westlichen Kulturkontext; idem, “Der Japan-Diskurs um 1900”; and Schmidhofer, Fakt und Fantasie; as well as Köhn, Fremdbilder—Selbstbilder. 25. Zöllner, Geschichte Japans, 222. 26. Reinhard, Die Unterwerfung der Welt, 850. See also the comprehensive work by Hedinger, Im Wettstreit mit dem Westen. 27. See also the texts by Scherer and Mae, Nipponspiration. 28. See Hamlin’s discussion of toys in this volume. There were exceptions, such as individual tin figures of Japanese soldiers or figurines such as “The Punished Boxer” (Der bestrafte Boxer) that reflected interest in Japan. See also Bowersox, Raising Germans, 37. 29. Linhart, “Niedliche Japaner” oder gelbe Gefahr? 30. Mathias-Pauer, “Deutsche Meinungen zu Japan.” 31. Marschall, Deutsches Lesebuch für Mittelschulen (1867), 161. 32. Grünfeld and Ingerslev, Geographie für die unteren Klassen der Gymnasien und Realschulen (1867), 138; and Blanc, Handbuch des Wissenswürdigsten aus der Natur und Geschichte der Erde und ihrer Bewohner (1869), 218. 33. See, for example, Tewes, Menschenrassen und Völkertypen (1913), 18. 34. “The Japanese are not indigenous to the country; rather they migrated from the West via Korea,” Tewes, Menschenrassen, 19. 35. See also Weiß, “Reading East Asia in Schools of the Wilhelmine Empire,” 17. 36. See Krebs, “Zur Einführung,” 13; and Aiko, “Das japanische Preußenbild,” 17. 37. This map from Heinrich Harms’s geography book shows a rough comparative sketch of Japan and England that was to help pupils independently check their knowledge of the cities in both countries. Comparisons with England were particularly common during the First World War and aimed to highlight the similarities between the two opposing sides. See Harms et al., H. Harms Erdkunde in entwickelnder, anschaulicher Darstellung (1916), 191.

The German Image of Japan  | 129

38. See, for example, Blanc, Handbuch, 220; Ruge, Geographie insbesondere für Handelsschulen und Realschulen (1876), 256, and Tewes, Menschenrassen, 20. 39. See, for example, Kappey and Koch, Deutsches Lesebuch für Mittelschulen und gehobene Volksschulabteilungen (1911), 399. 40. Hartmann, Geschichte des modernen Japan, 63. 41. See also Chen, “Eine strenge Prüfung deutscher Art,” 16. 42. This perception probably also originates from the Göttingen-based philosopher Christoph Meiners, as did the racial coupling with the Chinese. In a memoir, he described the Japanese as lacking inventiveness. See also Kreiner, Deutschland—Japan, 33–34. 43. Stéfan Sinclair and Geoffrey Rockwell, “Trends,” Voyant Tools, retrieved 12 November 2018 from http://voyant-tools.org. 44. Reinhard, Die Unterwerfung der Welt, 853. 45. See Schmidhofer, Fakt und Fantasie, 323–24 and 435–42. 46. Sinclair and Rockwell, “Trends.” 47. However, individual textbooks did address the problem of ignorance in Europe prior to 1854 caused by Japan’s isolation. 48. Blanc, Handbuch des Wissenswürdigsten, 233. 49. There are different versions. In one, Baptist missionary Jonathan Gable developed the rickshaw in 1860; in another, Anglican clergyman Reverend M. B. Bailey invented it in the early 1870s. See Kisch, China Geheim. 50. Vehicles similar to rickshaws existed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in France. See also Meissner, Deutsche in Japan, 35. 51. Hardach-Pinke, “Die Meiji-Deutschen,” 1, 95. Becker, Der preußische Jurist, 222. 52. Hall, Das japanische Kaiserreich, 258. 53. Ibid., 284–86. 54. See also Wallentowitz, “Imperialismus” in der japanischen Sprache, 18–19. 55. Hartmann, Geschichte des modernen Japans, 63. 56. Reinhard, Die Unterwerfung der Welt, 852. 57. This included the persecution of Christians; the presence of the Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese in Japan; and the thirteenth-century “Mongolian invasion.” 58. Wallentowitz. Imperialismus, 18–19.

Bibliography Primary Sources Blanc, Ludwig Gottfried. Handbuch des Wissenswürdigsten aus der Natur und Geschichte der Erde und ihrer Bewohner: Zum Gebrauch beim Unterricht in Schulen und Familien vorzüglich für Hauslehrer auf dem Lande, sowie zum Selbstunterricht. Vol. 3: Asien, Australien, Afrika, Amerika. 8th ed. Braunschweig: Schwetschke 1869. Cannabich, Johann Günther Friedrich. Hülfsbuch beim Unterrichte in der Geographie für Lehrer, die sich meiner oder auch anderer Lehrbücher bedienen: Zugleich zum Nachlesen für Freunde der Erd- und Länderkunde bestimmt, die sich über das Merkwürdigste derselben belehren wollen. Vol. 2. Eisleben: Reichardt, 1837. Grünfeld, Hans Peter Hansen, and Christian Fredrik Ingerslev. Geographie für die unteren Klassen der Gymnasien und Realschulen sowie auch für Volksschulen. Schleswig: Heiberg, 1867.

130 | Maik Fiedler

Harms, Heinrich, et al. H. Harms Erdkunde in entwickelnder, anschaulicher Darstellung. Vol. 3, Teil 1: Asien. Leipzig: List & Bressensdorf, 1916. Kappey, Heinrich, and Hermann Koch. Deutsches Lesebuch für Mittelschulen und gehobene Volksschulabteilungen der Provinz Hannover und der angrenzenden Gebiete bearbeitet auf Grund der Bestimmungen über die Neuordnung des Mittelschulwesens in Preußen vom 3. Februar 1910: Mit Ermächtigung des Herrn Ministers genehmigt zur Einführung für ­evangelische Mittelschulen und gehobene Volksschulabteilungen. Vol. 5. Hanover: C. Meyer, 1911. Körber, Phillip. Engelbert Kämpfers Reise nach Japan: Für die Jugend bearb. Nuremberg: Lotzbeck 1850. Marschall, Georg Nicolaus. Deutsches Lesebuch für Mittelschulen insbesondere für die Gewerbs-, Handels- und Landwirthschaftsschulen, sowie für die Präparanden-Anstalten des Königreiches Bayerns. Munich: Königl. Central-Schulbücher-Verl., 1867. Meiners, Christoph. “Über die Natur der Völker im südlichen Asien, auf den Ostindischen und Südsee-inseln, und in den Südländern.” Göttingisches Historisches Magazin, 1790. Ruge, Sophus. Geographie insbesondere für Handelsschulen und Realschulen. 6th ed. Dresden: G. Schönfeld, 1876. Tewes, Hermann, Menschenrassen und Völkertypen: Material zu geographischen Unterredungen auf der Oberstufe mehrklassigen Volks- und Bürgerschulen. Zugleich eine Erläuterung der gleichnamigen Bilderwerke. Vol. 2. 2nd ed. Leipzig: Wachsmuth, 1913.

Secondary Sources Aiko, Nakai. “Das japanische Preußenbild in historischer Perspektive.” In Japan und Preußen: Internationales Symposium zu den Historischen Beziehungen zwischen Japan und Preußen, edited by Gerhard Krebs, 17–30. Munich: Iudicium, 2002. Ando, Junko. Die Entstehung der Meiji-Verfassung: Zur Rolle des deutschen Konstitutionalismus im modernen japanischen Staatswesen. Munich: Iudicium, 2000. Becker, Bert. “Der preußische Jurist Georg Michaelis in Japan (1885–1889).” In Japan und Preußen: Internationales Symposium zu den Historischen Beziehungen zwischen Japan und Preußen, edited by Gerhard Krebs, 209–32. Munich: Iudicium, 2002. Bersihand, Roger. Geschichte Japans von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Stuttgart: Kröner, 1963. Bowersox, Jeff. Raising Germans in the Age of Empire: Youth and Colonial Culture, 1871–1914. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Bonn, Gerhard. Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716): Der Reisende und sein Einfluß auf die europäische Bewußtseinsbildung über Asien. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2003. Chen, Hsiu-Jane. “Eine strenge Prüfung deutscher Art”: Der Alltag der japanischen Medizinausbildung im Zeitalter der Reform von 1868 bis 1914. Husum: Matthiesen, 2010. Delank, Claudia. “Japanbilder—Bilder aus Japan: Yokohama-Photographie in der ostasiatischen und europäischen Bildtradition des 19. Jahrhunderts.” In Ostasienrezeption zwischen Klischee und Innovation: Zur Begegnung zwischen Ost und West um 1900, edited by Walter Gebhard, 255–79. Munich: Iudicium, 2000. Ehmcke, Franziska. “Die Weltausstellungen in Paris, Wien und Chicago sowie das neue Printmedium der Fotografie als Vermittler japanischer Kunst und Kultur im Westen.” In Kunst und Kunsthandwerk Japans im interkulturellen Dialog (1850–1915), edited by Franziska Ehmcke, 19–47. Munich: Iudicium, 2008.

The German Image of Japan  | 131

Felbert, Yoshimi von. Die Wahrnehmung Japans in britischer und deutschsprachiger Reiseliteratur 1878–1946. Munich: Iudicium, 2014. Gebhard, Walter, ed. Ostasienrezeption zwischen Klischee und Innovation. Zur Begegnung zwischen Ost und West um 1900. Munich: Iudicium, 2000. Geyer, Michael. “Deutschland und Japan im Zeitalter der Globalisierung. Überlegungen zu einer komparativen Geschichte jenseits des Modernisierungs-Paradigmas.” In Das Kaiserreich transnational: Deutschland in der Welt 1871–1914, edited by Sebastian Conrad and Jürgen Osterhammel, 68–86. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006. Hall, John Whitney. Das japanische Kaiserreich. Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg: Fischer, 1968. Hardach-Pinke, Irene. “Die Meiji-Deutschen: Historische und soziale Bedingungen der  Anfänge deutsch-japanischer Kulturkontakte in Japan.” Saeculum 38, no. 1 (1987): 76–98. Hartmann, Rudolf. Geschichte des modernen Japan: Von Meiji bis Heisei. Berlin: Akad., 1996. Hedinger, Daniel. Im Wettstreit mit dem Westen, Das Zeitalter der Ausstellungen 1854–1941. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2011. Kajima, Morinosuke, and Horst Hammitzsch. Geschichte der japanischen Außenbeziehungen. Vol. 1: Von der Landesöffnung bis zur Meiji-Restauration. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1976. Kapica, Petr, ed. Japan in Europa: Texte und Bilddokumente zur europäischen Japankenntnis von Marco Polo bis Wilhelm von Humboldt. Munich: Iudicium, 2008. ———. “Engelbert Kaempfer und die europäische Aufklärung. Zur Wirkungsgeschichte seines Japanwerkes im 18. Jahrhundert.” In Engelbert Kaempfers Geschichte und Beschreibung von Japan: Beiträge und Kommentar, edited by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde, 41–63. Berlin: Springer, 1980. Kinder, Hermann, and Werner Hilgemann, eds. DTV-Atlas Weltgeschichte. 35 vols. Vol. 2: Von der französischen Revolution bis zur Gegenwart. Munich: DTV, 2002. Kisch, Egon Erwin. China Geheim. Berlin: Reiss, 1933. Kleinschmidt, Harald. “Japan im Welt- und Geschichtsbild der Europäer: Bemerkungen zu Europäischen Weltgeschichtsdarstellungen vornehmlich des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts.” Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung 3 (1980): 132–207. Kohl, Karl-Heinz. Entzauberter Blick: Das Bild vom Guten Wilden und der Erfahrung der Zivilisation. Berlin: Medusa, 1981. Köhn, Stephan, ed. Fremdbilder—Selbstbilder: Paradigmen japanisch-deutscher Wahrnehmung (1861–2011). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013. Krebs, Gerhard, ed. Japan und Preußen: Internationales Symposium zu den Historischen Beziehungen zwischen Japan und Preußen. Munich: Iudicium, 2002. ———. “Zur Einführung.” In Japan und Preußen: Internationales Symposium zu den Historischen Beziehungen zwischen Japan und Preußen, edited by Gerhard Krebs, 11–16. Munich: Iudicium, 2002. Kreiner, Josef, ed. Deutschland—Japan: Historische Kontakte. Bonn: Bouvier, 1984. ———. “Deutschland—Japan. Die frühen Jahrhunderte.” In Deutschland—Japan: Historische Kontakte, edited by Josef Kreiner. Bonn: Bouvier, 1984. ———. “Das Bild Japans in der europäischen Geistesgeschichte.” Japanstudien. Jahrbuch des Deutschen Instituts für Japanstudien 1 (1990): 13–42. Linhart, Sepp. “Niedliche Japaner” oder Gelbe Gefahr? Westliche Kriegspostkarten 1900–1945. Vienna: LIT, 2005.

132 | Maik Fiedler

Mathias-Pauer, Regine. “Deutsche Meinungen zu Japan—Von der Reichsgründung bis zum Dritten Reich.” In Deutschland—Japan: Historische Kontakte, edited by Josef Kreiner, 123– 26. Bonn: Bouvier, 1984. Meissner, Kurt. Deutsche in Japan 1639–1960. Tokyo: Dt. Gesellschaft f. Natur- u. Völkerkunde Ostasiens, 1961. Nafroth, Katja. Zur Konstruktion von Nationenbildern in der Auslandsberichterstattung: Das Japan-bild der deutschen Medien im Wandel. Münster: LIT, 2002. Oberländer, Christian. “Von den ungleichen Verträgen zur Großmacht: Japans Weg zum modernen Nationalstaat.” In Kleine Geschichte Japans, 2nd ed., edited by Josef Kreiner, 261–331. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2012. Osterhammel, Jürgen. “Reisen an die Grenzen der alten Welt: Asien im Reisebericht des 17.  und 18. Jahrhunderts.” In Der Reisebericht: Die Entwicklung einer Gattung in der deutschen Literatur, edited by Peter J. Brenner, 224–60. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989. Pekar, Thomas. “‘Augen-Blicke’ in Japan: Schlüsselszenen der literarischen Fremdbeschreibung bei Engelbert Kaempfer, Bernhard Kellermann und Roland Barthes.” Japanstudien: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Instituts für Japanstudien 8 (1996): 17–30. ———. “Der Japan-Diskurs um 1900: Ein Skizzierungsversuch.” In Ostasienrezeption zwischen Klischee und Innovation: Zur Begegnung zwischen Ost und West um 1900, edited by Walter Gebhard, 227–54. Munich: Iudicium, 2000. ———. Der Japan-Diskurs im westlichen Kulturkontext (1860–1920). Reiseberichte— Literatur—Kunst. Munich: Iudicium, 2003. Reinhard, Wolfgang. Die Unterwerfung der Welt: Globalgeschichte der europäischen Expansion 1415–2015. Bonn: bpb, 2017. Sarnowsky, Jürgen. Die Erkundung der Welt: Die großen Entdeckungsreisen von Marco Polo bis Humboldt. Munich: Beck, 2016. Scherer, Elisabeth, and Michiko Mae, eds. Nipponspiration. Japonismus und japanische Populärkultur im deutschsprachigen Raum. Cologne, Vienna: Böhlau, 2013. Schmidhofer, Claudia. Fakt und Fantasie. Das Japanbild in deutschsprachigen Reiseberichten 1854–1900. Vienna: Praesens, 2010. Schwebell, Gertrude Clorius. Die Geburt des modernen Japan in Augenzeugenberichten. Düsseldorf: Rauch, 1970. Stagl, Justin. “Die Beschreibung des Fremden in der Wissenschaft.” In Der Wissenschaftler und das Irrationale: Beiträge aus Ethnologie und Anthropologie, edited by Hans-Peter Duerr, 273–95. Frankfurt am Main: Syndikat, 1981. Ueda, Koji. “Das Japanbild im historischen Wandel.” In Symposium ‘Das Bild Japans im deutschen Fernsehen’—eine Analyse der wirksamsten Medienbilder, edited by JapanischDeutsches Zentrum Berlin, 9–18. Berlin: JDZB, 1993. Vollhardt, Friedrich. “Engelbert Kaempfers (1651–1716): Beschreibung seiner Japanreise und ihre Wirkung im 18. Jahrhundert.” In Erkundung und Beschreibung der Welt: Zur Poetik der Reise- und Länderberichte, edited by Xenja von Ertzdorff and Gerhard Giessemann, 521–40. Amsterdam: Rudopi, 2003. Wallentowitz, Anneli. “Imperialismus” in der japanischen Sprache am Übergang vom 19. zum 20. Jahrhundert: Begriffsgeschichte im außereuropäischen Kontext. Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2011. Weiß, Andreas. “Reading East Asia in Schools of the Wilhelmine Empire.” In “Weltwissen und der außereuropäische Raum: Geographieschulbücher und Kinderbücher des 19.

The German Image of Japan  | 133

Jahrhunderts im internationalen Vergleich.” Special issue, edited by idem, JEMMS: Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society 10, no. 1 (2018): 10–27. Zöllner, Reinhard. “Die preussische Japan-Rezeption bis Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts.” In Japan und Preußen: Internationales Symposium zu den Historischen Beziehungen zwischen Japan und Preußen, edited by Gerhard Krebs, 53–76. Munich: Iudicium, 2002. ———. Geschichte Japans: Von 1800 bis zur Gegenwart. 3rd ed. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2006.

Part II

Literary Knowledge

S

Chapter 6

Thrilling Hearts and Winning Minds The Representation of Monarchy, Navy, and Empire in NineteenthCentury Juvenile Adventure Fiction Miriam Magdalena Schneider

S In October 1896, the publishing company E. Bartels from Neu-Weissensee, Berlin, asked Friedrich Netto, one of its authors, to produce “a book for the German youth” that was to describe a journey around the world. Netto immediately decided to recount the fictitious world tour of a young German prince about to enter the Imperial Navy: Des Prinzen Weltreise (The Prince’s World Cruise) was published in 1897 and went into at least two further editions.1 In picking his subject, Netto followed a logic that initially seems alien to the modern eye. How could any author hope to hook readers’ attention with a dainty, good-for-nothing aristocratic hero in an adventure novel? For much of the twentieth century, historians agreed that the monarchies that ended with the First World War represented an ancien régime bound to fail because it opposed the social and political modernization processes characteristic of the long nineteenth century: secularization, the advent of mass democracy, and the rise of middle-class values, such as meritocracy.2 Studies of contemporary literature mainly focused on the satirical, if not clearly antimonarchical, works by intellectual elites, which criticized the divine right of kings, the hereditary principle, or the incompetence and inability of individual royals.3 Yet, as recent research has shown, Netto’s choice was neither unusual nor unprofitable. Over the last two decades, the narrative of the natural demise of the monarchy has been called into question. Innovative studies have begun to explore new, more everyday sources on the public representation and popular reception of individual European monarchies. They provide a nuanced picture of a surprisingly adaptive institution that even experienced a popular revival in the nineteenth century. Family magazines, mass newspapers, and carte de visite Notes from this chapter begin on page 153.

138 | Miriam Magdalena Schneider

photographs, souvenirs, consumer goods, and advertising have been examined as signs of this revival, and as the media and means that both made it possible and profited from it.4 One comparatively neglected field in this context is juvenile literature. Although scholars of popular culture and youth media have long pointed to the system-stabilizing function of this literary branch as an important conveyor of patriotic values,5 few studies have examined the representation of monarchy in books for young people, especially those not meant for school use.6 Yet, as Friedrich Netto’s example shows, there was a rich market for royalty-themed literature—which both contributed to and profited from the monarchy’s widespread appeal. This essay examines the content, mechanisms, and functions of the representation of monarchy in the extracurricular print market “for young adults.”7 Essentially two genres often featured figures from the Imperial House of Hohenzollern. First, there were popular biographies and historical tales.8 Together with state-run elementary school education, the implementation of national holidays such as Sedan Day and the Emperor’s Birthday, and targeted politics of memory and memorials pursued by the Hohenzollerns, these books played an important part in establishing a pan-German national consciousness after 1871.9 Narratives about the lives of King Friedrich the Great, Queen Louise, Emperor Wilhelm I, and Emperor Friedrich III cast celebrated deceased rulers of Prussian history as popular heroic figures fit to enter a pan-German national pantheon.10 Simultaneously, historical novels introduced young protagonists like “Fritz Ohlsen, Emperor William’s corporal” to the benign patronage of royal personages, inviting their adolescent readers to identify emotionally with the Hohenzollern dynasty.11 This chapter focuses on a second, even more neglected literary phenomenon, though, which performed a curious balancing act between the “natural” print terrain of monarchy and probably the most popular genre of the Wilhelmine age: the adventure novel. It examines ethnographic travel and adventure novels12 featuring contemporary royals as their protagonists. Friedrich Netto’s fictitious princely world cruise had not been without real precedents. In general, the magnificently staged lives of nineteenth-century monarchs, governed by protocol and adapted to bourgeois morals, did not offer much adventure potential. There were some, often younger or minor, princes, though, who actually used their privileged status to travel to the world’s most exotic places. Royal travel books, which fit into the trend of travel writing, recounted their experiences for a wide audience.13 In 1877, one prince in particular—Prince Heinrich (1862–1929), the younger brother of the later Emperor Wilhelm II— achieved a new level of adventurous royal travel by joining the Imperial German Navy as a professional career officer. A range of media, from illustrated magazines to adolescent adventure fiction, adapted this “sailor prince’s” life at sea and globe-spanning travels. The subject proved so popular that authors like Netto

Juvenile Adventure Fiction  | 139

Figure 6.1.  Book cover of Carl von der Boeck’s Des Prinzen Heinrich von Preußen Weltumseglung: Original-Erzählung für die Jugend (n.p., ca. 1882). Author’s collection.

even invented princely journeys where none had taken place to boost sales. As Netto explained, the choice of a royal sailor enabled him to give his readers an exclusive view of the world’s exotic flora and fauna. He also aimed to inspire a love of fatherland in them.14

140 | Miriam Magdalena Schneider

In line with Netto’s explanations, this chapter argues that royal travel novels gave the monarchy—and the authors and publishers who willingly helped it— unprecedented access to the worlds of fantasy and knowledge of Germany’s children and adolescents. Unlike compulsory school lessons and overtly didactic textbooks, these exciting narratives of royal travel to far-off places had the potential to win the minds of the empire’s future citizens by thrilling and subtly influencing their hearts while they were still young. Thus, they provided the Hohenzollerns with a unique channel for inculcating system-stabilizing patriotic values. Based on an analysis of six travel novels about Prince Heinrich and several comparable publications, this essay demonstrates how staging one public persona in the style of the popular sea and colonial adventure novel helped convey a variety of ideological messages. By imparting “interpreted knowledge”15 about Germany’s naval forces, about Germany’s role in a globalizing world, and, most of all, about the Hohenzollern dynasty rightfully leading the nation, the books helped advertise the Wilhelmine fleet-building project, legitimize Germany’s policy of colonial expansion, and popularize the monarchical principle.

Royalty in the Age of Adventure Although it might seem alien today, adventure was a nearly inescapable element of nineteenth-century popular culture, even for royals. From about 1820, stories featuring overseas travels, terrible shipwrecks, exotic animals, and all kinds of combat gained such widespread appeal in popular European literature that the nineteenth century has justly been called the “Age of Adventure.”16 Various editions and translations of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe,17 James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, and Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days sold like hotcakes all over the continent, just as did melodramatic romances or colportage novels, which all fed the sensationalist tastes of the audience. The adventure novel’s narrative structure—departure, danger, proving oneself—and its gripping motifs—dangerous travels, exotic encounters—appealed especially to the increasingly literate and affluent middle and working classes. While the propertied bourgeoisie enjoyed the thrilling contrast to their secure lives (a “peephole into the dangerous life”),18 the less well-off indulged in an escape from their monotonous working existence. Sales-oriented serial authors like Karl May and G. A. Henty catered to these “fantasies of getting away” people had while securing their own livelihood.19 There were also many social reformers and ideologues, though, who realized that the genre had educational potential and could acquaint children with the world in an entertaining way. Critical of “trashy literature” (Schund), they counteracted the subversive image of the “escapologist” (Ausbruchsheld) by describing the “real adventures” of famous explorers, soldiers, philanthropists, etc., who represented bourgeois, patriotic, or

Juvenile Adventure Fiction  | 141

Christian virtues rather than the anti-authoritarianism of colportage.20 To distance themselves from trashy literature, serial authors often included elements of patriotic edutainment in their works. Royal travel novels formed part of this canon of sensational literature. Prince Heinrich was essentially a “soldier,” or rather a “sailor hero,” who combined the thrilling seafaring life with the authority of a professional officer representing the political establishment and its values.21 Over the nineteenth century, the reigning dynasties of Europe’s powerful or aspiring seafaring nations increasingly opted to educate their younger sons in the navy. The “sailor princes” this produced quickly became darlings of the public. They profited from the contemporary romantic fascination with the sea, from the prestige and future promises of the naval forces in the naval age, and from the navy’s image as a meritocratic, middle-class profession and national-imperial institution.22 Most of all, however, the princes tapped into the myth-invested image of the seaman and naval officer. Up until the Napoleonic Wars, the common sailor (“Jack Tar”) had been castigated as a licentious outsider of society. But the growing importance of seafaring rehabilitated and revalued this figure into an emblem of national virtue in the Age of Empire.23 This metamorphosis was also due to the success of the modern sea adventure novel. Originating in the seaborne colonial empires of the United States, Britain, and France, in the works of James Fenimore Cooper, Frederick Marryat, and Eugène Sue, this genre took all of Europe by storm from 1820 onward. Its plots were essentially travel narratives that sent their protagonists—crews of dauntless gentleman-officers, daring sailors, or passengers—to the ends of the known world—to the sea, to transoceanic continents, or to exotic wildernesses. In these far-off spaces, the seafaring heroes would then have to master the dangers of the deep or of the unknown by means of their nautical craftsmanship.24 The “travelling genre”25 pervaded Germany particularly early. Although, or maybe even because, the country could not boast of a navy worth mentioning nor of any colonial possessions prior to 1871, translations of foreign authors and the works of native German speakers like Friedrich Gerstäcker or Charles Sealsfield were widely popular as early as the 1830s–40s. In the liberal bourgeoisie, these works fueled maritime and “colonial fantasies”26 of a mighty colonial empire, which grew more powerful with their distance from reality. Once the German Empire had been founded, naval build-up and colonial expansion became very important future projects. The “belated nation” aimed to catch up with other colonial powers and achieve world-power status through naval dominance. In this scenario, sea adventures increasingly transformed into ideologically colored “naval and colonial novels” primarily aiming to popularize the navalist-imperialist project by presenting lively depictions of real or imagined naval missions and life in the colonies.27 One distinctive variant were novels about Prince Heinrich, who served as a royal figurehead for the German fleet.

142 | Miriam Magdalena Schneider

Many of Heinrich’s fellow “sailor princes” were also staged as popular adventure heroes by the European popular press or in commemorative travelogues. The language and motifs of adventure were so influential that they even pervaded scientific literature, newspapers, and magazines. The activities of royal sailors bravely facing the dangers of stormy seas, big-game hunting, or “savage” people were newsworthy items in line with the increasingly sensationalist styles of the commercialized, illustrated mass press.28 In the years 1867–71, British newspapers, for example, featured countless articles about the sea and safari adventures experienced by Prince Alfred, the second son of Queen Victoria, on his naval world cruise. In 1891, Prince Georgios of Greece, another “sailor prince,” was celebrated in all the major papers of Europe for his energetic rescue of Tsesarevich Nicholas of Russia when he was attacked by a deranged policeman in the Japanese town of Otsu.29 In Italy, the famous adventure writer Emilio Salgari even published a travel novel about the expedition to the North Pole undertaken by the Italian “Sailor Prince” Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi, in 1899–1900: The Polar Star and Its Adventurous Journey.30 Only in Germany, though, did an entire series of novels for the young emerge, which went beyond mere travel accounts and cast royal princes as active heroes in real and invented adventures. One of the most important reasons for this development was the fact that the maritime and colonial fantasies addressed in ethnographic travel and adventure fiction—and the appeal of the genre as such—were particularly powerful in the belated imperial nation. Since the Imperial German Navy, founded in 1871, could not boast of any naval heroes comparable to those of ancient naval powers like Britain, though, and since the German Empire only produced a couple of real imperial heroes between the acquisition of its first colonies in 1884 and their loss in 1919, it needed transnationally operating princes with their exclusive travel opportunities to fill the gap. Prince Heinrich enabled many Germans to participate vicariously in exciting and exotic maritime and colonial ventures.

Around the World with Prince Heinrich What exactly did German youths read in royal travel novels around 1900 and how did these narratives affect their world knowledge and worldviews? Most books were relatively faithful accounts of the itineraries and events of Prince Heinrich’s service missions. Carl von der Boeck’s popular novels Prince Heinrich’s Cruise around the World (ca. 1882) and Prince Heinrich in Central America (ca. 1885), and J. Rothenberg’s Prince Heinrich’s Travels around the World (ca. 1890), for example, were largely based on authorized travel reports.31 During Heinrich’s first two world cruises in 1878–80 and 1882–84, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm and his advisor, the media-savvy Chief of the Admiralty Albrecht von Stosch,

Juvenile Adventure Fiction  | 143

had inspired several articles in the semiofficial Prussian Provincial-Correspondenz to shape the prince’s public reception.32 Moreover, a series of sketches made by the marine painter Carl Saltzmann had been published in the family magazine Über Land und Meer together with several travel reports in order to “respond to the interest felt for the cruise … in wider circles.”33 That there was a rich market for royal travel literature had already been proven by several predecessors, who, by undertaking a combination of aristocratic grand tours, hunting trips, and scientific expeditions á la Alexander von Humboldt, had produced some gripping reading material for the liberal middle classes of Vormärz Germany. In the years 1815–17 and 1832–34, Prince Wilhelm of WiedNeuwied had explored the regions of South and North America. He published several travel accounts, one of which was even adapted as a book for adolescents by the gothic fiction author Christoph Hildebrandt.34 As outlined by H. Glenn Penny in chapter 7, Wied’s accounts and the illustrations of Karl Bodmer decisively influenced the image of American Indians in Germany, not least because of their influence on Karl May. Between 1822 and 1858, Duke Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg, meanwhile, had embarked on several journeys to America, Africa, and Australia. The most prominent of these (1851) was accompanied by the famous travel and adventure writer Balduin Möllhausen, who published a travelogue as well as several articles about the adventures the two experienced through illness, fire, and unfriendly Native Americans.35 In 1862, finally, Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha had gone on a much-publicized hunting trip to Northern Abyssinia. His entourage included the famous zoologist Alfred Brehm and the travel and adventure writer Friedrich Gerstäcker. The travelogue, published in 1864 and written in tandem by Ernst and his friend Gustav Freytag, was a literary failure, although the articles Gerstäcker published in several German papers aroused great interest in the journey. One can only guess how successful the book might have been if he had been allowed to include his prepared manuscripts in the volume.36 Despite the poor sales of the duke’s expensive travelogue, the correspondence he received on the news of his imminent departure shows how much German readers longed to participate in their princes’ adventurous journeys. Numerous young men begged Ernst to employ them as travel companions.37 The novels about Prince Heinrich tapped into exactly this wanderlust. And they linked the detailed depictions of endless receptions as well as the ethnographic reports typical of official travelogues and the press with an emphatic— and pictorial—focus on adventurous and exotic elements. In particular, they embellished stories of real and imagined dangers encountered by the prince and his (fictitious) companions. While colportage novels were often dotted with didactic excursions to enhance their reputation, one could say that royal travel novels expanded largely instructive itinerary accounts by interweaving adventure elements to entice their readers.

144 | Miriam Magdalena Schneider

An emblematic scene from Boeck’s novels was a storm in the Bay of Biscay, when the prince saved his ship, the HMS Olga, from capsizing by quickly leaping to the helm when a breaker washed the helmsmen overboard. Boeck’s account almost literally copied an article from the Provincial-Correspondenz. He artfully stretched the real episode over several pages, though, by dramatizing it and by introducing the boatswain Bruns, a likeable old fellow, who spins a sailor’s yarn about a giant tsunami.38 The jolly nature and countless other big fish stories of this invented companion gave the plot additional life and were often the subject of the inserted color plates. Other authors introduced cabin boys as main or auxiliary heroes to create extra potential for adventure as well as opportunities for emotional identification for the sons of the bourgeoisie. Thus, Konrad Fischer-Sallstein, in his narrative about Prince Heinrich’s journey to Kiautschou (1900), put the adventurous cadet von Borlitz at the prince’s side; he attracted his attention and became an exclusive (photographer) witness of Germany’s colonial venture. Otto Elster, another prolific author, invented “Klaus Erichsen, Prince Heinrich’s Sailor Boy” (ca. 1895) as his protagonist. This youngster was saved by the prince during a fishing-boat accident, was trained in the navy with the prince’s help, and, in his outstanding and adventurous career, had several further encounters with the royal deus ex machina.39 Whether composed as travelogues or cabin-boy stories, all the narratives revolved around three central themes: (1) sea travel and life in the navy, (2) the transoceanic world and exotic encounters, and (3) royalty and royal agency in times of crisis. These themes served as platforms for the proliferation of three interlinking ideological complexes: navalism, imperialism, and monarchism. The novels about Prince Heinrich were, therefore, integrated in important processes of both knowledge production and propaganda.

Life Onboard, the Naval Forces, and the Fleet-Building Program On a first level, the novels contributed to the dissemination of (ideologically flavored) knowledge about maritime life and the naval forces. All narratives usually introduced their readers to the interior workings of the ship, to the excitement of life on board, and to the many tasks and functions of the navy. They thus courted potential recruits and future supporters of the fleet-building project. The first pages of every book were usually filled with virtual tours of bustling harbors or giant vessels, lively depictions of crews in action, or detailed descriptions of masts, riggings, and engine rooms. The nautical jargon used— and explained in the footnotes—was meant to educate. Thus, the second chapter of Boeck’s Prince Heinrich’s Cruise around the World first gave an overview of the different ranks and tasks to be found in the navy (from commander to navigator, and craftsman to sailor). Then it quickly outlined the shifts in shipbuilding

Juvenile Adventure Fiction  | 145

since the Age of Sail, before it finally introduced all the components of a modern warship step by step, explaining the different decks or terms such as “foremast” or “bowsprit.” Apart from imparting technical knowledge, these passages also evoked awe for the “modern wonders” of technological innovation.40 Ships were represented as “floating fortresses,” sailors as “splendid-looking figures tanned by sun and weather,” and officers as superior men combining “knowledge of the world, prudence, presence of mind, and fearlessness.”41 By thus elevating the navy and its men, the books helped to arouse interest and pride in the navy as a profession and as a symbol of national unity and strength. As a young institution in a nation with scant nautical traditions, the Imperial German Navy was not originally a natural focal point of public attention, especially compared to the army and the important role it had played in the Wars of Unification.42 Founded only in 1871, the German Navy still needed a cohesive narrative and a visible purpose to convince skeptical Reichstag deputies and the general populace of its necessity. By explicitly embedding Prince Heinrich’s service missions into the wider tasks of the navy, the earlier travel novels, in particular, helped to justify the institution’s existence and advertise the navalist project as a must for all aspiring nations. According to Carl von der Boeck, for example, the navy’s prime concern was to “enforce Germany’s prestige in distant countries,” to “assist German overseas trade both by protecting and by supporting it,” and to integrate “the German colonies, dispersed around the globe” into one wider fatherland.43 The novels thus formed part of wider naval propaganda efforts undertaken first by Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia and Albrecht von Stosch and later, even more ambitiously, by Emperor Wilhelm II and the Secretary of the Imperial Naval Office Alfred von Tirpitz.44 The figure of the royal prince who freely chooses to become a seaman and, perhaps more importantly, the figure of the cabin boy whose personal courage arrests Prince Heinrich’s attention and who then quickly climbs the career ladder, served as role models meant to encourage the sons of the bourgeoisie to join the navy.45 The royal connection heightened the social prestige of the institution, which lacked the glorious tradition of the army and therefore struggled to attract Germany’s elites.46 The myth of the career from “powder-monkey to admiral,” meanwhile, enhanced the image of the navy as a technocratic, middle-class profession, which, unlike the aristocracy-dominated army’s officer corps, offered good prospects of promotion for any man willing and able to meet its high meritocratic standards.47 It appealed to all adherents of the middle-class belief in advancement through performance. Although the question of reception is notoriously hard to answer, it seems that the depiction of a new naval elite in command of gigantic vessels serving Germany’s interests abroad through the tales of adventure, faithful comradeship, and good fortunes was effective. Throughout Prince Heinrich’s career, numerous young naval enthusiasts asked him to support their entry into the

146 | Miriam Magdalena Schneider

naval forces. “Naval officer—what attraction this beautiful word holds for the young,” one lad wrote, while a merchant’s son declared how he had felt a strong love “from [his] first school years … for our German navy.” And many an aspirant who had been rejected as unfit or lacked the funds for a naval education begged the Prince-Admiral to “issue a most gracious decree” to enable their entry. The belief that the prince “only [had] to say one word” and their wish would be granted was particularly and surprisingly strong in federal states farther removed from the sea, showing a clearly mediated rather than direct sociogeographical influence.48 Most petitioners were referred to the relevant recruitment bureaus, and no real-life Klaus Erichsen ever enjoyed the prince’s special protection as in Elster’s novel. Yet, by 1900 the entire German nation was just as infected by naval enthusiasm and the navalist idea as European powers with access to the sea. The inhabitants of even the remotest corners of the country rallied around the navy as a national institution and symbol of future greatness. Alongside the activities of the Navy League or Emperor Wilhelm II’s naval speeches, the popular depiction of Prince Heinrich certainly contributed to this development.

Exotic Encounters and Germany’s Role in the World Beyond the virtual tours of majestic vessels, the novels about Prince Heinrich also took readers on exclusive journeys around the globe. On a second level, therefore, the books conveyed knowledge about the extra-European world and Germany’s role in it. They were ultimately part of a wider (commercial) popular culture that carried the colonial world into the playrooms of Europe’s children, filling their minds with stereotypes of exotic “others” and ideas of justified imperialist domination and national superiority.49 Despite massive progress in travel technology and tourism, “sailor princes” still belonged to a small group of privileged globetrotters at the end of the nineteenth century. Like the board games discussed by Emer O’Sullivan in chapter 9, travel novels about Prince Heinrich enabled stationary children to at least accompany their heroes in their minds. The views of the world they offered were particularly appealing because of their exclusivity—in both the sense that the prince enjoyed exceptional mobility as a naval officer and that he performed high-level diplomatic functions as an aristocrat. This was one of the main reasons Friedrich Netto chose his peculiar subject in 1897. And this was also why at least two sets of collectible trading cards were issued to commemorate the travels of Germany’s illustrious representative: one about his “Journey to China” published by the chocolate company Aulhorn’s Nähr-Kakao in 1900, and one about his “America Cruise” produced by F.A.D. Richter & Company, which made stone building blocks for children, in 1902. The cards could be read like serial picture books or early graphic novels providing glimpses of the Far East and Wild West, thus

Juvenile Adventure Fiction  | 147

Figure 6.2.  Set of trading cards about Prince Heinrich’s Journey to China, produced by Aulhorn’s Nähr-Kakao (1900). Author’s collection.

contributing to the production of visual knowledge as argued by Judith Blume in chapter 10.50 The plots and picture sequences all followed the same pattern. Official military missions were primarily adventurous and touristic. Every chapter or card took its protagonists to a new continent, country, or city. The most prominent overseas destinations were South America, Northern Africa, Japan, and China, although Netto’s and Elster’s fictitious accounts also covered the United States, Australia, and German East Africa. During the journeys, travelers encountered all kinds of astonishing natural phenomena—waterfalls, volcanoes, and icebergs—and saw or shot all types of exotic wildlife—flying fish, sharks, caimans, tigers, and elephants. Every time a ship called at a new port, the surrounding scenery was

148 | Miriam Magdalena Schneider

vividly described. The Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, for example, was characterized as “rais[ing] its majestic head” above the “wide open bay spotted with islands.”51 Finally, some instructive information on the history, customs, and character of the indigenous population followed. In Boeck’s and Netto’s travel accounts, especially, didactic purposes prevailed. Therefore, the depiction of foreign peoples was surprisingly well balanced. In Boeck’s travel novels, all South Americans were ascribed a general “aversion to continuous, regular work,” but they were also commended for their family life, domesticity, and frugality.52 Outside Europe and the Western Hemisphere, Japanese civilization and culture were most appreciated—in line with the European trend of Japonisme. Less obvious peoples like the Maori of New Zealand were also treated with respect, though.53 As a member of the international family of kings and as a frequent border crosser, Prince Heinrich had a certain air of cosmopolitanism around him that precluded derogatory or aggressively racist remarks.54 Netto further enhanced this open-mindedness in his fictitious travel account by introducing a wise and knowledgeable tutor, Dr. Belling, whose many didactic excursions clearly aimed at broadening the horizon of his princely pupil and his general readership. In a characteristic scene, Dr. Belling explains that “the Maori people are not receptive to European influence, maybe because their own civilization is so comparatively well advanced.” “Advanced civilization? The Maori?” was the astonished reply. And then Dr. Belling enlightens his audience about the craftsmanship, the love of freedom, bravery, and strength of the native inhabitants of New Zealand.55 Nevertheless, the scientific, cosmopolitan mindset of Netto’s companion-instructor is contrasted by the valet Plath, a simple fellow who usually cannot appreciate foreign lifestyles and always longs for the amenities of home. The interplay of these two characters in many ways symbolizes a dialectic typical of the period as already discussed in the introduction: while instructions about the globalizing world were deemed necessary for future citizens of Germany, the experience of the growing-together of the world did not necessarily lead to the disappearance of concepts of national and racial difference, but often rather intensified the mechanisms of delimitation.56 Plath demonstrates how, ultimately, all travel novels applied a self-reassuringly Eurocentric, latently racist and chauvinist yardstick to their subjects. This became particularly evident whenever issues such as hygiene or national character were addressed. For example, Klaus Erichsen, one of the later and thus more overtly chauvinist protagonists, encounters the Chinese and describes them in stereotypical terms—referring to “Chinese dirt” and deviousness in the city of Amoy—“narrow, unpaved alleys, … dead animals, rats and dogs … and the Chinese men and women loitering about with their cunningly blinking eyes”—and comparing that to European cleanliness: “One breathes a sigh of relief when one enters the clean European quarter.”57

Juvenile Adventure Fiction  | 149

Royal travel novels did not simply expand the great wide world for their readers but invited them to engage in what one might call “negative armchair tourism.” The virtual encounters with excitingly different “others” ultimately evaluated as inferior, though, encouraged a positive self-image in adolescent readers as belonging to a modern, civilized people whose superiority legitimized colonial exploitation and imperial expansion.58 This supremacy was vividly personified by the dashing looks, daring exploits, and exalted status of princely protagonists. The many hunting scenes, in particular, enacted white male superiority even over the most beautifully exotic and powerful animals (such as a “majestic” Bengal tiger in Fischer-Sallstein’s Prince Heinrich’s Journey to Kiautschou).59 Finally, the adventure novels went beyond a Eurocentric perspective to interpret the extra-European world from a nationalist-chauvinist point of view set on widening the global reach of the Fatherland in competition with other European powers. Surprisingly, Prince Heinrich never visited any actual German colonies other than Kiautschou. Nevertheless, the travel novels helped young Germans picture the real and imagined extent of the German colonial empire. On the one hand, they faithfully traced Heinrich’s visits to Germany’s merchant and diaspora communities in South America and East Asia. Page after page was dedicated to countless receptions and preserved customs (e.g., Liedertafeln) with which the so-called Germans abroad honored their royal visitor. By stressing the cultural, spiritual, and entrepreneurial superiority of these emigrants over their hosts, and by emphasizing the indestructible “ties … which connect the German heart abroad with its homeland and royal house,”60 the novels ultimately channeled readers’ love of knowledge about the world back into the safe waters of patriotism. They evoked the image of a “wider German Fatherland”: a dream empire often invoked in contemporary political discourse which was characterized not by territorial borders but by common culture and loyalty, and which, therefore, depicted the world as a rather German(-dominated) sphere.61 Fischer-Sallstein’s portrayal of Kiautschou as a flagship colony or Elster’s representation of the suppression of the East African Abushiri revolt (1888/89) as a humanitarian action, meanwhile, explicitly justified Germany’s “beneficial” colonial acquisition policy.62 They represented the German Empire as a proud partner, if not equal competitor, of the other European colonial powers. Omitting most conflict potential, the travel novels nevertheless helped create an imaginative landscape where colonialism was a jolly adventure or human duty. The belief in the righteousness of the German cause is also reflected in the correspondence Prince Heinrich received on his first departure to Kiautschou. Numerous letter writers celebrated him as a “Germanic warrior” going forth to defend “the Fatherland’s interests in the Far East” and hailed “a new era for Germany’s might and power.”63

150 | Miriam Magdalena Schneider

The Prince as Savior and the Monarchical Principle The main focus of all these travel novels, naturally, was Prince Heinrich himself. On a third and final level, therefore, the books conveyed knowledge about the Hohenzollern dynasty as well as patriotic virtues like loyalty to the crown. They were ultimately designed to stabilize the political system and the social order in Germany. Many historians have interpreted the navalist and imperialist programs of 1890–1914 as diversionary tactics used by the Wilhelmine state in an attempt to disguise German society’s incomplete political and social modernization. The state rallied the politically disadvantaged lower middle and working classes behind a self-assertive foreign policy meant to distract them from their domestic impotence, to win their support for an autocratic regime, and to unite them behind one common goal.64 To read navalist-imperialist themes in juvenile fiction as expressions of such a diversionary tactic would probably lead too far. Historians have long stressed that naval-colonial enthusiasm resulted not only from targeted propaganda “from above” but also from a popular demand “from below.” Just like the Wilhelmine fleet- and empire-building programs, the naval and colonial novels fed into already existing trends like maritime and colonial fantasies, sensationalism, and technophilia.65 Also, as Jeff Bowersox stresses and David Hamlin mentions in chapter 11, children often appropriated their literature and toys in unexpected, inventive, anarchical ways far removed from the political intentions of their manufacturers.66 Nevertheless, the Hohenzollerns profited from the appeal of adventure novels just as much as the navy and the colonies profited from Prince Heinrich’s advertising. The prince’s brand factor—the catchy, emotive image of the dashing adventure hero subtly insinuating itself into young minds—made this possible. In the Age of Revolution and mass democracy, traditional concepts of monarchical legitimacy such as the divine right or dynastic principle were called into question. Europe’s royal dynasties were challenged to demonstrate their continued relevance in new ways (through nationalization, embourgeoisement, and clever media-marketing). The literary staging of Prince Heinrich in a popular genre that particularly addressed the generations born after 1871 helped to associate the Prussian Hohenzollerns with two pan-German future projects (navalism and colonialism) in a lasting way. Most importantly, however, it enabled the prince to slip into the role of the “man at the helm” (“Steuermann im Sturm”), a formative mythical figure of the Wilhelmine Age. In his essay on “Stormy seas and shipwreck” as an “epoch-making image of the Gründerzeit,” Dolf Sternberger analyzes late-nineteenth-century Germans’ curious fascination with maritime disasters. He interpreted the shipwreck as an emblem of crisis for the world of small-scale businessmen facing the risk of entrepreneurial failure. But he also identified the rescuer—the man who keeps his

Juvenile Adventure Fiction  | 151

calm during the storm, takes the helm, and, thus, saves shipwrecked crews and passengers with almost superhuman powers—as a popular countermotif.67 Royal travel novels never failed to invoke both images, conjuring up danger scenes where Prince Heinrich had to demonstrate his presence of mind and fearlessness. In one typical rescue scene, for example, Otto Elster described “the slim and superior figure of the young captain” standing on the bridge: “His blue eyes looked firmly out into storm and weather; he did not flinch as the lightning bolts came down; his feet did not waver at the rolling and pitching of the ship; and he gave his orders in a fresh, manly, clear and sharp voice.”68 Prince Heinrich was stylized as a modern knight whose natural nautical talent and leadership qualities preordained him for a commanding position. The ancient idea of the ship as a social microcosm and metaphor of church and state69 meant that this representation also had a clearly social and political meaning, propagating patriotic values and a sense of God-given hierarchy. The novels introduced their readers to a representative of the aristocratic elite who effortlessly rose to the challenge of middle-class meritocracy, and to a hierarchically structured naval environment that symbolically replicated the larger social order. By inviting young boys to participate imaginatively in the exciting shipboard life, the books thus also encouraged them to adopt the navy’s hierarchical values. As Boeck informed his readership, in the navy “every individual” had to “fulfil their precisely prescribed duties” and observe a “discipline” and “obedience which precludes contradiction.”70 The particular focus on Prince Heinrich’s agency in the face of danger, moreover, proposed that monarch and dynasty rightfully stood at the top of this social order and chain of command. The action-based story lines of the adventure genre were perfectly suited to underpinning the Hohenzollerns’ claim to national leadership. By taking up the ship-state metaphor and by investing the spare heir of an increasingly constitutionally restricted sovereign with a halo of energetic agency at the ship’s helm, the stories provided the monarchy, and even a minor member of the dynasty, with a new, almost mythical sphere of activity where they proved remarkably relevant. Although compromising facts like the disabled arm of his elder brother were glossed over in popular representations, Heinrich’s actions even served as a corrective for Wilhelm’s II’s unspoken military inactivity. The Hohenzollerns, the gist of the novels suggested, could be trusted with steering the German nation through the rapids of the Age of Empire.

Conclusion Royal travel novels were a powerful, subtle channel for inculcating Germany’s children with patriotic, navalist, imperialist, and monarchist values. They responded to both a wide interest in and a perceived need for acquaintance with

152 | Miriam Magdalena Schneider

naval technology and the wider world at a time when technological advancement and economic entanglement brought the parts of the globe closer together and prompted a last phase of frenzied imperial expansion. In this context, the genre satisfied curiosity and expanded horizons via detailed technological, natural history, and ethnographic excursions. Yet, the novels portrayed the world and imparted knowledge through lenses almost always biased in favor of Eurocentric, nation- and monarchy-centered worldviews. The novels thus narrowed readers’ worldviews as much as they expanded them. By packaging their messages together with exciting adventure narratives, and by thrilling readers’ hearts, they stood a good chance of winning readers’ minds. Consequently, the genre’s success spanned the entire Wilhelmine era. All the abovementioned works went into several—up to ten—editions, with some reprints appearing as late as the interwar period. Some novels were collected in special omnibus volumes like Germany at Sea (ca. 1890), The Princes’ Book (ca. 1900), and The Book of Travels (1910).71 Several follow-up novels also tapped into the popularity of royal adventure, including depictions of Emperor Wilhelm II’s diplomatic missions, Crown Prince Wilhelm’s journey to India, and a veritable secret-agent thriller featuring the travels of Tsesarevich Nicholas of Russia in Japan.72 Moreover, a single book could have many lives, as a handwritten inscription in a copy of Boeck’s World Cruise illustrates: “Christmas present from my parents, mid-1880s. Passed on to my son, year 1918. Otto Kleindienst.” Boys grew into men, and the lasting effect of the language and imagery of their juvenile reading can be gauged from the correspondence Prince Heinrich received on his departure to East Asia in 1897: the letters were replete with the language of adventure, with the “dangers of the deep, of clime and maybe war,” “in stormy, raging, infuriated seas” to be braved “with fearless countenance.”73 Given the long-term effect of these adventure fantasies, one concluding question needs to be revisited: that of authorship and motivation. As has been demonstrated, Friedrich Netto’s peculiar decision to write a fictitious princely travel report was actually not peculiar at all. But how—and why—did he and his colleagues come up with their ideas? Unlike press articles or official travelogues, royal travel novels were usually neither commissioned nor authorized by the Imperial House. Also, Netto and his colleagues did not belong among the many pensioned naval officers who put their maritime writings in the service of the Navy League or Pan-German League. Rather, they were all serial authors with often dazzling biographies. Their wide repertoire (historical novels, popular biographies, and adventures of all sorts) indicates that they employed all the available plots of the time to secure their livelihood.74 The print market for young adults provided an attractive, growing niche for them. Yet, were national pride, monarchy, navy, and empire merely a business model, or did the authors consciously propagate ideological contents? A prosopographical study would be worthwhile. For whatever their motives, these authors—largely forgotten today—lastingly

Juvenile Adventure Fiction  | 153

influenced the world knowledge and worldviews of German adolescents. Their biographies and literary fingerprints as willing helpers of the political establishment provide valuable insights into the success of the Hohenzollern monarchy and the navalist-imperialist idea. Miriam Magdalena Schneider studied modern European history at the Universities of Bayreuth, Cambridge, and St Andrews. In her PhD, published in 2017, she analyzed the public persona of the “Sailor Prince” as a monarchical brand in nineteenth-century Europe. Currently, she is working on a new project about Danish adventure fiction at the University of Zurich.

Notes   1. Netto, Des Prinzen Weltreise, 1–2.   2. See, for example, Mayer’s arguments in The Persistence of the Old Regime; Machtan, Die Abdankung.   3. For example, Williams, Contentious Crown; Sprengel, “Die frühe Moderne,” 139–58; Holl and Fesser, Caligula.   4. For example, Plunkett, Queen Victoria; Schwarzenbach, “Royal Photographs”; Kohlrausch, “Der Mann mit dem Adlerhelm”; Giloi, Monarchy.   5. Two pioneering studies are MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire, and Christadler, Kriegserziehung.   6. Some exceptions focusing on gender aspects are Vallone, Becoming Victoria; Förster, Der Königin Luise-Mythos; and Askey, Good Girls, Good Germans.   7. It was called Literatur für die reifere Jugend in Wilhelmine Germany.   8. See MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire, 206–15.   9. See Green, Fatherlands, 315, 355; Giloi, Monarchy, 13–16, 314–15. 10. E.g., Lackowitz, Friedrich der Große; Boeck, Die Königin Luise; Rogge, Kaiser Wilhelm der Siegreiche; Höcker, Kaiser Friedrich. See Müller, Our Fritz, 105–48. 11. Elster, Fritz Ohlsen; Boeck, Die Pflegetochter der Königin; Frank, Kaiser Friedrich. 12. For a discussion of these novels, see Sehm, Der ethnographische Reise- und Abenteuerroman. 13. See Korte, “Western Travel Writing.” 14. Netto, Des Prinzen Weltreise, 1–2. 15. See the introduction to this volume. 16. Steinbrink, Abenteuerliteratur, 56–59. 17. See, for example, the numerous retellings of Robinson Crusoe discussed in Kirsten Belgum’s contribution in this volume. 18. Sternberger, “Hohe See und Schiffbruch,” pp. 229–45. 19. Steinbrink, Abenteuerliteratur, 1–5; see Sternberger, “Hohe See und Schiffbruch”; Carpenter and Butts, Ausbruch und Abenteuer; MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire, 17–19; Ueding, Karl-May-Handbuch. 20. Maase, Die Kinder der Massenkultur; Bowersox, Raising Germans, 119–64; Steinbrink, Abenteuerliteratur, 13; MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire, 2–5, 17. 21. On the figure of the “soldier hero,” see Dawson, Soldier Heroes.

154 | Miriam Magdalena Schneider

22. For a detailed study of the phenomenon, see Schneider, “Sailor Prince”; Rüger, Great Naval Game. 23. Heimerdinger, Der Seemann; Conley, From Jack Tar to Union Jack. 24. Cohen, Novel and the Sea; Fulford, “Romanticizing the Empire.” 25. Cohen, Novel and the Sea, 3–10, 133–70. 26. See Zantop, Colonial Fantasies. 27. Christadler, Kriegserziehung, 129–53. 28. See Bulla and Sachsman, Sensationalism. 29. See Schneider, “Prinzen, die gefährlich leben.” 30. Salgari, La Stella Polare; see Marchi, “Explorer Prince.” 31. Boeck, Weltumseglung; idem, Central-Amerika; Rothenberg, Prinz Heinrichs Reisen. 32. See, for example, Provincial-Correspondenz (13 November 1882). 33. Letter Baron Seckendorff to Albrecht von Stosch, 17 August 1878, Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freiburg RM2/397; “Von der deutschen Korvette Prinz Adalbert,” Über Land und Meer, nos. 6, 16, 17, 18, 33, 37, 47 (1878/1879); nos. 25, 46 (1879/1880); no. 6 (1880/1881). 34. Wied-Neuwied, Reise nach Brasilien; idem, Reise in das innere Nord-America; Hildebrandt, Des Prinzen Maximilian von Wied-Neuwied Reise nach Brasilien. 35. Möllhausen, Reisen in die Felsengebirge Nord-Amerikas; idem, “Im fernen Westen”; idem, “Ein Abenteuer des Herzogs Paul von Württemberg.” 36. Ernst II of Sachsen-Coburg, Reise des Herzogs Ernst von Sachsen-Coburg; Gerstäcker, “Die Reise des Herzogs von Koburg in Afrika”; idem [Travel reports without title]; Haemmerlein, “Dokumentarisches zur Afrikareise des Herzogs Ernst II.”; “Ernst II. in Afrika,” retrieved 15 January 2017 from http://www.landesbibliothek-coburg.de/ernst_ii.htm. 37. Letters to Duke Ernst, early 1862, State Archives Coburg, LAA 7420, 94–190. 38. Boeck, Central-Amerika, 44–53. 39. Fischer-Sallstein, Prinz Heinrich in Kiautschau; Elster, Klaus Erichsen. 40. Rieger, “‘Modern Wonders.’” 41. Netto, Des Prinzen Weltreise, 12, 21; Boeck, Weltumseglung, 11. 42. See Becker, Bilder von Krieg und Nation. 43. Boeck, Central-Amerika, 20. 44. For an overview of these measures, see, for example, Deist, Flottenpolitik und Flottenpropaganda. 45. Christadler, Kriegserziehung, 149–50; Meyer, “Der kleine Kreuzer Emden.” 46. See Sondhaus, “‘Spirit of the Army’ at Sea,” 461–71. 47. Ibid., 472–84. 48. Excerpts from letters to Heinrich, 1905–12, LASH (Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein) Abt. 395, Nr. 72. 49. See, for example, Short, Magic Lantern Empire; Ciarlo, Advertising Empire. 50. See Zeller, Bilderschule der Herrenmenschen. 51. Boeck, Westindienfahrt, 148–50. 52. Ibid., 153–54. 53. Ibid., 162–94; Netto, Des Prinzen Weltreise, 102–4, 123–34. 54. See in more detail Schneider, “Sailor Prince,” 176–88. See Paulmann, “Searching for a Royal International.” 55. Netto, Des Prinzen Weltreise, 103. 56. See Conrad, Globalisierung und Nation, 229–31. 57. Elster, Klaus Erichsen, 162. 58. See the seminal work on cultural “othering”: Said, Orientalism. 59. See Gissibl, “Jagd und Herrschaft,” 503; Wallenstein, “Elfenbein und Großwildjäger.” 60. Boeck, Central-Amerika, 143; Boeck, Westindienfahrt, 152, 154. 61. See Conrad, Globalisierung und Nation, 229–31.

Juvenile Adventure Fiction  | 155

62. Fischer-Sallstein, Prinz Heinrich in Kiautschau, chaps. 9–14; Elster, Klaus Erichsen, 219–20. 63. Letters to Prince Heinrich, 7–20 December 1897, LASH Abt. 395, Nr. 6. 64. Kehr, Schlachtflottenbau und Parteipolitik; Berghahn, Der Tirpitz-Plan. 65. Rüger, Great Naval Game, 95–139. 66. Bowersox, Raising Germans, 11, 47–54, 120. 67. Sternberger, “Hohe See und Schiffbruch,” 36. 68. Elster, Klaus Erichsen, 22–24. 69. Wolf, “Der Kapitän.” 70. Boeck, Weltumsegelung, 11. 71. Deutschland zur See; Das Fürstenbuch; Das Buch der Reisen. 72. Lackowitz, Kaiser Wilhelm; Heichen, Unseres Kronprinzen; Krusow, Die Fahrten und Abenteuer. 73. LASH Abt. 395, Nr. 6. 74. For more information, see http://www.abenteuerroman.info/kurz/autorlst.htm (retrieved 20 January 2017).

Bibliography Archival Sources Landesarchiv Coburg (LAA) Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein (LASH)

Primary Sources Boeck, Carl von der. Des Prinzen Heinrich von Preußen Weltumseglung: Original-Erzählung für die Jugend. Berlin, ca. 1882. ———. Prinz Heinrich in Central-Amerika: Original-Erzählung für die Jugend. Berlin, ca. 1884. ———. Die Pflegetochter der Königin: Historische Erzählung für die Jugend. Berlin, ca. 1890. ———. Die Königin Luise von Preußen: Ein Vorbild weiblicher Tugenden. Berlin, ca. 1900. Das Buch der Reisen. Leipzig, 1910. Das Fürstenbuch. Reise-, Kriegs- und Jagd-Erlebnisse deutscher Fürsten und Heldensöhne. Berlin, ca. 1900. Deutschland zur See: Fürstenreisen zu Deutschlands Ruhm und Ehre. Leipzig, 1890. Elster, Otto. Fritz Ohlsen: Kaiser Wilhelms Unteroffizier. Kreuznach, 1888. ———. Klaus Erichsen, Prinz Heinrichs Schiffsjunge: Erzählung für die reifere Jugend. Berlin, ca. 1895. Fischer-Sallstein, Konrad. Prinz Heinrich in Kiautschau: Reisen zu Wasser und zu Lande des Prinz-Admirals in Indien, China, Japan 1898–1900: Der reiferen Jugend erzählt. Berlin, 1900. Frank, Adolf. Kaiser Friedrich und sein Schützling: Historische Erzählung aus den Tagen des Unvergeßlichen. Leipzig, ca. 1890. Gerstäcker, Friedrich. “Die Reise des Herzogs von Koburg in Afrika.” Leipziger Illustrirte Zeitung 38, no. 982 (26 April 1862): 275–78; and no. 989 (14 June 1862): 408–10. ———. [Travel reports without title]. Gothaische Zeitung 171, nos. 78–129 (2 April–4 June 1862).

156 | Miriam Magdalena Schneider

Heichen, Walter. Unseres Kronprinzen Fahrt nach Indien. Berlin, ca. 1912. Hildebrandt, J. A. Christoph. Des Prinzen Maximilian von Wied-Neuwied Reise nach Brasilien: Für die erwachsene Jugend bearbeitet. Quedlinburg and Leipzig, 1820–22. Höcker, O. Kaiser Friedrich als Prinz, Feldherr und Herrscher. Berlin, ca. 1900. Krusow, Major von. Die Fahrten und Abenteuer des Thronfolgers Nikolaus von Russland in Japan. Berlin, ca. 1895. Lackowitz, W. Friedrich der Große im siebenjährigen Kriege: Eine historische Erzählung für die Jugend. Leipzig, ca. 1900. ———. Kaiser Wilhelm und seine Friedensreisen: Der aufstrebenden deutschen Jugend erzählt. Berlin, ca. 1900. Möllhausen, Balduin. “Ein Abenteuer des Herzogs Paul von Württemberg.” Novellen-Zeitung 18 (1861): 484–87. ———. “Im fernen Westen.” Westermann’s Illustrirte Monatshefte, no. 49 (1860): 92–101. ———. Reisen in die Felsengebirge Nord-Amerikas bis zum Hoch-Plateau von Neu-Mexico, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1861. Netto, Friedrich. Des Prinzen Weltreise: Eine Reisebeschreibung für die deutsche Jugend. Berlin, 1897. Rogge, Bernhard. Kaiser Wilhelm der Siegreiche: Sein Leben und seine Thaten für das Volk und die Jugend dargestellt. Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1890. Rothenberg, J. Prinz Heinrichs Reisen um die Welt in den Jahren 1878–1880 und 1882–1884. Berlin, ca. 1890. Sachsen-Coburg, Ernst II of. Reise des Herzogs Ernst von Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha nach Aegypten und den Ländern der Habab, Mensa und Bogos. Leipzig, 1864. Salgari, Emilio. La Stella Polare e il suo viaggio avventuroso. Genoa, 1901. Wied-Neuwied, Maximilian zu. Reise in das innere Nord-America in den Jahren 1832 bis 1834. 2 vols. Koblenz, 1839–41. ———. Reise nach Brasilien in den Jahren 1815 bis 1817. 2 vols. Frankfurt, 1820–21.

Secondary Sources Askey, Jennifer. Good Girls, Good Germans: Girls’ Education and Emotional Nationalism in Wilhelminian Germany. Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 2013. Becker, Frank. Bilder von Krieg und Nation: Die Einigungskriege in der bürgerlichen Öffentlichkeit Deutschlands, 1864–1913. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2001. Berghahn, Volker. Der Tirpitz-Plan: Genesis und Verfall einer innenpolitischen Krisenstrategie unter Wilhelm II. Düsseldorf: Droste, 1971. Bowersox, Jeff. Raising Germans in the Age of Empire: Youth and Colonial Culture, 1871–1914. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Bulla, David, and David Sachsman, eds. Sensationalism: Murder, Mayhem, Mudslinging, Scandals and Disasters in Nineteenth-Century Reporting. New Brunswick: Routledge, 2013. Carpenter, Kevin, and Dennis Butts, eds. Ausbruch und Abenteuer: Deutsche und englische Abenteuerliteratur von Robinson bis Winnetou. Oldenburg: Universität Oldenburg, 1984. Christadler, Marieluise. Kriegserziehung im Jugendbuch: Literarische Mobilmachung in Deutschland und Frankreich vor 1914. Frankfurt am Main: Haag und Herchen, 1978. Ciarlo, David. Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. Cohen, Margaret. The Novel and the Sea. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.

Juvenile Adventure Fiction  | 157

Conley, Mary. From Jack Tar to Union Jack: Representing Naval Manhood in the British Empire, 1870–1918. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009. Conrad, Sebastian. Globalisierung und Nation im Deutschen Kaiserreich. Munich: C.H. Beck, 2006. Dawson, Graham. Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire, and the Imagining of Masculinities. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. Deist, Wilhelm. Flottenpolitik und Flottenpropaganda: Das Nachrichtenbureau des Reichsmarineamtes, 1897–1914. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1976. Förster, Birte. Der Königin Luise-Mythos: Mediengeschichte des “Idealbilds deutscher Weiblichkeit,” 1860–1960. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011. Fulford, Tim. “Romanticizing the Empire: The Naval Heroes of Southey, Coleridge, Austen, and Marryat.” Modern Language Quarterly 60 (1999): 161–96. Giloi, Eva. Monarchy, Myth and Material Culture in Germany, 1750–1950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Gissibl, Bernhard. “Jagd und Herrschaft: Zur politischen Ökologie des Deutschen Kolonialis­ mus in Ostafrika.” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 56 (2008): 501–20. Green, Abigail. Fatherlands: State-Building and Nationhood in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Haemmerlein, Hans-Dietrich. “Dokumentarisches zur Afrikareise des Herzogs Ernst II.” In Herzog Ernst II. von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha und seine Zeit, edited by Harald Bachmann, 419–51. Augsburg: Maro, 1993. Heimerdinger, Timo. Der Seemann: Ein Berufsstand und seine kulturelle Inszenierung, 1844– 2003. Cologne: Bölau, 2005. Holl, Karl, and Gerd Fesser. Caligula: Wilhelm II. und der Cäsarenwahnsinn; Antikenrezeption und wilhelminische Politik am Beispiel des Caligula von Ludwig Quidde. Bremen: Edition Temmen, 2001. Kehr, Eckart. Schlachtflottenbau und Parteipolitik, 1894–1901. Berlin: Emil Ebering, 1930. Kohlrausch, Martin. “Der Mann mit dem Adlerhelm: Wilhelm II., Medienstar um 1900.” In  Das Jahrhundert der Bilder, 1900–1949, edited by Paul Gerhard, 68–75. Göttingen, 2009. Korte, Barbara. “Western Travel Writing, 1750–1950.” In The Routledge Companion to Travel Writing, edited by Carl Thompson, 173–84. London, 2016. Maase, Kaspar. Die Kinder der Massenkultur: Kontroversen um Schmutz und Schund seit dem Kaiserreich. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2012. Machtan, Lothar. Die Abdankung: Wie Deutschlands gekrönte Häupter aus der Geschichte fielen. Berlin: Propyläen, 2008. MacKenzie, John. Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880– 1960. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984. Marchi, Maria Christina. “The Explorer Prince.” Heirs to the Throne Project, University of St.  Andrews, June 2016. Retrieved from http://heirstothethrone-project.net/?page_ id=2475. Mayer, Arno. The Persistence of the Old Regime. New York: Pantheon Books, 1981. Meyer, Ursula. “Der kleine Kreuzer Emden: Literarische Verarbeitung seiner Geschichte in drei Jugendromanen.” In Literarische Verarbeitungen des Krieges, edited by Claudia Glunz and Thomas Schneider, 61–104. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010. Müller, Frank Lorenz. Our Fritz: Emperor Frederick III and the Political Culture of Imperial Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.

158 | Miriam Magdalena Schneider

Paulmann, Johannes. “Searching for a Royal International.” In The Mechanics of Internationalism: Culture, Society and Politics from the 1840s to the First World War, edited by idem and M. H. Geyer, 145–76. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Plunkett, John. Queen Victoria: First Media Monarch. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Rieger, Bernhard. “‘Modern Wonders’: Technological Innovation and Public Ambivalence in Britain and Germany, 1890–1933.” History Workshop Journal 55 (2003): 153–76. Rüger, Jan. The Great Naval Game: Britain and Germany in the Age of Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1978. Schneider, Miriam. “Prinzen, die gefährlich leben: Der seefahrende Königssohn als Abenteuer­ held des 19. Jahrhunderts.” In Helden über Grenzen: Transfer und Aneignungs­prozesse von Heldenbildern, edited by Heike Bormuth, Sebastian Demel, and Daniel Franz, 171–93. Mannheim: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 2016. ———. The “Sailor Prince” in the Age of Empire: Creating a Monarchical Brand in NineteenthCentury Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Schwarzenbach, Alexis. “Royal Photographs: Emotions for the People.” Contemporary European History 13, no. 3 (2004): 255–80. Sehm, Gunter. Der ethnographische Reise- und Abenteuerroman des 19. Jahrhunderts: Eine Gattungsbestimmung. Hamburg: Lauretum, 1974. Short, John. Magic Lantern Empire: Colonialism and Society in Germany. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012. Sondhaus, Laurence. “‘The Spirit of the Army’ at Sea: The Prussian-German Naval Officer Corps, 1847–97.” International History Review 17, no. 3 (1995): 459–84. Sprengel, Peter. “Die frühe Moderne in Opposition zum Wilhelminismus: Kaiser-Satiren um 1900.” In Jahrbuch der Berliner Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft, edited by Bernd Sösemann, 139–58. Berlin, 1994. Steinbrink, Bernd. Abenteuerliteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland: Studien zu einer vernachlässigten Gattung. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1983. Sternberger, Dolf. “Hohe See und Schiffbruch: Zur Geschichte einer Allegorie.” Vexierbilder des Menschen: Gesammelte Schriften 6: 229–45. Frankfurt/M.: Insel, 1981. Ueding, Gert. Karl-May-Handbuch. Stuttgart: Königshausen & Neumann, 1987. Vallone, Lynne. Becoming Victoria. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001. Wallenstein, Uta. “Elfenbein und Großwildjäger: Der Elefant als Jagdbeute.” In Elefantastisch!, edited by Roland Krischke et al., 98–103. Berlin/Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2011. Williams, Richard. The Contentious Crown: Public Discussion of the British Monarchy in the Reign of Queen Victoria. Aldershot: Routledge, 1997. Wolf, Burkhardt. “Der Kapitän: Zur Figurenlehre neuzeitlicher Seeherrschaft.” Arcadia 46, no. 2 (2012): 335–56. Zantop, Susanne. Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family and Nation in Precolonial Germany. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997. Zeller, Joachim. Bilderschule der Herrenmenschen: Koloniale Reklamesammelbilder. Berlin: Ch. Links, 2010.

Chapter 7

Knowing Others as Selves German Children and American Indians H. Glenn Penny

S The Blacks belong to realm of politics, the Indians to the realm of myth. —Christof Mauch, “Zwischen Edelmut und Roheit,” 19951

The central argument of this chapter is that the basic tropes animating German debates about American Indians from the 1920s through the 1970s—tropes about authenticity, memory, mimesis, idealized versus living and breathing Indians—were already pervasive in the youth literature of the nineteenth century.2 That literature shaped much of Germans’ ideas about American Indians; those ideas became points of reference for many Germans’ understandings of themselves; and many of those Germans retained those ideas as adults, passing them on to their children. That striking continuity cut across much of the last two centuries, facilitated not only through the circulation of narratives in youth literature but also, as we move from the nineteenth into the twentieth century, through comics, toys, theater, and films. Those narratives ultimately circulated in books, periodicals, and a great deal of visual culture focused on adults as well. A secondary argument is that scholars should be wary of placing childrens’ books about non-Europeans, and particularly non-whites, into a unitary category (see, for example, O’Sullivan in this volume). Despite the desire of many scholars to do that, German narratives about American Indians were not always about inculcating German children with colonial fantasies, imperialist imaginations, or nationalist ideals. That was not even the case during the height of German colonialism, during the period Schneider terms “the age of adventure” in her contribution to this volume. Christof Mauch made this point decades ago, and it is worth bearing in mind. For much of the work produced by German Notes from this chapter begin on page 177.

160 | H. Glenn Penny

authors about American Indians contains a good deal of anticolonial and even anticapitalist criticism, and much of it mocks the very notion of Europeans and their “civilization” as inherently better than the peoples and the cultural and social organizations German travelers encountered among North American Indians. Such criticism of Western societies and Western civilization is particularly pronounced in postwar youth literature written by authors such as Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich (1940s–1970s), and it is particularly poignant in Anna Jürgen’s highly acclaimed Blauvogel (1950)—a favorite among West German leftists during the Cold War era. Indeed, such criticism combined with a striking sense of empathy for many American Indians (historical as well a literary figures) is also captured in countless reports by German adults from a wide range of backgrounds recalling their joy at “playing Indian” as children and, in more cases than we might imagine, as adults.3 If, as O’Sullivan argues in this volume, many German children who thought about colonial territories during “the age of adventure” competed to play the role of colonial troops versus indigenous Africans, German children thinking about North America during the same period overwhelmingly wished to play the role of American Indians—not the U.S. Army, and only a very select number of characters of European descent. That should not surprise us, because as any close reading of the German literature or extended viewing of German films makes clear, the vast majority of German narratives about “Cowboys and Indians” portray the Indians as the good guys.4 Moreover, if Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich’s memoirs are reliable, as well as the stacks of letters she received from young readers and their parents during the first three decades following World War II, that desire was shared by girls as well as boys from across all social classes. But what about Karl May, a true product of the “age of adventure” and an unavoidable subject in any discussion of the German love affair with American Indians? His books were a notable part of the eagerly read adventure series Schneider identifies in this volume as proliferating at the end of the nineteenth century. That lust for adventure clearly offers us one context for understanding the popularity of May’s books during those decades. Yet we also know that his books, characters, and stories became ubiquitous in the twentieth century. Indeed, there is no question that his Winnetou volumes spurred millions of twentieth-century German children to think about American Indians.5 His stories inspired movies and theater.6 They were incorporated into comics, and children acted them out with specially designed toys.7 In that sense, his tales played critical roles in the history of knowledge about American Indians shared across generations and reproduced through the reading of similar texts (and later also the joint viewing of films), cross-generational discussions, the production of material objects ranging from clothing and tipis to tools and weapons, and role-playing in many public and private venues. Yet these facts do not make Karl May the only

German Children and American Indians  | 161

Figure 7.1 and 7.2.  A view into the Karl May Museum and a report on its reception— father and son taking in the displays. Courtesy of the Karl May Museum in Radebeul.

162 | H. Glenn Penny

entry point into thinking about American Indians. Nor was he the end point for most German children. With that in mind, the set of newspaper clippings in the archive of the Karl May Museum in Radebeul is instructive. It contains a collection of reports on events in and around the museum, which became a destination for families, schools, and youth groups after opening in December 1928. Those accounts run from before the opening through the end of the twentieth century, and they reveal persistent patterns that provide the contours for this chapter. For example, whereas Karl May’s books dealt in fantasy and perpetuated myths about noble Indians and Germans’ affinity for them, museum director Patty Frank aimed, as accounts of the museum’s opening make clear, to anchor those myths in realities. Reporters praised the collections; some even claimed they rivaled the North American collections in Germany’s leading ethnographic institution, the Museum für Völkerkunde [Ethnological Museum] in Berlin.8 Either way, they all characterized the objects as authentic and unique, underscored the “extremely serious and scientific” organization of the displays, and argued that the museum offered visitors a window into a rich culture that had been largely eradicated by the spread of civilization—a term the initial press releases implied was problematic, even distasteful. Something, these reports indicated, went terribly wrong in that civilizing process: much was lost that the journalists and the museum’s visitors cherished.9 Was it a way of life that had been lost, or was it simply their youth? For many German adults in 1928, the Karl May Museum was filled with childhood memories. One account in the newspaper Dresdener Neueste Nachrichten described a visit to the museum as a “look into a sinking and sunken cultural world, whose appearance is familiar to us, since we read our first Indian tales, Cooper’s Leatherstocking and May’s gripping novels.” Visitors encountered what they expected in the museum. It was, quite literally, “the scientific evidence [Belegstücke] of the Indian romance that filled our youthful days.”10 The museum brought these thoughts from the past into the present, from childhood to adulthood, offering visitors tactile evidence, material traces of the reality of those romantic myths, those childhood ideals, and the knowledge Germans seemed to share about American Indians. The museum championed the validity of that knowledge, justified visitors’ youthful associations, and openly displayed those memories for them and their children to see. Tropes of loss, nostalgia, and scientific authority run through all of the clippings in the collection. So, too, do the oblique references to earlier authors, particularly James Fenimore Cooper and his characters, which the journalists blithely evoked without explanations. But what reader in Weimar needed an explanation? Chingachgook, Cooper’s lone Mohican Chief, was at least as well known in 1928 Germany as May’s Winnetou. He and Cooper’s other characters had been shaping German understandings of America and American Indians for

German Children and American Indians  | 163

over half a century before Karl May began spinning his tales. They, in fact, shaped May’s ideas as well. Moreover, Cooper’s books never went out of fashion. May’s books simply joined them, much as the museum accommodated both authors’ characters and its visitors’ memories of them. Taken together, these various additions, along with many others, built upon and enhanced a pervasive intertextual subjectivity that was over a century old: by 1928, practically every German child, and thus essentially all German adults, already knew something, and largely the same things, about American Indians. Perhaps, the reporters seemed to imply, they always had. Living and breathing American Indians—real people—also had an impact on Karl May’s readers and visitors to the museum. The reality of their presence in Germany ultimately supported and fed on German memories and myths. Radebeul is not far from Dresden, the home of Hans Stosch-Sarrasani’s famous circus. During the interwar years, his circus was almost never without American Indian performers. Many came from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Some became professional show Indians, eagerly performing in Germany in the wake of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, which enjoyed triumphant tours through the country in 1890 and 1906. Those events begot a passion for American Indians “playing Indian” in Germany, with many Germans learning to play along.11 While working with Sarrasani, American Indian performers frequented the Karl May Museum. Its archive holds well-known images of some of these performers laying wreaths on Karl May’s grave, as well as photographs that simply capture these performers around town.12 One of East Germany’s most devoted students of American Indians, Johannes Hüttner, explained in a 1972 interview that he had been inspired to become a hobbyist—to devote himself to an intense study of American Indians and engage in reenactments—after meeting the eminently immitatable Chief Black Horn at Sarrasani’s circus when he was only twelve.13 Reflecting on a 1928 photograph of his club “Old Manitu,” Hüttner described participating in its activities before the war, reconstituting it after the conflict, and acquiring a legal standing for it in East Germany. He characterized the Karl May Museum as “a magnet for children” before, during, and after the war, housed as it was in a log cabin and run by the charismatic director Patty Frank, who, dressed in western wear, delighted children and their parents with his tales of the American West. Everyone knew these were authentic as Frank had lived there. Moreover, Hüttner’s club, he explained, also had moved quickly beyond Karl May’s romantic notions. Its members devoted themselves to learning as much as they could about actual people, like Chief Black Horn, the other performers, and actual American Indians of the past and present.14 During the 1972 interview, for example, he discussed the legacy of the destructive Indian wars, the rise of the American Indian Movement, and the poverty on reservations across the United States.

164 | H. Glenn Penny

Figure 7.3.  A report on the Sarrasani Circus honoring Karl May. Dresden: SarrasaniVerlag, no. 1, 9th ed., ca. 1930.

German Children and American Indians  | 165

One could easily attribute Hüttner’s rhetoric to an East German propensity to express solidarity with peoples suffering under capitalist regimes. We could write it off as political posturing—except that little in his rhetoric was new aside from his contemprorary examples. That is the point. The bulk of the essay is focused on the emergence of that rhetoric and children’s encounters with the tropes that animated it during the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, we can only get at that indirectly, through adults’ memories. We do not have the kinds of accounts from the nineteenth century that I just rehearsed from the twentieth. Drawing on what we do have, this chapter explains how German narratives about the Americas initially depended on Cooper. Reports from German emigrants, explorers, and travelers reinforced them more than they called them into question. Nevertheless, those narratives later developed their own momentum, simplifying and disseminating earlier stories about American Indians through the explosion of cheap novels, comics, toys, and the success of American Indian performers and their emulators in circuses, Völkerschauen, and Wild West shows (on the importance of toys in this process, see especially Hamlin in this volume, but see also O’Sullivan and Schneider). Through that process, Germans gained a pervasive intertextual subjectivity, a familiarity with ideas and characterizations of American Indians that coursed across generations, genders, and even social class. They developed a shared knowledge about American Indians, one they produced and often harnessed as a means for making sense of themselves: over the last two centuries, many of the charactericistics Germans most often attributed to American Indians were characteristics they sought in themselves.15

The Germans’ Indian Undoubtedly, the 1928 commentary on the opening of the Karl May Museum was overdetermined. The notion that the objects in the new displays were the material expression, and thus the articulation and confirmation, of visitors’ youthful “Indian romance” is not surprising. What is striking is that this was a common response to putatively authentic displays that found their way to Germany for decades before that museum was built. Indeed, this was the central response to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in 1890, which arrived in Munich that April with a troupe of more than two hundred cowboys and Indians, traveling through a series of major German cities through May 1891.16 Well-organized and enticing advertising campaigns preceded the performers. They told people what to expect and prepared them for a program Buffalo Bill had perfected over years of success in the United States and other countries. It emphasized historical melodrama, sensational display, athletic exhibition, and, above all, authentic players.17

166 | H. Glenn Penny

It was a four-hour program meant to entice adults and children alike. Spectators were entranced by the Pony Express, an Indian attack on an emigrant train, a Virginia quadrille done on horseback, cowboys demonstrating riding and roping skills, an Indian attack on the Deadwood coach, a selection of American Indian dances, and the final buffalo hunt.18 It was incredibly popular. In Munich the bleachers set up for 5,000 spectators filled daily, and performances continued to sell out as they moved across the country. Even when the rain was pouring in Dresden, they had to turn people away. The very presence of the show was an excitement. People waited by the thousands to welcome the participants as they arrived in each city. They milled around their camps, transforming the performers’ presence into ongoing events and engaging in assorted forms of admiration, celebration, and emulation. German audiences were a delight.19 They welcomed the performers because of the immediate connections they made to the childhood readings of Cooper and the German authors he inspired.20 Again and again newspaper accounts began with the rhetorical question expressed in 1890 by Fritz Cl. Wolff in the Leipzig General-Anzeiger: “Who during his youth did not read with affection the Indian stories?”21 And many, together with one contributor to the Berliner Zeitung remarked: “It is actually nothing new that we see [at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West]. We have all seen it before, admittedly not with our own eyes, rather only in the dreams of our childhood, when we read ourselves to sleep with the fantastic tales of Leatherstocking.” Even in “the land of scholarship [Büchergelehrheit],” another author in Dresden wrote in 1890, who could have forgotten “how he himself rhapsodized over the last of the Mohicans?”22 Almost four decades before the Karl May Museum opened its doors, and before Karl May’s characters putatively stole the show, Buffalo Bill provided Germans with an opportunity to experience in real life, if only for a short time, the events that had captured many of their imaginations during the most formative periods of their lives. Here, too, before they saw living American Indians, these spectators already knew what they were about, much like later generations viewing the collections in the Karl May Museum had already been familiar with the material beforehand, and that knowledge was confirmed in the discussions and emulations that ensued. There is another consistency between reactions to the Karl May Museum in the 1920s and the 1890 performances. At the same time Buffalo Bill’s Wild West inspired Germans to relive their childhood memories, it also encouraged them to reflect critically on the situation faced by the Lakota and other American Indians in 1890. Indeed, after connecting the performances to a shared set of childhood memories, the contributor to the Berliner Zeitung also noted that “whether it is pleasing at this moment that profit-hungry civilized humanity has waged such a war of extermination against the race of redskins is certainly another question.” During the performance, “one had no time to think of that,” even if “Buffalo

German Children and American Indians  | 167

Figure 7.4.  A report from the Volkszeitung on Buffalo Bill’s “Wild West” show and its reception. Almost daily news coverage in a wide range of newspapers accompanied the show’s trips through Germany. Courtesy of the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave, Golden, Colorado.

168 | H. Glenn Penny

Bill was also one of the lead scouts” and made “innumerable adventures out of battles with Indians,” because one was whisked away by “memories of our childhood stories” that “play[ed] out before our eyes.”23 But after the performances they could consider the degree to which the United States government and the so-called Yankees seemed determine to destroy what they themselves cherished. In that sense, there were always new variations on the old story that could be learned. In East and West Germany in the 1970s, those included similar accounts of the rise of the American Indian Movement and discussions of poverty and government malfeasance on American Indian reservations. During the interwar and Nazi periods, there were complaints about the land grabs that undermined American Indian cultures and critical assessments of the United States government’s Indian policies. In the 1890s, there were condemnations of mistreatments as well. The Wounded Knee massacre, in December 1890, the final subjugation of a group of American Indians that put an end to the so-called “Indian Wars,” followed the first summer’s performances. Yet Germans seemed to anticipate it. Hand in hand with the many German news reports on the performers and the crowds were also rumors of uprisings in the United States and explanations that this was both tragic and understandable. It was a product of the desperate conditions in which American Indians found themselves and the wrongdoings of the U.S. government.24 In short, everything one found in the newspaper clippings collected by the Karl May Museum about the ways in which twentieth-century Germans melded childhood fantasies with contemporary political concerns was already present in the nineteenth century. Indeed, it was present before Buffalo Bill arrived. Similar remarks can be found in the German press during the previous decade when Rudolf Cronau, who had been traveling the United States since 1881 as an artist and a journalist under the auspices of Die Gartenlaube, returned in 1883. For several years he gave lectures across Germany about his encounters with Plains Indians, particularly the famous Sitting Bull and the formidable Standing Rock Sioux. The reception of his presentations was essentially the same. Here, too, the press remarked on the reaction among his public: “Cronau’s stories came to them ‘like a fairytale from a long faded and ancient time,’ awakening in them ‘memories from childhood’” even as he detailed the tragic fate of many of these people who were running afoul of the United States government and its agents.25 These notions of childhood memories and German knowledge about American Indians and their struggles were carried into the 1880s, 1890s, and into the twentieth century via multiple vehicles. After Buffalo Bill came to German towns, children were often seen in the streets with their own lassos, feathers, and makeshift tomahawks, and adults began to emulate the performers as well.26 They continued to enjoy similar shows after Buffalo Bill was gone.27 They organized some of their own, and when Buffalo Bill returned in 1906, the crowds awaiting him were even larger.28 An entire industry of new books, magazines, and comics

German Children and American Indians  | 169

stemmed from his performances, and he became a household name—more so, initially, than Karl May. The German press also profited, and Germans witnessed a transformation in the production of toys, theater, and, ultimately, as they drew near to 1914, the entire circus industry. Driven initially by Carl Hagenbeck’s epiphanies, the owners saw the virtue of including actual American Indians in their repertoire. It is fair to say that after 1890, with newer, cheaper forms of media, there was a veritable explosion of interest. But what were its origins?

Literature There were plenty of books, and scholars have paid great attention to them. Reflecting on German interests in American Indians, Christian Feest once remarked, “More than a thousand titles of fiction relating to American Indians were published in the last quarter of the nineteenth-century alone.”29 Most of that was what we would classify as youth literature. It would be impossible to locate and read all of those books. Some literary scholars have attempted it, but most tend toward the same sets of names: Friedrich Gerzstäcker, Balduin Möllhausen, Charles Sealsfield, and, of course, Cooper (see the other already mentioned chapters in this volume).30 Literary scholars all agree that Cooper set the tropes in motion, while subsequent German authors channeled them and directed those tropes into the lives of new generations of German children. Every subsequent decade during the nineteenth century, new sets of authors emerged who claimed authority from their own experiences in the United States and their own encounters with American Indians. For example, Möllhausen’s travels with Duke Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg into the Rocky Mountains and Gerstäcker’s stories of life in backwoods Arkansas (see Schneider in this volume). They spun their own tales with personal twists, authentic accounts, and individualized details, yet those generally confirmed more than they challenged Cooper’s essential characterizations. Even where they pointed out that Cooper had misled readers, they depended on him for those readers’ interest and did little to undermine him in the long run.31 Rudolf Cronau, mentioned above, was one of these authors. Compared to the novelists who have gained so much attention, however, he was only one of many minor players. Still, the pattern in his writing is the same. He explains what he saw with references to Cooper’s characters. Cooper was the first American author to support himself by writing, the first to produce a frontier novel, and the first to achieve international fame. According to Hans Plischke, who tried to make sense of this literary history in his 1951 book From Cooper to Karl May, Cooper was also the most translated American author in Germany and one of the most popular foreign authors there as well.32 Through the countless reproductions of his novels, which were repeatedly abridged and

170 | H. Glenn Penny

combined into editions for children and youths, the German fascination with American Indians became widespread.33 Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales turn around the adventures of Natty Bumppo, a white man raised among American Indians. Like his Mohican “brother” Chingachgook, he was a fearless fighter with extensive wilderness skills and great respect for the forests and their inhabitants. He was well known for his unmatched skill with his long rifle, and he was often referred to as “Hawkeye,” but he hunted only what he needed. He fought only when provoked, and only with those engaged in wrongdoing. His life was framed by both the sublime beauty of nature and ethical and moral dilemmas that accompanied its veritable destruction by the forces of European civilization pressing across North America during the second half of the eighteenth century. In that sense, the Leatherstocking Tales offered readers a parable of modernity, a tale about the loss of connections to the natural world that accompanied the embrace of industry and technology, a tale that had great appeal among members of a society in the throes of change.34 Cooper’s tales were not the first stories about American Indians to reach Germans. Plischke makes that clear, and he argues that Germans’ interest in “Indian novels” fit well into a more general attraction to what he called völkerkunde novels, which predated Cooper’s texts and continued into the century.35 Still, the point is that Cooper spoke to Germans’ interest in non-Europeans, and he wrote about a place that fascinated Germans, the United States, where many contemplated emigrating. That successful combination spawned many emulators, and thus what Plischke has termed the “popular ethnographic literature” set among non-Europeans and particularly American Indians became widespread among Germans by 1850. More recent scholars, while agreeing with Plischke’s basic arguments about Cooper’s influence, have made a point of underscoring the many limitations in Cooper’s narratives. Hartmut Lutz, for example, argued that Cooper’s work set the tone in German fiction for “an entire tradition of florid Indian rhetoric” that “continued into the present.”36 To his mind, Cooper’s characters established “stereotypes” of American Indians’ traits and habits of speaking that did damage to the great varieties of people indigenous to North America. While Cooper was initially focused on Woodlands Indians in the Eastern United States, those characteristics were easily transferred to people further west, especially to Plains Indians, who ultimately dominated the iconography spread across Europe during the middle of the century by artists and travelers such as the American George Catlin and the German and Swiss pair of Prince Maximilian of Wied and Karl Bodmer. Those artists’ images of American Indians and the American West gained a kind of transnational hegemony.37 They also melded easily with Cooper’s tales, despite the fact that they dealt with subjects thousands of miles apart and from different time periods. Indeed, both the artists’ images and Cooper’s tales were

German Children and American Indians  | 171

so successful because they stemmed from North America, which helped readers believe that they must be more accurate, more authentic, more American, than the romanticized stories of people like the French author François-René de Chateaubriand.38 Nevertheless, that putative authenticity, even the exacting character of Bodmer’s reproductions, did little to undermine the power of the tropes behind Cooper’s narratives. Just the opposite, while the authority of the eyewitness allowed individuals including Gerstäcker and Möllhausen as well as the artists to point out limits in Cooper’s narratives while underscoring the authenticity of their own, there is little evidence that their explicit harnessing of facts led German readers to rethink American Indians or radically altered the general thrust of German children’s literature. Lutz, in fact, went to great pains to underscore the “stereotypes” that persisted in these artists’ paintings, as well as in these and many more authors’ texts. So, too, did other German authors and scholars during the twentieth century, who tried to harness and redirect the dominant roles American Indians played in German youth literature.39 Yet despite their concerns and reservations, all of these scholars recognized that Plischke was essentially correct about Cooper’s influence on German imaginations, and if the German authors who emulated him while drawing on their lives abroad added anything of importance to his tropes, it was to make them more German. As D. L. Ashliman has argued, they did that by replacing his leading white characters with recognizably German men.40 Such moves made Möllhausen perhaps the most popular German novelist of the 1860s and 1870s, whereas Gerstäcker’s work was so clearly popular and influential that the oldest children’s literature prize in Germany is named after him. Jeffrey Sammons has argued that Gerstäcker’s work was more clearly grounded in his actual experiences in North America and lacked much of Cooper’s romance. Still, as Lutz underscored decades ago, that did more to perpetuate the tropes than to upset them.

Ethnology and Ethnographic Museums In addition to German artists and novelists, German ethnologists might also have inspired German children’s views of American Indians, and they could have offered a corrective to the Cooperesque visions thereof. Exacting empirical data can do that, if properly harnessed. Today, ethnographic museums are staffed with pedagogical teams eager to draw in school classes and help raise visitor numbers. In Germany, they often feature activities focused on American Indians, which are deemed an excellent means for attracting children and teaching them about human diversity, non-Europeans, otherness, and race.41 However, such staffing and such a pointed focus on the public is new. Few of the German ethnographic museums that emerged during the imperial period were meant to accommodate

172 | H. Glenn Penny

general publics. On the contrary, as scientific institutions they were meant to be a critical component of ethnologists’ studies, not halls filled with didactic displays.42 By the end of the nineteenth century, the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin was the largest of Germany’s ethnographic museums, and its collections were highly coveted in the international world of science. Other internationally recognized museums appeared across Germany during the imperial period. The most notable were in Cologne, Dresden, Hamburg, Leipzig, Munich, and Stuttgart. Undoubtedly, these institutions and the ethnologists who directed them had tremendous authority in national discussions about non-Europeans. Yet it is nearly impossible to find accounts from visitors to these museums; employees’ records of visitors’ actions are sparse; and what exists seldom includes children—unless they caused trouble. Because of a set of incidents in 1904, we know that the Museum für Völkerkunde in Hamburg gave local school pupils markers granting them access to visit on weekends and that many did so, including the children from the working classes. We know this because some adults complained about it. One director defended the children’s presence by referring not only to their behavior inside the museum but also to their subsequent actions, underscoring the importance of reaching children whose parents worked through the weekends. In his view, these children often returned with items plucked out of fields, forests, and parks, excited about their ability to classify their own natural history collections. We know, in short, that these institutions taught some children to see nature through a scientific lens, through categories and classifications.43 It is reasonable to infer that some learned to see cultures and people, or at least their material culture, in similar ways.44 So what might a child be able to locate and see in a city like Berlin? If there were no lectures or performances in town, could Berlin’s museums offer children useful knowledge about North American Indians? Might they offer alternatives to the novelists’ tales? Perhaps, but only if the children searched carefully. Despite the importance of German ethnologist Franz Boas in the history of American anthropology, few collections in German ethnographic museums were from North America, and no collection directors specialized in that part of the world.45 Most worked further to the south, directing their collecting and research toward places that had seen much less industrialization, less displacement of indigenous populations, and many fewer changes in their lands than the United States. Still, there were notable North American collections in German museums. Some, in fact, are quite famous and highly valued today.46 In the nineteenth century, however, they were chaotic and disorganized, and not prominently displayed. Horst Hartmann, the director of the North American collections of Berlin’s Museum für Völkerkunde in the 1970s, wrote about this at length in an anniversary volume.47 In 1877, he remarked, one could find things from

German Children and American Indians  | 173

Figure 7.5.  Inside the Berlin Museum für Völkerkunde. © Ethnologisches Museum— Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

American Indians. There were two cabinets full of objects from Aleutians and Eskimos, another with material from Eastern Woodlands Indians, and a prehistoric collection from Ohio. Another cabinet contained items from Plains Indians, including Blackfoot, Dakota, Mandan, and others, and another was filled with objects from Comanche and other peoples in the American Southwest.48 Through his research, he located these objects’ positions in a series of numbered cabinets containing thousands of unsystematically organized items. Despite the fact that they had items from across the continent, objects from British Columbia and Alaska dominated the collections.49 These observations correspond to the history of the collections: the haphazard way in which they were collected; the chaos that dominated the displays; and the annoyance that later employees expressed for what they had inherited—an ­overwhelmingly poorly documented and chaotic mess. Or so they said. The dominance of objects from British Columbia is understandable as well. Adrian Jacobsen acquired one of the museum’s most notable collections from the Pacific Northwest coast in the early 1880s. It was greeted with fanfare upon arrival and is still highly regarded today. The irony is that these objects stemmed from people whose representatives were not well received when they arrived in 1885 as one of Carl Hagenbeck’s first ethnological troupes (Völkerschauen) and traveled with Jacobsen throughout Germany. As Wolfgang Haberland explained years ago in a telling essay titled “These Indians are False!,” the Bella Coola appeared too small, too dark, too much like Asians compared to the usual German image of American Indians. Plus, their material culture was wrong: they had no horses or tipis, and they were nothing like the Sioux.50 As Haberland taught us, and as

174 | H. Glenn Penny

Hagenbeck and other entrepreneurs like him quickly learned, Germans had fairly clear ideas about American Indians from reading the novels and the stories in their periodicals, and those ideas excluded the kinds of diversity one could find in the museum displays and the complexity pursued by German ethnologists. Still, that might not have dissuaded the children, and as Liselotte WelskopfHenrich and many others have articulated, the wonder these narratives produced stimulated thought and questions and, hence, also the authenticity tournament that ran through much of German accounts of American Indians over time, as each generation sought to answer the ubiquitious question: What are they (the Indians) really like? The museum might have helped, if children approached it diligently. But it was more likely to reinforce common stereotypes and older tropes than unleash new insights. For example, the Berlin museum contained numerous things in prominent places that would have drawn in adults and children alike. These objects easily fit into the visions built up in the novels and images drawn or painted by artists like Cronau for German periodicals, and from at least 1861, included a series of paintings by the American artist George Catlin. His images of bold Plains Indians would have contextualized the collections.51 Similarly, we know that a large tipi collected by Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied was positioned in the middle of the hall in the 1860s, and, after the new museum building was opened in 1881, it took its place with other exceptional and large items in the vestibule, a room every visitor encountered soon after entering. In that sense, these objects, juxtaposed with impressive carved wooden house polls from the Haida and Tsemschian (often mischaracterized as totem polls) from the Pacific Northwest and easily combined, for example, with a now famous Bella Bella canoe could easily mislead visitors and reinforce clicheés. Indeed, in 1891 that canoe and Catlin’s painting of Plains warriors sat directly across from each other, despite the fact that the people they represented lived over a thousand miles apart. Is it such a surprise, then, that such an odd mix of materials from widely different cultures (i.e., tipis, totem polls, and birch-bark canoes) commonly were placed together in comic books, pulp fiction, and toys produced by the turn of the century? By 1900, the museum guides underscored new collections from contemporary Plains Indians that also could have attracted children. Some visitors might have carefully read through the guides to make sense of them, or perhaps discerned the various cultural categories from the collections. However, a child would have to have been extremely precocious with more patience than the average adult to sort through the mix of materials from the Omaha, Winnebago, and various Sioux tribes donated by Alice Fletcher, Clark Wissler, and Karl von den Steinen.52 The scientific museum, in other words, might have afforded some children new insights, but it could just have easily legitimated and perpetuated commonly held ideas, images, and myths.53

German Children and American Indians  | 175

Conclusion During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Frederik Hetmann and Alfred Keil conducted surveys of West German children and confirmed that a series of stereotypes about American Indians were common among them.54 The most pervasive were the tropes of “good” and “bad” Indians that could easily be broken down into categories scholars have identified as characteristic of the noble savage— courageous, honest, strong, in tune with nature—and the ignoble savage—cruel, ferocious, wild. Their explanation, which has been repeatedly confirmed, was that children’s literature about American Indians had long depended on those tropes.55 The problem, they explained, began with Cooper, whose portraits were never all that authentic. Cooper already was dealing in nostalgia as he wrote his books; he wrote less about a world he knew well than one he wished he had seen.56 Moreover, as a number of studies have shown, the children’s versions of Cooper’s books reduced the complexity of the characters and his accounts further, until the tensions between the settlers and the “redskins” in his texts easily became tensions between rarefied representations of good and evil. Karl May most famously picked up on that theme, taking it, perhaps, to its greatest extension.57 As Karl Marcus Kreis has argued, that was precisely the source of his popularity: such simple divisions make the parts easy to play, and the recourse to cowboy hats, feathers, revolvers, tomahawks, as well as “stereotyped rituals from scalping to tying their victims to the stake” easily brought these dream worlds to life.58 Anyone could do it. So many did. Consequently, this theme became the one most authors either embraced, as did May, or combated, as did Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich. Either way, their engagement with that theme enhanced the appeal and legitimacy of their tales. The insidious aspect of this longer history of German children and American Indians is that it is also a story that includes German adults passing down their romanticized childhood memories, encouraging further mimesis, and promoting stereotypical play. Adults occupied critical roles in this history as authors, readers, and willing discussants. Ironically, more complex explanations offered by ethnologists or pedagogues to children seem to have done little, and continue to do very little, to undermine the tropes.59 The kinds of instructional play Hamlin discusses in this volume, in which tin Indians allowed children to work through historical themes, were in fact widespread at the end of the nineteenth century, yet they also were largely overwhelmed by such tropes. That becomes readily apparent when we step back and survey the long history of this discourse, including scholarship by Hetmann and Keil, who offered children more accurate, authentic, or live versions of American Indians. As Peter Bolz once illustrated, the general impact of that corrective was quite limited.60 The myths and tropes prevailed, reinforced far beyond the world of scholarship by everyday encounters with written and visual texts in playgrounds, schools, and streets.

176 | H. Glenn Penny

Indeed, in some ways, scholars’ ongoing engagement with the topic legitimated children’s focus on it.61 Perhaps that is because throughout these debates, throughout the pedagogical discussions as well as the romantic readings and performances, American Indians functioned as liminal characters in which German children learned more about themselves and their idealizations about good and bad character traits, about the importance of the natural world for human happiness, and definitions about what was indeed natural than they learned about ostensible “others.” I suspect, however, that this dynamic also had a lot to do with the visual worlds of nineteenth-century German children, which likely included many modes of reinforcement beyond books and toys. Good work has been done on such visual culture with regard to German colonialism. In his Advertising Empire, for example, David Ciarlo dug deep into the locations of German ideas about colonized people within their often overlooked visual culture, which was arguably far more pervasive than art, illustrations, or novels, particularly before the turn toward comic books and mass-produced toys.62 He found ubiquitous images of colonized people in a range of advertisements, brands, and labels, and showed trends during the late nineteenth century toward increasing simplification—not unlike what scholars have found in the literature on American Indians. Such markers tying American Indians to everything from cigarettes to motorcycles are well researched for the twentieth century. Peter Bolz included a stunning assortment in his display on clichés. It would be worth finding out more about those visual images in nineteenth-century Germany and reconstructing the part of visual culture that animated the world of German children. For if, as Hamlin notes in his contribution, “play did not have a unitary meaning,” the mass production of imagery identified by Ciarlo pushed an unquestionable homogenization of messages and imagination about putatively unitary groups of non-Europeans in the visual worlds of German children by the turn of the century. Perhaps then, as Hamlin notes, concern about such homogenization was central to critiques of modern toys at that time because, as Ciarlo teaches us, that shift in play was only part of a much larger shift in visual consumption that promoted hegemonic images rather than complex understandings. H. Glenn Penny is Professor of Modern European History at the University of Iowa. He is the author of Objects of Culture: Ethnology and Ethnographic Museums in Imperial Germany (UNC Press, 2002); Kindred by Choice: Germans and American Indians since 1880 (UNC Press, 2013); and In Humboldt’s Shadow: A Tragic History of German Ethnology (C. H. Beck, 2019). He is also the editor (together with Matti Bunzl) of Worldly Provincialism: German Anthropology in the Age of Empire (University of Michigan Press, 2003); and (with Laura Graham) Performing Indigeneity: Global Histories and Contemporary Experiences (Nebraska University Press, 2014). He is currently engaged in an in-depth study of German

German Children and American Indians  | 177

interactions with Guatemala and completing a book manuscript titled Unbinding German History, 1760s–1960s for Cambridge University Press.

Notes   1. Mauch, “Zwischen Edelmut und Roheit,” 629.   2. Much of the material for this chapter stems from my book Kindred by Choice: Germans and American Indians since 1800 by H. Glenn Penny. Copyright © 2013 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. www.uncpress.org. I am grateful to the University of North Carolina Press for permission to revisit some of that material here.   3. See Penny, “Red Power.”   4. See inter alia, Peipp and Springer, Edle Wilde Rote Teufel.   5. The scholarship on Karl May is legion. A good introduction is Schmiedt, Karl May.   6. A nice introduction is Weber, “Staged Indians.”   7. Kramer, Micky, Marx und Manitu.   8. Albrecht, “Karl May Museum.”   9. Das Leben im Bild; “Die Eröffnung des Karl-May-Museums in Radebeul”; Vogt, “Ein KarlMay-Museum,” all in the Archive of the Karl May Museum in Radebeul. 10. “Die Eröffnung des Karl-May-Museums in Radebeul.” 11. On this element of play, see Kalshoven, Crafting “the Indian.” 12. Rietschel, “Neues aus dem Karl-May-Museum Radebeul.” A good number of these images are reproduced in Kort, I Like America. 13. E. U., “‘Manitou’ unter Radebeuls Himmel,” in the Archive of the Karl May Museum in Radebeul. The title of the newspaper is missing. See also KKN, “Kinder Manitous: Eine Reportage vom Indianertag in Radebeul,” Dresdener Stadt-Rundschau, 22 October 1964, for a similar report from eight years earlier. See also Seifert, Patty Frank, 11. 14. Heermann, “Die Erben des Yotanka,” Wochenpost, 25 Febrary 1972. 15. For further discussion of emulation, performance, and play, see especially Kalshoven, Crafting “the Indian,” and Weber, “‘Indians’ on German Stages.” 16. They paused in Strasbourg for the winter in October 1890 before resuming their tour again in April 1891. 17. For an extensive discussion, see Warren, Buffalo Bill’s America. 18. Ames, “Seeing the Imaginary.” 19. Moses, Wild West Shows, 91. 20. The many iterations of his texts and their appeal across gender, geography, social class, and time is well documented. See inter alia, Barba, “Cooper in Germany”; Beebe, “Search for a Fatherland”; and Rossbacher, Lederstrumpf in Deutschland. 21. Wolff, “Buffalo Bill.” 22. B. V., Dresdener Journal, 7 June 1890. 23. Berliner Zeitung, 24 July 1890. Clipping located in the Harold McCracken Research Library. 24. See, for example: “Ein Indianerkrieg in Sicht?”; and Dr. Fr. D., “Das Aussterben der Indianer.” 25. Penny, Kindred by Choice, 113. 26. “Indianergewohnheiten, die Civilization des wilden Westen, Sitten und Gewohnheiten des Rothäute, alles das konnten wir circa vierzehn Tage lang gut studieren,” Dresdener Tageblatt, 15 June 1890; for an example of an Indian village erected in Dresden only a few years later, complete with performances by Germans, see “Das Albertfest in Dresden,” 267–68.

178 | H. Glenn Penny

27. For example, Trache, “Pullmann u. Mack’s Wild West Show,” 428. 28. Griffin, Four Years in Europe, 80. 29. Feest, “Europe’s Indians,” 316. 30. See inter alia, Sammons, Ideology, Mimesis, Fantasy. 31. Lutz, “Indianer” und “Native Americans,” 266. 32. Plischke, Von Cooper bis Karl May, 50–51; see also Ashliman, “Novel of Western Adventure,” 142. 33. Barba, “Cooper in Germany.” 34. Billington, Land of Savagery; cf. Nirenburg, Reception of American Literature, 61–62. 35. Plischke, Von Cooper bis Karl May, 7, 50. 36. Lutz, “Indianer” und “Native Americans,” 154 37. Ibid., 173–74. 38. Ibid., 269. 39. Penny, “Elusive Authenticity.” 40. Ashliman, “Novel of Western Adventure,” 140. 41. This has been happening since the 1970s in schools as well. See inter alia, Göpfert, “Das Project Indianer im offenen Geschichtsunterricht.” 42. Penny, Objects of Culture. 43. See Judith Blume’s contribution to this volume concerning the ways that trading cards also trained collectors to think in classifications. 44. Ibid., 144–45. 45. Führer durch die Sammlungen, both the 1887 and 1900 editions. 46. Bolz and Sanner, Native American Art. 47. Hartmann, “Abteilung Amerikanische Naturvölker.” 48. Ibid., 225. 49. Ibid., 228. 50. Haberland, “‘Diese Indianer sind Falsch.’” 51. Meyen, Die Kunstkammer und Sammlung für Völkerkunde, 69–72. For a history of these paintings, see Bolz, “Indianerbilder für den König.” 52. Führer durch die Sammlungen (1900), 138. 53. Indeed, Bolz has even identified mistaken or at least misguided combinations of artifacts and clothing on mannequins in the museum during the interwar period. Bolz and Sanner, Native American Art. 54. Hetmann and Keil, Indianer heute. 55. For a fuller discussion up to the 1980s, see Lutz, “Indianer” und “Native Americans.” 56. Ibid., 19–20. 57. Ibid., 21. 58. Kreis, “German Wild West,” 256. 59. This was the subtext of a display about American Indians and German clichés that he created in the late 1990s in Berlin’s Ethnological Museum (Museum für Völkerkunde). Bolz, “Indians and Germans: A Relationship Riddled with Clichés,” in Bolz and Sanner, Native American Art, 9–22. 60. Ibid. 61. For example: the pamphlet produced for visitors to Hagenbeck’s 1910 Völkershau of Lakota  from  Pine Ridge, which contained considerable factual information about the Lakotas’ history and the conditions they faced in 1910 on the reservation. That report only enhanced the verisimilitude of the displays. It did not undermine the romance of the performances. “1910 Völkerschau; Oglala-Sioux-Indianer. Text von Johs. Flemming” in Hagenbeck Archive. 62. Ciarlo, Advertising Empire.

German Children and American Indians  | 179

Bibliography Archival Sources Archive of the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Welskopf Nachlass (LLWH Collected Papers) Archive of the Karl May Museum in Radebeul, news clippings. Hagenbeck Archive, Hamburg. Harold McCracken Research Library, Buffalo Bill Historical Research Center, Cody Wyoming. Series IX, Box 5—Scrapbook from Germany, June–October 1890.

Primary Sources Albrecht, Egon-Erich. “Karl May Museum.” Hamburgischer Correspondent, 1 December 1928. B. V. [untitled]. Dresdener Journal, 7 June 1890. D., Fr., Dr. “Das Aussterben der Indianer.” Leipziger Zeitung, 20 June 1890. “Das Albertfest in Dresden.” Leipziger Illustrirte Zeitung, 2 September 1893, 267–68. Führer durch die Sammlungen des Museums für Völkerkunde. Berlin: W. Spemann, 1887 and 1900. Das Leben im Bild, no. 49, 1928 (Illustrirte Beilage zum Sächsischen Erzähler: Tagesblatt für Bischofswerda, Neukirch und Umgegend). “Die Eröffnung des Karl-May-Museums in Radebeul: Blick in eine alte Kulturwelt.” Dresdener Neueste Nachrichten, 20 November 1928. “Ein Indianerkrieg in Sicht?” Freiburger Anzeiger und Tagblatt, 1 June 1890. “Indianergewohnheiten, die Civilization des wilden Westen, Sitten und Gewohnheiten des Rothäute, alles das konnten wir circa vierzehn Tage lang gut studieren.” Dresdener Tageblatt, 15 June 1890. Meyen, Alexander. Die Kunstkammer und Sammlung für Völkerkunde im Neuen Museum. Berlin: A. Vogel, 1861. Trache, R. “Pullmann u. Mack’s Wild West Show im Zoologischen Garten zu Dresden.” Leipziger Illustrirte Zeitung, 28 September 1899, 428. Vogt, Arno. “Ein Karl-May-Museum.” Berliner Tageblatt, 30 November 1928. Wolff, Fritz Cl. “Buffalo Bill.” Leipziger General Anzeiger, 22 June 1890.

Secondary Sources Ames, Eric. “Seeing the Imaginary: On the Popular Reception of Wild West Shows in Germany,  1885–1910.” In I Like America, edited by Pamela Kort, 213–29. Munich: Prestel, 2006. Ashliman, D. L. “The Novel of Western Adventure in Nineteenth-Century Germany.” Western American Literature 3, no. 2 (1968): 133–45. Barba, Preston Albert. “Cooper in Germany.” Indiana University Studies 2, no. 21 (1914): 51–104. Beebe, Barton Carl. “The Search for a Fatherland: James Fenimore Cooper in Germany.” PhD diss., Princeton University, 2008. Billington, Ray Allen. Land of Savagery Land of Promise: The European Image of the American Frontier in the Nineteenth Century. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981.

180 | H. Glenn Penny

Bolz, Peter. “Indianerbilder für den König: George Catlin in Europa.” In I Like America, edited by Pamela Kort, 68–85. Munich: Prestel, 2006. Bolz, Peter, and Hans-Ulrich Sanner, eds. Native American Art: The Collections of the Ethnological Museum Berlin. Berlin: G&H, 1999. Ciarlo, David. Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. Feest, Christian F. “Europe’s Indians.” In The Invented Indian: Cultural Fictions and Government Policies, edited by James A. Clifton, 313–32. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990. Göpfert, Hans. “Das Project ‘Indianer’ im offenen Geschichtsunterricht als Beitrag zur Friedenserziehung.” Geschichtsdidaktik 8, no. 2 (1983): 107–25. Griffin, Charles Eldridge. Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill. Albla, IA: Stage Publishing Company, 1908. Haberland, Wolfgang. “‘Diese Indianer sind Falsch’: Neun Bella Coola im Deutschen Reich 1885/6.” Archiv für Völkerkunde 42 (1988): 3–67. Hartmann, Horst. “Abteilung Amerikanische Naturvölker.” In 100 Jahre Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin, edited by K. Krieger and G. Koch, 219–59. Baessler-Archiv: Beiträge zur Völkerkunde, n.s., 21, 1973. Hetmann, Frederik, and Alfred Keil. Indianer heute: Bericht über eine Minderheit. 3rd ed. Berlin: Ullstein, 1984. Kalshoven, Petra Tjitske. Crafting “the Indian”: Knowledge, Desire, and Play in Indianist Reenactment. New York: Berghahn Books, 2012. Kort, Pamela, ed. I Like America. Munich: Prestel, 2006. Kramer, Thomas. Micky, Marx und Manitu: Zeit- und Kulturgeschichte im Spiegel eines DDRComics 1955–1990—“Mosaik” als Fokus von Medienerlebnissen im NS und in der DDR. Berlin: Weidler Buchverlag, 2002. Kreis, Karl Markus. “German Wild West: Karl May’s Invention of the Definitive Indian.” In I Like America, edited by Pamela Kort, 248–73. Munich: Prestel, 2006. Lutz, Hartmut. “Indianer” und “Native Americans”: Zur sozial- und literarhistorischen Vermittlung eines Stereotyps. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1985. Mauch, Christof. “Zwischen Edelmut und Roheit: Indianer und Schwarze aus deutscher Perspektive.” Amerikastudien 40, no. 4 (1995): 619–36. Moses, L. G. Wild West Shows and the Images of American Indians 1883–1933. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996. Nirenburg, Morton. The Reception of American Literature in German Periodicals, 1820–1850. Heidelberg: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien, 1970. Penny, H. Glenn. Objects of Culture: Ethnology and Ethnographic Museums in Imperial Germany. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. ———. “Elusive Authenticity: The Quest for the Authentic Indian in German Public Culture.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 48, no. 4 (2006): 798–818. ———. “Red Power: Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich and Indian Activist Networks in East and West Germany.” Central European History 41, no. 3 (2008): 447–76. ———. Kindred by Choice: Germans and American Indians since 1800. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. Peipp, Matthias, and Bernhard Springer. Edle Wilde Rote Teufel: Indianer im Film. Munich: Wilhelm Heyne, 1997. Plischke, Hans. Von Cooper bis Karl May. Düsseldorf: Droste-Verlag, 1951.

German Children and American Indians  | 181

Rietschel, Hartmut. “Neues aus dem Karl-May-Museum Radebeul: Elk Ebers Irokesenhäuptling.” Amerindianresearch 7/3 (25): 167–74. Rossbacher, Karlheinz. Lederstrumpf in Deutschland; zur Rezeption James Fenimore Coopers beim Leser der Restaurationszeit. München: W. Fink, 1972. Sammons, Jeffrey L. Ideology, Mimesis, Fantasy: Charles Sealsfield, Friedrich Gerstäcker, Karl May, and Other German Novelists of America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Schmiedt, Helmut. Karl May: Leben, Werk und Wirkung. 3rd ed. Frankfurt: Hain, 1992. Seifert, Wolfgang. Patty Frank: Der Zirkus, Die Indianer, Das Karl-May-Museum. Radebeul: Karl May Verlag, 1998. Warren, Louis S. Buffalo Bill’s America: William Cody and the Wild West Show. New York: Vintage, 2005. Weber, A. Dana. “‘Indians’ on German Stages: The History and Meaning of Karl May Festivals.” PhD diss., Indiana University, Bloomington, 2010. ———. “Staged Indians: Native Americans in German Theatre and Karl-May-Festivals.” In Visual Representations of Native Americans: Transnational Contexts and Perspectives, edited by Karsten Fitz, 163–77. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2012.

Chapter 8

“Don’t You Take Pity on Your Little Brothers and Sisters in China?” Missionary Literature for Children and the Distribution of Relational Knowledge in Imperial Germany Katharina Stornig

S In 1893, Catholic priest and teacher of religion Franz Wetzel (1849–1903)1 issued an anniversary publication for children.2 With this, he aimed to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Holy Childhood Association, a philanthropic Catholic organization promoting religious aid for children in China, and to contribute to its further expansion. Attempting to inspire active engagement particularly among juvenile readers in Germany, Wetzel’s book, like several other contemporary missionary publications for children, imparted a specific type of religious knowledge that combined Catholic (moral) teachings, a broad range of information on China produced and disseminated by missionaries worldwide, and a set of (universal) ideas and assumptions about pedagogy, education, and the nature and status of children more generally. As I will show in this chapter, this specific type of religious knowledge involved not only authoritative views about (different parts of) the world and peoples but also derived concrete standards for attitudes and actions from information produced and circulated in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century missionary contexts. Wetzel started his book with a short description of China, emphasizing its colossal size and large population. Characterizing China initially as a “beautiful” and “rich” country, he soon moved on to describing what he presented as its major deficiency: the people of China suffered from a severe disadvantage, for they lacked knowledge about what Wetzel claimed to be the “true faith.”3 Wetzel subsequently derived implications from this assessment that went well beyond the spiritual realm. While for him the lack of Catholic knowledge, on the one hand, involved a lost opportunity for individual salvation, it also resulted in the brutal treatment of people and particularly of children, on the other. Citing Notes from this chapter begin on page 195.

Missionary Literature for Children  | 183

reports from China-based missionaries, Wetzel claimed that many Chinese mothers and fathers abandoned, sold, or even killed their children due to distress, opium addiction, or simple disinterest. He stated that child abandonment was a “national custom” in China, where “heartless mothers” would “not grow sad” in the slightest about this treatment of children.4 Reproducing a narrative of “heathen” China that the Holy Childhood Association had developed and endlessly repeated since its foundation in 1843, Wetzel told his readers about masses of non-Catholic infants that had ended up in the streets of major cities, where they died of hunger or became the victims of wild animals. Wetzel related this sad reality for Chinese children to his young readers in Germany, whom he also addressed directly at one point: This is the fate of many thousands of children in China and other heathen countries. How sad are these children! My dear child, read again what I have been telling you about the poor heathen children and then tell: Don’t you take pity on your little brothers and sisters in China? Don’t you want to aid them?5

Wetzel thus did not use the anniversary booklet just to distribute specific knowledge on China and the far-reaching (social) impact of “true religion.” He also aimed to touch his readers emotionally to prompt them to charitable action. Wetzel instructed his readers about their privileged place in the world, for they had access to both “true” religious knowledge and loving adults (that is, parents and teachers) who cared for their religious and material well-being.6 “How happy you are and how rich compared to the heathen children!” he exclaimed, relating German children’s situation to that of their Chinese peers.7 Simultaneously, he pointed out that this privileged position necessarily involved duties and responsibilities toward less privileged others. Wetzel listed a set of ethical imperatives and explicitly invited juvenile readers to express gratitude, religious severity, faithfulness, and active charity toward those he cast as their needy “little brothers and sisters in China.”8 His book, like much other contemporary missionary literature for children, imparted a specific type of religious knowledge that included information about the suffering of Chinese children as well as young German Catholics’ duty to come to their aid. This chapter analyzes missionary literature for children in imperial Germany and particularly examines the views and imaginaries of the world it conveyed.9 It argues that the world knowledge this literature produced and disseminated is best understood as relational knowledge, because it necessarily implied powerful ideas, information, interpretations, and affective potential that resided in (imagined) relationships with “others”; it was meant to inspire what missionary circles valued as meaningful action. Missionary literature for children not only constructed the world according to an imagined binary of Christian and non-­Christian (“heathen”) lands and/or peoples but also claimed that myriad

184 | Katharina Stornig

relationships and responsibilities obtained between them. It promoted an understanding of the world as a space where Christian children were to take action to save their non-Christian counterparts, who, in turn, were depicted both as fellow children sharing basic needs and qualities and religious, racial, and cultural “others.” The world this literature constructed was thus shaped by the idea of juvenile agency in a globalizing context. The knowledge Christian authors in Germany produced and disseminated not only informed young readers about the world as an abstract spatial unit inhabited by different peoples and “cultures” but also situated them in this world, understood as a concrete entity marked by spiritual and profane connections, hierarchies, and social relationships. Whereas historical scholarship has recently emphasized the crucial role that Christian missions played in the transnational production of knowledge10 and pointed to missionary periodicals’ importance in this context more generally,11 so far little attention has been paid to the function of missionary literature for children. Existing studies on child-centered missionary literature predominantly focus on analyzing textual constructions of the non-Western Other. Felicity Jensz, examining The Little Missionary, a Moravian periodical issued in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, traces the dissemination of harsh stereotypes of non-Western peoples and growing American patriotism between 1870 and 1895.12 Similarly, Hugh Morrison shows how Protestant Britishness was introduced to settler children in Canada and New Zealand through missionary literature from England and Scotland.13 Generally, scholarship on missionary literature for children tends to privilege English (and, to a lesser extent, French) publications and has only very recently turned to German publications.14 Most notably, historian Richard Hölzl uses German missionary literature for children to examine the production of what he calls “global feelings” like pity and empathy across large geographic distances.15 Hölzl argues convincingly that depictions of distant suffering served as a media strategy to inspire readers’ emotional response and therewith to “bridge the spatial and cultural distance” between children in Germany and children in Africa.16 Yet, the present chapter goes even further: proposing the notion of relational knowledge, it argues that the very act of positioning and relating was at the heart of missionary constructions of the world for children. As will be shown, mission-produced information from certain parts of the world emphasizing racial and cultural difference merged in the periodicals with Catholic universalisms (for example, the normative concept of the unity of the human family17) and practices of charity. The relational knowledge communicated in missionary literature situated child readers in a complex set of transnational relationships, which involved not only relations with God, the Church, religious authorities, and fellow human beings but also ties with adults, other Christian children, and the apparently needy children around the world. Even though these relationships were based on powerful universalisms such as Christianity and childhood, most were conceptualized hierarchically and thus produced and communicated

Missionary Literature for Children  | 185

a vision of the world that gained meaning through (dichotomous) notions such as “black” and “white,” “heathen” and “Christian,” “civilized” and “uncivilized,” and “needy” and “aiding.” Consequently, this chapter stresses the ambiguities that shaped missionary representations of (colonial) “others”: even as the texts promoted a universal notion of childhood, they simultaneously confirmed religious, cultural, and racial hierarchies.

Children as Objects and Agents of Christian Missions In the nineteenth century, children moved into the focus of Christian missionaries in two ways. While they came to see non-Christian children throughout the world as formable and particularly promising candidates for religious instruction, they viewed Christian children in Europe and North America increasingly as charitable actors and future pillars of the churches.18 This growing importance of children in religious policies related to young people’s shifting status and new constructions of childhood in Western societies more generally. Hugh Cunningham and others argue that children and childhood moved to the center of adult attention in the eighteenth century; increasingly, adults regarded the young as innocent, valuable, and formable human beings they had to save, raise, and educate in caring and responsible ways.19 These powerful ideas, combined with the movement toward mass education and the expansion of pedagogy, also affected religious circles. It found expression in the creation of separated spaces and institutions for children (classes, associations, orphanages, etc.), as well as in an unprecedented abundance of child-centered teaching and publishing.20 Missionary leaders showed new interest in children and education, and some promoted the missionary venture, especially, as a productive activity for boys and girls, in the belief that they had a significant contribution to make. The foundation and international expansion of the Holy Childhood Association impressively demonstrates the new and dual role assigned to children in missionary strategies.21 The Holy Childhood Association, founded by Bishop Charles de ForbinJanson (1785–1844) in France in 1843, was the first Catholic institution dedicated to children raising funds and providing support. Modeled on the example of existing associations for adults,22 it encouraged baptized boys and girls under twelve to become members, inviting them to pay a small monthly membership fee and say a Hail Mary every day along with the words “Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us and the poor heathen children!”23 The young members were divided into groups of twelve that shared a free copy of the association’s periodical every three months. This practice adapted the collective reading used by many missionary communities at that time. In addition, the Holy Childhood Association called on its members to contribute actively to fundraising by, for instance,

186 | Katharina Stornig

providing small works, saving pocket money, or organizing charitable lotteries on behalf of the apparently needy children in distant China. Thus, the association advocated that Catholic children of Europe save Chinese infants, depicted as the innocent victims of “heathen” and “barbarian” adults,24 with donations and prayers. “Saving” in this context was understood in a dual way: in the religious sense of saving valuable souls through baptism and in the physical sense of rescuing abandoned and neglected children. Within the next decades, the association quickly expanded in its membership and geographic scope of action. It established branches in Belgium, Prussia, the Habsburg Empire, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, and the United States, for example.25 While the promotional material focused tightly on China, the association soon developed into a large fundraising organization that supported all kinds of child-centered missionary work in Asia and Africa. Between 1883 and 1903, revenues amounted to nearly seventy million francs. In this period, the German branch alone raised twenty million francs.26 Although the association’s financial success depended largely on the donations raised among adults,27 it would be wrong to underestimate children’s practical involvement and the multiple ways the association’s activities touched the lives of young Catholics in Germany and elsewhere.28 Children learned about the Holy Childhood Association and its mission in church and at school. As mentioned, all members regularly received its periodical, the Jahrbücher des Vereins der Heiligen Kindheit (JVHK, Annals of the Holy Childhood Association), which presented a range of news and reports from the worldwide fields of mission and association activities at home and in other Christian countries. Moreover, many children attended special events and masses organized by the association, which created its own imagery and symbolism through texts, pictures, and hymns.29 The association thus constituted an important site through which many children in Germany and Europe encountered (parts of) the world beyond their immediate social space of experience. Yet, the Holy Childhood Association was not the only missionary initiative for children at that time. Protestant churches likewise mobilized children’s support, including them as a distinct group of actors in the missionary venture. Church leaders across Europe started printing and distributing promotional materials for juvenile audiences on a large scale. In Britain, missionary leaders used the Sunday school movement to fuel young people’s interest.30 In Wilhelmine Germany, the expansion of state schooling likewise attracted mission-sending organizations, which increasingly sought to establish mission as an educational subject and use Christian teachers as multipliers in distributing missionary knowledge. It is thus no coincidence that the leading figures in the emerging theological discipline of missiology in Germany also addressed the relationship between children, missionizing, and schooling in their writings. For instance, in 1887, Protestant missiologist Gustav Warneck (1834–1910) published a handbook for teachers designed to show them how to include the

Missionary Literature for Children  | 187

theme of mission in the classroom.31 The handbook appeared in twelve editions through 1909, and its success also inspired Catholic authors.32 In 1912, missiologist Friedrich Schwager (1876–1929) presented a similar publication for Catholic teachers, whom he considered key players in the transmission of missionary knowledge. Given the broader religious developments in Europe and beyond (such as secularism, the growth of Islam, and the spread of Protestant missions), Schwager insisted that the Catholic Church join forces across all age groups and push its evangelizing activities. He believed no less was at stake than the status of the Church as the “universal Church” (Weltkirche), as well as the “religious future” of “all of non-Christian humanity.”33 Schwager thus claimed that there was a religious imperative to create “general interest” in the missionary venture also among children, although this task could “only be achieved through the assistance of the school” with the subject of mission being included in a formalized canon of learning.34 While church and school were important sites for Christian boys and girls to encounter missionary knowledge, the most important medium of transmission was literature. As indicated, the JVHK was the key instrument through which association leaders and missionaries in China and around the world communicated with its young members in Germany. The periodical appeared once each quarter and was read circularly within a group of twelve children constituting a sub-branch of the association. More concretely, the boy or girl who collected the membership fees within the group received the copy and was also responsible for its circulation. While reliable data concerning the JVHK’s circulation are sparse, a handbook from 1907 indicated that 140,000 copies were delivered.35 Multiplied by twelve, this makes a considerable reading audience, and we may well imagine how children, when passing the periodical on to their peers, commented on the new information and stories. Altogether, the second half of the nineteenth century saw the explosion of missionary children’s literature throughout Europe and North America. Between 1870 and 1900, more than one hundred new missionary children’s periodicals were started in the United States alone.36 Even though no comprehensive overview of child-centered missionary publishing in the German Empire has yet been written, we may nonetheless concur with Richard Hölzl that, by 1900, children’s literature had become part of the standard repertoire of missionary publishing.37 A recent handbook on children’s literature suggests that missionary periodicals were inexpensive and had large print runs.38 In Wilhelmine Germany, all major missionary societies, both Catholic and Protestant, produced children’s periodicals. Among Catholics, there were the Ottilien Congregation, the Congregation of Mariannhill Missionaries, the Pallottines, and the Saint Petrus Claver Sodality, publishing periodicals like Das Heidenkind, Der kleine Missionar, Kleine Afrika-Bibliothek, and Das Negerkind.39 Among Protestants, the Pietistic missionary circle around Pastor Christian Gottlob Barth (1799–1862) in Calw, which had actively published religious

188 | Katharina Stornig

literature since the mid-1830s, had launched a periodical for children, the Missionsblatt für Kinder, as early as 1842.40 Many others followed, indicating that there was a growing consensus among missionary leaders about the importance of reaching the young through literature. In 1904, the Bremen-based Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft started Missions-Kinderfreund, explicitly aiming to instruct young Christians in Northern Germany about their (present and future) roles in the missionizing Church. In the first issue, the editors addressed their young readers directly: “We do think that you should begin to help the mission a little already in childhood, so that once you are grown up you can efficiently help all heathens become Christians.”41 Generally, missionary periodicals constituted a significant genre in early twentieth-century children’s literature and functioned as a respected source of information about different places and societies worldwide that reached broad audiences also beyond the middle classes.42 Consequently, one can analyze them to discern what type of knowledge these periodicals circulated and to what extent they potentially shaped children’s conception of their place, purpose, and responsibilities in a globalizing world.

Producing Views of the World while Situating Children in the World Although the periodicals differed in style and content, most shared some key features. In this context, it is important to note that they competed with other religious and secular literature for children, which was likewise expanding at that time, providing new opportunities for juvenile reading and learning. Even though most periodicals were self-published, most adhered to market standards. The first issue of Missions-Kinderfreund (1904) explicitly named the well-known children’s magazines Der Deutsche Kinderfreund and Für unsere Kinder as models.43 Children’s periodicals were largely printed in small format, which visually distinguished them from adult periodicals. In addition, editors aimed to make them inexpensive and widely accessible. They were addressed to both boys and girls and issued on a regular basis, mostly in intervals of one to four months. They always included didactic passages addressing young readers directly, such as prefaces, letters from editors, or explicit requests for support. They were also illustrated, and from the 1890s contained photographs from around the world. Finally, yet importantly, they generally incorporated a broad mix of text types and literary genres, many inspired by established genres like hagiographies or fairytales. The periodicals contained letters and (eyewitness) reports from missionaries worldwide, and a (broad) range of fictional stories, religious instruction, and devotional texts. Readers thus felt as though they were receiving firsthand textual and visual information about different parts of the world. Furthermore, this information had authority because it was obtained

Missionary Literature for Children  | 189

from missionaries serving as eyewitnesses, strengthened by the fact that the periodicals’ geographical scope usually corresponded to the publishing organizations’ geographical focus. The Holy Childhood Association’s focus on China, noted above, also shaped the content of the JVHK. The periodical regularly included stories about what it presented as “heathen” customs, cruel Chinese adults, as well as little Chinese children happily being cared for by—mostly European—priests and nuns. Generally, the JVHK tended to reproduce the association’s main narrative, wherein innocent Chinese children suffered from the cruel attitudes and actions of “heathen” adults. In these accounts, many apparently written by China-based missionaries, references to age and religion emerged as key markers for either establishing difference or encouraging reader identification due to a shared status as children. Authors invited young readers to actively contribute to the missionary venture and also reported on young converts in China who not only became exemplary Christians but also actively assisted the missionaries in aiming to convert their parents or relatives. This trend gained momentum after the Boxer Rebellion, when there was an increase in report-style narratives from China based on a highly biased and age-based hierarchic differentiation of “the Chinese.” These reports informed German Christian children about both violent attacks of “heathen” and racialized adults and Christianized and heroic children in China, who resisted all suffering and accepted (or even embraced) a martyr-like death in the name of faith. The JVHK from April 1903, for instance, presented the allegedly real story of Li-hang-li, a young girl in “far back China, where the people are largely still heathen and hostile to Christianity.”44 In the introduction, readers learn that the girl belonged to a wealthy non-Christian family and that she nonetheless regularly visited the local Catholic missionary, attracting his attention as a model catechumen. Li-hang-li expressed her desire for baptism, which, however, could not be met because her guardian was a well-known mandarin and active “enemy” of the Church and the mission. Yet one day the priest relented, secretly baptizing Li-hang-li with the name Maria, causing her to “cry due to inner bliss.”45 This was a turning point in the story, because what the Christian readers valued as the girl’s conversion and the victory of Catholicism provoked the response of “Chinese heathendom.” In the story, the news about Li-hang-li’s conversion spread quickly. She returned home dutifully, where her furious uncle awaited her. He accused her of having betrayed her country and family and violently attacked her, almost blind with rage, beating her in the face until blood ran from her nose and mouth. Subsequently, he imprisoned her in a tower, where young Li-hang-li eventually succumbed to her injuries. However, at this point the narrative turned into a hagiography: Li-hang-li did not pass away without praying for both her violent uncle and her “heathen” mother, who, as a result of her beloved daughter’s violent death, left her brother-in-law’s “heathen” household

190 | Katharina Stornig

and escaped to a nearby Catholic convent. Hence, according to the Catholic logic of the story, Li-hang-li’s death was not senseless because she saved her own soul and even potentially initiated her mother’s conversion. In this story, the tireless activity of the priest and the girl’s exemplary behavior as a model Catholic generated a religious ethical message and consolation in the midst of “heathen” misbelief and violence. The clear binary opposition between “good” and “evil” corresponded to the differentiation between converted Chinese children, who resembled (or even provided role models for) European children, and “heathen” adults depicted as the racialized “other” of European Catholics. Similar plots appeared frequently in the JVHK, and young readers were no doubt familiar with the lessons they were invited to draw from them. Moreover, the JVHK in 1903 did not end Li-hang-li’s story without explicitly referring to the lives and attitudes of Christian children in Germany. While the “dear children” in Germany did not have to fear a “cruel mandarin,” they nonetheless “faced another enemy,” namely, “bad, faithless and immoral books and the godless despisers and mockers of religion, who aim to destroy the belief and mores in the souls of the youth.”46 Hence, the story ultimately generated meaning by relating the tale of a young girl somewhere in China to the lives of young German Catholics, who were invited to put their lives into perspective by comparing them to hers. The world of children in the JVHK was indeed built upon a myriad of imagined relations, references, and connections between children in China and Germany. When Catholic missionary activities expanded across Africa in the late nineteenth century, children from all parts of the continent likewise moved into the periodical’s focus and helped shape the worldviews of German Christian children. Thereafter, Africa-centered missionary organizations founded a range of new periodicals in the late nineteenth century that either focused on “Africa” as a whole or on specific regions. These periodicals constructed their major subject—“African children”—according to contemporary missionary views on religion, culture, age, and race/ethnicity, making them familiar for young readers in Germany. In addition, by 1900, images (particularly photographs) appeared regularly in the periodicals, transmitting new imaginaries of distant lands and peoples. For instance, a photograph of a black child was not only featured on the title page of the periodical Das Negerkind but also functioned after 1912 as an emblem of its publisher, the Saint Petrus Claver Sodality, an international Catholic association with its own printing press and the goal of raising funds for missionary work throughout Africa.47 The sodality published a broad range of literature for children, such as two periodicals and a long list of small booklets, (fictional) stories, and plays presenting a variety of ideas and information about “African childhoods.”48 In common to all of them was the linkage between the lives of African children and those of European Catholic children. Other missionary periodicals

Missionary Literature for Children  | 191

for children, such as the Protestant Missions-Kinderfreund and the Catholic Das Heidenkind, dealt primarily with areas in West and East Africa, respectively, with institutions active in publishing: the Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft and the Ottilien Congregation. Both operated predominantly in a national imperial framework, mainly reporting on the work of German missionaries and their supporting networks in Germany. Since both institutions acted chiefly in the German colonies of Togo and German East Africa, respectively, the German Empire and the responsibilities and achievements of imperial politics loomed large within their publications. While the geographical (and political) scope of individual periodicals largely depended on their publishing organization’s interests and expertise, all constructed the world with religious (and particularly Christian) points of reference. “Older” religious teachings merged with “new” knowledge that missionaries produced abroad, together creating an essentially binary and racialized view of the world, wherein European-Christian humanity was tasked with saving all non-Christian peoples in “heathen” lands. Here “heathendom” was not an abstract or theological concept but a racialized one applied to concrete settings in Africa and Asia (and in Oceania in other publishing contexts). Moreover, the authors homogenized these “heathen” spaces, associating them with darkness, sin, barbarity, need, and the workings of the devil. “Heathendom” came to diagnose social, religious, and cultural developments in parts of the world associated with adults who could not be persuaded of Christian doctrine. African children, in turn, were presented as “heathendom’s” primary victims, and Catholic children in Germany as their major hope. A poem in the Kleine Afrika-Bibliothek (1904) expressed this victimhood in the voice of an African child: “Listen to the sorrow of the heathen child, from Africa the black country.”49 In the early twentieth century, German missionary authors increasingly focused on the German colonies, outlining connections between Germany and missionary settings in Africa and the Pacific, imperial concerns, and Christian Europe’s mission to “civilize” the world.50 The periodicals described the people missionaries encountered, providing information about human diversity and religious difference in the empire and beyond, yet in a specific, systematized, and biased way. Hundreds of missionaries produced reports, generating a tableau of human diversity with Christian Europe and Imperial Germany at the top end of a hierarchically structured world of differences. Christianity, which missionaries spread “to all peoples,” became the driving force in evangelization and civilization, presented as universally valuable and without alternative—a key feature shared by missionary literature for children and adults alike.51 However, periodicals for young people were distinct in their focus on children and the notions of childhood and agency strongly informing their characterization of juvenile identity, as well as in their perception and presentation of children as harbingers of religious, social, and cultural change.

192 | Katharina Stornig

This tension between a universal conception of childhood and powerful constructions of (religious, cultural, racial, and national) difference can be found in all the periodicals analyzed. One telling example appeared in the Catholic periodical of the Ottilien Congregation, Das Heidenkind, which had been launched in 1887 and reached a print run of 80,000.52 In 1904, Das Heidenkind included a series of articles titled “Images from the Children’s World,” featuring photographs that took readers on a journey to the Netherlands, England, Portugal, Morocco, New Guinea, Hawaii, and Tasmania. The texts and photographs introduced a diverse world marked by religious, cultural, racial, and gender differences. At the same time, however, the author turned the experience of boys and girls in Germany into a universal point of reference and a benchmark against which (religious, cultural, racial, or social) difference was to be measured, somewhat presupposing the young German readers’ perspective. That is, the author not only emphasized the shared needs of children worldwide but simultaneously commented at length on the “different customs” and “looks” of children “in different countries and continents.”53 Hence, the “world of children” that the series constructed did not present a world made up by adding together different coexisting (national, racial, or cultural) units. Rather, it presented a world produced through relational knowledge because it was fundamentally marked by the (hierarchical) relationships, interactions, and shared concerns of the young. The part of the series dealing with Morocco, for instance, at first gave some information about the state of the country, its location, and its history. The author explained the colonial status quo and European interests in the region before turning to its inhabitants, consisting of three “tribes” —Berbers, Arabs, and Moors—but “no Negros.” Finally, the author described the contemporary religious situation from a historical perspective: Morocco and all of Northern Africa had “once” constituted “flourishing Christian countries” until Arabs had forcefully introduced Islam to the region. Despite emphasizing the divine commandment “to love all humans” and explicitly warning against “hating” people of different faiths, the author constructed Muslims as essentially “fanatic,” generalizing that “they do not want to tolerate other religions but to exterminate them by fire and sword.”54 Nevertheless, the author presented an image of “Morocco” through the photograph of a “pretty, young” boy openly smiling at the camera. An ambivalent view of Morocco emerged that was composed of cruel and fanatical adults and softly smiling children, with the text and image implicitly suggesting that caring Christians needed to love and raise “Arab” children to protect them from local adults. The editors utilized images of children from different backgrounds to present a vision of the world in which Christianity had a historical mission to perform. In the framework of this particular periodical and especially this series, children clearly had a special role to play in this mission, either supporting the missionary venture in Germany or benefiting from its efforts

Missionary Literature for Children  | 193

abroad. The world of children, as presented in this article (and series) derived from relating children’s needs and concerns, which sometimes conflicted with the social and religious realities in certain missionary sites. However, while most periodicals universalized children’s special status, inviting young readers to identify with non-Christian children elsewhere in the world, they still endowed the distinction between “heathen” and “Christian” children with tremendous significance. As more and more reports on Africa appeared, racial narratives grew more prevalent, with “heathen” and “Christian” children divided by racial traits. This practice in children’s missionary literature suggested and confirmed a hierarchical relationship between readers in Germany and the objects of their mission in Africa. Adjectives like “black” and “white” were pervasive and hardly ever explained (let alone contested), indicating that constructions of race and racial thought were omnipresent. Indeed, the authors took hierarchies of race and the desirability of whiteness for granted. Still, some periodicals presented missionizing explicitly as a means to challenge or at least to invert racial hierarchies. For example, in 1904, an Africa-based nun, in asking young readers of the Kleine Afrika-Bibliothek how they fulfilled their religious duties, suggested that Zulu children could potentially become “whiter” than the German readers by their Christian actions: “Or does the soul of one of these Zulu children … despite the black face, at the end shine brighter and whiter than yours?”55 This implied that religious and secular education had the power to make racial hierarchies flexible and sometimes undermine them. Other stories presented individual African or Asian children who had been converted as exemplary models and (explicitly or implicitly) invited young German readers to follow their pious example, despite their racial difference. These stories drew multiple relations between children in different parts of the world and presented these lifeworlds of others as deeply intertwined. This brings us back to the active role all these missionary periodicals assigned German Christian children in the mission venture. Usually, editors went beyond inviting readers to pray for children in Africa and Asia and told them how they could contribute to the missionary venture in their day-to-day lives. The Kleine Afrika-Bibliothek, for instance, urged children to actively support the missions and their distant peers by collecting stamps, tinfoil (for corrugated tin roofs in Africa), other goods central to the lives of children in Germany at that time (for example, clothes, toys,56 images, and books) or by raising money through special collections or theater performances.57 Furthermore, it celebrated the exemplary contributions of individual activist boys and girls. To name a few examples, an article from 1907 reported on the successful fundraising of secondary school students based at the German seminary in Bohosudov (Bohemia). These boys from humble background, it stated, had not only collected postcards, tinfoil, and “many, many thousands of stamps” for the missions but had also raised considerable sums by organizing a large feast involving singing, a play, and a raffle.58

194 | Katharina Stornig

Other periodicals likewise narrated positive examples of (usually gendered) juvenile activism. The Annals of the Holy Childhood Association (JVHK) were full of stories of Catholic boys and girls all over Europe and North America investing their time and money for the benefit of children suffering in China and elsewhere. In 1907, the article “The Testament of a Child” told the story of nine-year-old Walburga of the Swabian parish of Tapfheim, who had died of nephritis. On her deathbed, the girl, the beloved daughter of a miller, had asked her mother to forward her savings of 4.80 marks to the Holy Childhood Association for the benefit of the “poor heathen children.”59 Other accounts related the actions of charitable children who saved what little pocket money they had, went door to door collecting donations, performed small works, or sold sweets, toys, or their beloved pets to raise funds for the association to transfer to China.60 Similarly, the Missions-Kinderfreund published accounts of boys mailing presents such as balls or toys to Togo, and invited girls to sew dresses for the apparently needy children in Africa.61 Altogether, these accounts emphasized juvenile agency and also powerfully reproduced and disseminated the image of charitable children who not only cared about what was going on in the world but also took action. These children acted with charity, the periodicals suggested, because they knew about universal religious and moral duties as well as distant needs and ways to counter them. They knew about their place in the world and could relate the situation of “other” children, whom they perceived as needy for religious, material, or social reasons, to their own.

Conclusion Missionary literature for children addressed juvenile readers as representatives of both a universal community of children and members of a privileged community of (European and/or German) Christians expected to take action on behalf of their non-Christian counterparts in the “heathen” lands who needed salvation, rescue, instruction, and “civilization.” It produced racialized views and imaginaries of the world as a space of human and religious diversity and hierarchies as well as of universal truths and commandments. Most importantly for our purposes, missionary literature for children asserted and undermined a fundamental dichotomy of religion. On the one hand, it mediated a worldview constructed along the binary lines of Christian and “heathen” lands, yet, on the other, it promoted missionizing as a powerful and effective force for bridging this binary while assigning children active roles in this. Indeed, only by referencing multiple relations and imagined connections between children in different (Christian and non-Christian) parts of the globe did missionary literature transform this world into a meaningful place for children. As has been shown, missionary literature addressed its juvenile readers as charitable individuals who cared about

Missionary Literature for Children  | 195

happenings in the empire and beyond and who ought to take an active role in the Christian evangelization of the world. This implies that, once we understand reading as an active practice that impacted how children related to the world and felt about others,62 this literature emerges as a key site for the creation of a sense of place, space, belonging, and transnational relating. This is significant because such an analysis points to the complex ways that nineteenth- and early twentieth-century globalization affected children—that is, actors often overlooked by global historians. Katharina Stornig, Junior Professor of Cultural History at the University of Giessen, conducts research on gender history, mission history, media and religion, and the cultural history of aid and philanthropy. She is the author of Sisters Crossing Boundaries: German Missionary Nuns in Colonial Togo and New Guinea, 1897–1960 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2013) and has co-edited (with Judith Becker) a volume titled Menschen—Bilder—Eine Welt: Ordnungen von Vielfalt in der religiösen Publizistik um 1900 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2018). Her current project focuses on the history of transnational aid for children in the long nineteenth century.

Notes   1. Franz Xaver Bischof, “Wetzel, Franz Xaver,” Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (HLS). Retrieved 3 January 2017 from http://www.hls-dhs-dss.ch/textes/d/D46400.php.   2. Wetzel, Das goldene Jubiläum (1893).   3. Ibid., 4.   4. Ibid., 7.   5. Ibid., 8. All translations from German are the author’s own.   6. This relationship is also mirrored in the structure of the book, which consists of three sections: “The Poor Heathen Child,” “The Rich Christian Child,” and “The Charitable Christian Child.”   7. See Wetzel, Das goldene Jubiläum, 8.   8. Ibid., 9.   9. This chapter is based on the analysis of missionary literature for children as well as on archival research performed in the Archivio Storico di Propaganda Fide (hereafter APF) and the historical archives of the Pontifical Association of the Holy Childhood (hereafter POSI). I particularly thank the editors, Benjamin Brendel, the reviewers of this volume, and the members of the Colloquium of the Institute for German Cultural Studies at Cornell University for helpful suggestions and perceptive comments on earlier versions of this chapter. I thank Sabrina Stünkel and especially Patricia C. Sutcliffe for their work editing this chapter. 10. For instance, see Habermas and Hölzl, “Mission global”; Rebekka Habermas, “Colonies in the Countryside”; Ratschiller and Weichlein, “Der schwarze Körper.” 11. Jensz, “Origins of Missionary Periodicals,” 234; Jensz and Acke, “Introduction.”

196 | Katharina Stornig

12. See Jensz, “Firewood,” 168. 13. Morrison, “‘Impressions.” 14. For example, see Morrison, “Empire, Nation, and Religion”; Elleray, “Little Builders”; Harrison, “‘A Penny for the Little Chinese.’” For an analysis of secular youth magazines in Imperial Germany, see Bowersox, “Boy’s and Girl’s Own Empires,” e.g., 61. 15. See Hölzl, “‘Mitleid’ über große Distanz.” 16. Ibid., 293. 17. This concept relates to the claim that all human beings form a solidary community. See Kruip, “Unity of the Human Family,” 270–71. 18. See Vallgårda, Imperial Childhoods; Morrison and Martin, Creating Religious Childhoods. 19. See Cunningham, Children and Childhood, 58; Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child, 5. 20. Bellaigue, “Faith and Religion,” 163. 21. See Heywood, “Missionary Children,” 447. 22. See Faschingeder, “Missionsgeschichte als Beziehungsgeschichte,” 10–11. 23. Der Verein der heiligen Kindheit, 1. This was in a section delineating the rules for the association. 24. The narrative production of solidarity with children and the simultaneous differentiation from adults in the Holy Childhood Association is discussed in Stornig, “Between Christian Solidarity and Human Solidarity.” 25. In addition, funds were raised in a range of other countries within and beyond Europe. See Arens, Die katholischen Missionsvereine, 74. 26. Only the French Holy Childhood Association raised more funds than the German one. See ibid., 74–75. 27. This is at least suggested by a letter of Sister Aloysia Vossen (1819–89), who served as secretary general of the German Association between 1866 and 1875. POSI, Serie E, 3 Allemagne (1850–1923), Sr. Aloysia Vossen, 06.06.1885. 28. The transnational impact of the association on the lives of children in France and China has been emphasized by Harrison, “‘A Penny for the Little Chinese,’” 72–74. 29. As yet, there is no comprehensive analysis of the rich associative culture. Archival documents, however, suggest that great efforts were made in the staging of collective events. See POSI, Serie F Correspondance administrative, F 30 Demandes de cantiques (1907) and F 31 Demandes de pièces de théâtre (1910–39). 30. See Stanley, “Missionary Regiments.” 31. Warneck, Die Mission in der Schule (1887). 32. See Schwager, Die katholische Mission (1912), 6–7. 33. Ibid., 5. 34. Ibid. 35. Handbüchlein des Werkes der heiligen Kindheit (1907), 29–31. Apart from German, the periodical also appeared in up to thirteen other languages, including English, Italian, Spanish, Czech, Maltese, Polish, and Danish. See Harrison, “‘A Penny for the Little Chinese’,” 73. 36. See Passet, “Freethought Children’s Literature,” 109. 37. Hölzl, “‘Mitleid’ über große Distanz,” 267. 38. Graf and Pellaz-Graf, “Periodische Publikationsformen,” 911–14. 39. Ibid. 40. See Munz, “Prolog,” 11–12. 41. Missions-Kinderfreund 1 (1904): 2. 42. Jensz, “Firewood,” 168; Habermas and Hölzl, “Mission global,” 10; Habermas, “Colonies in the Countryside,” 502–4. 43. Missions-Kinderfreund 1 (1904): 1. 44. “Von der kostbaren Blume des Glaubens,” JVHK (1903): 28–35. 45. Ibid., 31.

Missionary Literature for Children  | 197

46. Ibid., 35. 47. According to a report from 1919, Das Negerkind had a print run of 110,000 and appeared in German, Italian, Polish, English, Czech, Slovakian, and Hungarian versions. See APF, N.S. vol. 620, 47–48, Maria Theresia Ledóchowska, 12 April 1919. 48. For instance, see Ledóchowska, Marias Täubchen (1911); Kruis, Vom Negerpüppchen zum Negerkind (1917); Ledóchowska, Das Skapulier des Sklaven (1917). 49. “Des Negerkindes Klageruf,” KAB 11, no. 12 (1904): 177. 50. Children’s periodicals also covered some actual events relevant to (German) imperial politics and omitted others (such as the brutal colonial war in German Southwest Africa or the atrocities in the Congo Free State). For instance, in 1901 Das Heidenkind presented a series of articles on the war in China: “Der Krieg in China,” HIM 14, no. 16 (1901): 186–88. 51. See Jensz and Acke, “Introduction,” 10. 52. See Hölzl, “‘Mitleid’ über große Distanz,” 267. 53. “Bilder aus der Kinderwelt,” HIM, no. 17: 198–201, here 198. 54. “Bilder aus der Kinderwelt,” HIM, no. 18: 207–11, here 208–9. 55. “Aus der afrikanischen Kinderstube,” KAB 11, no. 1 (1904): 3–8, 3. 56. For a study of toys in Germany at that time, see the contribution by David Hamlin in this volume. 57. “Wie kann sich die Jugend den Missionen nützlich machen?” KAB 14, no. 2 (1907): back cover. 58. “Worte bewegen, Beispiele reißen mit sich fort.” KAB 14, no. 11 (1907): 161–71. 59. “Das Testament eines Kindes,” JVHK (1903): 101–3. 60. See Stornig. “‘Armes Kindlein in der Ferne,’” 7. 61. Missions-Kinderfreund 5 (1904): 20; and Missions-Kinderfreund 1 (1904): 3. 62. On active readership, see Eitler, Olsen, and Jensen, “Introduction.”

Bibliography Periodicals Das Heidenkind: Illustrierte Missionsjugendschrift (HIM) Jahrbücher des Vereins der Heiligen Kindheit (JVHK) Kleine Afrika-Bibliothek: Belehrendes und Unterhaltendes zur Förderung der Liebe zu unseren ärmsten schwarzen Brüdern (KAB) Missions-Kinderfreund

Primary Sources Arens, Bernard. Die katholischen Missionsvereine: Darstellung ihres Werdens und Wirkens ihrer Satzungen und Vorrechte. Freiburg, 1922. Der Verein der heiligen Kindheit: Kurze Darstellung seines Entstehens und seines Zweckes, nebst Berichten über seine Wirksamkeit bis zum Jahre 1851. Munich, 1852. Handbüchlein des Werkes der heiligen Kindheit: Zunächst für die Vorsteher und Beförderer. Aachen, 1907. Kruis, Elsa. Vom Negerpüppchen zum Negerkind. Salzburg, 1917. Ledóchowska, M. T. Das Skapulier des Sklaven: Erzählung aus dem schwarzen Erdteil. Salzburg, 1917. ———. Marias Täubchen. Salzburg, 1911.

198 | Katharina Stornig

Schwager, Friedrich. Die katholische Mission im Schulunterricht: Hilfsbuch für Katecheten und Lehrer. Kaldenkirchen, 1912. Warneck, Gustav. Die Mission in der Schule: Ein Handbuch für Lehrer. Gütersloh, 1887. Wetzel, Franz Xaver. Das goldene Jubiläum des Kindheit-Jesu-Vereins: Ein Büchlein für die Kinder. Freising, 1893.

Secondary Sources Bellaigue, Christina de. “Faith and Religion.” In A Cultural History of Family in the Age of Empire, 2nd ed., edited by Colin Heywood, 149–66. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. Bowersox, Jeff. “Boy’s and Girl’s Own Empires: Gender and the Uses of the Colonial World in Kaiserreich Youth Magazines.” In German Colonialism and National Identity, edited by Jürgen Zimmerer and Michael Perraudin, 57–68. London: Routledge, 2011. Cunningham, Hugh. Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500. 2nd ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2005. Elleray, Michelle. “Little Builders: Coral Insects, Missionary Culture, and the Victorian Child.” Victorian Literature and Culture 39 (2011): 223–38. Faschingeder, Gerald. “Missionsgeschichte als Beziehungsgeschichte: Die Genese des europäischen Missionseifers als Gegenstand der Historischen Anthropologie.” Historische Anthropologie 10, no. 1 (2002): 1–30. Eitler, Pascal, Stephanie Olsen, and Uffa Jensen. “Introduction.” In Learning How to Feel: Children’s Literature and Emotional Socialization, edited by Ute Frevert et al., 1–20. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Graf, Andreas, and Susanne Pellaz-Graf. “Periodische Publikationsformen.” In Handbuch zur Kinder- und Jugendliteratur von 1850 bis 1900, edited by Otto Brunken, Bettina Hurrelmann, Maria Michels-Kohlhage, and Gisela Wilkending, 880–974. Stuttgart, 2008. Habermas, Rebekka. “Colonies in the Countryside: Doing Mission in Imperial Germany.” Journal of Social History 50, no. 3 (2017): 502–17. Habermas, Rebekka, and Richard Hölzl, eds. Mission global: Eine Verflechtungsgeschichte seit dem 19. Jahrhundert. Cologne: Böhlau, 2014. ———. “Mission global—Religiöse Akteure und globale Verflechtung seit dem 19. Jahrhundert. Einleitung.” In Mission global: Eine Verflechtungsgeschichte seit dem 19. Jahrhundert, edited by idem, 9–28. Cologne: Böhlau, 2014. Harrison, Henrietta. “‘A Penny for the Little Chinese’: The French Holy Childhood Organization in China, 1843–1951.” American Historical Review 113 (2008): 72–92. Heywood, Sophie. “Missionary Children: The French Holy Childhood Association in  European  Context, 1843–c. 1914.” European History Quarterly 45, no. 3 (2015): 446–66. Hölzl, Richard. “‘Mitleid’ über große Distanz: Zur Fabrikation globaler Gefühle in Medien der katholischen Mission, 1890–1940.” In Mission global: Eine Verflechtungsgeschichte seit dem 19. Jahrhundert, edited by Rebekka Habermas and Richard Hölzl, 265–94. Cologne: Böhlau, 2014. Jensz, Felicity, and Hanna Acke. “Introduction.” In Missions and Media: The Politics of Missionary Periodicals in the Long Nineteenth Century, edited by idem, 9–15. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2013. ———, eds. Missions and Media: The Politics of Missionary Periodicals in the Long Nineteenth Century. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2013.

Missionary Literature for Children  | 199

Jensz, Felicity. “Firewood, Fakirs and Flags: The Construction of the Non-Western ‘Other’ in a Nineteenth Century Transnational Children’s Missionary Periodical.” Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kulturgeschichte 105 (2011): 167–91. ———. “Origins of Missionary Periodicals: Form and Function of Three Moravian Publications.” Journal of Religious History 36, no. 2 (2012): 234–54. Klose, Fabian, and Mirjam Thulin, eds. Humanity: A History of European Concepts in Practice from the Sixteenth Century to the Present. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016. Kruip, Gerhard. “The Unity of the Human Family: A Foundation for Global Justice.” In Humanity: A History of European Concepts in Practice from the Sixteenth Century to the Present, edited by Fabian Klose and Mirjam Thulin, 267–83. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016. Morrison, Hugh. “Empire, Nation, and Religion in Canadian and New Zealand Protestant Juvenile Missionary Periodicals, c. 1890–1930s: ‘Men and Women the King Would Wish You to Be.’” Missions and Media: The Politics of Missionary Periodicals in the Long Nineteenth Century, edited by Felicity Jensz and Hanna Acke, 19–37. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2013. ———. “‘Impressions Which Will Never Be Lost’: Missionary Periodicals for Protestant Children in Late-Nineteenth Century Canada and New Zealand.” Church History 82, no. 2 (2013): 388–93. Morrison, Hugh, and Mary Clare Martin, eds. Creating Religious Childhoods in Anglo-World and British Colonial Contexts, 1800–1950. London: Routledge, 2017. Munz, Christof. “Prolog: Ein geschichtlicher Überblick aus den Anfängen bis 1986.” In Staub aufwirbeln und singen: Geschichte und Geschichten; Der Calwer Verlag 1956–1986, edited by Sibylle Fritz-Munz, 11–17. Stuttgart: Calver, 2002. Passet, Joanne Ellen. “Freethought Children’s Literature and the Construction of Religious Identities in Late-Nineteenth-Century America.” Book History 8 (2005): 107–29. Ratschiller, Linda, and Siegfried Weichlein. “Der schwarze Körper als Missionsgebiet 1880– 1960: Begriffe, Konzepte, Fragestellungen.” In Der schwarze Körper als Missionsgebiet: Medizin, Ethnologie, Theologie in Afrika und Europa 1880–1960, edited by Linda Ratschiller and Siegfried Weichlein, 15–39. Cologne: Böhlau, 2014. Stanley, Brian. “Missionary Regiments for Immanuel’s Service: Juvenile Missionary Organization in English Sunday Schools, 1841–1865.” In The Church and Childhood, edited by Diana Wood, 391–403. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. Stornig, Katharina. “‘Armes Kindlein in der Ferne,—Wie machst du das Herz mir schwer!’: Kindermissionsvereine und die religiösen Verflechtungen des Helfens in Deutschland, Europa und der Welt, 1843–1920.” Themenportal Europäische Geschichte (2015). Retrieved 3 January 2017 from www.europa.clio-online.de/essay/id/artikel-3797. ———. “Between Christian Solidarity and Human Solidarity: Humanity and the Mobilisation of Aid for Distant Children in Catholic Europe in the Long 19th Century.” In Humanity: A History of European Concepts in Practice from the Sixteenth Century to the Present, edited by Fabian Klose and Mirjam Thulin, 249–66. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016. Vallgårda, Karen. Imperial Childhoods and Christian Mission: Education and Emotions in South India and Denmark. Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan, 2014. Zelizer, Viviana A. Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children. New York: Basic Books, 1985.

Part III

Knowledge in Entertainment

S

Chapter 9

Around the World in a Jiffy Humorous Treatments of Around-the-World Travel in German Children’s Books and Games Emer O’Sullivan

S “… the world is big enough.” “It used to be,” Fogg said quietly. “… you can now go round it in three months …” “Eighty days,” interjected Fogg, “… now they’ve opened the section of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway from Rothal to Allahabad.” —Jules Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days

In the 1870s, journeys to far-off places, up until then the prerogative of adventurers, explorers, scientists, and missionaries, suddenly became feasible for normal travelers. This was brought about by three major technological breakthroughs: May 1869 saw the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad, which linked the eastern rail network of the United States with the Pacific Coast; the Suez Canal opened in November 1869, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea; and the final section of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, linking the railways across the subcontinent, was officially opened in March 1870. Rapid circumnavigation of the earth was now possible, and the idea of being able to travel to the corners of the world in relative comfort, speed, and safety increased the contemporary sense that the world was shrinking. Connections were no longer subjected to the contingencies of meteorological conditions; they now not only enabled faster and cheaper travel but introduced a hitherto unknown degree of reliability in terms of timetabling. The idea of the total accessibility of the world1 was born and, with it, the age of global tourism. Thomas Cook organized and led the first round-the-world tourist trip in 1872, covering more than 25,000 miles in 222 days. Jules Verne translated this new time-space compression into Notes from this chapter begin on page 223.

204 | Emer O’Sullivan

fictional form in his novel Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (1872, Around the World in Eighty Days). Contemporary children’s literature reflected these developments in different ways. Children’s books have always been a major source of information about different parts of the world for young readers, with informational and fictional genres presenting knowledge about the wider world to “little tarry-at-home travellers.”2 As Susanne Zantop argues, books and games for children from the precolonial age and the age of colonialism that engaged with far-off nations reflect the imperialist imagination and, “in one way or another, expand on the colonial urfantasy between European and ‘native,’ which they recast to meet particular ideological needs.”3 This would seem to assume that German children’s literature and media during those eras presented an exclusively serious view of the world, an assumption confirmed by much of the material discussed in this volume. In the anthologies Matthew O. Anderson analyzes, for instance, he shows how foreign travel is presented as series of “dangerous, exciting, and sometimes educational experiences.” But funny they are not. The material under examination in this chapter, however—three texts from different phases of the long nineteenth century—challenges the assumed seriousness of children’s literature that engaged with the wider world during that time and shows how some authors invited children—and adults—to laugh freely at aspects of the colonial project, or made fun of the trope of foreign travel. They thus complement the material presented in the other chapters and at the same time challenge the widespread stereotype of the humorless German. This chapter cannot offer a survey of German children’s books and games during the nineteenth century,4 and the material analyzed here does not represent a dominant trend, but it merits our attention because it shows that there was a particular attitude toward knowledge of the world during that time, which, liberated from the straitjacket of an educational context, saw the comic potential of the material and presented it as a source of entertainment for young readers. The objects of analysis are two picture books and a game. The earliest book was published in 1867, just before German unification, and the second in 1879, during the first years of unification. Both were therefore issued during what was officially a precolonial era, but they belong to what Susanne Zantop regards as a time of “manifest colonialism,” which she identifies as “the desire to venture forth, to conquer and appropriate foreign territories, and to (re)generate the self in the process.”5 The game was issued in 1905, at the height of Germany’s short period as a colonial power. Each book or game presents a journey around the world and, at the same time, makes fun of the around-the-world travel trope. Their styles of presentation and modes differ greatly; what they have in common is that they are addressed to children, they are funny, and they exploit the comic potential of contemporary knowledge of and excitement about the feasibility of circumnavigating the world. In doing so, they engage with children’s

Around-the-World Travel  | 205

geographical and ethnographical knowledge about places and people around the world in nineteenth-century Germany, with discourse on travel and communication that reflected the world’s contraction, and, intertextually, with other “around-the-world” cultural products, especially Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. The methodological framework of my analysis is imagology, an approach that investigates the cultural construction and literary representation of national stereotypes in literature as textual strategies. Imagology is, as Joep Leerssen writes, not a form of sociology, but it aims to “understand a discourse of representation rather than a society. … The cultural context in which these images are articulated and from which they originate is that of a discursive praxis, not an underlying collective, let alone a ‘national’ public opinion.”6 Before engaging with these comical children’s texts, I would like to turn my attention to the sources from which they drew. These include contemporary children’s knowledge about places and people together with the kinds of texts from which they acquired it, and Verne’s novel as the “ur-text” of around-the-world travel literature and the point of reference for subsequent texts. Both provide the context and the material that was then fashioned to specifically entertain and amuse young Germans.

Children’s Geographical and Ethnographical Knowledge about Foreign Places and People What were the sources of children’s geographical and ethnographical knowledge about places and people in different parts of the world in nineteenth-century Germany? The first, most obvious source would seem to be geography lessons in school. However, Anschauungsunterricht, or object lessons, an educational principle for younger children that can be traced back to Rousseau’s Emile and that was adopted by the German Philanthropists in the eighteenth century, propagated that children should learn by observing objects from their own natural environment,7 so Heimatkunde, or local history and geography, was part of the nineteenth-century elementary school curriculum, with instruction about foreign places reserved for secondary school.8 The concept of Heimat, as Lässig and Weiß remind us in the introduction, was much more important in the knowledge horizon designed for elementary schools than that of the larger world. If foreign people and places did not feature in their geography lessons, where, then, did young German children acquire knowledge about them? A major source was children’s books—encyclopedias, storybooks, and thematic ABCs on foreign nations9—which, like all children’s books, did the “cultural work”10 of reflecting, maintaining, or shaping the ideologies of the age.11 The first pictorial encyclopedia for children, the twelve-volume Bilderbuch für

206 | Emer O’Sullivan

Kinder (1792–1830), issued by Friedrich Johann Justin Bertuch and addressed to young children whom he explicitly wanted to amuse, contains representations of foreigners. Following the categorization of Joachim Friedrich Blumenbach, a founder of physical anthropology, Bertuch presented images of the five races: the Caucasians, the Mongols, the Ethiopians, the Americans, and the Malaysians. His observations of the Caucasians were in line with the contemporary ethnocentricity: “It is assumed that, in terms of intellectual ability, this race is significantly superior to the others.”12 The Bilderbuch also contains pictures of groups identified primarily by their specific clothing accompanied by descriptions of their “manners and customs,” as was common in contemporary publications. Widespread in European countries at that time, ABCs of nations provided children with exotic pictures and information about peoples who lived very differently from themselves. The inhabitants of Tasmania, thus described, must have sounded very thrilling to young German readers: “The man from Van Diemen’s Land lives partly in hollow trees on the large island of Tasmania in Australia. He has woolly hair, is shy but friendly, goes completely naked in the summer, and covers himself in the winter with kangaroo skin.”13 These ABCs are, according to Bernard Huber, “an educational-geographical curiosity,”14 because they contravened the educational principles of not teaching geography about foreign places to young children. As visual dictionaries, they presented them with a fixed repertoire of notions about foreign countries, showing how people dressed and lived, what animals they kept, and so on. The same countries turned up repeatedly: representing Europe the Spaniards, the Swiss, and the Russians; representing Asia the Chinese, the “Mongols,” and the Georgians; Egyptians, “Negros,” and Hottentots represented Africa, while Brazilians, Mexicans, and Canadians usually stood for the Americas. The same images and stereotypes also recurred, with every vignette, according to Ségolène Le Men in her extensive account of nineteenth-century French ethnographic ABCs, a kind of pictogram presenting elements fixed since time immemorial15: “No Swiss without a wooden bucket, no Russian without a fur hat, no Native American without a bow and quiver, no Chinese without a conical hat.” From these books, German children gained their mainly stereotyped vocabulary of other nations. Toys and games16 in the nineteenth-century mass market also introduced the wider world into the nursery. Board games featuring foreign lands, and tin soldiers for enacting foreign battles, were regarded as being of particular educational use. In his extensive account of “young Germans’ imaginary colonial encounters,”17 Jeff Bowersox examines how, from 1870 on, figurines and games featured the colonial world. Playthings, in their dual role as consumer commodities and pedagogical tools, needed “to reflect popular understanding of the world order in an engaging manner”; because they wanted to produce entertaining toys, toymakers “emphasised those characteristics that were most recognisable and evocative.”18 Bowersox analyzes a series of character masks (Charaktermasken) typically

Around-the-World Travel  | 207

worn during carnival celebrations. Apart from stereotyped German figures such as the corpulent commercial councilor (Kommerzienrat), the series offered, among others, a haughty English lord, a pretentious Frenchman, a misshapen Irishman, and, by adding skin colors, non-Europeans who were thus reduced to essential racial characteristics that “located them at the bottom of the hierarchy of civilizations.”19 Taken together, these masks “offered compact lessons in popular ethnography that young Germans used to provide detail for their imagined worlds.”20 The most prevalent colonial characters in toys were Chinese, black (African and African American), and Native American figures.21 The “Indian” had been a popular figure in classical adventure novels for young readers since the first translations in 1826 of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, which created a tradition of images and character and action constellations that recurred in subsequent adventure stories: the wilderness as a setting, stereotypes that are positively (“noble”) or negatively (“brutal”) interpreted according to Indian tribe, and a specific type of white hero in the form of the trapper. These children’s books, toys, games, and other elements of everyday mass culture, such as advertisements, formed a repertoire of images and tropes about different people and places available to nineteenth-century German children. It was with these, as will be seen below, that authors of books and games engaged in different ways, one of them being to generate humor.

Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days Around the World in Eighty Days, published serially in 1872 and as a book in 1873, captured the contemporary fascination with the compression of time and space resulting from technological developments, and made the idea of circling the globe in a fixed time “an indispensable part of modern mythology.”22 It appeared in Verne’s Voyages extraordinaires (Extraordinary Journeys), a sequence of fifty-four novels—including From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1869–70)—in which he aimed to provide a compendium of current geographical, geological, physical, and astronomical knowledge about the world in an entertaining format. In Around the World in Eighty Days, the reserved English bachelor gentleman Phileas Fogg, after a general discussion in his Reform Club23 about how small the world had become, wagers £20,000 (equivalent to about £2 million today) that he will be able to circumnavigate the world in eighty days. Fogg, with his French butler Passepartout, leaves London by train at 8:45 p.m. on 2 October 1872. To win the bet, he must return to the club by the same time on 21 December.24 The travel narrative is complicated by a detective plot. Fogg is pursued by Fix, an intelligent but (as his name indicates) inflexible Scotland Yard detective who mistakes him for the criminal he is chasing. In a romantic subplot, Fogg saves the

208 | Emer O’Sullivan

widowed Parsee princess Aouda from being burned to death on her husband’s funeral pyre in the Hindu suttee ritual. Their ultimate marriage and Fogg’s winning the wager provide the happy ending. The route he follows—London, Suez, Bombay, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Yokohama, San Francisco, New York City, London—goes through the most British colonial possessions. Using an Englishman as his protagonist, Verne not only facilitated a portrayal of the British Empire from a purported insider perspective, he also tapped into a tradition of images of traveling Englishmen—explorers, adventurers, and aristocrats who had the money and leisure to go around the world on a whim if they wished. Verne did not invent the Englishman as adventurer, as will be discussed below, but many subsequent authors who used that trope were inspired by him.

Around the World in Twelve Scenes The picture book Lord Pudding’s und seines Dieners John Fahrten und Abenteuer in allen Ländern der Erde. Ein Bilderbuch für Groß und Klein25 (1868, Lord Pudding and His Servant John’s Journeys and Adventures in all the Countries of the World: A Picture Book for Both Old and Young), by painter and illustrator Wilhelm von Breitschwert, relates the adventures of a phlegmatic English gentleman on twelve color plates faced by short texts in German, English, and French. Bored in his home country, Lord Pudding decides to travel around the world accompanied by his trusty servant John. They visit various places in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, but are taken hostage in Italy and freed only after a hefty ransom has been paid. Pudding remains cool in every situation, while his more volatile servant continually gets into trouble. In the final episode, the gentleman tries to rescue an Indian widow about to be burned in a suttee ritual. The similarities between the characters and events in this picture book and Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days are striking. But Verne’s novel was published six years after Lord Pudding, so it did not serve as its inspiration. The relevant question to ask of Lord Pudding, therefore, is not about Verne’s influence, but about the degree to which both authors tapped into the same literary tropes and conventions then serving as current stock for literary representation of foreign places and people, many of them illustrating the colonial discourse of the day. Both Breitschwert and Verne chose English gentlemen as their traveling protagonists. Pudding is a German simulation of Englishness just as Verne’s Fogg is a French one,26 and what Verne writes of Fogg applies equally well to Pudding: an “eccentric gentleman” with the “marvellous qualities of composure and precision.”27 Both conform to the stereotype of the English gentleman, which can be traced, in English literary discourse, back to Chaucer, through the “cult of

Around-the-World Travel  | 209

Figure 9.1.  Wilhelm v. Breitschwert, Lord Pudding’s und seines Dieners John Fahrten und Abenteuer an allen Ländern der Erde: Ein Bilderbuch für Groß u. Klein [Deutsch, Englisch und Französisch]. Stuttgart: Breitschwert & Payer, 1868. Courtesy of the Bibliothek für Jugendbuchforschung, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main.

the courtier in Elizabethan times, eighteenth-century stories of country squires, and nineteenth-century novels about gentleman explorers serving the Empire.”28 On the European continent, this image was further influenced by encounters with English travelers, especially wealthy young gentleman on the Grand Tour. The introductory page (see figure 9.1) shows Pudding and his servant apparently having just stepped out of a small moored boat with a huge anchor, whose sail displays the title of the book. The boat indicates transport, although it is unlikely Pudding and John traveled to four continents in the small vessel pictured, but no form of transport is actually referred to in the story. This indicates the quasi-fantastic nature of around-the-world travel before Verne. Untypically for an introduction, the picture shows the travelers’ homecoming rather than their departure. The servant carries a long stick over his shoulder draped (as the accompanying

210 | Emer O’Sullivan

text tells us) with various “trophies” picked up on their journeys—the ceremonial pipe they smoked with the Indians, an elephant’s tusk, etc. The tall, eccentric-looking lord wears a long tailcoat, an elaborately decorated waistcoat, and checked trousers. He has a long bespectacled face with mutton chops and an elegant stance. Under his arm is a book, and he looks into the distance through a telescope, giving him the air of an explorer. These two props are featured in all pictures of him. John follows—a small, stout, jolly-looking man wearing a red waistcoat, a blue tailcoat, white breeches, and a low top hat. With this, he mirrors the iconography associated with a second traditional English type, John Bull, the personification of the plain, direct, choleric, lower-class Englishman. The surname “bull” originally referred to the English propensity to eat beef. By choosing the slightly ridiculous and therefore comic name “Pudding” for the lord, the author united, with his incongruous and therefore funny characters, two elements of the typical English dish: roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Breitschwert not only dips into the arsenal of nationally connotated types to generate a humorous contrast; he also utilizes the comic master-servant trope, originating in the commedia dell’arte, where a servant often acted as a foil for his master. Verne did likewise in Around the World. Pudding and John offer a maximum comic contrast: tall and thin versus short and stout; flimsy and slightly effeminate versus manly and physical; cool and detached versus quick-tempered. This contrast is played out in each painted scene. When they smoke a ceremonial pipe with an Indian tribe, Pudding is pictured standing upright in a dignified pose next to the noble Indian chief while John sits on the ground with a tribesman, looking distinctly ill from the pipe he is forced to smoke. While Pudding performs the heroic deed of killing the largest lion in Arabia, thereby earning great respect from the Bedouins, poor John, strapped to a camel’s hump, nearly dies of thirst. And when Pudding is invited by mandarins in China to take tea, play chess, and smoke opium, John is forced to make a fool of himself learning national dances to the great amusement of the Chinese servants teaching him. Only in one scene does the servant try to rescue his master—when Pudding tries to save the young widow from the suttee ritual. The picture shows an unusually active Pudding, climbing onto the pyre, arms outstretched, while John tries to restrain him by holding onto his coattails. Picture books for children—especially preliterate ones—traditionally have two readers. While the younger one is often engrossed in the pictures, the adult or older reader reads the text aloud. This particular circumstance of reception is often considered by authors and illustrators, who may furnish their work with elements that appeal to their different audiences. The title of Breitschwert’s picture book proclaims that it is “for old and young,” and its child readers probably laughed at the physical, slapstick elements elicited by John’s behavior and the contrast between him and the eccentric English gentleman with the ridiculously funny name, Lord Pudding. The adult readers were possibly more amused by

Around-the-World Travel  | 211

the parody of the reserved English gentleman evident in Pudding’s sangfroid attitude and posturing. Whether part of the fun-poking was rooted in German envy of British colonial conquests and casual dominance of the world in the form of travel can only be speculated. Adult readers may also have been interested in the references to current events. The mention of opium in China was topical, as the second Opium War, along with China’s unsuccessful attempt to suppress Britain’s illegal opium trade, ended only a few years before the book was published. The suttee ritual, too, which also features prominently in Verne’s novel, was hotly discussed in Europe because Queen Victoria had issued a general ban on suttee for the whole of India in 1829/30 following protests and activities by the Society for the Abolition of Human Sacrifices in India.29 In Lord Pudding, unlike in Verne’s novel, the widow resists the rescue attempt by the “chivalrous” gentleman and, instead of falling gratefully into his arms, tears his face with her nails “in gratitude,” the text remarks ironically, and Pudding and John are soundly beaten by the crowd. The painter and publisher Breitschwert wrote and illustrated several humorous children’s books, one of the most popular being the movable toy book Das wunderbare Bilderbuch: Ein Festgeschenk voll komischer Sachen, zum Staunen und Lachen für heitere Kinder (1865; tenth edition, 1895, The Wonderful Picture Book: A Festive Gift Full of Funny Things, for Cheerful Children to Marvel and Laugh At). Lord Pudding was published before developments in color printing technology enabled a new kind of integration of image and text, a factor contributing to the mass production of picture books at affordable prices for a broader population. Lord Pudding, whose twelve color plates entailed considerable production costs, is a book for the educated middle classes. Both the price and the multilingualism, with texts in German, English, and French, indicate that it was intended for a more exclusive audience.30 The book has a serial quality: the twelve pictures with accompanying trilingual texts were published in two installments of six episodes each and later bound together in one book. As the introduction tells us of the homecoming, the final episode in the book is—fairly arbitrarily—the suttee scene, which means it does not end on a high note for Pudding. The book could conceivably have been extended by other installments, since the title refers to adventures “in all the countries of the earth” and there are no narrative links between the accounts. In terms of the development of the picture book, its narration is aligned with older, more static forms of exhibiting foreign places and people, for instance, in ABC books of nations or the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century compendia of costumes and manners.31 The adventures in twelve exotic locations gave Breitschwert an opportunity to present “snapshots” of the world in colorful pictures: different geographical locations, many typically featured in nineteenth-century ABCs, as mentioned above (the Swiss Alps, Russia), with their specific landscapes and architecture (mud hut in Africa, igloo at the North

212 | Emer O’Sullivan

Pole), their inhabitants in traditional costume (veiled women in traditional salwar suits in Constantinople), and some of their rituals (smoking a peace pipe with the Indians in America, drinking tea in China, suttee in India). While the book might have activated this contextual knowledge in older readers, it certainly provided younger ones with (perhaps their first) images of funny-peculiar Englishmen and exotic places they could add to their repertoire of world “knowledge.” Lord Pudding is an interesting intermediate form between the fully static customs and manners books of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and more dynamic travel narratives. Just like the board game and the picture book discussed below, Lord Pudding engages with the trope of world travel. However, unlike them, the emphasis is less on traveling than on places. How Pudding and John actually got from one place to another, or how long it took, was not deemed worthy of attention; time and space do not feature as relevant parameters. Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days was published between this picture book and the other two publications discussed below; we will see that travel itself, as timespace compression, becomes a central aspect—also one to be made fun of.

Around the World in Seventy-Seven Squares The logic of Verne’s narrative in Around the World, to return to our “ur-text,” is that of play.32 Fogg’s trip around the world is founded on two basic ludic principles: a wager and a journey, both closed models with a limited number of rules.33 The medial transformation of Verne’s novel into an actual board game was almost immediate. According to Ernst Strouhal, no other novel was transformed more often than Verne’s Around the World, with games appearing in almost every European language from 1880. The first German Reise um die Erde (Journey Around the World) game was issued in 1884 by bookseller Otto Robert Mayer from Ravensburg—the first game he published.34 Des Herrn Fix von Bickenbach Reise um die Welt in 77 Tagen (Mr. Fix of Bickenbach’s Journey around the World in 77 Days)35 by Heinrich Hoffmann is probably the first German board game adaptation that explicitly responded to Verne’s novel. It was produced around 1879, just six years after the first German translation of Verne’s novel36 and five years before the Ravensburger game came onto the market. As the title indicates, Hoffmann’s German protagonist Fix completes the trip in three fewer days than Phileas Fogg—the first fictional ­character to break Fogg’s record.37 Hoffmann was a physician, a psychiatric reformer, and, by then, the world famous author of the humorous cautionary tales Struwwelpeter,38 or Shock-Headed Peter, which he wrote and drew specifically for his three-year-old son Carl as a Christmas gift in 1844. Hoffmann also produced his new item of multimodal

Around-the-World Travel  | 213

Figure 9.2.  Heinrich Hoffmann, Des Herrn Fix von Bickenbach Reise um die Welt in 77 Tagen. Frankfurt, ca. 1879. Courtesy of the Struwwelpeter-Museum, Frankfurt am Main.

entertainment Des Herrn Fix von Bickenbach Reise for his family, this time for his three grandsons Eduard, Carl, and Walther and his granddaughter Auguste, all aged between three and eleven. The game was not a commercial product but created for the private fun of his family, and only when it was reproduced over a hundred years later39 did a wider audience come to know of it. The fact that it was not widely distributed does not take away from its relevance for this study, as the focus of the analysis here is not on the documented reception of the game but on how a famous author engaged with and aesthetically transformed contemporary discourse about world travel and popular knowledge in a form to be enjoyed equally by children and adults. In the comic title of his game, Hoffmann subverts the title of Verne’s novel familiar to his grandchildren, Around the World in Eighty Days, by undercutting it by three days and furnishing his world traveler with a funny name and origin; the phonetic feast of fricatives, plosives, and consonance in its title (Fix von Bickenbach) surely amused the young players and indicated that the game would be funny. The game (see figure 9.2) follows its protagonist’s

214 | Emer O’Sullivan

journey around the world in seventy-seven days or squares. The board displays a spiral-shaped track; the aim is to be the first player to reach square 77. Up to six players from the age of two upward can play (the instructions on the box read, “Anyone can play who can count to six or has someone who can count and read for them”), and each receives ten marks play money at the outset. A die determines how far the pieces can move, and the youngest player casts the first die. Special squares along the way hinder or help progress by instructing the players to pay (or receive) money, to miss a turn, to proceed forward, etc. These squares, which account for almost two-thirds of those on the board, are decorated with pictures and text. The game was played by girls and boys, and the winner gained the honor, in Hoffmann’s family, of being called “Fix von Bickenbach” for a day, regardless of gender, and being treated with particular kindness by other members of the family.40 Mr. Fix’s trip around the world is full of adventures. He nearly drowns in a storm, is robbed in New York, finds gold in California, lands on a cannibal island, rides a kangaroo in Australia, has coffee with King Ketschewayo in Africa, and gets drunk on Madeira. The princess of Portugal falls in love with him in Lisbon, they get married, and he returns triumphantly home from his whirlwind tour, as “Prinz Fix von Bickenbach.” The style of the action-packed pictures, brightly colored pen-and-ink drawings in a naïve cartoon style against a pale background, is reminiscent of Struwwelpeter. Visual echoes from that book include the picture of Fix marching up the plank to the boat in square 6 with limbs stiffly extended like those of the eponymous protagonist in the story “Johnny Look-in-the-Air,” or the green umbrella on squares 72 and 74, which looks just like the one the “woolly-headed black-a-moor” carries in “The Story of the Inky Boys.” Hoffmann exploits to the full the comic potential of the board game’s reduced form, which allows him to tell and show each adventure on one square with a striking image and just a few words. This can be seen from the first four squares, which present Mr. Fix’s departure from Bickenbach. The first square shows a happily departing young man in a red coat with his traveling bundle on a stick over his shoulder. The caption reads: “Mr. Fix leaves home. He is a handsome man.” The gender-untypical non sequitur tells us about his appearance rather than his bravery or curiosity as would be expected for someone embarking on a journey around the world. The increasingly dramatic and (comically) exaggerated effect Fix’s departure has on his family is narrated and shown in the next three squares: “His father weeps” (the picture shows him standing, handkerchief to his face), “His mother weeps” (she kneels in the picture, supplicating with him to stay), “His sisters and brothers wail” (the image shows about a dozen inconsolable siblings). The scene and comic tone are set for Fix’s adventures. The story of a trip around the world offers plenty of material for the kind of drastic images Hoffmann excelled at creating. These include pictures of violent storms (square 10), a ship exploding (square 14), Fix finding a lump

Around-the-World Travel  | 215

of gold in California so large it is almost the same size as himself (square 28), whales, and trains falling down abysses. What knowledge does Hoffmann play with in this game? First and foremost is the general contemporary fascination with the idea of circumnavigating the world. Hoffmann takes the classical home-away-home structure of travel narratives also used by Verne, but instead of having his hero depart from and return to a great metropolis such as London or New York, he centers Fix’s universe in Bickenbach, a small town in the “Hessische Bergstrasse,” a wine-growing area of Hesse with around 1,000 inhabitants in the 1880s; it was a popular destination for day outings by train from Frankfurt, also for the Hoffmann family. By featuring “King Ketschewayo” in Fix’s journey, Hoffmann refers to a contemporary political event. While the children were probably entertained by the exotic name and impressed by the African king’s welcoming behavior toward his German visitor, Hoffmann himself, an avid newspaper reader,41 and other informed adults in his family would have known about his real-life counterpart, Cetshwayo kaMpande, ruler of the Zulu Kingdom from 1872 to 1879. Provoked into the Anglo–Zulu War by the British, Cetshwayo led his army to win the Battle of Isandlwana, but he was finally defeated, deposed, and exiled. Hoffmann, who was progressive and politically liberal, displays his sympathy with Cetshwayo kaMpande and his nation by making “Ketschewayo” the only monarch identified in the game, portraying him as treating Fix with courtesy and cordial hospitality, even allowing him to take a ride in an ostrich-drawn carriage with the queen. Prompted by the board game, Hoffmann’s family might well have discussed the fate of the Zulu king, thus adding to the children’s knowledge of the world. And even if the young players did not grasp the full political implications, they were presented with an African who is one of the most positive characters Fix encounters on his trip. Contradicting the contemporary “established and commonly understood binary of civilized and uncivilized people,”42 according to which Africans belonged decidedly to the uncivilized, Hoffmann presents an African who challenged the white colonizer as the model of cultured behavior. This was not the first time Hoffmann promoted respect for Africans. Abolition of slavery was a topic discussed in the liberal circles to which he belonged, and he had already included an appeal for interracial tolerance in “The Story of the Inky Boys” in Struwwelpeter, in which three white German boys make fun of a black one because of his skin color. For this they are punished by a giant Nikolas, a kind of bogeyman figure, who dips each of them into a giant black inkwell. Such a plea for respect for blacks in a time of widespread discrimination and, in the Southern United States, legal slavery was “sensational.”43 Children reading Struwwelpeter in the late 1840s had likely never actually seen a black person in Germany; very few Africans were in the country before 1884, after which there was some migration from the colonies. However, they would have been familiar with widespread images of blacks.44 Hence, the boys’ jeering at the black child in

216 | Emer O’Sullivan

the story is not based on any potentially real encounter; what the boys jeer at is “a stereotyped image of a black child, such as they might have encountered in a textbook on geography.”45 A brief comparison between Fix and Das Kamerun-Spiel oder King Bell und seine Leute (The Cameroon Game or King Bell and His People), issued six years later, in 1885, shows how radically different Hoffmann’s treatment of Africans in his board game was from the dominant tendency. The Cameroon Game memorializes the German acquisition of Cameroon and presents sixteen local black personalities as “buffoonish caricatures,” evoking “the trope of the ‘pants-wearing Negro.’”46 This colonial trope denotes a black man reaching above his station to claim equality with the white colonizer. This game is more representative of popular presentations of the black man as a primitive Neger in later nineteenth-century Germany; made to represent the opposite of Western civilization, the type served to justify colonial conquests. Fix utilizes synecdoche to represent foreign lands and peoples as pictograms— the kangaroo stands for Australia, and Madeiran wine for the island of Madeira. But Hoffmann uses these ironically, exploiting what I have called the aesthetic potential of stereotypes.47 Stereotypes are like a kind of shorthand that evokes specific associations, and authors can choose to use them in unexpected ways: for instance, by playing with readers’ expectations rather than simply satisfying them. Hoffmann does this by not only making Fix see a kangaroo in Australia but also actually—and unusually—having him ride one. And when Fix happens upon the exotic, scary, and stock location of a cannibal island, Hoffmann does not follow the predictable narrative to show how barbaric the inhabitants are, but, clearly playing with his young audience’s “knowledge” about such “uncivilized savages” from games and books, he has the so-called cannibals feed Fix instead of eating him (square 34)—a humorous, challenge to dominant images of Africans in nineteenth-century Germany. Hoffmann’s game was created for private use: it was never distributed commercially, so we cannot know anything about its wider reception or impact. What we can say is that it was made for middle-class children of both genders and engages with discourse in contemporary popular cultural products about world travel adventure stories and geographical board games, with Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days its most evident precursor. The title Des Herrn Fix von Bickenbach Reise um die Welt in 77 Tagen explicitly picks up Verne’s title to comic effect, because it tells of a small provincial German everyman beating the record of the worldly wise, mundane, rich Londoner. With the name “Fix,” Hoffmann also gives his (German) protagonist the name of Phileas Fogg’s antagonist, the Scotland Yard detective who wrongly believed that Fogg was a bank robber. The word “fix” in German means quick, and also bright or smart, and the moniker, as mentioned above, was surely also chosen for its phonetic qualities in combination with the name of the place “Bickenbach.” Unlike Fogg who,

Around-the-World Travel  | 217

with his immense fortune, can buy his way out of any trouble, Fix is an everyday (German) hero who does not start out as rich man but comes into his fortune along the way. After his money is initially stolen, he finds gold in California; the daughter of Emperor Nabob-Schah gives him a golden chest full of jewels; he catches and kills a whale and sells the oil and whalebone; and he has the ultimate good fortune that a Portuguese princess falls in love with and marries him. Although Verne’s hero traveled east and Fix heads out west, many of Fix’s adventures resonate with those of his literary predecessor. When he gets drunk in Madeira and misses his boat, it echoes Passepartout’s similar mishap in Hong Kong. Moreover, the device of marrying a princess is not just a traditional fairytale happy ending but also a comic reprise of the conclusion of Verne’s novel, where the narrator asks, What had he got out of his journey? Nothing, comes the reply? Nothing, agreed, were it not for a lovely wife, who— however unlikely it may seem—made him the happiest of men! In truth, wouldn’t anyone go around the world for less?48

The handsome Fix certainly would have gone around the world for less, but he did not have to. In the end, he returns from his whirlwind tour in fewer than eighty days, not just with a princess and entourage but also to ringing bells, canons’ roar, white damsels, and great jubilation. His return surely also provided great enjoyment and entertainment for the girls and boys who played this family game.

Around the World as Punishment The picture book Mucki: Eine wunderliche Weltreise (Mucki: A Whimsical Trip Around the World) by Apard Schmidhammer, published in 1905, is an extremely dynamic travel narrative.49 When it comes to time-space compression, it is a true successor to Around the World in Eighty Days. Indeed, it could be seen as a comic response to the accelerated process of worldwide contraction at the beginning of the twentieth century, as speed itself is the object of fun.50 Mucki was the most popular and widely read of the three texts discussed in this chapter; 12,000 copies had been issued by 1908, with further editions following in 1924 and 1931. In the 1930s it appeared with new illustrations by Fritz Baumgarten and in Sütterlin type; the same version set in Antiqua font came out in 1949. Mucki therefore enjoyed popularity on the German children’s book market for over forty years, from its first appearance when Germany was a colonial power, through the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany, to the early days of the Federal Republic. The title (see figure 9.3), made up of the young

218 | Emer O’Sullivan

Figure 9.3.  Arpad Schmidhammer, Mucki: Eine wunderliche Weltreise. Scholz’ Künstler-Bilderbücher 21. Mainz: Scholz, 1905. Courtesy of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

protagonist’s diminutive nickname, “Mucki” (derived from Nepomuk), and an alliterative subtitle, “Eine wunderliche Weltreise” (a whimsical trip around the world), promises a fantastic and entertaining around-the-world adventure story. It is followed by a reference (addressed to adults) to the intended readers “Für unsre Kleinen” (For our little ones). It is the only text examined here that is exclusively for children. The title picture shows an alarmed-looking boy being chased around the globe by a beautiful but frighteningly enormous fish, whose wide-open mouth is dangerously close to the boy’s foot. It encapsulates two main elements of the story: speed, and animals as agents and movers. The story begins at a leisurely pace. The protagonist is ironically introduced as a great hero: “Little Mucki is a great hero / he beheads thistles in the fields.” Because of this and other equally “brave” deeds, he has the grandiose idea that he would like to hunt lions in Africa. After his mother cautions him not to boast, he fails the first simple but real test of courage when he is scared by his neighbor’s goat. This makes him decide to postpone the trip, but it is too late—its wheels have been set in motion. A giant sow carries the boy off at great speed to

Around-the-World Travel  | 219

Hamburg, where it casts him into the ocean. This begins a series of adventures that take Mucki around the world, or at least to those parts familiar to German children exposed to games and stories about the American Wild West, and who have “grown up with Empire.”51 First transported by a swarm of herring, then by a whale, Mucki is rescued by a friendly whaler and handed over to a trapper in the United States (see figure 9.4). He is then captured by an American Indian, and subsequently by a buffalo, and transported to Papua by an albatross, who deposits him in its nest. He is almost captured by a huge, naked Papuan wearing only a grass skirt and an earring and with stereotypically ethnic features of woolly hair and large red lips, whose facial expressions and body language indicate that he would like to eat Mucki. The boy jumps out of the nest onto a palm tree and escapes on a coconut. He is fished out of the water in Sumatra by an orangutan, handed over by an elephant to an Arabic-looking slave trader wearing a turban, and, unlike all the other—black—passengers, escapes drowning after a cyclone hits the “slave ship.” The boy escapes being eaten by a crocodile, jumps onto a rhinoceros, and rides on a giraffe. He is finally picked up by a stork, which—in a kind of ironic second birth—delivers him safely to his delighted parents (“where his loving parents / waiting with nervous longing, / embrace him, crying tears of joy”). The final picture shows Mucki sitting at his parents’ table, cup in hand, eating an enormous slice of ring cake, with his mother looking on benevolently. Sitting at the other side of the table, his father has his finger raised in admonition while saying “in a serious voice / that is what comes of showing off, dear son.” The fast-paced fantastic narrative of this whirlwind itinerary around a world that has become very small indeed, has similarities with later animated movies and computer games. Not only is there rapid change of scenes, but the protagonist remains totally unscathed during and after all his adventures. No matter how much Mucki is pushed, pulled, dragged, or otherwise propelled through water and air, his clothes remain neat and clean, the ribbons on his hat still flutter in the wind, and his undamaged satchel stays firmly on his back. The pictures and accompanying rhyming couplets depict the events in two to four sequenced panels per page with action-to-action transitions (see figure 9.4). The images, reproduced with photoengraving technique, use strong, contrasting colors, clear forms, and heavily outlined figures. Schmidhammer, a caricaturist, was famous for his illustrations for Otto Julius Bierbaum’s popular German adaptation of Pinocchio, Zäpfel Kerns Abenteuer (1905); he also produced propagandistic picture books for children during the First World War.52 His tendency toward the grotesque reflects an emerging modern, “non-pretty” style in picture-book illustration in Germany at that time,53 which broke with neo-romantic portrayal of children and other figures. The animals and humans are all caricatures with stereotypical traits. In figure 9.4 we see the sleeping trapper with a huge hat and grazing horse in the background. He and the whaler are the only white characters

220 | Emer O’Sullivan

Figure 9.4.  Arpad Schmidhammer, Mucki: Eine wunderliche Weltreise. Scholz’ Künstler-Bilderbücher 21. Mainz: Scholz, 1905, n.p. Courtesy of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

Mucki meets on his adventures and, unlike those of other ethnic groups, are fully dressed. The Indian is literally red-skinned and naked except for a loincloth and enormous headdress that, in the center left panel, flies vertically in the wind, suggesting a high rate of speed. The expressions of the anthropomorphized animals—the surprise on the horse’s face in the bottom panel—add to the comic effect. The interaction between Mucki and the giant buffalo on four of the panels in figure 9.4 is representative: animals are the agents of the action; Mucki is tossed around like a ball in their game. In this particular sequence, Mucki is dragged, gets caught in a tree, and is then catapulted into the air where his next “means of transport”—an albatross—already flies toward him. It is a funny children’s story of its day, offering exotic locations and tropes familiar to young readers from adventure stories (the trapper and the Indian) and the “common markers of the colonial world”54 (palm trees, vicious predatory animals, dangerous “natives”), whose racist depictions make it unacceptable today. The comedy is generated by the speed of the action, the caricatured figures, and the unlikely coincidences that Mucki experiences. The doggerel verses increase the comic effect: “Kaum hockt er auf des Pottwals Buckel,/ faßt neuer Schrecken unsern Muckel” (No sooner is he perched on the whale’s hump, / when a new horror is upon our Muckl). Here a diminutive variation of the boy’s name, “Muckl,” is used to rhyme with the noun denoting the whale’s hump,

Around-the-World Travel  | 221

“Buckl.” Not only is the rhyming pair of giant whale’s hump and the little boy funny, but the implication that Mucki’s name can also be changed arbitrarily to fit (that is, to rhyme with) whatever new danger arises is equally humorous. But the fun is at Mucki’s expense. The adventures are funny and entertaining for readers of both sexes—and their enjoyment probably had an element of schadenfreude. According to the superiority theory of humor, we can assume that it may have been especially entertaining for girls to read about male grandiosity being stymied in this way. However, it was anything but funny for the protagonist. And just as he is the object and not the agent of the humor, Mucki is also the object and not the agent of the trip. He does not travel but “is traveled.” The expression of frightened terror on his face in figure 9.4 is characteristic throughout. He is always passive, unhappy, and distressed, regardless of who or what he is confronted with. In one picture only does the boy look happy, in the final one after he has been returned to his parents. The arbitrary nature of Mucki’s adventures bears an affinity to board games and, in that respect, resembles Des Herrn Fix von Bickenbach Reise um die Welt in 77 Tagen. But, apart from the very differing attitudes of their authors toward and portrayal of colonized Africans, another striking contrast between the hero of Hoffmann’s game and Schmidhammer’s book is that while Fix, who is the agent of his own fate, turns all his encounters with animals on sea and land to his own advantage, poor passive Mucki is at their mercy. Mucki’s trip is ultimately the punishment for his hubris and grandiosity, a repressive sanction for behavior deemed inappropriate for a child. Rather than allowing the boy the joy of escaping his everyday world to exotic settings, the story implies that children should be careful what they wish for. By using travel as punishment, it shows that traveling can be dangerous and unpleasant. Mucki did not obey his parents and was punished with appropriate brutality; read like this, the story may seem to have more than a little touch of “black pedagogy.” So, although Mucki is modern in its style and also in the way it picks up and parodies technological developments in terms of speed and connectivity of travel, its educational message is fundamentally repressive. Mucki is ultimately a failed Robinson Crusoe. Just like the colonial hero, Mucki, too, disregards his parents warning, goes to sea, falls captive, etc. However, unlike Robinson, Mucki does not establish his own private colony but returns home to be admonished. He is also a returned immigrant, engaging with this particular topic of discourse during a period of mass migration from Germany to the United States.55 The book shows children that it is ultimately best to stay at home.

222 | Emer O’Sullivan

Conclusion In contrast to much educational material, fictional accounts of around-the-world travel can be freely inventive. They can operate in modes such as fantasy and with aesthetic strategies not usually found in textbooks or other such sources, such as humor, parody, and exaggeration. The three texts examined here illustrate how serious discourse on world knowledge can be challenged and made fun of in fiction. They grant young readers agency and, by using elements familiar from institutional and noninstitutional educational contexts, in which such knowledge is passed on in a serious mode, offer young readers light relief. The two books and the game, created between 1865 and 1905 for German children, use the motif of world travel and popular knowledge of the world from different sources to generate comedy in one form or another. Their occasionally parodic modes offer varied readings to a dual audience of children and adults. They differ in their responses to the technological developments of their day and to the newly networked world, and present three trips around the world that vary in terms of artistic style, mode, presentation, and humor. All three works follow the classical “home-away-home” narrative pattern, just like Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. As the above analysis makes clear, the two children’s books and the game pick up and make fun of the contemporary fascination with the topic of travel and the notion of mastering or dominating the world by new means of transport. They adopt elements of and play with forms that traditionally disseminated knowledge to children, such as encyclopedias, travelogues, ABC books, toys, games, and other educational and recreational materials, all of them sources of “knowledge” about the countries of the world and their inhabitants. By playing with this knowledge of the world and with the contemporary sense of time-space compression, the books and games on around-the-world travel discussed here reveal that their readers must have been familiar with the formats and the content they conveyed, otherwise they would not have been able to respond to the humor based on them. By offering alternative, comic models and making around-theworld travel a topic of fun, these texts present information as entertainment and offer their young readers comic relief and at least temporary emancipation from the serious business of acquiring knowledge of the world. Emer O’Sullivan, Professor of English Literature at Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Germany, has published widely in German and English on image studies, children’s literature, and translation. Kinderliterarische Komparatistik (Winter, 2000) won the IRSCL Award for outstanding research in 2001, and Comparative Children’s Literature (Routledge, 2005) received the Children’s Literature Association 2007 Book Award. Imagining Sameness and Difference in

Around-the-World Travel  | 223

Children’s Literature (coedited with Andrea Immel) was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2017. She is currently working on an updated and expanded edition of The Historical Dictionary of Children’s Literature (Scarecrow Press).

Notes   1. Cf. Dünne and Kramer, “Einleitung,” 15.  2. Taylor, Scenes in Europe (1818).  3. Zantop, Colonial Fantasies, 2.   4. For a qualified survey of children’s literature during this era, see Wilkending, “Vom letzten Drittel.”   5. Zantop, 2.   6. Leerssen, “Imagology: History and Method,” 27. For a survey of issues involved in studying the representation of foreign people and places in children’s literature, see O’Sullivan, “Imagology Meets Children’s Literature.”   7. See also the section “Educational Reform: The Philanthropic Movement” in Belgum’s contribution to this volume. It remained central to German education and was further developed by the Reformpädagogik movement in the early twentieth century.  8. See Henning, Leitfaden, 70. See also the five-volume information book for young readers Beschreibungen zu den Abbildungen merkwürdiger Völker und Thiere des Erdbodens (1792–1800), which explicitly named the “natural history elements” as suitable for younger readers, with the anthropological parts reserved for “older children” and adults (Ewers, “Johann Reinhold Forster [1728–1798].”) This German educational stance contrasted with that of Britain, where young children were taught about the peoples of the world. For an account of an innovative educational aid used in infant schools in Britain and Ireland from the 1830s to teach geography, among other things, see O’Sullivan, “Picturing the World for Children.”   9. For an account of ABC books, see O’Sullivan, “S Is for Spaniard.” 10. Richardson, “Romanticism and the End of Childhood,” 25. 11. See Smith, “Constructing the Nation,” 133. 12. Bertuch, Bilderbuch für Kinder. Unless otherwise specified, all translations are by the author. 13. Anonymous, Völkergeschichtliches ABC. 14. Huber, “Les Abécédaires géographiques.” 15. Le Men, Les abécédaires Français, 206. 16. For an account of educational games in Britain, see the extensive documentation in Shefrin, The Dartons. 17. Bowersox, Raising Germans, 3. 18. Ibid., 22. 19. Ibid., 23. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., 26. 22. Butcher, “Introduction,” xi. 23. The Reform Club was an actual club in London, the majority of whose 1,400 members in 1853 were financially independent and saw themselves and their club as being modern, open, and capable of reform. See Lindner, “Der Reform Club.” 24. The closing date of the novel was also the closing date of its serial publication, making it “a work of great and precise engineering.” Carroll, “‘You Are Too Slow,’” 79.

224 | Emer O’Sullivan

25. Breitschwert, Lord Pudding’s (1868). 26. Mahler, “Welt als Spiel,” 319. 27. Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days, 202. 28. Spiering, “English,” 145. 29. Banerjee, “Cultural Imperialism or Rescue?” Today, primarily instigated by the Kolkata-born cultural theorist Gayatri Spivak, “it has again become a hot topic among postcolonial and feminist critics,” hence the title of Banerjee’s article. 30. They may also have noticed that the English and French versions—presumably translated by Breitschwert himself—are not always free of grammatical and orthographic errors. 31. O’Sullivan and Immel, “Sameness and Difference,” 16. 32. Urban, “In 80 Texten um den Roman.” 33. See Dünne and Kramer, “Einleitung,” 15. 34. Strouhal, Die Welt im Spiel, reproduces and analyzes sixty-three games from Europe, North America, and Japan from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. 35. Hoffmann, Des Herrn Fix von Bickenbach [1879]. 36. Verne, Die Reise um die Erde in 80 Tagen (1873). 37. Many actually sought to improve on Fogg’s performance. The first, and most famous, was the American journalist Nelly Bly, who in 1889 traveled around the world for the New York World newspaper in seventy-two days, beating the fictional Phileas Fogg by eight days. Bly even met Jules Verne in Amiens on her trip. The board game Round the World with Nelly Bly: A Novel and Fascinating Game with Plenty of Excitement on Land and Sea, reproduced in Strouhal, was published by the McLoughlin Brothers in New York in 1890. 38. Hoffmann, Der Struwwelpeter (1845). 39. Hoffmann, Des Herrn Fix von Bickenbach (2012), is a high-quality facsimile of the game; an earlier reproduction was issued in 1985. 40. Zekorn-von Bebenburg, “Zur Geschichte des Spiels.” 41. Ibid. 42. Bowersox, Raising Germans, 52. 43. Zekorn-von Bebenburg, Die Geschichte von den schwarzen Buben. 44. Martin, Schwarze Teufel. 45. Wesseling, “Blacker than Black,” 62. 46. Bowersox, Raising Germans, 43. 47. O’Sullivan, “Imagology Meets Children’s Literature,” 8. 48. Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days, 202. 49. Schmidhammer, Mucki. 50. See the introduction by Lässig and Weiß in this volume. 51. Bowersox, Raising Germans, 212. 52. O’Sullivan, “Fun and Military Games.” 53. Wilkending, “Vom letzten Drittel,” 189. In the popular reissue of the book in the 1930s with illustrations by Fritz Baumgarten, Mucki is transformed into a cute child with blond hair and a pudgy body, whose wide-eyed expression of surprise in the face of what happens replaces the distorted grimace of Schmidhammer’s caricature-like Mucki. 54. Bowersox, Raising Germans, 212. 55. See the introduction by Lässig and Weiß in this volume.

Around-the-World Travel  | 225

Bibliography Primary Sources Anonymous. Völkergeschichtliches ABC und Bilderbuch für Kindheit und Jugend. Kitzingen, 1830. Bertuch, Friedrich J. J. Bilderbuch für Kinder enthaltend eine angenehme Sammlung von Tieren, Pflanzen, Blumen, Früchten, Mineralien, Trachten und allerhand anderen unterrichtenden Gegenständen aus dem Reiche der Natur, der Künste und Wissenschaften; alle nach den besten Originalien gewählt, gestochen und mit einer kurzen wissenschaftlichen und den VerstandesKräften eines Kindes angemessenen Erklärung begleitet. 12 vols. Weimar, 1792–1830. Breitschwert, Wilhelm v. Lord Pudding’s und seines Dieners John Fahrten und Abenteuer an allen Ländern der Erde: Ein Bilderbuch für Groß u. Klein. [Deutsch, Englisch und Französisch]. Stuttgart, [1868]. Henning, Johann W. Leitfaden beym methodischen Unterricht in der Geographie. Iferten, 1812. Hoffmann, Heinrich. Der Struwwelpeter. Lustige Geschichten und drollige Bilder. Frankfurt, 1845. ———. Des Herrn Fix von Bickenbach Reise um die Welt in 77 Tagen. Frankfurt, ca. 1879; and Frankfurt: Struwwelpeter-Museum, 2012. Schmidhammer, Arpad. Mucki: Eine wunderliche Weltreise. Scholz’ Künstler-Bilderbücher 21. Mainz, 1905. Taylor, Isaac. Scenes in Europe, for the Amusement and Instruction of Little Tarry-At-Home Travellers. London, 1818. Verne, Jules. Around the World in Eighty Days. Translated with an introduction and notes by William Butcher. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. ———. Die Reise um die Erde in 80 Tagen. Unknown translator. Pest, 1873.

Secondary Sources Banerjee, Jacqueline. “Cultural Imperialism or Rescue? The British and Suttee.” Victorian Web. http://www.victorianweb.org/history/empire/india/suttee.html. Last modified 26 July 2014. Beller, Manfred, and Joep Leerssen, eds. Imagology: The Cultural Construction and Literary Representation of National Characters: A Critical Survey. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. Bogen, Steffen. “Einleitung zum Spiel: Vom Spiel zum Buch und über das Diagramm mit Zeitachse wieder zurück.” In Weltnetzwerke—Weltspiele: Jules Vernes “In 80 Tagen um die Welt,” edited by “Passepartout” [Jörg Dünne, Kirsten Kramer, and Steffen Bogen], 23–29. Konstanz: Konstanz University Press, 2013. Bowersox, Jeff. Raising Germans in the Age of Empire: Youth and Colonial Culture, 1871–1914. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Butcher, William. “Introduction.” In Jules Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days, vii–xxxi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Carroll, Jane S. “‘You Are Too Slow’: Time in Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days.” In Victorian Time: Technologies, Standardizations, Catastrophes, edited by Trish Ferguson, 77–94. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Dünne, Jörg, and Kirsten Kramer. “Einleitung: Weltnetzwerke—Weltspiele— Welterzählungen.” In Weltnetzwerke—Weltspiele: Jules Vernes “In 80 Tagen um die Welt,”

226 | Emer O’Sullivan

edited by “Passepartout” [Jörg Dünne, Kirsten Kramer, and Steffen Bogen], 15–21. Konstanz: Konstanz University Press, 2013. Ewers, Hans-Heino. “Johann Reinhold Forster (1728–1798)/Georg Simon Klügel (1739–1812): Beschreibungen zu den Abbildungen merkwürdiger Völker und Thiere des Erdbodens (T. 3). 5 Teile. Halle 1792 bis ca. 1800.” In Handbuch zur Kinder- und Jugendliteratur: Von 1750 bis 1800, edited by Theodor Brüggemann and Hans-Heino Ewers, 1169–76. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1982. Huber, Bernard. “Les Abécédaires géographiques du XIXe siècle: Une ‘géographie-prétexte.’” Mappemonde 62, no. 2 (2001): 42–46. Leerssen, Joep. “Imagology: History and Method.” In Imagology: The Cultural Construction and Literary Representation of National Characters: A Critical Survey, Manfred Beller and Joep Leerssen, 17–32. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. Le Men, Ségolène. Les abécédaires Français illustrés du XIXe siècle. Paris: Editions Promodis, 1984. Lindner, Ulrike. “Der Reform Club.” In Weltnetzwerke—Weltspiele: Jules Vernes “In 80 Tagen um die Welt,” edited by “Passepartout” [Jörg Dünne, Kirsten Kramer, and Steffen Bogen], 31–34. Konstanz: Konstanz University Press, 2013. Mahler, Andreas. “Welt als Spiel: Syntaktik—Pragmatik—Semantik.” In Weltnetzwerke— Weltspiele: Jules Vernes “In 80 Tagen um die Welt,” edited by “Passepartout” [Jörg Dünne, Kirsten Kramer, and Steffen Bogen], 319–21. Konstanz: Konstanz University Press, 2013. Martin, Peter. Schwarze Teufel, edle Mohren. Hamburg: Junius, 1993. O’Sullivan, Emer. “S Is for Spaniard: The Representation of Foreign Nations in ABCs and Picturebooks.” European Journal of English Studies 13, no. 3 (2009): 333–49. ———. “Imagology Meets Children’s Literature.” International Research in Children’s Literature 4, no. 2 (2011): 1–14. ———. “Fun and Military Games: The War in German Picturebooks, 1914–1915.” In Children’s Literature and Culture of the First World War, edited by Lissa Paul, Rosemary R. Johnston, and Emma Short, 197–213. New York: Routledge, 2016. ———. “Picturing the World for Children: Early Nineteenth-Century Images of Foreign Nations.” In Imagining Sameness and Difference in Children’s Literature: From the Enlightenment to the Present Day, edited by idem and Andrea Immel, 51–70. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. ———. “Sameness and Difference in Children’s Literature. An Introduction.” In Imagining Sameness and Difference in Children’s Literature: From the Enlightenment to the Present Day, edited by idem and Andrea Immel, 1–25. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. O’Sullivan, Emer, and Andrea Immel, eds. Imagining Sameness and Difference in Children’s Literature: From the Enlightenment to the Present Day. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. “Passepartout” [Jörg Dünne, Kirsten Kramer, and Steffen Bogen], ed. Weltnetzwerke— Weltspiele: Jules Vernes “In 80 Tagen um die Welt”. Konstanz: Konstanz University Press, 2013. Richardson, Alan. “Romanticism and the End of Childhood.” In Literature and the Child: Romantic Continuations, Postmodern Contestations, ed. James H. McGavran, 23–43. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1999. Shefrin, Jill. The Dartons: Publishers of Educational Aids, Pastimes & Juvenile Ephemera, 1787– 1876; A Bibliographical Checklist; Together with a Description of the Darton Archive as Held by the Cotsen Children’s Library, Princeteon University & A Brief History of Printed Teaching Aids. Los Angeles: Cotsen Occasional Press, 2009.

Around-the-World Travel  | 227

Smith, Johanna M. “Constructing the Nation: Eighteenth-Century Geographies for Children.” Mosaic 34, no. 2 (2001): 133–48. Spiering, Menno. “English.” In Imagology: The Cultural Construction and Literary Representation of National Characters: A Critical Survey, Manfred Beller and Joep Leerssen, 145–51. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. Strouhal, Ernst. Die Welt im Spiel: Atlas der spielbaren Landkarten Reise durchs Leben, durch die Städte, in ferne Länder, über Berg und Tal, durch Zeit und Raum. Vienna: Christian Brandstätter, 2015. Urban, Urs. “In 80 Texten um den Roman: Die Vermessung der Weltraumordnung im lite­ rarischen Wort-Spiel (Review).” KulturPoetik, no. 2 (2015). http://kulturpoetik.germanistik.uni-saarland.de. Wesseling, Elisabeth. “Blacker than Black: Contextualising the Issue of White Supremacy in Heinrich Hoffmann’s ‘The Story of the Inky Boys.’” International Research in Children’s Literature 2, no. 1 (2009): 49–64. Wilkending, Gisela. “Vom letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg.” In Geschichte der deutschen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, ed. Reiner Wild, 171–240. 3rd rev. ed. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2008. Zantop, Susanne. Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family, and Nation in Precolonial Germany, 1770–1870. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997. Zekorn-von Bebenburg, Beate. Die Geschichte von den schwarzen Buben: Ausstellungstext aus der Sonderausstellung “Das Weihnachtsgeschenk. Die Entstehung des Struwwelpeter.” Frankfurt: Struwwelpeter-Museum, 2009. ———. “Zur Geschichte des Spiels.” In Des Herrn Fix von Bickenbach Reise um die Welt in 77 Tagen [by Heinrich Hoffmann]. Frankfurt: Struwwelpeter-Museum, 2012.

Chapter 10

The Rise of the Trading Card Collecting the World before World War I Judith Blume

S In September 1900, German elementary school teacher Heinrich Wolgast, a well-known education reformer, wrote an article for the Jugendschriften-Warte, a newspaper founded in 1893, with the goal of supporting quality literature for children and youngsters, highlighting the rise of trading cards used in advertising (Reklame-Bilder). Wolgast claimed that this new medium was “flooding the whole world and especially the youth,”1 and exerting a profound influence, which he linked to the way children used them: “A hundred times the same picture goes through the hands of the collecting child. It is classified, compared, estimated for exchange. No picture book enjoys such an intense view.”2 Wolgast concluded by suggesting that the cards be used in schools to provide education in good taste since the children were already collecting them voluntarily. They merely needed to be exhibited: “[A] long blackboard on the wall of the schoolroom or in the hallway is an excellent educational tool if it is filled with rotating sets of pictures.”3 Trading cards were small, colored pictures handed out for free with different consumer goods starting in the 1870s, usually in a six-part series. By 1900, when Wolgast wrote his article, they were already a well-established advertising medium and popular collector’s item, which promoted customer loyalty. Thousands of children and adults collected the cards, which portrayed animals, plants, impressions of the colonies, technical inventions, historical events, as well as sweet scenes with children or comical pictures and language puzzles. The company-issued images were often the first (colored) pictures that children (and sometimes also adults) owned. As add-ons to branded products, they are part of the history of modern consumption and advertising. But due to their subjects, Notes from this chapter begin on page 245.

The Rise of the Trading Card  | 229

visual themes, and explanatory texts, they are also relevant to the history of popular knowledge. The templates for the trading cards seem frequently to have been taken out of encyclopedias, family magazines, or similar media of knowledge transfer.4 Trading cards were thus part of a chain of media uses of topics and typical visual themes for illustrating these topics, which, taken together, produced and provoked canonization of these motifs. Consequently, trading cards count among the knowledge-producing media “outside of academic spaces and scholarly circles.”5 They were neither regulated by the state nor officially legitimated, but depended on consumers for their success. Despite their educational value, they had to be attractive and entertaining enough to prompt children (and adults) to collect them voluntarily. The cards are positioned between entertainment and education or (according to the terminology used in this volume) between official knowledge and knowledge in entertainment and clearly show the importance of popular mass media within the history of popular knowledge. Within the analysis of a “socially legitimated knowledge,”6 trading cards thus are an important complement to more official media like textbooks. For more than a century, trading cards brought colorful images of the outside world into the home, thus shaping collectors’ pictorial consciousness and world knowledge. The historical context in which these cards appeared, alone, suggests that such consciousness and knowledge was marked by colonialism. Like many other forms of media, trading cards show the close connection that existed between consumer culture and the colonial imagination.7 The physical format of the trading cards, their distribution in series, and the manner in which they were embedded in a variety of practices—in Wolgast’s words, “repeated engagement”— made them particularly powerful media of popular knowledge and the colonial imagination. After all, according to Wolgast, “that which pleasantly engages the mind and the spirit day in and day out must leave its mark.”8 After briefly describing the history of the cards, I will use selected series to convey how trading cards presented, circulated, and generated a colonial gaze on the world, focusing on the visual themes of the cards and series. Then I will analyze the physical format of the series in more depth, discussing the practices associated with them, the role of the collector, and the cards’ arrangement in albums. This will demonstrate that trading cards played an important role in knowledge transfer not only in education and the reproduction of motifs but also in giving specific shape to that knowledge on account of their manner of publication and the practices associated with them.

Trading Cards: History, Reception, and Role Trading cards were made by chromolithography, an advanced version of lithographic printing technology. This multistep process made it possible to produce

230 | Judith Blume

countless colored copies relatively cheaply and quickly, leading to an enormous increase in the availability of printed images and to a variety of image types being produced within the so-called luxury paper industry, including postcards, stamps, wafers, and trading cards.9 Aristide Boucicaut, the owner of the famous department store Au Bon Marché in Paris, is considered the creator of trading cards. Starting in the 1850s, customers in his store received pictures as presents after shopping, mostly of cute children on a gold background. Shortly thereafter, the German chocolate company Gebrüder Stollwerck introduced so-called picture chocolates in 1860, chocolate bars for vending machines with image-bedecked wrappers. Then, between 1871 and 1875, the Liebig’s Extract of Meat Company Ltd. began utilizing trading cards in series of six as one of their main promotions.10 Given trading cards’ success, other companies soon started to issue them as well. By the late nineteenth century, several companies published trading cards that were either attached to packaging or handed out by the salesman (so-called Kaufmannsbilder).11 Most cards were issued, based on the Liebig model, in topic-based series of six. Companies also frequently distributed collectors’ albums, which often provided further information via captions or introductory texts.

Target Audience and Distribution Because trading cards were an ephemeral medium, precise circulation figures or records of distribution are rarely known or documented. This applies, in particular, to the time before the First World War. However, one important indication of their audience and distribution is the brands associated with them. Up to the First World War, trading cards primarily accompanied luxury products like coffee, tea, chocolate, or meat extracts, so they are mainly associated with the urban middle class.12 In all likelihood, trading cards also gained exposure in other social milieus and were handed down to others, often across generations, as a traveling medium. Nevertheless, they did not become a mass medium distributed across all social circles in Germany until the cigarette industry began utilizing them in the mid-1920s, beyond this volume’s time frame. In addition to the products, the images and albums themselves also indicate the target audience and the intended reception. For example, many albums provided possible reception contexts on their title pages. Nearly all depict idyllic scenes of childhood and family and portray well-behaved, well-dressed children discussing the cards, often with their mother. As studies on the socialization of reading have shown, scenes of joint viewing and reading symbolized an intact middle-class family in the late nineteenth century; joint reading, itself, was regarded as a sign and guarantee of a close, good relationship between parent and child.13 Introductions to albums further suggest that the cards and albums were aimed mostly at children and secondarily at their parents. Furthermore, as

The Rise of the Trading Card  | 231

the introduction to the third Stollwerck album in 1900 makes clear, for example, adults were also a distinct target audience: “Young and old should therefore find entertainment and instruction while browsing the album filled with the cards.”14 Another clue to the cards’ reception and distribution comes from the associations for card collectors, especially collectors of Liebig cards, from the late 1800s, as well as the journals and magazines they generated, such as the llustrirte Liebigbilder-Zeitung (ILZ), the Zeitschrift für Ansichtskarten-Sammler und Liebigbild-Interessenten (ZASLI) and the Lieder- und Handbuch der Ansichtskartenund Liebigbildsammler (LHALS). Although children were mentioned as collectors, the mere fact of the associations and journals indicates that adults—mostly men—were also heavily involved,15 and newspaper articles confirmed this.16 The articles, testimonies, and songs in the magazines evoked different kinds and types of collectors. Some depicted the professional male collector, calmly enjoying his collection on quiet evenings;17 others clearly addressed women and their way of collecting influenced by aesthetic categories;18 several portrayed family scenes with adults telling stories about the pictures,19 in which the album becomes an important part of the family heritage.20 All in all, the products, associations, and journals, as well as the images and albums themselves, suggest that trading cards published before 1914 were centered on the middle-class family. They can therefore be seen primarily as a source of knowledge and of ways of conceiving of the world for the educated middle class, especially in urban areas.

Transfer of Knowledge through Trading Cards The sources repeatedly highlighted trading cards as a vivid and joyful form of knowledge transfer. For instance, the Liebig Company advertised its trading cards as a helpful product, “a treasure trove of knowledge,” for parents whose children, thirsty for knowledge, tortured them with thousands of questions.21 The collectors’ magazines likewise justified trading card collections through the knowledge one could gain from them. “[The Liebig cards] take us to faraway lands; they do not just show us an idiosyncrasy, or the image of a ruler, however, but using artistic imagery show us the country’s landscape, its people, its manners, its customs, its products, its fauna, and countless other aspects.”22 “A Liebig card collection,” a 1904 ILZ article proclaimed, “thus gives our youth the opportunity, in every way, to complement their knowledge.”23 The cards’ primary reliance on imagery to convey the canonized knowledge required officially in school spurred users to associate them with easy and joyful learning. This positive transfer of knowledge through images had already been well established in educational discourse by the late nineteenth century.24 Educators had already made the connection between image and appeal, between teaching and

232 | Judith Blume

entertainment, in the eighteenth century, especially in relation to children. They praised images’ entertainment value or criticized their visual reduction but also utilized images’ educational nature to label an essentially entertainment-oriented product as a “rational diversion.”25 As trading cards and albums were part of this tradition of transferring knowledge through images, they also sparked controversy. The Gebrüder Stollwerck chocolate company provides a particularly compelling example of this. In the 1890s, the company was accused of addicting children to sweets with its vending machines, which sold chocolate along with trading cards. It fended off a potential ban on the machines by arguing that the cards promoted education and a proper upbringing. Album forewords, press releases, and teachers’ statements emphasized the cards’ pedagogical value, referring to their constructive channeling of children’s passion for collecting.26 While many media of knowledge transfer were praised for being entertaining in addition to educational, trading cards were praised as being educational in addition to entertaining. This popularization of knowledge thus helped to make leisure legitimate. Contemporary discussions on knowledge transfer through images draw attention to an important point in this context. Unlike textbooks, which had minimal illustrations at that time, trading cards primarily utilized images. Of course, there were other knowledge-transferring media with images, such as lexicons and family journals, which were a treasure trove of visual models for trading cards. But trading cards were more colorful, had higher quality prints, and contained a much greater ratio of image to text. Whereas a few images illustrated lots of text in lexicons and other books, prior to 1914 trading cards had at most brief captions or explanatory texts on the back to accompany the salient images. Consequently, card collectors could gain knowledge from them with or without reading ability, whether they were young children or illiterate adults. While the distribution of the cards clearly linked them to the urban middle class, their visual presentation of knowledge made them attractive to other parts of the society, too.

Colonial World Knowledge The trading cards of the Liebig Company were some of the most successful. They long remained largely unchanged, significantly influencing the character and unique qualities of the medium. They are now considered the prototype and will thus be treated as the standard-setter of early trading cards here. The cards discussed in the present analysis are drawn from the digital edition of all Liebig cards published in Germany.27 Approximately nine hundred Liebig card series appeared between 1875 and 1914, each composed of six cards dedicated to a theme. The backsides frequently included brief explanations of the individual visual motifs. Individual series did not build on each other thematically and were often entirely unrelated. Even if

The Rise of the Trading Card  | 233

one can now identify sets of the same type of series, sequels, or thematic connections, the themes varied widely in sequence. Historical portrayals and cultural comparisons stood alongside cards with scientific or technical themes. Scenes from fairy tales and legends appeared next to striking landscapes, animals next to plants, scenes of the homeland next to images of the colonies. In general, the Liebig cards provided a pattern of world interpretation that was linked to a concept of encyclopedic knowledge. Within this broad diversity of themes, the depiction of the wider world claims an important place, however, with several hundred series thematizing regions outside of Europe by 1914. The view of the wider world these series portrayed was a colonial one. Considering their era, this is not at all surprising. The consumer and popular culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was replete with colonial and racist themes. “Commodity racism,” as it is sometimes called in the scholarship, significantly extended scientific racism; the “colonial fantasies” associated with it were, thus, already powerful well before the “late beginning” of German colonialism and remained powerful beyond its “early end.”28 Some scholarly analyses have investigated trading cards’ contribution to spreading colonial and racist images.29 Here, I will expand on this and explore how the cards’ physical format supported their themes and thus how the Liebig cards undergirded and fostered the reenactment of the “colonial logic” of the “rhetoric of modernity.”30

To Travel, Discover, and Conquer Liebig cards enabled imaginary travel in the late 1800s.31 Many series portrayed landscapes and urban and everyday scenes from individual countries. Similar to travel reports, novels, and postcards, they made it possible for people not participating in the era’s new mobility to be part of the new “connectedness” of the world via imaginary journeys.32 Some series explicitly thematized the travel experience itself, utilizing the six-part format to illustrate a travel story or depicting a sequence of famous travelers. In the series in figure 10.1, the meat extract itself becomes the traveler. This series slightly varies early series that told stories “all around the Liebig pot.”33 It portrays the travels of a large pot of meat extract to Africa: in the company of a colonizer, it is unloaded from a ship and transported through the jungle. In the end, it is presented to an African ruler, whose subjects dance for joy around the Liebig pot and finally shower the visitor with gifts. The series that immediately followed, “Forscher” (Explorers), no. 0180, 1891, presenting explorers such as Emin Pasha and Alexander von Humboldt, suggested an analogy: like these explorers on an expedition, the meat extract formed part of the colonial powers’ process of travel and discovery.34 While these series already cast a victor’s proprietary eye on the world outside Europe, others expressed imperialist claims more directly. They portrayed how ostensibly empty land was accessed, cultivated, built up, and exploited, thereby

234 | Judith Blume

Figure 10.1.  Liebig trading card series: “Das Fleisch-Extract in Afrika,” no. 0179 (1891). Bernhard Jussen, ed., Liebig’s Sammelbilder: Vollständige Ausgabe der Serien 1 bis 1138, Atlas des Historischen Bildwissens 1 (Berlin: Digitale Bibliothek, 2006).

establishing a comparison of the various European colonial powers. The series presented different scenes of colonization, from warships on the sea and caravans of oxen exploring land to railroad construction.35 The colonizers’ stance represented their power: legs wide apart, hands planted firmly on hips, they looked at the untapped land in a gesture of ownership extending into the future.36 Whereas these series presented the colonies as a space for travel and adventure, others highlighted them as sources for raw materials and cheap labor. Numerous series depicted the individual production steps of various products, presenting a modern, global production process based on the division of labor. Production images from the colonies mostly focused on extraction and initial processing but

The Rise of the Trading Card  | 235

Figure 10.2.  Liebig trading card series: “Die Zuckerfabrikation,” no. 0480 (1900). Bernhard Jussen, ed., Liebig’s Sammelbilder: Vollständige Ausgabe der Serien 1 bis 1138, Atlas des Historischen Bildwissens 1 (Berlin: Digitale Bibliothek, 2006).

in Europe involved scenes of large, machine-filled rooms. Thus, for example, the card series on sugar production (figure 10.2) began with an image of workers manually harvesting raw sugar with a colonial overseer in the middle. The space of the second card was entirely taken up with a machine shown peeling sugar cane and cutting it into small pieces. Large industrial objects, such as copper vessels, wheeled mechanisms, and pipes, dominated many scenes. The Liebig cards presented the global division of labor in a positive light, with a willing and eager colonial labor force. Resistance or forced labor was not portrayed.37 Very few Liebig cards showed the colonial wars, even though they were evident in the press and in general consciousness. Their “visual style, which lean[ed] towards the colonial idyll,” as Zeller puts it, “amounted to an iconographic domestication or visual defusing of colonialism.”38 Using a visually more moderate racism, the

236 | Judith Blume

trading cards subtly rendered racist thinking patterns a matter of course. Part of this was the construction of racially signified bodies, which most obviously appeared in the Liebig series with humorous intent. The series depicted bodies with exaggerated racial features, such as the typical derogatory image of so-called Hosenneger (“Negroes” in trousers, in literal translation), figures that often came up in the acculturation debate and depicted racialized bodies in European clothing.39 The figures appeared to play a role (poorly), almost in a theatrical manner, to seem silly, helpless, and clumsy. The captions often augmented their ridiculousness with rhyming but grammatically incorrect sentences commenting on the scene; the error-ridden language underscored the disproportionality of the pictured body. Even if the trading cards seemed “harmless” compared to other racist caricatures in this context, they had no criticism or distancing irony.40 The combination of exaggerated physiognomic characteristics, common in caricatures, and racist stereotypes repeated physiognomic degradation.41 As an advertising medium serving a discourse based on consensus, the Liebig cards presented and legitimated a harmonious image of colonialism. The laughter the cards evoked was arrogant and degrading, hardening rather than softening stereotypes.

Comparing and Sorting: Taxonomy and the History of Development Liebig cards, like other trading cards, largely depicted topics and images present in other educational and entertainment media. But unlike posters, classroom pictures, or advertisements, Liebig cards were always part of a six-part series combined to form a tableau on the album pages. This structure gave a specific aesthetic shape to the knowledge conveyed by the cards. There was a “taxonomic aesthetic” to many of the series when the cards were viewed all together, as the juxtaposition of variations of the same category formed a grid pattern.42 Hundreds of Liebig series put different motifs from biology, geography, history, literature, and so on next to each other, whether the images were of plants, animals, landscapes, buildings, inventions, or whatever else. One could say that the Liebig cards depicted the world in comparisons. Already a well-established format for presenting knowledge, this taxonomic arrangement clearly got a colonial shape on some of the cards. While the classifications of nature alone might be seen as part of an imperial seizure, the classificatory depiction of human beings clearly aligned with knowledge production linked to colonial practices. Often, the Liebig series combined the classification of nature and humans, implying a link between them. For example, the series in figure 10.3 presented six inland lakes of the world. Each card had the same structure, with twothirds of the space taken up with a view of the lake and surrounding landscape,

The Rise of the Trading Card  | 237

Figure 10.3.  Liebig trading card series: “Bekannte Binnenseen,” no. 0482 (1901). Bernhard Jussen, ed., Liebig’s Sammelbilder: Vollständige Ausgabe der Serien 1 bis 1138, Atlas des Historischen Bildwissens 1 (Berlin: Digitale Bibliothek, 2006).

and one-third portraying an inhabitant of the region in traditional dress against a yellow background. The uniform design of the cards, however, also underscored the differences: Lake Ladoga had a bare, rocky, dark shore, but the light blue waters and green shoreline of Lake Baikal gave it a more welcoming appearance. Whereas Lake Como’s shore was densely populated, there were no houses around Lake Victoria, with a small boat the only sign of human habitation. These regions seemed to have little in common beyond an inland lake. The figures in traditional dress and the objects they carried heightened this impression. Many of the Liebig series compared nations, regions, or continents in a similar manner. The combination of physical features, traditional dress, and typical products, objects, or buildings transformed highly stereotypical figures into abstract representations and allegorical decorations.43 Yet Liebig cards focused

238 | Judith Blume

Figure 10.4.  Liebig trading card series: “Zur Geschichte des Eisens,” no. 0895 (1913). Bernhard Jussen, ed., Liebig’s Sammelbilder: Vollständige Ausgabe der Serien 1 bis 1138, Atlas des Historischen Bildwissens 1 (Berlin: Digitale Bibliothek, 2006).

on both regions outside and inside Europe, mixing fascination with exotic foreigners with scenes of the homeland, as world exhibitions of the time also did; the interest in far-off “wilds” came with enthusiasm for the “savage within.”44 The taxonomic aesthetic the Liebig cards endlessly repeated implicitly prompted collectors to internalize comparative narrative structures and “patterns of world interpretation.”45 In this process of comparison, many Liebig cards not only highlighted differences in general but linked them in the fashion of the time to a typical binary between “traditional” and “modern” or between “primitive” and “civilized.” This is particularly evident in series portraying world history by means of changes in objects or products. The series “The Mask,” for example, presented masks

The Rise of the Trading Card  | 239

as objects in different historical times and spaces, from Ancient Egypt and the Middle Ages to contemporary African culture.46 Such juxtaposition placed the “negro dance” alongside ancient Greek theater, yet it also clearly contrasted the masks’ uses into primitive and civilized forms. The theater scene in Ancient Greece portrayed upright and calm figures, whereas the “Indian Dance Mask” and “Negro Dance Mask” conveyed an impression of sweeping, ecstatic movements. The series that intertwined taxonomic order and chronological sequence were key to this kind of semantic and narrative structure, helping to give it its distinctly colonial shape. By juxtaposing geographical and temporal variations on a theme, these series told a history of development. Thus, the series pictured in figure 10.4, for example, presented the history of iron production from Ancient Egypt through the Germanic tribes and African peoples to the modern European present.47 The “African peoples,” without further historical specification, were temporally located near the Germanic tribes. The overlap of geographical and cultural comparison and the temporal history of development placed them at a time in the past for Europeans viewers. The evolutionary paradigm defined the colonized as “primitive peoples” and placed them at the beginning of human development.48 Accordingly, Liebig and many other trading cards coupled travel around the world with travel through time. The sequences in such series presented histories of development, wherein each successive image rendered the object more sophisticated and production more technical. The series almost always ended in contemporary European society. The series pictured in figure 10.4, for example, ended with a card whose design and coloring strongly evoked Adolph Menzel’s now-iconic “Eisenwerk (Moderne Cyklopen)” (The Iron Rolling Mill [Modern Cyclops]). In essence, then, the development history series distanced the collector both geographically and temporally from colonized peoples. By interlacing geography and chronology, taxonomy and sequence, the series highlighted how far European modernity was from “primitive” cultures, turning a lack of equality into a lack of simultaneity.49 The double division marked the radical difference between past and present, between premodern and modern, and between colony and metropole.50 Inextricably linked to a history of progress, the juxtapositions of the Liebig series helped define the collector’s point of view—that of the modern middle-class world in a European nation-state—as a special one different from the rest of the world. In this rhetorical scheme, Europe was “both the temporal present and the center of the world.”51

Colonial Practices in the Living Room Liebig cards were an important part of the middle class’s pictorial and knowledge culture, and were embedded in the spectrum of illustrated lexicons, reading primers, and picture books. However, they differed from these media in that

240 | Judith Blume

they were not affixed in a book from the start but needed to be collected, traded, ordered, and consistently accumulated. In the 1900 article cited above, the educator Wolgast referred to “repeated engagement” as explaining the cards’ notable influence. Beyond this physical format, the Liebig cards were also unique in that practices connected with them reinforced their visual imagery, enabling collectors to relive the colonial worldview, its practices, and its subjects at home. Thus, collectors not only acquired knowledge but also engaged in important perceptual techniques and practices in their collecting and sorting. These were tools of knowledge. The increase in knowledge made it necessary to develop methods for addressing its mass and heterogeneity. Trading cards can also be interpreted as a pop culture response to this need. Being divided up into six-part series, they conveyed a sense of completeness despite the great quantities of information, promising to give their users an overview.

Collecting: Completeness and Openness Trading cards represented the ideal of completeness of knowledge in their physical format. This tendency was already apparent in the great variety of subjects they addressed, but it was also evident in the titles of several series citing alphabetic order or a geographical or chronological overview, such as “The World of Trees from the Equator to the North Cape” or “Then and Now.”52 The practice of collecting itself also reflected this striving for completeness. Having a complete collection was the stated goal of many collectors and was expressed repeatedly in the journals, whether, as formulated by Wolgast, a child wished “to have his album be [full]” or adult collectors avoided disregarding “a badly preserved card”—as they were advised to do—which “provisionally” made collections “more complete.”53 The completeness Liebig card collections presented had a certain character, however, due to their subdivision into six-part series, which contemporary collectors already noted. In particular, in contrast to postcards, which were branded as “shoreless” collectibles, many articles in the ILZ emphasized the Liebig cards’ “system”54 as a clear, helpful, and pedagogical structuring. The division into sixpart series, one collector remarked in 1900, meant that a Liebig card collection could inspire “the impression of completeness at any time.”55 Another article described the Liebig series as “a rounded whole” at any point in the collecting process, “which is impossible with illustrated cards.”56 Collectors clearly did not perceive the Liebig cards as a mass of images in which one could lose oneself, as with other popular collectors’ items like stamps and postcards. The six parts of each series gave an intermediate sense of success and finality despite a theoretically endless collection process. This simultaneity of finality and openness, a key characteristic of the Liebig cards, was further supported by the albums designed for their collection. Although

The Rise of the Trading Card  | 241

Figure 10.5.  Album for Liebig Cards (ca. 1890), Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Inv.-Nr. N (33 Q 1804) 1053/1993. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum Europäischer Kulturen. Photo: Judith Blume.

Liebig did not release its own albums, the success of the cards prompted the independent production of customized albums. By 1890 at the latest, these albums had become a standard product along with albums for calling cards, stamps, and photos,57 and they were a hot topic in publications. The ILZ published more than thirty articles concerning the “question of the album” between 1896 and 1909. Nearly all albums, regardless of their design, were formatted so that the six cards of a series could be arranged on one vertical or horizontal page. Thus, most of the Liebig albums mirrored the completeness of the series in their uninterrupted placement on the page. The empty slots made gaps immediately recognizable. Consequently, collectors often used cards from other series as substitutes in incomplete ones, which demonstrates the importance of the sense of completion noted above. Even if many collectors clearly stated their goal of “completeness without gaps,”58 ILZ articles frequently referred to a complete Liebig card collection as a nearly unobtainable ideal. For example, the magazine noted that “nobody, with the exception of the Liebig company itself, likely owns a complete collection of all the cards that have appeared, and very few likely have a near-complete collection.”59 The publisher also remarked in the first issue that no one should “worry about owning all Liebig cards; there is no evidence until now of a complete collection; perhaps the Liebig company has one in its archive.”60 However, the challenge of trying to obtain a complete collection was what made “collecting truly collecting …, because some series have become nearly impossible to find and the passion for collecting thereby is revived.”61

242 | Judith Blume

The encyclopedic nature of the sequence of series also fostered collectors’ sense of endless collecting. The regular release of new series suggested the progression would continue indefinitely into the future and would be impossible to complete. What differentiated this endlessness from the “shorelessness”62 of the stamps and postcards, however, was the subdivision into series, which created smaller units that could be completed. The satisfaction connected to completeness was mixed with the endlessness of the collection process to perpetuate sales.

Overview: Ordering Variety The Liebig collectors’ albums were highly regular in their structure. Regardless of the theme, the format always allowed for six cards in the series to be presented on one page in a consistent manner. Nearly all the albums were simple, with nothing to distract attention from the cards themselves. The pages did not have additional illustrations or writing; the cards were mostly placed next to one another on the page, separated merely by frames or ornamentation, if anything. No albums varied the arrangement of the six cards, and the arrangement was never made more dynamic by placement in a circle, for instance. The consistent placement of the cards suggested regularity and order, contrasting the variety of the themes with a uniformity of form that generated a feeling of a systematicity (see figure 10.5). The regularity and order of the Liebig card albums was clear, and contrasted with other albums for collecting images. Exotic visual motifs also played an important role in colorful scrapbooks popular from the mid-nineteenth century in which different materials could be mixed and arranged as one wished. Illustrated broadsheets had a variety of images of wild animals and foreign

Figure 10.6.  Album with cuts from sheets of pictures (ca. 1850), Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Inv.-Nr. D (33 O 422) 96/1983. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum Europäischer Kulturen. Photo: Judith Blume.

The Rise of the Trading Card  | 243

plants that stood out in the collages in the albums (see figure 10.6). Collectors may have utilized thematic, aesthetic or narrative ideas in placing the images of elephants, bunches of grapes, Arab peoples, castles, hummingbirds, and windmills, for example, but the collections did not convey a sense of systemic and sorted compilation. Rather, the pages invited viewers to dwell on the individual motifs and lose themselves in the details. Of course, there were also trading card collectors who put their cards in scrapbooks, even though this was far less common in Germany than in the United States.63 Such collectors mixed trading cards with newspaper clippings, picture sheets, and other collectibles however they liked.64 These scrapbooks put collectors in the foreground as actors. Nevertheless, most trading cards in Germany were collected in albums designed for them. This comparison of scrapbooks and the Liebig albums emphasizes the unique quality of trading cards: the individual Liebig cards divided the world into equal parts, and the six-part series divided those parts into sections of equal size, each of which could be found on one album page. Thus, despite the heterogeneity of the knowledge on the cards, the arrangement made the world tangible and more easily comprehensible. Unlike the colorful collages in scrapbooks, which provided a unique way of presenting the variety of the world, provoked awe, and allowed one to lose oneself in the details, the colorful mixtures of the Liebig albums were clearly structured, six-part tableaus that generated a sense of systematic and encyclopedic gathering, and thus control.

The Center and the Panoptic View With series depicting aspects of the world in an encyclopedic manner, which found their place in a well-sorted album, Liebig cards seemed to provide collectors with access to the wider world. The adaptations of folk songs published in the LHALS demonstrated this especially well. The verses praised the collection’s ability to make the world magically appear “in front of one’s eyes … from pole to pole.”65 The world “in its entirety” lay before the collector in the album with images of every “place, mountains, valleys and heights, city and town, far and wide.”66 With the colorful images, which could be viewed at any time from the comfort of one’s own home, one gained possession of the world, or at least its “true image”: The whole wide world I call my own, I look at it whenever I like, And though they are only painted cards, They are produced by the artist’s hard work. A true image it conjures nonetheless, This collector’s sport, which I chose myself.67

244 | Judith Blume

The differentiation between the “wider world” and the subject’s position is inherent in the act of collecting. Bringing together scattered objects creates a separation into center and periphery, and not infrequently into macrocosmos and microcosmos.68 This construction of a center, and the concomitant implication that the rest of the world is periphery, is also an essential component of colonialism. They are, in the words of decolonial theorist Walter D. Mignolo, “different strategies for constructing exteriority, an outside invented by the rhetoric of modernity in the process of creating one’s own inside.”69 Historian Felix Axster therefore speaks of an “epistemological relationship between colonial policies of representation and the poetry of collecting.”70 The perspective the collector constructs or takes on is crucial in this. In her study of travel memoirs, novelist Mary Louise Pratt links the construction of a Eurocentric position to the creation of the totalizing view, which is only possible from an isolated point of observation.71 Likewise, political scientist Benedict Anderson, in a chapter on colonial states that he appended in 1991 to his classic Imagined Communities, refers to a “totalizing classificatory grid, which could be applied with endless flexibility to anything under the state’s real or contemplated control.” “The effect of the grid,” Anderson explains, “was always to be able to say of anything that it was this and not that; it belonged here, not there.” The goal of this “imagining” is the creation of “perfect visibility,” based on the fact “that everyone, everything had (as it were) a serial number.”72 At the end of the chapter, in his metaphorically charged language, Anderson paints the image of a colonial state that views the photographically endless “replicable series” of its monuments as “an album of its ancestors.”73 Extending Anderson’s argument, the division of the world into series, each of which formed a six-part grid on the pages of the collector’s album, can thus be seen as an instrument of order enabling a totalizing view. Liebig albums made such a classifying and sorting grid accessible to the general, cross-generational public. Each theme was represented using six cards, each given their place by the series title and card number. The album thus not only made the world accessible through repeated sorting and classifying but, in the moment of collecting and ordering, turned the living room at home into the center of the world. In this way, Liebig cards and collectors’ albums were media that, on different levels, made allowance for the dialectic that was linked to the experience and depiction of diversity and of its containment. The series format both represented heterogeneity and imposed a unifying order upon it. Judith Blume studied history, cultural studies, and literature at the Universities of Tübingen, Hamburg, and Aix-en-Provence. During her PhD studies at the cluster of excellence “Normative Orders” at the Goethe University Frankfurt, she did research on the history of trading cards, combining the history of knowledge

The Rise of the Trading Card  | 245

with the history of consumption. After working as a curator at universities in Frankfurt and Göttingen, she is now the central coordinator of the university collections at the Goethe University Frankfurt. Her academic interests include object-based research and teaching, university collections, history of knowledge, colonial and decolonial representations, and experimental teaching formats.

Notes I want to thank Bernhard Jussen for the opportunity to write this chapter and for his support; Christoph Senft for his valuable comments and corrections; Patricia C. Sutcliffe for professionally shepherding the manuscript through to the press; Susanna Partsch for activating her enormous network; Sally Dill for her fast, wise, and perfect translation; and Masoud Sadinam for his patient ear.   1. Wolgast, “Stollwerck-Bilder,” 1.  2. Ibid.  3. Ibid.  4. Lorenz, Reklamekunst um 1900, 51.   5. Conclusion, p. 275.  6. Ibid.   7. A good overview is provided by Bayerdörfer and Hellmuth, EXOTICA; Ciarlo, Consuming Race.   8. Wolgast, “Stollwerck-Bilder,” 1.  9. Pieske, Das ABC des Luxuspapiers. On trading cards, see Lorenz, Reklamekunst um 1900, 13-15. 10. A good overview is provided by Mielke, Vom Bilderbuch des Kleinen Mannes; Jussen, Reklamesammelbilder; on Stollwerck, see Spantig, Kunst und Konsum; Epple, Das Unternehmen Stollwerck. 11. For a definition and differentiation, see Mielke, Vom Bilderbuch des Kleinen Mannes, 29–31; Lorenz, Reklamekunst um 1900, 9. 12. While nearly all publications note this, only Lorenz attempts to prove it by calculating the prices and analyzing the collectors’ magazines: Lorenz, “Goldfüchse für schöne Sachen.” 13. Becker, “Kaiserzeit,” 201; Hurrelmann, “Bilderbücher und Bildergeschichten,” 161. 14. Sammel-Album Nr. 3 für Stollwerck-Bilder, Gebrüder Stollwerck, 1900, Sammlung Politische Bildgedächtnisse, SK 11909/3. Hiram Kümper refers to an “intergenerational collection passion”: Kümper, “Bevor Panini kam,” 350. 15. Most, but not all, associations in the nineteenth century were limited to male members, but there were also explicitly female associations as recent research shows: Mettele, “City as a Field of Female Civic Action.” 16. See, for example, Heinrich Lee, “Liebig-Bilder,” Berliner Tageblatt, 19 July 1897, 1. 17. See, for example, Paul Zetsche, “Mein Zeitvertreib,” in Lieder- und Handbuch, 24. 18. See for example, “Zur Albumfrage,” lllustrirte Liebigbilder-Zeitung, 1 July 1898. 19. See, for example, Gustav Huch, “Dem Onkel Liebig,” in Lieder- und Handbuch, 23. 20. See, for example, I. H. Rhaue, “H. Rhaue berichtet,” in Lieder- und Handbuch, 49–51, 50. 21. Quoted in Hopf and Hopf, Liebig Bilder, 8. 22. Anonymous, “Ueber Sammelsport von Liebigbildern.” 23. Anonymous (F. W.-r), “Liebigbilder- und Briefmarken-Sammelsport,” 883. 24. See the introduction to this volume.

246 | Judith Blume

25. The original quote in German reads “vernünftiges Kurzweil,” in Stafford, Artful Science, 317; Chakkalakal, Die Welt in Bildern. 26. Spantig, Kunst und Konsum; Epple, Das Unternehmen Stollwerck, 167–69, and 209–11; Schweer, “Popularisierung und Zirkulation”; Junggeburth, Stollwerck 1839–1932, 529. 27. Jussen, Liebig’s Sammelbilder. The dating and numbering of the series in this collection facilitate references to images and series utilized here. 28. Zantop, Colonial Fantasies; Friedrichsmeyer et al., Imperialist Imagination; Kundrus, Phantasiereiche. 29. Fassl and Meier, “Fleisch-Extrakt in Afrika”; Leucht and Menne, “Konstruktionen und Konzep­ tion”; Zeller, Bilderschule der Herrenmenschen; Blume, “L’Afrique collectionée”; Nitsche, “Unge­ wollt postkolonial.” See also Oestrerreich, Bilder konsumieren. 30. Mignolo, Epistemischer Ungehorsam. 31. With further literature to “armchair traveling,” see Dellmann, “Images of Dutchness,” 220–22. 32. Introduction, p. 8. 33. See, for example, “Rund-um-den-Liebigtopf,” No. 0002, 1873–75 in Jussen, Liebig’s Sammelbilder. 34. It is clear from the scholarship that this sort of presenting as part of the colonization process was not an isolated case, but a genre. See McClintock, Imperial Leather, 219–21; Wolter, Die Vermarktung des Fremden, 62–64. 35. “Deutschland über See” (Germany overseas), No. 0458, 1900 in Jussen, Liebig’s Sammelbilder. 36. Zeller, Bilderschule der Herrenmenschen, 7, emphasizes how Africa was depicted as a wideopen natural space. Nitsche, “Ungewollt postkolonial,” 204, points out that “landscapes were depicted as if they were just waiting to be exploited.” 37. On the absence of violence, see also Zeller, Bilderschule der Herrenmenschen, 21; Nitsche, “Ungewollt postkolonial,” 202. 38. Zeller, Bilderschule der Herrenmenschen, 20 and 22. 39. See “Neger” (Negro), No. 0110, 1887–88 in Jussen, Liebig’s Sammelbilder. On the imagery of “Hosenneger,” see Leucht and Menne, “Konstruktionen und Konzeption,” 288; Joch, “Koloniales in der Karikatur,” 68–70; Langbehn, “Satire Magazines and Racial Politics,” 116. 40. Zeller, Bilderschule der Herrenmenschen, 20. 41. Langbehn, “Satire Magazines and Racial Politics,” 117–18. 42. On the “taxonomic aesthetic,” see Edwards, “Andere ordnen,” 345 and 352. 43. With regard to the field of allegorical portrayals, which, in addition to the allegory, include type, representative, stereotype, and genre, see Oesterreich and Rüthemann, “Körper-Ästhetiken,” 40; for a historical perspective on the development of these figures and their attributes, see Dellmann, “Images of Dutchness.” 44. See Warneken, Die Ethnographie popularer Kulturen, in particular, 17–70. On the “savage within,” see Kucklick, Savage Within. 45. Introduction, p. 7. 46. See “Die Maske,” No. 0854, 1912 in Jussen, Liebig’s Sammelbilder. 47. Ibid., “Die Geschichte des Eisens,” No. 0895, 1913 in Jussen, Liebig’s Sammelbilder. 48. The evolutionary paradigm shaped early ethnology and ethnic studies and also how these were presented in museums. See Zimmermann, Anthropology and Antihumanism; Warneken, Die Ethnographie popularer Kulturen, 17–70; Frank, “Andere Völker, andere Zeiten”; Laukötter, Von der “Kultur” zur “Rasse.” 49. In his relevant essay “Time and the Other,” anthropologist Johannes Fabian focuses on the combination of evolutionary development and temporal chronology. As ethnology became

The Rise of the Trading Card  | 247

a “science of other men in another time,” the foreign peoples, as subjects of research, were distanced from the time of the researching subject’s voice. See Fabian, Time and the Other. 50. On the self-proclaimed special position of modernity, see also Latour, Wir sind nie modern gewesen. 51. Mignolo, Epistemischer Ungehorsam, 118. 52. “Die Baumwelt vom Äquator bis zum Nordkap” (No. 0350, 1897); or “Einst und Jetzt” No. 0096, 1887-88 in Jussen, Liebig’s Sammelbilder. 53. Wolgast, “Stollwerck-Bilder,” 1; Dreser, “Anleitung zur Anlage einer Sammlung.” 54. N. [Anonymous] “Uns nichts Neues!”; F. W-r. [Anonymous], “Im Wechseln der Zeiten”, ILZ, 1 November 1907, 163–65. 55. R-i. H. [Anonymous] “Das Sammeln von Liebigbildern,” ILZ, 1 July 1900, 99–101. 56. N. [Anonymous], “Uns nichts Neues!”, ILZ, 1 July 1898, 468. 57. In a 1900 review of the catalog of a Leipzig bookbinding shop, Liebig albums were even listed second, after the 419 different postcard albums. See Anonymous, “Rezension.” 58. Anonymous, “Wie lege ich eine Sammlung an?”; Anonymous, “Ueber Sammelsport von Liebigbildern.” 59. Anonymous, “Ueber Sammelsport von Liebigbildern.” 60. Dreser, “Anleitung zur Anlage einer Sammlung.” 61. Anonymous, “Einiges über Serien.” ILZ, 1 April 1898, 424. 62. F. W.-r [Anonymous],”Liebigbilder- und Briefmarken-Sammelsport.” 63. For the U.S. context, see Garvey, Adman in the Parlor; idem, “Scissoring and Scrapbooks”; idem, Writing with Scissors; Gernes, “Recasting the Culture of Ephemera”; Helfland, Scrapbooks. 64. For further analysis, see Blume, Wissen und Konsum. 65. Ernst Maier, “Gottes herrlich schöne Welt!,” LHALS (1898): 16. 66. Paul Zetsche, “Du göttliche Welt!” LHALS (1898): 21–22. 67. Ernst Maier, “Das treue Abbild,” LHALS (1898): 28. 68. Stagl, “Homo Collector,” 37; Sommer, Sammeln, 18–20; Hahn, “Soziologie des Sammlers,” 11; Grote, Macrocosmos in Microcosmo. 69. Mignolo, Epistemischer Ungehorsam, 122 (italics in the original). 70. Axster, Koloniales Spektakel, 198. 71. Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 15–37. 72. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 185. 73. Ibid., 187.

Bibliography Primary Sources Anonymous. “Rezension.” Papierzeitung: Fachblatt für Papier- und Schreibwaren-Handel und -Fabrikation, sowie für alle verwandten Hilfs-Geräte; Organ des Vereins Deutscher BuntpapierFabrikanten, no. 73 (1900): 2714. Anonymous. “Ueber Sammelsport von Liebigbildern (Nachdruck des Beiblatts Nr. 107 der Crefelder Bürger-Zeitung).” ILZ, 1 August 1897, 301–2. Anonymous. “Wie lege ich eine Sammlung an? (Ein Interview).” Der Liebigbildersammler 2 (1932): 7.

248 | Judith Blume

Anonymous [F. W.-r]. “Liebigbilder- und Briefmarken-Sammelsport.” ILZ, 1 August 1904, no. 8, 883–85. Dreser, Friedrich. “Anleitung zur Anlage einer Sammlung.” ILZ, 1 January 1896, 5. Lieder- und Handbuch für Ansichtskarten- und Liebigbildsammler. Halle, 1897. Wolgast, Heinrich. “Stollwerck-Bilder und Ähnliches.” Jugendschriften-Warte, no. 9 (1900).

Secondary Sources Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991. Axster, Felix. Koloniales Spektakel in 9 x 14: Bildpostkarten im Deutschen Kaiserreich. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2014. Bayerdörfer, Hans-Peter, and Eckhardt Hellmuth, eds. EXOTICA: Inszenierung und Konsum des Fremden im 19. Jahrhundert. Münster: LIT Verlag, 2003. Becker, Susanne. “Kaiserzeit: Kultivierung der Kommunikation: Familienkulturen und familiale Lesekulturen um 1900.” In Lesekindheiten: Familie und Lesesozialisation im historischen Wandel, edited by Bettina Hurrelmann, Susanne Becker, and Irmgard Nickel-Bacon. 171– 291. Weinheim/Munich: Juventa, 2006. Blume, Judith. “L’Afrique collectionée: Normes et pratiques coloniales au prisme des albums d’images.” Hypothèses: Travaux de l’ècole doctorale d’histoire (2011): 249–65. ———. Wissen und Konsum: Eine Geschichte des Sammelbildalbums. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2019. Chakkalakal, Silvy. Die Welt in Bildern: Erfahrung und Evidenz in Friedrich J. Bertruchs “Bilderbuch für Kinder.” Göttingen: Wallstein, 2014. Ciarlo, David M. Consuming Race, Envisioning Empire: Colonialism and German Mass Culture, 1887–1914. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 2003. Conrad, Sebastian, Shalini Randeira, and Regina Römhild, eds. Jenseits des Eurozentrismus: Postkoloniale Perspektiven in den Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2002. Dellmann, Sarah. “Images of Dutchness: Popular Visual Media, the Emergence of National Clichés and the Creation of Supposed Common Knowledge about the Netherlands and the Dutch (1800–1914).” Diss., Utrecht University, 2015. Edwards, Elizabeth. “Andere ordnen: Fotografie, Anthropologien und Taxonomien.” In Diskurse der Fotografie: Fotokritik am Ende des fotografischen Zeitalters, edited by Herta Wolf. 335–55. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003. Epple, Angelika. Das Unternehmen Stollwerck: Eine Mikrogeschichte der Globalisierung. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 2010. Fabian, Johannes. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Fassl, Joachim, and Hans-Dieter Meier. “Fleisch-Extrakt in Afrika: Analyse des Verwertungszusammenhangs von Ökonomie und Ideologie im Imperialismus am Beispiel einer Liebig-Sammelbildserie.” In Werkstatt Kunstpädagogik: Übungen zur Bildbetrachtung, edited by Heino R. Möller and Siegfried K. Lang. 84–104. Ravensburg: Maier, 1976. Frank, Michael C. “Andere Völker, andere Zeiten: Das evolutionistische Narrativ in den Humanwissenschaften, 1750–1930.” In Wissen. Erzählen. Narrative der Humanwissenschaften, edited by Arne Höcker, Jeannie Moser, and Philippe Weber. 127–38. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2006.

The Rise of the Trading Card  | 249

Friedrichsmeyer, Sara, Sara Lennox, and Susanne Zantop, eds. The Imperialist Imagination: German Colonialism and Its Legacy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998. Garvey, Ellen Gruber. The Adman in the Parlor: Magazines and the Gendering of Consumer Culture, 1880s to1910s. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. ———. “Scissoring and Scrapbooks: Nineteenth-Century Reading, Remaking, and Recirculation.” In New Media, 1740–1915, edited by Lisa Gitelman and Geoffrey B. Pingre. 207–28. Boston: MIT Press, 2003. ———. Writing with Scissors: American Scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Gernes, Todd S. “Recasting the Culture of Ephemera.” In Popular Literacy, edited by John Trimbur. 107–27. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001. Grote, Andreas. Macrocosmos in Microcosmo: Die Welt in der Stube; Zur Geschichte des Sammelns 1450 bis 1800. Opladen: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 1994. Hahn, Alois. “Soziologie des Sammlers.” Trierer Beiträge, no. 14 (1984): 11–19. Helfland, Jessica. Scrapbooks: An American History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. Hopf, Andreas, and Angela Hopf. Liebig Bilder. Munich: Heyne, 1979. Hurrelmann, Bettina. “Bilderbücher und Bildergeschichten.” In Handbuch zur Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. Von 1850 bis 1900, ed. Otto Brunken et al. 146–202. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2008. Joch, Markus. “Koloniales in der Karikatur.” In Mit Deutschland um die Welt: Eine Kulturgeschichte des Fremden in der Kolonialzeit, edited by Alexander Honold and Klaus R. Scherpe. 66–76. Stuttgart/Weimar: J. B. Metzler, 2004. Junggeburth, Tanja. Stollwerck 1839–1932. Unternehmerfamilie und Familienunternehmen. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2014. Jussen, Bernhard, ed. Liebig’s Sammelbilder: Vollständige Ausgabe der Serien 1 bis 1138. Atlas des Historischen Bildwissens. Berlin: Digitale Bibliothek, 2006. ———. Reklamesammelbilder: Bilder der Jahre 1870-1970 mit historischen Themen. Atlas des historischen Bildwissens 2. Berlin: Digitale Bibliothek, 2008. Kucklick, Henrika. The Savage Within. The Social History of British Anthropology, 1885–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Kümper, Hiram. “Bevor Panini kam: Zigarettensammelbilder und das kollektive Bildgedächtnis des 20. Jahrhunderts.” In Tabak und Gesellschaft: Vom braunen Gold zum sozialen Stigma, edited by Frank Jacob and Gerrit Dworok. 347–74. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2015. Kundrus, Birthe, ed. Phantasiereiche: Zur Kulturgeschichte des deutschen Kolonialismus. New York: Campus, 2003. Langbehn, Volker M. “Satire Magazines and Racial Politics.” In German Colonialism, Visual Culture, and Modern Memory, edited by Volker M. Langbehn. 105–23. New York: Routledge, 2010. Latour, Bruno. Wir sind nie modern gewesen: Versuch einer symmetrischen Anthropologie. Frankfurt am Main: Oldenbourg Akademieverlag, 1995. Laukötter, Anja. Von der “Kultur” zur “Rasse”—vom Objekt zum Körper? Völkerkundemuseen und ihre Wissenschaften zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2007. Leucht, Melanie, and Franz Rudolf Menne. “Konstruktionen und Konzeption von Menschen afrikanischer Herkunft in Sammelbildern.” In Koloniale und postkoloniale Konstruktionen von Afrika und Menschen afrikanischer Herkunft in der deutschen Alltagskultur, edited by

250 | Judith Blume

Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst and Sunna Gieseke. 285–97. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2006. Lorenz, Detlef. “Goldfüchse für schöne Sachen: Über die soziale Struktur der frühen Liebigbildsammler.” In Arbeitskreis Bild Druck Papier: Tagungsband Modena 2010, edited by Wolfgang Brückner, Konrad Vanja, Detlef Lorenz, Alberto Milano, and Sigrid Nagy, 48–63. Münster: Waxmann Verlag, 2011. ———. Reklamekunst um 1900. Berlin: Reimer, 2000. McClintock, Anne. Imperial Leather. New York: Routledge, 1995. Mettele, Gisela. “The City as a Field of Female Civic Action: Women and Middle-Class Formation in Nineteenth-Century Germany.” In The Making of the Middle Class: Towards a Transnational History, edited by Ricardo López and Barbara Weinstein, 299–314. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012. Mielke, Heinz-Peter. Vom Bilderbuch des Kleinen Mannes. Cologne: Rheinland-Verlag, 1982. Mignolo, Walter D. Epistemischer Ungehorsam. Rhetorik der Moderne, Logik der Kolonialität und Grammatik der Dekolonialität. Translated by Jens Kastner and Tom Waibel. Vienna/ Berlin: Turia + Kant, 2012. Nitsche, Jessica. “Ungewollt postcolonial: Populäre Bilder deutscher Kolonien und kolonialer Phantasien.” In Populärkultur, Massenmedien, Avantgarde 1919–1933, edited by Jessica Nitsche and Nadine Werner. 189–211. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2012. Oesterreich, Miriam. Bilder konsumieren. Inszenierungen “exotischer” Körper in früher Bildreklame. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2018. Oesterreich, Miriam, and Julia Rüthemann. “Körper-Ästhetiken. Allegorische Verkörperungen als ästhetisches Prinzip: Eine Einleitung.” In Körper-Ästhetiken. Allegorische Verkörperungen als ästhetisches Prinzip, edited by Cornelia Logemann, Miriam Oesterreich, and Julia Rüthemann. 13–52. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2013. Pieske, Christa. Das ABC des Luxuspapiers. Herstellung, Verarbeitung und Gebrauch. 1860– 1930. Berlin, 1984. Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge, 1992. Schweer, Henning. “Popularisierung und Zirkulation von Wissen, Wissenschaft und Technik in visuellen Massenmedien: Eine grundlegende historische Studie am Beispiel der Sammelbilder der Liebig Company und der Stollwerck AG.” PhD diss., University of Hamburg, 2010. Sommer, Manfred. Sammeln. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2002. Spantig, Martin. Kunst und Konsum: Die Stollwerck-Künstler-Sammelbilder der Jahre 1897– 1915. Munich: Matthes & Seitz, 1997. Stafford, Barbara Maria. Artful Science: Enlightenment Entertainment and the Eclipse of Visual Education. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994. Stagl, Justin. “Homo Collector: Zur Anthropologie und Soziologie des Sammelns.” In Sammler—Bibliophile—Exzentriker, edited by Aleida Assmann, Monika Gomille, and Gabriele Rippl, 37–54. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1998. Warneken, Bernd Jürgen. Die Ethnographie popularer Kulturen: Eine Einführung. Vienna, Cologne/Weimar: UTB, 2006. Wolter, Stefanie. Die Vermarktung des Fremden. New York: Campus, 2005. Zantop, Susanne. Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family, and Nation in Precolonial Germany 1770–1870. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997.

The Rise of the Trading Card  | 251

Zeller, Joachim. Bilderschule der Herrenmenschen: Koloniale Reklamesammelblilder. Berlin: Christoph Links, 2008. Zimmermann, Andrew. Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Chapter 11

A World Made for Exploration Germans and Their Toys, 1890–1914 David Hamlin

S And between two wars, little Johann played. Unconscious and tranquil, with his soft curling hair and voluminous pinafore frocks, he played in the garden by the fountain, or in a little gallery portioned off for his use by a pillared railing. … [He] played the plays of his four and a half years—those plays whose meaning and charm no grown person can possibly grasp: which need no more than a few pebbles, or a stick of wood with a dandelion for a helmet, since they command the pure, powerful, glowing, untaught and unintimidated fancy of those blissful years before life touches us, when neither duty nor remorse dares lay upon us a finger’s weight. —Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks, 1901

In his great novel, Buddenbrooks, Thomas Mann constructed play as a radical Other to adult life. Johann (Hanno) Buddenbrook was separated physically by a railing or in an Edenic garden. His play was incomprehensible to a grown person. A child at play was free, protected from a profane adult world that might not lay a “finger’s weight” on him. Childhood was a privileged moment, a separate stage of life, defined by play. Mann clearly embraced this vision; his words all but caress the angelic Hanno. By contrast, consider the Institoris family in Mann’s Doctor Faustus. Helmut and Inez wanted to raise their daughters “perfectly.” Their room was stocked with “a world of well-ordered toys, teddy-bears, lambs on wheels, jumping jacks, Käthe Kruse dolls, railway trains … in short, it was the very pattern of a children’s paradise.”1 The Institoris girls were not to be left alone, shielded from life and inventing inscrutable games. Rather, they were guided toward adulthood by Notes from this chapter begin on page 266.

Germans and Their Toys  | 253

their parents and the toys that were chosen for them. In Buddenbrooks and Doctor Faustus, Mann grasped dual ends of the “double ideal” of middle-class childhood; a separate period of life distinct from adulthood marked by innocence and joy, and yet also a period of preparation and training for adulthood. Similarly, he presented play and toys as both tokens of Edenic freedom and also as tools for shaping a future Bürger.2 The toys shaped by this double ideal were frequent companions of German children. Sometimes they were held consolingly, other times carefully assembled into some larger whole, and yet other times wielded chaotically in some wild confrontation. The forms toys took and the games they inspired were important parts of children’s socialization into the world. Indeed, toys are a remarkably useful tool for investigating the emergence of modernity. These modest instruments of children’s happiness highlight the emergence of consumer capitalism, the transformation of structures of middle-class family life, and the arrival of discourses of gender, respectability, and modernism. Toys in Imperial Germany responded to several tectonic shifts in Western society. These shifts interacted with each other, and in some respects the line I draw between them is arbitrary. Nonetheless, a proper understanding of toys and childhood in the Kaiserreich requires some analytical distinctions before we explore the toys themselves. It is not uncommon to imagine that the sudden prominence of film and American music and fashion in the 1920s meant that Germany first became a commercialized consumer society then. In fact, as historians are starting to discover, German society was rapidly commercializing in the period before World War I.3 Germans were increasingly going to market in an effort to purchase mass-produced items from department stores and to specialized retailers in an effort to elaborate and communicate a sense of their identity. Toys were one important element of that commercializing society. As we shall see, the toy market was deeply influenced by factors outside the market, but the imperatives of the market also deeply influenced the forms of toys available to children. Toy makers were keenly aware of the need to stand out, to be noticed. This was in part a result of a crowded marketplace in which the toy itself—not advertising—was often the principle way of catching the consumers’ interest. It was also a function of the retailer’s interest in using toys to attract attention to the store.4 As a result, there were very strong incentives for toy makers to create toys that attracted attention. This could be through their novelty (Neuheiten). Toy makers could seek to introduce something new in a variety of ways, but perhaps the easiest way was to draw inspiration from current events. A new invention, or a new type of train, or a military conflict offered the opportunity to bring something different to market. The miniaturization of specific trains or ships was one way of differentiating one’s wares, as was the introduction of Boer soldiers

254 | David Hamlin

during the Boer War or polar exploration during Perry’s trek to the North Pole. Such gestures toward current events also turned news stories in the daily press into advertising for toys. Toy makers could also capture attention through the fascination intrinsic to motion. Moving toys captured the human eye. Moving toys had the additional advantage of being favored by department stores and toy stores for their store windows. Retailers saw in moving toys ideal tools with which to capture the attention of passersby, to convince them to linger a bit, to help create excitement around the store, and perhaps to persuade shoppers to enter the store. As such, they tended to be more forcefully advertised to the consuming public. Motion took a variety of forms, from climbing figures to moving dolls, but by far the most popular moving toys were toy trains. Finally, toys could stand out through caricatures. As Jeff Bowersox has noted, “playthings needed to reflect popular understandings of the world in an engaging manner. To this end, the world of toys was populated by caricatures. … Toy makers emphasized those characteristics that were most recognizable and evocative.”5 Caricature offered a way to heighten the mundane world of popular knowledge (and prejudice) by exaggerating characteristics in often comic fashions. In this way, consumers were offered something that was clearly recognizable and familiar yet also extraordinary, standing out from average toy. The marketplace created its own incentives that shaped the toys children could acquire. Toy makers, however, did not create the market for toys, nor did they exploit some naturally existing market for their products. Toys became essential elements of childhood as a consequence of deep social changes in Europe. Childhood was refashioned in the wake of urbanization and the transformation of middle-class ideas of family and individuality. As Jürgen Zinnecker has argued, childhood was moved indoors from the streets and “domesticated” at this time.6 This was in part a response to the process of urbanization, which removed youngsters from open fields and woodlands and put them in a social context frequently coded as dangerous. Middle-class children were at least partially removed indoors to places of “safety.” This paralleled the transformation of the household. Once envisioned as an externally oriented group that provided economic subsistence, social status, and political rights, the family was increasingly imagined as a privatized social organization founded on affection, which provided refuge from a competitive social order. The transformation of the family was closely allied with the development of bourgeois norms of individuality, which emphasized greater self-control, cultivation, and imagination. This was not an accident. The necessary accumulation of social and cultural capital began in childhood under the watchful disciplinary eye of the mother. Severed from the chaotic streets, the middle-class child was increasingly oriented toward the toy as an object of play. As the individual was increasingly seen as a developmental project requiring guidance toward an optimal outcome,

Germans and Their Toys  | 255

control over the choice of toys gave parents the hope of shaping the future character of their children.7 As a result of the reshaping of middle-class families and the process of urbanization, play was taken indoors to areas of “order and control,” and mass-produced toys took the place of makeshift playthings and local playmates.8 The discursive fields generated by pedagogues, artists, philosophers, and reformers were the third crucial factor shaping which toys entered the hands of children. This is an inchoate group, and one whose activities were not entirely separate from the structural factors sketched out above. Those caveats notwithstanding, a remarkable chorus of writers sought to explain the significance of play and toys, constructing a system of knowledge that endorsed play as essential to human development. We can identify several broad lines of thought in this developing field of professional inquiry. One camp, associated with the Enlightenment and John Locke, recommended the possibilities of playthings as sources of information, much like alphabet blocks. Locke famously argued that people are born as “blank slates,” that is, humans are not born with certain ideas or even the capacity for reason but develop reason and learn the nature of reality by interacting with and observing the world. In this tradition, play can then be seen as a means of discovery, which is why Rousseau suggested that young Emile play outside to learn to reason properly.9 This tradition had been taken up by the Philanthropen (Philanthropists) in Germany. Many of these educational reformers imagined they could prepare youngsters for an adult world of labor through play. We can see echoes of this concern for play as preparation for (and potentially a threat to) an adult life of labor in the later work of figures like Eduard Ackermann and Paul Natorp. Ackermann and Natorp praised toys and play as a means of preparing for labor, but both worried that too much or the wrong sort of play might damage a child. Gustav Siegert, a Leipzig gymnasium professor, went even further in pathologizing play, observing that “weak and nervous children like to play when they should be working.”10 This tradition tended to emphasize childhood as a period of preparation for adulthood and, thus, was unsettled by the sort of free, undirected play of, for example, Hanno Buddenbrook. The notion that play might educate children to proper adult roles through observation and mimesis found considerable support in the work of Friedrich Fröbel and Karl Groos. Fröbel, the founder of the Kindergarten movement, saw play as the foundation of a child’s future life and happiness. By directing play, parents could shape the character and independence of the adult.11 Groos argued that play was a means for immature members of a species to learn through mimesis the skills and expectations of mature community members. The more advanced the species, he believed, the less it could rely on instinct to guide individuals’ behavior. To make up for the inadequacy of instincts, higher animals learned through play.12 Much as with the Philanthropen, Fröbel, Groos, and their

256 | David Hamlin

followers cast play as a practical tool in child development, but they tended to stigmatize “wrong” play much less severely. This comparative indulgence was rooted in a more generous sense of what aspects of adulthood were being practiced; not simply labor, but also social relationships and values. Another group built on the work of Romantics such as Jean-Paul Richter and Friedrich Schiller to argue that play and toys inspired exploration and imagination. This tradition asserted that individual freedom ultimately rested on the individual’s ability to think creatively, to imagine something different. As such, imagination and creativity were constituent elements of a good life. Inescapably, then, children had to be encouraged to play, but to play properly. “Properly” in this case was not in a way to prepare the child for labor or adulthood, but to encourage children to be creative (Richter suggested the best plaything for a child was sand, unless the child was female, in which case the best plaything was a doll).13 By encouraging the development of individual creativity through cognitive immersion in an alternative reality (precisely what Siegert despised), the Romantics argued, children developed the foundations of spiritual freedom. Whatever their mutual arguments, professional pedagogues functioned as broad legitimizers of toy consumption and play within a bourgeois value system that tended to emphasize labor, self-discipline, and thriftiness. They did so by insisting that play and toys were essential tools in the education and development of children. Toys were thereby assigned considerable cultural weight as foundation stones of civilization, tools for the education of bourgeois individuals. The centrality of bourgeois norms to the toy market should not be taken to mean that toys were exclusively middle-class objects by the late nineteenth century. For all the profound class divisions within Imperial Germany, middle-class norms of progress and domesticity occupied a hegemonic cultural position. The vehicle for this was often the rhetoric of “respectability,” which transformed bourgeois social and cultural norms into universal aspirations. We can see the power of that rhetoric of respectability in the willingness of Vorwärts to criticize upperclass families because their girls did not play with dolls, which will be examined below. The cultural power of respectability, coupled with toy makers’ efforts to produce toys inexpensive enough for millions of working-class consumers and the centrality of Christmas, ensured that toys were consumed widely, if unevenly, across class boundaries. Certainly, prices acted to exclude working-class children from parts of the world of toys. Miniature dreadnoughts and electric train sets were not objects of cross-class consumption. The crude Bodenläufer trains, however, often were consumed across classes, as were tin soldiers, wooden figures, and some dolls.14 Taken together, these factors shaped a vast, self-contradictory world of toys. Toys had to seize the distracted gaze of passersby, but they also had to develop imagination, train young people for adulthood, impart information, and stand

Germans and Their Toys  | 257

in for unsupervised play in field and forest. Toys existed in a multifaceted discursive field, demanding at once enjoyment and education (itself a concept open to confusion and contest). This “double ideal” was a central fault line in the world of toys. The toys with which German children played responded to these pressures. The specific forms they took, and the ways in which they responded to those pressures, varied enormously. To explore the world presented to children through toys, it will be easiest to address certain categories of toys, starting with military toys. One of the more common types of toys that Wilhelmine children played with were those modeled on war and the implements of war. Military images were quite common. They ranged from helmets to tin soldiers to steam-powered dreadnoughts. The images in Laterna Magica (a light projector akin to the ViewMaster) could include representations of the triumph of German arms in the Franco–Prussian War.15 The later newspaper editor Johann Baptist Gradl, for example, recalled playing with “tin soldiers, as well as fortresses with drawbridges and towers,” along with blocks and toy trains.16 Tin soldiers, in particular, were a remarkably flexible vehicle for representing the world. Figures were crafted to represent the sides of the Boer War (and remained on the market long after the end of hostilities) or the Battle of Nations at Leipzig. Hans Fallada recalled receiving tin soldier versions of Roman legionnaires, German tribesmen, and a building block set for constructing a bridge. “Finally,” he exclaimed, “I will be able to let Caesar build his bridge over the Rhine.”17 As soon as operations began against Denmark in 1863 and France in 1870, toy makers brought out the relevant toy soldiers.18 Building blocks were modeled as means of constructing castles and fortresses (or in Fallada’s case, bridging equipment). Tin soldiers were modeled on historical or current events. Heinrichsen Zinnfiguren advertised their soldiers as “excellent educational material.”19 Thus, toy soldiers offered toy makers an opportunity to distinguish themselves by associating their products with the excitement of military conflict. Much as Andreas Weiß notes of German school textbooks, military themes were a means of instructing children about the world.20 In a bid to be both educational and topical, toy makers sped figures to market for every international crisis. The Russo– Japanese War had its associated toys, as did the Italian–Ottoman conflict over Tripolitania. Even Russia’s tensions with Austria-Hungary over Bulgaria in the 1880s prompted a wave of toy soldiers.21 Theodor Hampe recalled, More than the battles of people, our few hundred soldiers expanded our imagination to a world view. … For the entirety of this miniature humanity maps were now sketched; special languages were invented; countless tiny books were filled with novellas, poems and plays … letters were exchanged; and, ultimately, with high political tension, written declarations of war were delivered.22

258 | David Hamlin

Children, largely boys, were surrounded by current and historical events, at least of a certain sort. Toy soldiers were carefully arranged into model armies, and bloodless battles were waged. But tin soldiers tended to present a rather decontextualized vision of history and politics. Thus, Theodor Hampe and his playmates constructed a fictionalized context that had nothing to do with current events or history. More subtly, tin soldiers as avatars of historical understanding reinforced how Germans understood war. German political and legal discourse in the Kaiserreich tended to see war as the foundation of states, international law, and in some circumstances, democratization.23 The suggestion that tin soldiers taught history tended to reinforce the Wilhelmine identification of war with historical change. It is also noteworthy that toy soldiers largely suggested that organized armies, generally connected to a state, were the only proper type of war. Irregular warfare was often put on the margins, associated with uncivilized peoples, if shown at all. This served to naturalize European norms of war, paving the way to pathologizing non-European traditions of war.24 Of course, toy soldiers were not the only military toys. There were also toys that might be imagined as props in imaginary play: helmets, shields, swords, play guns. Young boys were outfitted with the implements of conflict and games imitating war. Herta von Schwerin recalled the play cavalry uniforms her brothers had demanded for Christmas, and Hans Wendt remembered his own helmet and wooden gun.25 Much as Karl Groos asserted that play helped people and animals prepare for adult occupations, this might suggest that boys were being socialized into a military ethos. Though it is clearly difficult to separate war games from war, play did not have a unitary meaning. Toy soldiers could teach both a fascination with armies and history, just as play with swords and shields could do more than train for war. Consider how Paul Hildebrandt addressed war games. “War and soldier play need not lead to rawness; they mostly teach manliness and chivalrous virtues. Heroism must be shown in more than just battle; one has sometimes rich opportunities to show bravery in everyday life in defending the weak or saving a life.” Similarly, Schulrat Ackermann praised toys that taught “courage and determination.”26 Hildebrandt and Ackermann veered away from the explicitly military and instead emphasized the virtuous characteristics that war games could cultivate for civilian life. Hildebrandt’s invocation of “manliness” clearly had a strongly gendered component, suggesting a collection of virtues including self-reliance, courage, and decisiveness. Play with swords and shields need not be seen, then, as a version of the “feudalization” of the German middle class but rather another venue in which bourgeois ideals could be inculcated. Military games were imagined as developing virtues that middle-class Germans prized for their own reasons, while also normalizing war and conflict as essential and inescapable parts of politics and the public order.

Germans and Their Toys  | 259

The virtues that military toys and games allegedly cultivated were not simply the concern of parents and writers. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the state had taken an increasing interest in children’s education and development. From the 1870s, the German states had emphasized that early education in (state-run) schools had a specific ethical and political purpose. Schools were to ensure, as one 1875 circular put it, that they develop “virtues that shape character.” These were closely tied to patriotism and loyalty to the dynasty; over time they were also cast as decisive bulwarks against socialism. The tool to realize these goals was instruction in a militarized vision of history. The state mandated that children be educated with a particular vision of history and war in school. This vision both reflected a broad consensus on links between war and desirable personal qualities and also provided toy makers images for designing toys. Schools provided the narratives of Caesar’s legions or the Franco–Prussian War that toy makers and children alike drew on.27 The extra-European world was also a frequent theme in German toys. Young people had exotic animals from around the globe, “character masks” that included many non-European figures, and tin figures of Native Americans, for example. There were board games about exploring the Arctic, one of which invited six players to fend off polar bear and Inuit attacks in their race to the North Pole.28 Kurt Bittel recalled that he and his friends preferred to recreate the war against the Herero than the 1870 or 1866 wars. Determining who would play Herero and who the German Schutztruppen, however, always required considerable negotiation.29 German children were surrounded by representations of distant places and different peoples. These representations were, as with tin soldiers, radically decontextualized. The polar exploration game, for example, referenced a real event but added fictitious elements and falsified geography. The real world presented was hemmed in by caricature in ways that were not always self-evident to children. Toys placed children into a secondhand relationship with a globalizing world, a world in which European interactions with non-Europeans were defined in terms of race, religion, and empire. Jeff Bowersox argues that “colonial toys reflected a broad social consensus, however vague and contradictory, about Germany’s place in a world defined by empire.”30 Children were exposed to colonial themes in a variety of contexts and venues. Much as with war and history, colonial images were integrated into school programs as well as into children’s literature, perhaps most notably through the works of Karl May. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows, which toured Germany starting in 1890, and the associated advertising campaigns, similarly foregrounded the frontiers of “civilization.” Groups like Maximilian Bayer’s Pathfinders organized time outside school around colonial themes, while advertising images invoking colonial themes proliferated. In effect, the state, colonial organizations, children’s authors, and advertisers developed a reservoir of images and “facts” that toy makers could draw on in designing their objects and that

260 | David Hamlin

children could use to give shape to their play.31 This was a reciprocal relationship, as the colonial themes in toys prepared children for the colonial consensus demonstrated in school, literature, and advertising, which, in turn, circulated images used by toy designers. This consensus played out in caricature. Bowersox demonstrates this through his exploration of “character masks.” Character masks were intended to “entertain by reinforcing, exaggerating, or perhaps parodying familiar stereotypes.” These stereotypes were familiar from the pictorial encyclopedias and ABC books, which introduced children to the world outside their immediate surroundings. Children would don masks to pretend to be a “savage,” “old negro,” “Indian,” or “Chinese man,” each based on stereotypes for easy recognition and entertainment. The “savage” and “Indian” were marked as uncivilized, though the “Indian” was assigned greater dignity, as befitted a “noble savage.” The “Chinese man” was sly and subservient, while the “old negro” was designed with simian features. As Bowersox argues, these were “liminal figures who clarified the boundaries of civilization.”32 Colonial toys drew on the thrill of the exotic to stand out in the marketplace but claimed some educational utility through the presentation of information. In playing a board game like “The Colonists,” for example, children could learn the significance of communications systems and raw materials (like gold) in controlling, settling, and profiting from a nameless, abstract colonial possession.33 The educational utility lay simply in the enjoyable presentation of socially approved “facts” that existed outside any but the most limited geographic, social, or historical framework. Such games and toys were attractive because they presented the non-Western world as the margins of civilization—zones where the usual disciplinary rules, the severe expectations of personal behavior and social pressures that defined urban middle-class lives in Europe and the United States were relaxed. The colonial periphery was, consequently, portrayed as a zone of disorder, which enabled children to play the hero. German colonial toys defined the world as divided into two: the civilized and the colonial. Civilization was identified as white; uncivilized as all others. These toys went some way toward naturalizing a worldview wherein Germans and Europeans implicitly had a moral duty to colonize and civilize the non-white world. Much as in war games, imagining a world without the usual restraints created a fantastical space in which youngsters might play at heroism and adventure, also in ways beyond straightforward mimetic play. In such games, children, particularly boys, were expected to begin to develop other virtues. Play drawing on colonial themes offered an opportunity to develop bourgeois masculinity, with its emphasis on courage, discipline, and self-mastery. As Dr. Kurt Rudolf Kreuscher would admit, for example, a polar expedition had no “tangible, material value.” Rather, it had “only a pure, ideal importance.”34 Polar exploration, like many

Germans and Their Toys  | 261

toys and games about the periphery of Western civilization, or indeed the books of Karl May, was about the freedom to develop male bourgeois values. Toys and board games occupied a space gendered and classed in a way similar to Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich’s reading of Karl May’s books, as discussed in Penny’s contribution in this volume. She transformed May’s words into games and preferred to assume the roles of the males.35 Young Germans also frequently played with miniatures of the modern, technological world. If the advertising in the trade journal, Deutsche Spielwaren Zeitung is any guide, they were more popular than military or colonial toys.36 Toy trains were very common. The 1912 catalog for Hermann Kurtz’s toy store included page upon page of toy trains and associated paraphernalia (far more than for military toys).37 The trains varied enormously in price, and as such might be simple Bodenläufer, some abstract idea of a train that, as the name indicates, ran on the floor. Others operated under their own power, required rails, and were carefully crafted to reflect existing machines. The son of an engineer observed that “one can play in various ways with trains: catastrophically and conservatively, dramatically and epically.” Trains could be incorporated into a variety of narratives, even woven into stories taken from the daily press.38 Other representatives of the new technological era included steam engines, ships, erector sets, optical toys, and chemistry sets. The national enthusiasm for Count Zeppelin’s airships prompted a widespread interest in toy aircraft of all sorts.39 In the board game “The Triumph of the Twentieth Century,” players raced across Europe, one in an airship, another in an automobile, and the third in a train,40 the three new modes of transportation representing the “triumph” of the young century. Young civil engineers could build bridges, castles, or cathedrals with building blocks from “Anker’s Steinbaukasten.” Those more insistently future-oriented would revel in Frank Hornby’s Mecanno— an erector set—or Bing’s Stuctator play set. Both of these used metal bars, screws, wheels, and such to permit youngsters to build buildings, machines, etc.41 Through them, children could assume the role of engineer, harnessing the power of nature. Many technology toys were attractive to retailers and consumers alike. They moved under their own power, capturing the eye through movement and wonder. They mimicked the most remarkable moments of the era. They could be both spectacular and topical in a way that few other genres of toys could. F. H. Huber, for example, associated the attraction of technological toys with their modernity. He argued that “youth today want technological toys and models. They have also become more demanding in the course of the years. They grow up surrounded by the achievements of modern technology. Electricity, telegraphs, telephones, photography, 1000 hp steam engines are to boys of today common objects.”42 Similarly, the Rundschau über Spielwaren was certain that “for boys of a certain age, wind-up toys naturally have no more attraction. Their hearts beat

262 | David Hamlin

for steam and such motors. … The truly modern youngster, however, knows only electricity.”43 The turn to technology was often also explicitly didactic. Kurt Karl Doberer, the son of a Nuremberg socialist, remembered that “quite early my father steered me toward technology. By the time I was five-and-a-half I possessed a small steam engine and a toy train that was drawn by a proper, alcohol-burning, steam locomotive.”44 Doberer pere’s concern to interest his child in technology reflected a common pattern and demonstrated the appeal of toys across class lines. In general, technology was seen as the harbinger of a new society; familiarity and comfort with technology would then lead to familiarity and comfort with the new world. As Paul Hildebrandt wrote, technology toys “in which our entire, extraordinary cultural progress is reflected” would “open to children a new, rich world.” As a result, it was a positive duty of parents to gradually introduce technology toys to children.45 A toy industry journal, Der Spiel- und HolzwarenMarkt, added that “it would be of the greatest advantage for our progress and our entire development if the joy and interest of the older children for the little models of our greatest inventions so increased that a generation would grow up that already in its childhood games had developed an enthusiasm for valuing, improving, and perfecting our technological achievements.”46 They were, as Heike Hoffmann argues, “introductions to modern culture.”47 Technology toys were, then, assigned high pedagogical value. They were credited with both sparking and sustaining interest in the specifics of science and technology. Doberer’s father, for example, clearly believed the objects his son played with as a child would shape and sustain his adult interests and capacities. But, as with military and colonial toys, there was more going on. Technology toys were overtly gendered. They were intended for boys, and the pedagogical imperative buried in such toys was likewise explicitly gendered. Bryan Ganaway has argued that engineers and intellectuals had “coded technology masculine” and linked it with the “rational and progressive values associated with the middle class.” Toy makers and parents appear to have consciously taken up this line of thought, associating technology toys with the education of “the ideal male citizen.”48 It appears that youngsters embraced technological toys in a spirit similar to that in which parents offered them. After substantial research, Ganaway found that “almost universally, diaries show that boys accepted that the ideal male was a middle-class professional at ease with technology.”49 Young German males, to all appearances, accepted the technological vision of the future and the contemporary moment. Technology, the mastery over and manipulation of nature, represented a source of power for the individual and society and thus aligned closely with the cultural underpinnings of bourgeois society. A poem appearing in Daheim in 1912 called “The Wish List” speaks to those cultural underpinnings. It tells the story of young Robert, who has written

Germans and Their Toys  | 263

three lists of toys he wants for Christmas, only to throw each away. Now on his fourth list, he asks for all sorts of miniature versions of the modern world: “theater—books—airship—airplane/steam engine—toy car/maps.” His sister Mausi, by contrast, has only a handful of things on her list. Most of all, she wants a “new child,” a doll, which she has not asked for in years, as well as a toy sewing machine, washboard, and some roller skates.50 The gendering of German society was implicit in the largely male orientation of military, colonial, and technological toys. The gendering becomes inescapable when we look at toys intended for girls. The dominant plaything for girls was dolls; as a result, they comprised about a third of all toy sales.51 Dolls were almost universally seen as ideal playthings for female children: “above all else, dolls and dollhouses are the best toys for girls.”52 Paul Hildebrandt assured parents that “where all thought and feeling of the child is directed at a doll as an object of love, the educator has an easy task.”53 The peculiar link between girls and toys was obviously rooted in the same domestic ideology that opened up space for toys in the bourgeois home. Because children were increasingly brought inside the home and had become a developmental project under the watchful eye of their mothers, girls were expected to move seamlessly toward motherhood and domestic management. The maternal instinct had to be properly cultivated. It is particularly noteworthy that Hildebrandt insisted that girls love their dolls. No one asked Hans Fallada to love his Roman legionnaires or Kurt Doberer to love his toy train. Middle-class Germans (and not just Germans) saw the family as a disciplinary project but also as the foundational site of affection. The one sustained and legitimized the other. Girls, then, were expected to take to dolls immediately and affectionately. The emphasis placed on dolls as props in the reproduction of bourgeois motherhood is perhaps shown most starkly when it was rejected. Margaret Boveri’s piano teacher, for example, gave Margaret a doll-sized tea set but was scandalized when she learned that Margaret no longer played with dolls.54 Similarly, Vorwärts used a girl’s refusal to play with dolls as a means of attacking the moral bankruptcy of the rich in a 1910 story about Christmas gifts.55 Beyond dolls, girls received various other tokens of household management, like the miniature sewing machine Mausi requested. As Ganaway has emphasized, these functioned as gender-specific representations of technological modernity. Nonetheless, it was a sharply circumscribed modernity, one in which females might access technology to ease traditional household management tasks. We can see, then, that the toys offered to girls closely followed Karl Groos’s vision of play. Play for girls was supposed to anticipate adult behavior. Girls were expected to go through the motions of parenting small children, learning through mimetic action. The market for toys produced an enormous variety of products only partly captured in the categories outlined here. In addition, there were toy blocks, tops,

264 | David Hamlin

bugles, and more. Margarete Steiff established an enduring toy company on the foundation of the playful “Teddy” bear she marketed.56 Animals were common toy themes for very young children. They appear to have helped preserve the innocence of play, refusing the mimetic association with the adult world.57 German toy producers were quite inventive and resourceful in their designs. Rather than trace every category of toys, I think it would be useful to consider the Wilhelmine toy reform movement, as it reflected a contemporary assessment of the types of toys available in department and toy stores, and a commentary on the values those toys supported. To comprehend this movement, it is helpful to consider the ways that some middle-class Germans understood both the self and education. The notion of Bildung tied freedom of thought rooted in classical humanistic education to the proper development of the human individual. The individual had to develop the proper independence of mind to function properly in society, to avoid being overwhelmed by expectations and the constant stream of data, and instead impose a rational framework on the world. For many Germans, the products of the modern, commercial world challenged that independence of mind as consumerism and spectacle could easily leave the individual feeling isolated and alienated. Products that refused assimilation by the imagination left individuals cold and stunted in their humanity, incapable of imposing themselves and their reason on the ceaseless, chaotic flow of sensory inputs.58 This anxiety that commercialism might threaten the healthy self underlay critiques of fashion, advertising, and toys. Ferdinand Avenarius, editor of Der Kunstwart, was a particularly notable critic of modern toys. “The automaton with clockwork in its belly, the dollhouse with all its furniture copied in painful detail, the toy train that runs figure eights in its tracks … they suck the blood out of the minds of children. … That with toys the true value usually stands in inverse ratio to its dazzle makes the struggle harder for weak minds.”59 The “dazzle” of the marketplace, the perfection and motion of modern toys, undermined their “true value,” which lay in the development of imaginative capabilities and this “independence and freedom.” After all, “not ‘excellent mechanics’ but the soul of the child animates a doll.”60 The arguments of Avenarius and others inspired a group of artists to craft new, less “perfect” toys. Perhaps the first major effort was from the Dresdner Werkstätte. Its wooden figures were crudely shaped, traditionally themed, and colorfully painted. Kind und Kunst observed of them, “The trusted old objects of childish play have been given new forms. Simplicity of lines, powerful coloring, and solidity.”61 Toy makers in the Ore Mountains, or Erzgebirge, like the Kleinhempels, likewise moved to produced toys with a “simplicity of form” that spoke “to the child’s heart.”62 These simple wooden toys, very much like the toys sold today through the Verband Erzgebirgischer Kunsthandwerker und Spielzeughersteller e.V. (Art Craftsmen and Toy Makers of the Ore Mountains, Inc.), offered a clear contrast

Germans and Their Toys  | 265

to the mass-produced toys of the industry. The reform toys refused the “dazzle” of motion or novelty. Instead, they sought to replicate traditional forms: animals, horsemen, farms. Such toys presented resolutely pastoral images of society. They sought to educate by stimulating the imagination rather than through mimesis. Children had to use their minds to put the objects in motion and thereby construct play, and meaning, around them. There was a similar reform movement with dolls, which Marion Kaulitz, a Munich artist, was widely credited with starting. Her products avoided the old “deadening ideal of beauty” of mass-produced dolls, observed Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, while Dekorative Kunst added that Kaulitz’s dolls were “individual beings” that “avoid[ed] the flashy” and had “character.”63 Reform dolls also rejected the market incentives of motion or referentiality. Within the movement, toys were not to be chasing headlines, and dolls were not to be modeling the latest fashions. The most enduring of these efforts was Käthe Kruse’s, whose dolls were found in the Institoris’s Kinderstube. Kruse designed her dolls as a response to the “hard, cold, stiff” dolls available in stores. She sought to make dolls a “union of primitivism and naturalism.”64 Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration enthusiastically greeted Kruse’s efforts, saying that they showed a “warm understanding for the minds of children. … They have no hint of caricature. … They are not designed for the glass cabinet or the doll exhibition; one can and must play with them.”65 Kruse’s dolls, and rhetoric, distilled the arguments of toy reformers. She sought to counterbalance the moving, active, mass-produced dolls. Her primitivism allowed her dolls to be “naturalistic” without hair or moving body parts, which, of course, were common attributes of a natural child. She even insisted on handcraftsmanship.66 Her dolls constituted the successful commercialization of a rhetoric of anticommercialism, and she built a lasting company on that basis.

Conclusion In the introduction to this volume, Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß observed that childhood emerges from the “historical-dialectical interplay between the discourses about children and children’s practices, and their reciprocal impact.”67 The history of toys bears this out. Play was honored as a bulwark of childhood innocence, the foundation of a period separate from and unsoiled by the demands of the adult world. At the same time, however, toys and play were important parts of a pedagogical and disciplinary program for developing proper adults. The tension between these ideals was complicated further by multiple notions of what made a “proper adult.” Finally, toy makers pursued their own commercial strategies, often circulating images drawn from the popular press or school curricula. The result was a complicated, contradictory field of toys. Children, meanwhile,

266 | David Hamlin

took up these objects and constructed their own narratives around them. Hans Fallada’s tin soldiers became Caesar’s legionnaires. An engineer’s son recalled the various tonal qualities to his play with trains. Toys became, particularly for boys, ways of blending fantasy with their understanding of the world around them. Many toys and games continually dragged children toward an engagement with the world, which was then fictionalized, in part by toy makers, in part by children themselves. Toys helped shape what H. Glenn Penny calls in his chapter in this volume a “pervasive intertextual subjectivity … that coursed across generations” that Germans developed in dialogue with one another and for their own reasons.68 David Hamlin is Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History at Fordham University. He has published multiple articles on the rise of German consumer industries and the development of consumer norms in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany. His book Work and Play: The Production and Consumption of Toys in Germany, 1870–1914 was published by the University of Michigan Press.

Notes   1. Mann, Doctor Faustus, 329.   2. Budde, Auf dem Weg, 78.   3. Most notably, Schwartz, The Werkbund; also Ciarlo, Advertising Empire.   4. Hamlin, Work and Play.   5. Bowersox, Raising Germans, 22.   6. Zinnecker, “Vom Straßenkind,” quoted in Hoffman, “Erziehung zur Moderne,” 113.   7. Hamlin, Work and Play, 23–28; Ganaway, Toys, Consumption, 28–29. See also Budde, Auf dem Weg; Rosenbaum, Formen der Familie; Weber-Kellermann, Die deutsche Familie.   8. Ganaway, Toys, Consumption, 45. See also Weber-Kellermann, Die Kinderstube, 15–36; Flecken, Arbeiterkinder.   9. Rousseau, Emile. 10. Rousseau, Emile; Niethammer, Der Streit; Blankertz, Geschichte der Pädagogik; Ackermann, “Spiel und Arbeit”; Natorp, Sozialpädagogik; Siegert, “Spielerisch, Spielsucht,” 725-26. 11. Fröbel, Pedagogies of the Kindergarten. 12. Groos, Die Spielen der Menschen. For similar arguments, see Schaller, Das Spiel und die Spiele, 128; Döring, System der Pädagogik, 45–46. 13. Richter, Levana; Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man. 14. Perhaps the most powerful exploration of the power of middle-class respectability, especially as it operated on and through women, is in Kaplan, The Making of the Jewish Middle Class. See also Budde, Auf dem Weg. Evidence for cross-class consumption of toys can be found in Vorwärts’s discussions of toys (in particular, they promoted sales of domestically produced toys to support

Germans and Their Toys  | 267

Heimarbeiter, or domestic industrialists), the limited memoir literature (cited above), as well as the exceptionally low prices for many toys. See “Sonneberger Spielwaren,” Vorwärts 27 (18 December 1910): 1, 6 suppl.; also “Die Lokomotive als Spielzeug,” Vorwärts 28 (20 December 1911): 1 suppl.; Kurtz, Spielwaren und Puppen. 15. Ganaway, “Toys, Consumption,” 76–78; Hoffmann, “Erziehung zur Moderne,” 154. 16. Johann Baptist Gradl, “Als Kreuzberg noch kaiserlich war,” in Kindheit im Kaiserreich, ed. Pörtner, 236. 17. Fallada, Damals, 164. 18. Bowersox, Raising Germans, 37; “Neuheiten die zur Messe gebracht werden,” Deutsche Spielwaren Zeitung, no. 22 (15 November 1911): 659; “Des Weihnachtsmanns hauptsächliche Werkstätten,” Daheim 2, no. 12 (December 1865): 179; “Der Nürnberger Zinnsoldat,” Daheim 27, no. 12 (20 December 1890): 185. 19. Daheim 44, no. 10 (7 December 1907): 47. 20. See Andreas Weiß’s contribution in this volume. 21. Jahresbericht, 217; “Was die deutsche Spielwaren-Industrie nicht versäumen sollte,” Deutsche Spielwaren-Zeitung, no. 1 (2 January 1911): 11; “Der Nürnberger Zinnsoldat,” Daheim 27, no. 12 (20 December 1890), 185. 22. Hampe, Der Zinnsoldat, quoted in Bowersox, Raising Germans, 48. 23. Neff, War and the Law of Nations, 161–62; Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century; Hintze, “Staatenbilding und Verfassungsentwicklung,” 34–51; idem, “Staatsverfassung und Heeresverfassung,” 52–83; Hintze, “Staaten als Mächte”; Treitschke, Politics, 3–96, 283–308. 24. On the tension between European and non-European styles of war, see Hull, Absolute Destruction, 10–11. 25. Herta von Schwerin, “Wir feierten Kaisers Geburtstag,” in Pörtner, Kindheit im Kaiserreich, 169; Hans Wendt, “Als Hindenburg zum Ersatzkaiser avancierte,” in Pörtner, Kindheit im Kaiserreich, 189–90. 26. Hildebrandt, Das Spielzeug, 265; Ackermann, “Spiel und Arbeit,” 720. For a discussion of “manliness,” see Bederman, Manliness and Civilization. 27. Becher, “Politische Erziehung,” 151–52. 28. Bowersox, Raising Germans, 18–53; “Ein deutsches Nordpolentdeckungsspiel,” Deutsche Spielwaren-Zeitung, no. 10 (15 December 1909): 151. 29. Kurt Bittel, “Lateinunterricht bei Oberpräzeptor Ölschläger,” in Pörtner, Kindheit im Kaiserreich, 271. 30. Bowersox, Raising Germans, 22. 31. Christadler, Kriegserziehung, 35–36; Bowersox, Raising Germans, 54–80, 172–77, 199–202; Ciarlo, Advertising Empire. On Buffalo Bill, see H. Glenn Penny’s contribution in this volume. 32. Bowersox, Raising Germans, 22–25. For children’s books, see Emer O’Sullivan’s contribution in this volume. 33. Bowersox, Raising Germans, 41–43. 34. Kurt Rudolf Kreuscher, “Der Kampf um den Nordpol,” Daheim 43, no. 1 (1 October 1906): 14. 35. See Penny, “Knowing Others as Selves,” in this volume. 36. This is based on an analysis of advertising in the Deutsche Spielwaren-Zeitung in 1909, 1911, and 1913. Of course, technology toys were produced by more highly capitalized companies, and advertising is therefore a potentially misleading register of popularity. In the absence of sales statistics, the concrete data available for comparing the relative popularity of various toys include comparative advertising rates, the comparative presence in toy catalogs, export statistics (aggregated by the material from which toys were made), and gross sales by the small number of publically traded toy makers. All suggest that metal technology toys enjoyed large and growing popularity.

268 | David Hamlin

37. Kurtz, Spielwaren und Puppen. 38. Quoted in Budde, Auf dem Weg, 202. 39. For toy aircraft, see Kurtz, Spielwaren und Puppen. On enthusiasm for aircraft, see Fritzsche, Nation of Fliers; Günter Grassmann, “Man liebte russische Literatur und fürchtete die ‘russische Dampfwalze,’” in Pörtner, Kindheit im Kaiserreich, 152. 40. Kurtz, Spielwaren und Puppen, 75–78. 41. Henze, “Eisenzeit”; “Neuheiten,” Deutsche Spielwaren-Zeitung, no. 7 (20 March 1914): 9–11. 42. F. H. Huber, “Nürnbergs Spielwaren-Industrie,” Bayerns Industrie und Handel (Nuremberg, 1906), 112. 43. “Elektrische Motoren für Knaben,” Rundschau über Spielwaren 4, no. 112 (10 October 1912): 1634. 44. Kurt Karl Doberer, “Der Pfennig war das Mark der Währung,” in Pörtner, Kindheit im Kaiserreich, 224. 45. Hildebrant, Spielzeug, 124–25. 46. “Modelldampfmaschinen und Betriebsmodelle als Spielzeug,” Der Spiel- und Holzwaren-Markt 7, no. 9 (1 May 1911): 1. See also “Zur Entwicklung der Spielwaren-Industrie,” Rundschau über Spielwaren 1, no. 1 (1 September 1909): 4. 47. Hoffmann, “Erziehung zur Moderne,” 282. 48. Ganaway, Toys, Consumption, 123–25. 49. Ibid., 141. 50. Raimond, “Der Wunschzettel,” Daheim 49, no. 11 (14 December 1912): 29. 51. Alfred Leopold, “Alte und Neue Puppe,” Leipziger Illustrirte Zeitung (29 December 1910): 1249. 52. Zinn, Kinderspiel und Spielzeug, 22. 53. Hildebrandt, Spielzeug, 325. 54. Boveri, Verzweigungen, 28. 55. “Weihnachtsgeschenke,” Vorwärts 27, no. 298 (21 December 1910): 3, suppl. 1. 56. Völker-Kraemer, Wie ich zur Teddymutter wurde. 57. Hamlin, Work and Play, 34–35. 58. See, particularly, Georg Simmel, “Das Problem des Stiles,” Dekorative Kunst (April 1908); Simmel, Philosophy of Money. See also Schwartz, The Werkbund; Jarzombek, “Discourse of a Bourgeois Utopia.” On romantic ideas of the self, see La Volpa, The Self. 59. Ferdinand Avenarius, “Vor Weihnachten,” Der Kunstwart 16, no. 5 (December 1902): 287. 60. Avenarius, “Spielzeug,” Der Kunstwart 19, no. 6 (December 1905): 303–4. 61. “Dresdner Spielzeug,” Kind und Kunst 1, no. 1 (October 1904): 31. 62. “Neue Erzgebirgische Spiel- und Gebrauchs-Sachen: Nach Entwürfen v. Geschwister Kleinhempel,” Kind und Kunst 7, no. 5 (February 1904): 201–8. 63. “Münchner Künstler-Kaulitz-Puppen,” Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 27 (1911): 84; “Neue Puppen,” Dekorative Kunst (Feb 1909): 239–40. 64. Käthe Kruse, Das große Puppenspiel, 78, 86. 65. “Kruse-Puppen,” Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 29 (1911): 277. 66. Kruse, Das große Puppenspiel, 105. 67. See the introduction in this volume. 68. Penny, “Knowing Others as Selves,” in this volume.

Germans and Their Toys  | 269

Bibliography Archival Sources and Periodicals Daheim Dekorative Kunst Der Kunstwart Der Spiel- und Holzwaren-Markt Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration Deutsche Spielwaren-Zeitung Kind und Kunst Leipziger Illustrirte Zeitung Rundschau über Spielwaren Vorwärts Zeitschrift für Völkerrecht

Secondary Sources Ackermann, E. “Spiel und Arbeit.” In Enzyklopädisches Handbuch der Pädagogik, vol. 8. Langensalza, Hermann Beyer & Söhne, 1905. Becher, Ursula A. “Politische Erziehung durch Geschichte: Schulbücher im Kaiserreich.” Wolfenbütteler Notizen zur Buchgeschichte 21 (1996): 147–66. Bederman, Gail. Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Blankertz, Herwig. Die Geschichte der Pädagogik: Von der Aufklarung bis zur Gegenwart. Wetzler: Büchse der Pandora, 1982. Boveri, Margaret. Verzweigungen. Munich, 1978. Bowersox, Jeff. Raising Germans in the Age of Empire: Youth and Colonial Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Budde, Gunilla-Friederike. Auf dem Weg ins Bürgerleben: Kindheit und Erziehung in deutschen und englischen Bürgerfamilien 1840–1914. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994. Christadler, Marieluise. Kriegserziehung im Jugendbuch: Literarische Mobilmachung in Deutschland und Frankreich vor 1914. Frankfurt am Main: Haag + Herchen, 1978. Ciarlo, David. Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011. Döring, A. System der Pädagogik im Umriss. Berlin: R. Gaertners Verlagbuchhandlung, 1894. Fallada, Hans. Damals bei uns Daheim: Erlebtes, Erfahrenes, und Erfundenes. Stuttgart: Rowohlt, 1958. Flecken, Margarete. Arbeiterkinder im 19. Jahrhundert: Eine sozialgeschichtliche Untersuchung ihrer Lebenswelt. Weinheim and Basel: Beltz, 1981. Fritzsche, Peter. A Nation of Fliers: German Aviation and the Popular Imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. Fröbel, Friedrich. Pedagogies of the Kindergarten or His Ideas Concerning the Play and Playthings of the Child. Translated by Josephine Jarvis. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1900. Ganaway, Bryan. “Toys, Consumption, and Middle-Class Childhood in Imperial Germany, 1871–1918.” PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, 2003.

270 | David Hamlin

———. Toys, Consumption, and Middle-Class Childhood in Imperial Germany, 1891–1918. Bern: Peter Lang AG, 2009. Groos, Karl. Die Spielen der Menschen. Jena: Fischer Verlag, 1899. Hamlin, David. Work and Play: The Production and Consumption of Toys in Germany, 1870– 1914. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007. Hampe, Theodor. Der Zinnsoldat: Ein deutsches Spielzeug. Berlin: H. Stubenrauch, 1924. Henze, Asgar. “Eisenzeit: Geschichte und Technik der Metallbaukasten.” Eisenzeit: Geschichte des Metallbaukastens, 139–40. Nuremberg, 1995. Hildebrandt, Paul. Das Spielzeug im Leben des Kindes: Reichillustriertes Haus- und Familienbuch. Berlin: Verlag von G. Söhlke Nachf., 1904. Hintze, Otto. “Staaten als Mächte und Mächte als Staaten.” Zeitschrift für Völlkerrecht 8 (1914): 360–65. ———. Staat und Verfassung: Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur allgemeinen Verfassungsgeschichte, edited by Gerhard Oesterreich. Göttingen: Vandenheock & Ruprecht, 1962. Hoffman, Heike. “Erziehung zur Moderne: Ein Branchenportrait der deutschen Spielwarenindustrie in der entstehenden Massenkonsumgesellschaft.” PhD diss., Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, 1998. Huber, F. H. “Nürnbergs Spielwaren-Industrie.” Bayerns Industrie und Handel. Nuremberg, 1906. Hull, Isabel. Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. Iggers, Georg G. Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1997. Jahresbericht der Gewerbe- und Handelskammer Mittelfranken 1904. Nuremberg, 1904. Jarzombek, Mark. “The Discourse of a Bourgeois Utopia 1904–1908, and the Founding of the Werkbund.” In Imagining Modern German Culture, 1889–1910, edited by Françoise Forster-Hahn, 127–45. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1996. Kaplan, Marion. The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family, and Identity in Imperial Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Kruse, Käthe. Das große Puppenspiel: Mein Leben. Heidelberg, 1992 [1951]. Kurtz, Hermann. Spielwaren und Puppen, 1912. Repr. ed. Stuttgart, 1983. La Volpa, Anthony. The Self and the Calling of Philosophy, 1762–1799. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Mann, Thomas. Buddenbrooks. New York: Vintage Books, 1961. ———. Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkühn. New York: Vintage Books, 1975. Natorp, Paul. Sozialpädagogik. Paderborn: Schöningh, 1974. Neff, Stephen C. War and the Law of Nations: A General History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Niethammer, Friedrich Immanuel. Der Streit des Philanthropinismus und Humanismus in der Theorie des Erziehungs-Unterrichts unsrer Zeit. Jena: Frommann, 1808. Pörtner, Rudolf, ed. Kindheit im Kaiserreich: Erinnerung an vergangene Zeiten. Düsseldorf and Vienna: Econ Verlag, 1987. Richter, Jean-Paul. Levana, or, On the Doctrine of Education. Boston: DC Heath & Co., 1864. Rosenbaum, Heidi. Formen der Familie: Untersuchungen zum Zusammenhang von Familienverhältnissen, Sozialstruktur und sozialem Wandel in der deutschen Gesellschaft des 19. Jahrhunderts. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1982.

Germans and Their Toys  | 271

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Emile, or On Education. New York: Basic Books, 1979. Schaller, Julius. Das Spiel und die Spiele: Ein Beitrag zur Psychologie und Pädagogik wie zum Verständniß des geselligen Lebens. Weimar: Böhlau, 1861. Schiller, Friedrich. On the Aesthetic Education of Man. Translated by Reginald Snell. New Haven, CT, 1954. Schwartz, Frederic J. The Werkbund: Design Theory and Mass Culture before the First World War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996. Siegert, Gustav. “Spielerisch, Spielsucht.” In Enzyklopädisches Handbuch der Pädagogik, vol. 8. Langensalza, Hermann Beyer & Söhne, 1905. Simmel, Georg. The Philosophy of Money. New York: Routledge, 1990. Treitschke, Heinrich von. Politics. Edited by Hans Kohn. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1963. Völker-Kraemer, Sabine. Wie ich zur Teddymutter wurde: Das Leben der Margarete Steiff nach ihren eigenen Aufzeichnungen. Stuttgart: Quell, 1996. Weber-Kellermann, Ingeborg. Die Kinderstube. Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1991. ———. Die deutsche Familie: Versuch einer Sozialgeschichte. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1974. Zinn, Clara. Kinderspiel und Spielzeug. Leipzig and Berlin, 1910. Zinnecker, Jürgen. “Vom Straßenkind zum verhäuslichten Kind: Kindheitsgeschichte im Prozeß der Zivilisation.” In Stadtgeschichte und Kindheit im Prozess der Zivilisation, edited by Imbkr Behnken, 142–62. Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 1990.

Conclusion

Kaleidoscope and Lens Re-envisioning the Past through the History of Knowledge Simone Lässig

S The eleven preceding chapters explore various media for children in nineteenth-century Germany, focusing especially on the way these media brought the wider world into the nation, that is, how media shaped “the world of children”— as well as how the children reconfigured the information from these media in both intended and unintended ways. Yet, as we have suggested throughout the volume but wish to elucidate more fully here, media also constitute stores of knowledge. Our fundamental assumption is that media both represent and generate social reality and societal knowledge. Knowledge and media cultures are thus closely related to one another. Without media, any efforts to transmit knowledge further would be very limited; the form of the medium largely determines how knowledge is communicated, translated, and adapted. Media— including those that are not explicitly defined as educational—have the function of providing social and cultural orientation. As a result, knowledge transmission can hardly be separated from world interpretation. In communicating cultural codes, media possess the potential to foster the construction of (imagined and real) communities via knowledge circulation, and thereby often have an inclusive and integrating effect.1 Consequently, analyzing media generated for children for educational or entertainment purposes is tantamount to analyzing spaces of knowledge. Investigating the history of these media and children’s interaction with them thus contributes in general to the emerging field of the history of knowledge.2 This conclusion will elaborate on these points, demonstrating the insights this collection provides into the history of knowledge and contextualizing this subfield at the intersection of German and global history, particularly in relation to colonial history and the Notes from this chapter begin on page 288.

Conclusion  | 273

history of empire building, imperialism, and nationalism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this context, a sketch of the historical development of history textbooks will illustrate shifts in societal spaces of knowledge corresponding to changes in the state’s educational aims. It will then reflect on the discursive and interactive nature of media and knowledge production, as well as children’s active role in it, before offering some suggestions for further research. But to begin, it is necessary to define the term “knowledge” as we mean it within this context.

Defining Knowledge and Its History Even in the history of knowledge itself, it is difficult to find a clear definition of knowledge that distinguishes it from other forms of perceiving and adapting to the world. In fact, the meaning of knowledge has changed significantly as the field has taken shape.3 Two decades ago, when historians were interested in “knowledge,” their questions, roughly categorized, were either rooted in intellectual history or the history of science. Conceptually, such research circled around the societal value and ties to power that science, scholarship, and expertise have enjoyed since the nineteenth century, as well as the long unchallenged idea of the ceaseless, constantly advancing scientization of society. Processes of descientization or the marginalization of expert knowledge, whose rising prominence today calls especially for historical analysis, were largely neglected in studies dealing with modern and contemporary history, and they have only very recently begun to garner broader attention.4 This is one impetus behind the chapters collected in the present volume. In analyzing media created for children, the chapters analyze forms of knowledge about the world that circulated outside of scholarly arenas in the nineteenth century. They focus on arsenals of knowledge that provided orientation for values and practices and could become socially relevant in many areas of life. In many cases this was a kind of knowledge that was primarily, but not exclusively, available to the educated elites.5 In this context, we interpret “knowledge,” first of all, in a very general sense as information that was selected, ordered, and connected—and thus also interpreted—according to specific criteria. A first but only rough orientation to this idea can be derived from Claude Lévi-Strauss’s metaphor of knowledge as “the cooked,” to be differentiated from information, which he classified as raw material.6 Certainly, seemingly “raw” data and information, too, are always already inscribed with subjective components because people decide what natural and societal phenomena should be observed, emphasized, and collected or, conversely, ignored. Thus, people make (preliminary) decisions about the order and hierarchies and thereby ultimately give preliminary shape to stores of knowledge.

274 | Simone Lässig

As long as one recalls that historians draw the line between the two with their concrete research questions,7 then a rough division into “objective” information, on the one hand, and its “subjective” interpretation, on the other, provides a basic orientation: knowledge only emerges from data and information if they are brought into a system and infused with social meaning. Knowledge production over long distances consists in seeking and emphasizing, in finding and omitting data, as well as in selecting and ordering, systematizing and setting various information in relation to other information. Knowledge, which, in its swelling and conspicuous masses of data, can also disappear (again) or be purposefully ignored and left to obscurity, is, consequently, a genuinely historical phenomenon. Even as it is shaped by concrete societal contexts and structures, individuals and social groups attribute meaning to it. Worldviews, for example, arise on the basis of knowledge-based cultural representations of the world and, thus, are influenced by the media through which these representations are communicated. But they also arise from their subjective interpretation, from interest-driven processes of cultural translation and recoding. Since knowledge is always connected information and each individual encounters new bodies of knowledge with specific, previously formed representations of the world, new knowledge always results when one processes additional information, and this new knowledge, in turn, can then enter into the store of knowledge of that individual’s society. From this perspective, not only does the dynamic entanglement between structure and agency in epistemological contexts appear to be fluid, but the interactions and boundaries between knowledge and belief that have been negotiated again and again since the Enlightenment do as well. One encounters knowledge where actors are convinced that the information available to them is evidence-based, is authenticated by authorities, and is not transcendent. Accordingly, social knowledge useful for the profane world can certainly be negotiated in religious spaces—as long as it is perceived by the relevant actors as “true” and authorized. Conversely, this is also true of secular spaces and media. For example, school textbooks from imperial Germany that started the history of humanity off with biblical figures and the history of modern Germans and their nation with the Germanic peoples8 contained information that was untenable from a scholarly or scientific perspective. Nonetheless, as this information was transmitted by state-authorized educational media, many pupils must have perceived such myths as solid knowledge and integrated them into the existing stores of knowledge that had been formed by learning and experience.9 Thus, knowledge is two things as once: both socially and culturally formed meaning10 and a network of information recognized by society, which contemporaries in their concrete social situations defined by categories of difference, such as class, gender, religion, race, or age and classified as reliable and true.11 Understood in this way, “knowledge” opens up new vistas for historians. Whereas previous historical interest in societal knowledge was primarily

Conclusion  | 275

occupied with the question of how scientific and scholarly knowledge could be taught to a lay public or the uneducated strata of society,12 this newer approach allows researchers to reach beyond knowledge elites and potentially reveal forms of knowledge that are not or no longer visible, which were negotiated beyond established orders of knowledge and the “thought collectives” or epistemic communities that related to them.13 If one looks into which knowledge was validated by which actors, or which knowledge was regarded as authentic and declared relevant or, conversely, was delegitimized and removed from the canon of what was “worth knowing,” one can draw conclusions about the societal ideas, values, driving forces, and practices that were influential in their time and space and that were ignored, repressed and forgotten.14 These are—together with the analysis of the causes that might have caused fundamental changes in producing, organizing, and representing knowledge—the fundamental questions driving the emerging field of the history of knowledge. It addresses a broad spectrum of spaces, forms, and media of knowledge and analyzes each of these according to its own value as well as its entanglements.15 The authors of this volume are committed to a concept of knowledge that corresponds to this approach, looking beyond the top-down models that the fields of intellectual history and the history of science long utilized. They ask how knowledge was generated outside of academic spaces and scholarly circles, for example, in adventure travel writing, in toys and games, and in juvenile literature, as well as how it was circulated and how it acquired its own dynamic—such as when children played with toys in ways of their own choosing, regardless of the strategies intended by their designers or producers. The chapters present tableaus of socially legitimated knowledge and expectations that likely had a significant influence on the imagined worlds of large groups of children in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, even if they do not have access to primary sources that would reveal the knowledge young people actually absorbed. Thus, the chapters mainly address knowledge that was available and accessible to larger groups of Germans in the long nineteenth century and thus might have been acquired, and ask how it changed. Fiedler’s chapter on the changing image of Japan in school textbooks, from a kindred spirit to a racially inferior competitor, is a case in point, illustrating how knowledge was designed for children to foster specific political objectives, which likewise changed over time. The chapters focus not on the genesis of modern science through the experience of the world but on the barely researched question of what world was formed in everyday discourses. They also explore how the information and fragments of knowledge that circulated in these discourses shaped the popular images and the sense that ordinary Germans could make of the world (and their nation). Our authors analyze widely available social stores of knowledge from a range of sources—from French textbooks to museums—as well as how constant they were and how they changed. If Fiedler shows how much the image of Japan

276 | Simone Lässig

changed over the nineteenth century, above all, in schools, as well as in other fields of German society, Penny highlights the constancy of German tropes of American Indians over two centuries. The authors utilize a variety of disciplinary approaches, from colonial historical perspectives to literary criticism of children’s literature. Likewise, they address very different arenas and media of knowledge production and circulation: the school via textbooks; the playground, the street, and—in middle-class families—the children’s room via toys and trading cards; the church and religious communities via missionary literature; home, or, from the last quarter of the nineteenth century, libraries for the knowledge found in children’s literature, adventure travel writing, and royal travel novels.16 The focus of our interest is not popularized but popular knowledge. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, especially, the range of individuals who became independent producers and bearers of knowledge, and who, therefore become interesting for our research aims, extended far beyond just scientists and scholars, in the modern sense of the term. It included also ministers and teachers—for example, in missionary literature and Dielitz’s travel anthologies (Stornig and Anderson)—writers, translators, and pedagogues such as Campe (who published Robinson der Jüngere [Belgum]); authors of children’s books like Karl May (Penny) and the royal travel novels (Schneider); and creators of textbooks on war in history (Weiß), for French foreign-language instruction (Schleicher), and for geography and history lessons in relation to Japan (Fiedler); and entrepreneurs in the entertainment industry such as the makers of games, trading cards, and toys (O’Sullivan, Blume, and Hamlin); and, to a certain extent, also children and adolescents themselves.17

History of Knowledge in Colonial History and the Role of Textbooks The approach to knowledge and media sketched out here renders new considerations and concepts in the history of knowledge fruitful for a German history in transnational and global perspectives. For example, colonial studies have long spurred interest in assessing the media landscape of the German Empire as researchers have sought to understand how colonialism infiltrated its society and culture. However, only a small share of these studies deals with media that were addressed specifically to children.18 Especially for the time between the Enlightenment and the founding of the empire, we encounter a desideratum that calls for further research for at least two reasons. One reason is that a considerable portion of the knowledge archive from which the popular culture and educational institutions of the German Empire were created must have come into being during the “Sattelzeit”19 or the onset of modernity; another reason is that one can assume that patterns of knowledge about the world that had

Conclusion  | 277

been established in the Enlightenment and owed much to that era’s universalistic aspirations changed over the course of the nineteenth century. They changed both quantitatively, in terms of the scarcely imaginable expansion of objective knowledge about the world, and also qualitatively, in the way that people of their respective time interpreted and ordered the knowledge available to them and combined it with other images of the world, integrating it into their worldviews. Up to now, scholarship of the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries has approached these issues primarily from the perspective of literary history or the history of science. How tightly entangled the exploration of the world, concepts of European or Western civilization and superiority, the development of new scholarly disciplines, the refinement and standardization of methods of scientific experimentation, and early race discourses were has been analyzed as thoroughly as the long-permeable boundaries between scholarship and society: reports about discoveries and trips to foreign lands, encyclopedias, geographical pamphlets—all have been the subject of some historical research.20 However, in these research contexts, the world that children were able to access via information, knowledge, and also via fictions and imaginative visions has received strikingly little attention—except perhaps for special studies on textbooks or children’s and juvenile literature. This is beginning to change for the German Empire and especially for the colonially shaped “World of Children” that emerged during the Wilhelmine period. However, the studies that derive from the context of research on colonialism are primarily interested in the strategies—for media, pedagogy, and politics—that various actors developed in order to win children and adolescents over to their variously weighted and sometimes also contradictory colonial goals. Yet, they pay less attention to the contents themselves; “knowledge” does not form one of their central interpretive axes.21 Nevertheless, studies like that of Stefanie Wolter and David Ciarlo on the marketing of “the foreign” as well as of colonialism by means of new visual media,22 or Jeff Bowersox’s study on youth and colonial culture,23 are rich in suggestions for the research questions of this volume. Bowersox has pursued the question of how Germans were raised in the Age of Empire in various media arenas and contexts, showing, on the one hand, how toys, geography textbooks, exhibits, popular literature for children, and, finally, youth organizations were increasingly coded in colonial ways. However, he does not interpret this—similar to Ciarlo, who hardly addresses children and youth—as a direct success of colonial activists and/or political indoctrination but rather as the result of the close connection between education, entertainment, and commerce in the age of mass media. A broad and diverse group including media entrepreneurs, representatives of the entertainment industry, and colonial goods dealers tried to awaken interest in colonial things among potential consumers, but they also tried to incorporate this interest. In this case, pedagogues got involved, particularly reform-oriented geography teachers aiming to professionalize their field and career. In doing so,

278 | Simone Lässig

they sought to establish teaching methods that made use of children’s fascination with everything exotic and adventurous and to make the transfer of world knowledge useful—mainly via fiction, but to a certain degree also in educational media of a more formal type. The chapters in the opening section of the volume on state-sponsored knowledge, represented in the early century by texts produced by pedagogues for educating and entertaining, and then by more standardized textbooks toward the end of the century, nicely reflect the tremendous changes in societal spaces of knowledge over the course of the nineteenth century. If Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere targeted young boys of the elite classes, as Belgum indicates, mass-­ produced textbooks, such as the history textbooks analyzed by Weiß and Fiedler, addressed a much broader swath of the population. Once compulsory schooling was implemented in the German states, the masses (at least the children) became literate. This development is extremely important for the question of discourses and discourse arenas that addressed or included lower-class children: within historically short periods of time, entirely new social groups—always first through their younger generation—confronted a constantly expanding arsenal of knowledge and perpetually shifting interpretations at school, with textbooks crucially linking first the upper and middle classes to a wider world, and from the late nineteenth century, also linking a broad stratum of the lower classes to this wider world as well.24 The knowledge available to children and adolescents can be seen as a litmus test of shifts in the society’s complete store of knowledge. A large part of that knowledge was primarily conveyed via textbooks. Textbook knowledge is associated more closely with the construction of meaning and identity formation than that of many other media produced for children and youth, and it is highly politically and culturally coded, as Weiß and Fiedler make abundantly clear. Textbooks reflect and shape structures of knowledge and modes of perceiving the world, societal ideas about order, and designs for the future in a condensed form that tends to be canonical. Since they were mostly authorized by the state, textbooks had a special claim to being credible, objective, and relevant, and could shape a society’s archives of knowledge over long periods of time. After the empire was founded, the number of published textbooks increased rapidly. For the subject of history alone, 836 new works were published between 1871 and 1918.25 These textbooks took a key position in the knowledge production of the society, so that access to world knowledge clearly became more democratic and secular. The public school became one of the most important formally legitimized producers and administrators of knowledge, although competing bearers of knowledge like the church, sociopolitical movements, popular mass media, and the emerging entertainment industry should not be forgotten—after all, biblical allusions abounded in the scientific curricula, and pastors and priests continued

Conclusion  | 279

to intervene in the school life, especially in villages.26 The state, which made decisions about curricula and teaching materials, influenced who learned what and what was left out. Consequently, textbooks’ value as sources for a history of knowledge directed at children can hardly be exaggerated. This is especially true for reading books and increasingly also for geography and history textbooks. The latter, more than those of many other subjects, it seems, placed Germany in relation to the wider world and conveyed ideas about geography, cultures, and peoples beyond the German Empire to children. Analysis of history textbooks reveals that world history as a subject underwent a tremendous, if not all-encompassing, transformation over the course of the nineteenth century: universal interest in the history of the world gave way to world history functioning as a site for projecting German national superiority in ways that were initially culturally defined and increasingly racist. In other words, this sketch of the historical development of history textbooks will show how knowledge regimes changed along with the implementation of compulsory schooling and the increasingly nationalist aims of the state. History textbooks in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were often utilized not only in schools but also by several generations in private spaces of knowledge; that is, they were works “for school and home.” Under the influence of the Enlightenment, they were largely arranged according to universal or global history ideas. The authors of many educational texts seemed to be open to the world and curious about foreign people, things, and places. They likely spurred some interest in other countries and peoples among their readers, particularly since they honored rather than devalued variety, despite an unmistakable tendency toward exoticization.27 After 1815, efforts increased to reduce “foreign history” and to educate pupils more to become citizens of a particular state rather than citizens of the world.28 As a result, some textbooks whose scope was too universal were prohibited—for example, in Bavaria.29 And in Prussia, one of the Stiehl Regulations published in 1854 even decreed that, for teacher seminars, geography was to be taught as a study of the homeland, as natural history concentrating on indigenous animals and plants and history—“pervaded by the Christian spirit and consciousness”— as Prussian and German history. General world history, by contrast, was not allowed; only the “most indispensable information” from it could be brought in “to relate it partly to biblical and partly to German history.” A picture of history that was loyal to the authorities and was oriented toward love of throne and fatherland was supposed to curb unmistakable democratic tendencies. From midcentury, textbooks on patriotic (vaterländisch), territorial-dynastic history dominated, and they could still be found around the turn of the century when national history was already broadly accepted as the guiding idea for the newly established field of historical research in the German Empire. Cultural history

280 | Simone Lässig

had not disappeared from the classrooms entirely,30 but little by little, it was marginalized. Modern and political history became more important, much to the regret of representatives of cultural history.31 As Andreas Weiß demonstrates in his contribution, the ways that “national” wars, above all, were presented was supposed to help establish a common German identity and heal the wounds caused by the thorny path toward unification. Interpreted as necessary natural historical processes, wars seemed to form a natural component of political processes, too.32 In order to understand the relevance of this new conceptual approach, one has to keep in mind that far fewer pupils were exposed to Enlightenment-era universal and cultural history works than to the textbooks of German Empire: prior to the unification of the German states, only Bavaria and Saxony had history as a school subject also for the lower educational sector in their school regulations (Prussia did this in 1872), but even in Saxony, the entirety of school lessons in history consisted of eight hours of “what is most necessary from world history” and twelve for the history of Saxony.33 And even in the German Empire, it did take long before general studies dominated in the lower-level schools, which also began to develop their own profile. Up until then, even for teaching subjects other than German, reading books had remained the most important bearers of knowledge for a majority of the pupils.34 Often, only teachers had access to other educational materials so that they functioned as translators of this textbook knowledge. This has methodological implications because teachers and their teaching practice, in addition to textbook narratives, have to be regarded as intervening variables of knowledge production35—even when one is concerned with the thesis of the “nationalization of the masses” by means of state history lessons. The entanglement of nationalization and globalization and the tendency toward scientization was entirely palpable in the history textbooks, although the accents shifted over the longer term: of the textbooks published for all types of schools prior to 1871, about a quarter were oriented toward “world history” (23 percent); between 1871 and 1918, this had dropped to only 8 percent. Above all, curricula for elementary schools as yet rarely aimed to extend the historical view of teachers and pupils beyond home and the fatherland—even the term “nation” occurs remarkably seldom in them up to 1914. Germans and Prussians, as well as battles and rulers, dominated the curriculum, especially in the lower types of schools.36 Only a few of the textbooks published between 1871 and 1918 devoted some or all of their chapters to “world history,” and even then this “world” very rarely included anything beyond Europe—with the exception of a few sections on America.37 In the best case, elementary school pupils learned about a wider world in their geography and natural history lessons. There, however, it was taught as something natural and not as a phenomenon made by people and formed by culture.38

Conclusion  | 281

In addition, a widespread practice that ran counter to the trend toward the scientization of education was the increased inclusion of founding myths in educational works from the last third of the nineteenth century. This was very different from the works of the eighteenth century, in which it had been acceptable to admit that Germans had not always been cultured. August Ludwig von Schlözer, for example, in his world history textbook of 1779, explained that that a rising culture draws its structuring power from the civilizing potential of the present—he compared Germans of 2,000 years ago with the “degenerate, dumb, barbaric” Egyptians of the present: “We Germans, by contrast, what were we 2,000 years ago, and what are we now! Our ancestors were iron-eaters, and not very nice gentlemen … they could neither read nor write; they did not eat people but they did eat horses and hunted and plundered and lazed about and sang, just like the people on the Ontario still do now.”39 A hundred years later, however, the separation between the modern, highly cultured Germans and the uncivilized Germanic peoples gave way to a historical appropriation; more and more textbooks contributed to weaving the myth of the Germanic peoples that became influential in the nationalization of the Germans. For example, a textbook for Catholic elementary schools from 1859 stated, “This strong, unspoiled people was rich in many virtues. It was loyal, candid, conventional, open and fond of truth. … The Germans have been characterized from the beginning by honesty and open chivalry. …”40 Another half a century later, Heinrich Wolf added even more new associations with Germanic peoples in his Angewandte Geschichte (1911, Applied History). He not only interpreted the myth of the Germanic peoples in a nationalistic way but also tied it to the race discourse of the time. The ancient world, he stated, had declined on account of the “mixing with Asian and African peoples.” Yet “rescue came—through the Germanic peoples. … The significance of the so-called Romance peoples was solely determined by the strength of the Germanic components that were mixed in.” Eighty-five to 90 percent of the genius of the Italians in the Renaissance had to be “attributed entirely or primarily to the German race,” continued Wolf, who was a professor and teacher at a Gymnasium in Düsseldorf.41 According to his interpretation, the French were “degenerate” because they had lost the Germanic elements—by driving out the Huguenots, for example, or because of the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, which they were responsible for, Wolf said.42 The textbook then drew a direct arc to the era in which it was published: Germany had to be careful “that no racial degeneration occur; the danger is great.” For one thing, five million Germans had been lost to other nations on account of emigration; for another, the border had been opened wide to other peoples and races. Mixing with Poles or Italians from the north was not detrimental, he claimed, because these peoples were half German; but the immigration of Russian Poles, Hungarians, Croatians, and Southern Italians, as well as “the great stream of Jewish immigration,” by contrast, he considered quite dangerous. And the “undifferentiated blood mixing of whites,

282 | Simone Lässig

reds and blacks” was even much worse. Bastards constituted “the worst and most dangerous scum of the colonies.”43 We cannot yet reliably determine how representative these images of the world were for knowledge that was negotiated in school settings. Nor can we determine just how all-encompassing the transformation in world history was, in which a universal interest in the history of the world shifted to world history functioning as a site for projecting one’s own national superiority, which was initially culturally defined and increasingly racist. The textbooks for elementary schools did not reflect a racial or social Darwinist concept of history. To be sure, anti-Polish sentiment was ever present, and the appropriation of the Germanic myth was suited to making the concept of the nation an ethnic one. Yet in the educational media for the lower and middle classes, conceptions of the nation rooted in culture or the state predominated until 1914, leaving little room for anti-Semitic stereotypes or ethnic nationalism.44 These trends seemed to be reserved for institutions of higher education, and perhaps also for the textbook knowledge as interpreted by teachers and in media beyond the classroom. The role of textbooks in knowledge production for society was all the more important in the nineteenth century because, in that century especially, the children learning from them were often the only members of their families who could read. Thus, children in the nineteenth century were also important bearers and translators of societal knowledge—and as such hardly replaceable in some families. The literacy rate continuously rose in the transition to mass schooling, with the majority of young Germans being able read and write by 1890, but this did not necessarily mean that their parents were literate, too; in the first half of the nineteenth century, they certainly were not. In many families across many generations it was the children and adolescents who were first able to take in the media-transmitted knowledge about the world that lay beyond their own horizon of experience and introduce it into their own life worlds and those of their families. In some social groups, it was often only the children who could read letters sent from relatives and friends who had emigrated. The knowledge the children took in complemented the narratives communicated orally in the church, neighborhood, and among trading communities. From the last third of the nineteenth century, when child labor became less and less necessary to secure survival and compulsory schooling was more closely controlled by state agencies, more and more parents were willing to entrust their children to the “special world of the school” for a certain period of time.45 In some regions and social circumstances, however, children likely remained in their role as knowledge mediators and translators until the early twentieth century.46

Conclusion  | 283

Turning the Media Kaleidoscope: Children as Producers of Knowledge Not least because they were often the only literate members of their families and social circles, children also were or became producers of knowledge. The state may have sought to control what knowledge they took in from their textbooks in school, but once children had learned to read, they could be reached by the producers of comic books, adventure novels, games, trading cards, and even human zoos over whom the state had relatively little control. Consequently, children had access to a kaleidoscope of sources for knowledge of the world, and, as with a kaleidoscope, they could twist and turn the knowledge they had acquired, recombining and reshaping it in infinite ways of their own choosing to produce new knowledge. They did not just passively consume media but also played a role in shaping it as the producers designed them and revised them in accordance with the children’s desire. This makes apparent the interactive nature of media production. Media produce effects in consumers, who, in turn, shape the future form of the media by their reactions. The enjoyment and emotional responses of the children and adolescents as consumers were, thus, key in the production of media for their consumption. Even the top-down knowledge world of schools took the feelings of pupils into consideration and structured the knowledge for affect. Prussian officials, for example, in an ordinance for elementary and secondary Prussian schools published in 1885, urged teachers to appeal to pupils’ emotions in their teaching: “Dead and without false fruit this lesson will everywhere remain … where it only addresses the mind, where the teacher is satisfied with mere names and numbers …” Instead of dry guidelines, the teacher was to use the “living word” to lend a “gripping relationship” to the materials, say, with songs and poetry.47 For officials presiding over culture, this was obviously less about knowledge of the world—they eyed this as suspect for the lower classes—than about seeing that “the youth [become] familiar with the strange fortunes and the tremendous developments of the fatherland.” The pupils, “[w]ith understanding and feeling,” were supposed to “gain an upright love and respect for the ruling house and the fatherland as fruit for the future.”48 Similarly, the various media children and adolescents consumed were mutually influential and intertwined, forming a complex discourse. In order to begin to suitably deal with this complexity, the chapters in this volume do not prioritize one genre of media over another, and they avoid the use of common dichotomies in relation to high vs. popular or light fiction. All of the media analyzed here and elsewhere contributed to forming the relevant discourse spaces for the young generation in the long nineteenth century in one way or another and were influenced by them in turn. There were numerous discourse spaces not only because some of the arenas in which contemporaries took in, negotiated, and produced

284 | Simone Lässig

knowledge between the Enlightenment and the First World War changed markedly, but also because, as was typical of the public sphere(s) in general,49 various media and discourse spaces that were shaped by class, gender, age, or urban-rural differences existed side by side and in conjunction with one another. Just as we do not prioritize one genre over another, nineteenth-century German children did not draw a sharp line between the various sources from which they drew their knowledge of the world, or between the “factual knowledge” they acquired in school and from textbooks and the casual, potentially false knowledge of popular literature or museum exhibits. After all, even the textbooks combined fact and fiction to suit the state’s nationalistic aims, as we have seen. Rather, textbooks and literature, and other sources of knowledge, from the point of view of the subject, that is, from the adolescents themselves, merely represented different and frequently competing forms of knowledge production and knowledge transmission to them. While these must be clearly distinguished from the perspective of critical source analysis, the separation of historical textbook and children’s book from the subject’s perspective appears to be just as obsolete as the distinction between factuality and fictionality that Hayden White and others intensively discussed. When it comes to analyzing discursive spaces or narrative fields, then it can be quite fruitful to consider stores of knowledge that were circulated via different media together and—as in this volume—to go beyond the boundaries of media genres and scholarly disciplines. The importance that printed works acquired in the nineteenth century underscores this perspective: what children did not learn in school, in their family, in their circle of friends, or in their house of worship they could only learn from printed media. The “world” of most children was as big or as small, familiar, foreign, or threatening as the world that other people or printed material suggested to them. Especially for the era prior to the founding of the empire and the social opening of museums and exhibitions, and before the invention of new mass media like film, texts and reproduced images thus offer probably the most important access point to the formation and transformation of societal stores of knowledge. Over the course of the long nineteenth century, the kaleidoscope of children’s media became ever more diversified, and as it did so, children were confronted with ever more contradictory interpretations, knowledge elements, and educational goals. For example, North American Indians were suitable for various projections, but children also adapted them against the grain of classic role patterns and stereotypes, “experiencing” them anew. In other words, as Penny shows with his different approach in this volume, children did not always accept the interpretive patterns desired from above. On the one hand, authorities were interested in educating loyal “subalterns” and helping to forge a strong nation capable of defending itself successfully within the developing international Social Democratic world, as well as within the competing world powers. On the other hand, teachers, especially, articulated a contrasting desire to educate students

Conclusion  | 285

to become independent people and citizens whose “sensible” knowledge would enable them to deal with the rapidly changing world. This once again highlights the ambivalences that shaped the nineteenth century and particularly the German Empire. In this context, analyzing children and their media allows us to perceive these societal tensions more sharply.

Questions for Further Research As noted in the introduction, this volume dwells at the intersection of productive fields of research that have remained largely separate up until now: German national, colonial, and imperial history, the history of childhood, children’s and juvenile literature, and the history of knowledge. The definition of knowledge we employ here, as information imbued with social meaning through its selection and use, should indicate how the emerging field of the history of knowledge can provide a unifying approach. It allows us to integrate the insights of these different fields, as well as all of the various media analyzed here and their entanglements with one another, along with children’s influence on them, because knowledge cuts across disciplinary boundaries. Of course, the chapters present a sampling of the kinds of media and knowledge nineteenth-century German children encountered about the wider world and cannot be comprehensive, nor are they intended to be. Rather, this volume lays the groundwork for a history of knowledge approach that can also be used to analyze other kaleidoscopes of knowledge in other spaces and time periods. Moreover, even for our topic—the world of German children in the long nineteenth century—there are numerous desiderata for further research exploring the links between the various media. Here we have only been able to scratch the surface of children’s agency as producers of knowledge. To what extent do children, along with the producers of the respective media, appear as creative interpreters or even (willful) actors in the history of knowledge?50 Can we reconstruct transfers of knowledge between media? Which shifts and breaks can be found between the narratives? Questions that would need to be posed by future research in more depth include that of the transfer of topoi and themes from children’s literature into textbooks and vice versa, but also other questions beyond these two genres as sources. A particular methodological challenge arises from the question of how, in the broadest sense, lost, forgotten, and devalued knowledge can be made visible once again and interpreted in historical perspectives. Among other things, it seems tempting to examine the potential of digital humanities tools for identifying where there was a lack of knowledge, what was ignored or defined as dangerous knowledge, and what knowledge was purposefully removed from the canon. Likewise, it would be interesting to discover what the findings collected

286 | Simone Lässig

here for individual children’s and youth media would look like if at least the printed works were put together in a total corpus and analyzed with digital tools across the different genres: Would one be able to apprehend the frequency and form in which “foreign” continents, countries and peoples, colonies, discoveries, expeditions, and mission experiences were treated over time, together with the contexts of their interpretation? Would we thus gain insight into geographical-ethnographic horizons and into the alterity or identity concepts that children and adolescents of the nineteenth century had? With the established humanities research methods alone, however, one will hardly be able to find valid answers to such questions—at least not if one wishes to reconstruct intertextual connections, identify thematic clusters, and perceive semantic fields beyond a total corpus—all of which would need to be historically contextualized and evaluated and explained in terms of their scientific validity. When one considers opposing discourses, master narratives, and counternarratives, forms of knowledge circulation among media come into view, and these are difficult to explore even for the present. The question of images and icons, which we address here primarily in relation to advertising and collectors’ albums, provides a second important approach toward these issues that should be systematically pursued because images can hardly be overestimated as media of world observation, as bearers and transmitters of knowledge. In textbooks of the nineteenth century, they did not yet play a significant role—except for maps—but in children’s books, fiction and nonfiction, in collectors’ albums, wall displays, and picture boards, they certainly did.51 Finally, these educational objects point to another desideratum. Up to now, there has been little substantial research into the practices and materialities of world appropriation, into the cultural translation and the dis-/integration of specific stores of knowledge by children and adolescents. However, it is precisely these practices—which historians may be able to access via school reports, school essays, or letters and diaries written by children—that are meaningful if one wishes to take children seriously not only as objects but also as subjects of history. This is also true if one wishes to bring Lüdtke’s concept of Eigen-Sinn (willfulness) to bear also or even particularly on the history of knowledge and to pay attention to the cultural theory suggestion that collectively shared knowledge about the world and subjective attribution of meaning collide and shape one another in cultural practice.52 Likewise, the “spaces of entertainment and education” are still largely unexplored in the research, particularly concerning the pedagogical transmission of knowledge to children and adolescents. Furthermore, the chapters here focus on everyday practices oriented toward the middle classes on account of the availability of sources.53 Although sources for the working and lower middle classes are more difficult to find, it would be desirable to pursue research into the world of these children as well as into gender differences in children’s knowledge.

Conclusion  | 287

Another theme that comes through in several contributions but needs further research is the connection between the familiar and the foreign. As Belgum points out, part of the popularity of Campe’s adventure story related to “the inclusion of familiar and useful settings as a backdrop for the world.”54 Schleicher, too, points out that French textbooks focused more on what was similar between Germany and France rather than what was different. Could analysis of the familiar and the foreign help us to discern the knowledge that was left out? This is closely related to issues of identity formation through knowledge. How is knowledge shaped to forge a particular identity? Fiedler points out in his contribution that textbooks became “instruments for creating and consolidating a German national identity by differentiating Germans from foreigners.”55 As images of Japan shifted from being like Germans to being racially inferior and other, the German identity children were to acquire also became more racially distinct. And Penny highlights American Indians as “liminal characters in which German children learned more about themselves and their idealizations”56 than about authentic Indians. Such insights emphasize that knowledge is always contingent upon one’s point of view. But which knowledge sparks identification and projection, and which does not? Why did children internalize only some knowledge and resist the state’s attempts to inculcate them with other knowledge? Fiedler’s and Weiß’s contributions highlight the state’s strategies to make good, subaltern, nationalist subjects of its pupils. These are just a few preliminary suggestions for further research with a history of knowledge approach applied to the world of nineteenth-century German children. Of course, as we mentioned at the outset, the nineteenth century ushered in a revolution of knowledge about the wider world with the emergence of mass literacy and media representations about the world beyond Germany’s borders. Yet, as several of the contributions have shown, inaccurate information and one-dimensional stereotypes also abounded. Moreover, children already encountered a kaleidoscope of images of the world that they had to reorder and make sense of in their own ways, even in an era when many lower-middle-class children had few books beyond their school textbooks. Perhaps these insights about the entanglements of media, stores of knowledge (and non-knowledge or misinformation), and identity formation can shed light on some of the issues plaguing our own digital era. We have new technologies allowing for previously unimaginable means of conveying knowledge through the most diverse media, but, if anything, it has only become more difficult to assure the quality of readily dispersed knowledge, and it has only become more difficult for media consumers to make sense of it. Simone Lässig is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Braunschweig. From 2006 to 2015 she served as director of the Georg Eckert

288 | Simone Lässig

Institute for International Textbook Research. She is on leave from both positions since she was appointed the director of the German Historical Institute in Washington, where she has made digital history, the history of knowledge, and the history of migration foci of research. In her current research projects she focuses on Jewish history, religion and religiosity, and family and kinship. Among her numerous publications is the award-winning book Jüdische Wege ins Bürgertum: Kulturelles Kapital und sozialer Aufstieg im 19. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 2004).

Notes   1. Kretschmann, “Wissenspopularisierung,” 33.   2. Chassé, “The History of Knowledge: Limits and Potentials of a New Approach,” History of Knowledge, 3 April 2017, https://historyofknowledge.net/2017/04/03/the-hist​ory-of​-​kno​wle​ dge-limits-and-potentials-of-a-new-approach/.   3. Lässig, “History of Knowledge,” 39–40; Lässig and Steinberg, “Knowledge and Migration.”   4. There were, of course, exceptions, such as the works of Proctor and Schiebinger, Agnotology; or Galison, “Removing Knowledge.”   5. For a broader understanding of knowledge, see Östling et al., Circulation of Knowledge; von Oertzen et al., “Beyond the Academy”; Fischer-Tiné, Pidgin-Knowledge”; Smith et al., Ways of Making and Knowing; Altenbaugh, Vaccination in America; Kury, Der überforderte Mensch.   6. Lévi-Strauss, Raw and the Cooked; Burke, Social History of Knowledge, 6. See also Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, 49.   7. Thus, in certain contexts, it can be helpful to use the concepts of information and knowledge synonymously. See the conversation by Edwards et al., “Historical Perspectives on the Circulation of Information,” which takes the close connections between the history of media and the history of knowledge as its topic.   8. Meissner, Die Nationalisierung der Volksschule.   9. Schoolchildren filter information according to their interests and the demands of their exams, but when it comes to the validity of that information, they have to rely on the authorities, such as teachers, as well as textbook and curriculum authors, who authorize it. 10. Mulsow, Prekäres Wissen. 11. For the long-neglected category of age and its similarities to gender, see Mintz, “Reflections on Age.” 12. Daum, Wissenschaftspopularisierung im 19. Jahrhundert; Schwarz, Der Schlüssel zur modernen Welt; Cooter, Cultural Meaning of Popular Science; Stocking, Victorian Anthropology; Shteir, Cultivating Science; Fyfe, Science and Salvation; O’Connor, Earth on Show; Fyfe and Lightman, Science in the Marketplace; Lightman, Victorian Popularizers of Science. A different approach is developed by, for example, Nieto-Galan, Science in the Public Sphere; and Daum, “Varieties of Popular Science.” 13. Cf. Fleck, Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache. 14. Cf. Burke, Social History of Knowledge, 31–37; Proctor, Cancer Wars; Zwierlein, Dark Side of Knowledge; Mulsow, Prekäres Wissen. 15. Burke, What Is Cultural History?; Lässig, “History of Knowledge.” 16. Although our volume does not contain a specific contribution on extracurricular spaces such as youth organizations and the media that circulated within them, this would be another arena of knowledge acquisition to plumb for the insights it could reveal into the world of children. The youth movement and extracurricular organizations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth

Conclusion  | 289

centuries have garnered the attention of numerous historians in the last decades. See, for example, Adriaansen, Rhythm of Eternity; Savage, Teenage; Bowersox, Raising Germans; Macdonald, Sons of the Empire; and Honeck, Our Frontier Is the World. 17. Gleason‚ “Avoiding the Agency Trap”; Carrin et al., eds., Transfer of Knowledge. 18. Bowersox, Raising Germans; Hamlin, Work and Play; Ganaway, Toys, Consumption. 19. The reference to the term “mediale Sattelzeit” (intermediary media period) (1880–1960) can be found in Knoch and Morat, Kommunikation als Beobachtung, 9–33. 20. The extent to which the Enlightenment’s obsession with acquiring universal knowledge fostered and legitimized colonialism remains controversial, as presented by Zantop, Colonial Fantasies; Osterhammel, “Welten des Kolonialismus im Zeitalter der Aufklärung.” 21. The latest publications on filmic representations of the colonies, such as Fuhrmann, Imperial Projections, show how much research profits from the “visual or iconic turn”: images—be they illustrations in publications, arrangements in ethnic displays, or films—are, meanwhile, not only used as illustrations but also accepted and analyzed as sources in their own right (p. 4), as media that can reflect and create knowledge and also social practices. See also Oksiloff, Picturing the Primitive. 22. Wolter’s research interest lies in the connection between popular culture/entertainment, consumer culture/commerce and (exotic) images of foreign things; see Wolter, Die Vermarktung des Fremden. Ciarlo, in his Advertising Empire, follows a similar track in demonstrating how advertising strategies for colonial products that were grounded in mass media laid the cultural foundations for racist policies. Ganaway shows how quickly the toy industry reacted to new developments in the German colonies and beyond using the example of the tin figurine industry and department stores that developed new strategies to present and sell tin figurine soldiers—fostering processes of nationalization while at the same time conveying commitment to a cosmopolitan vision of Europe: Ganaway, Toys, Consumption, 210–22. 23. Bowersox, Raising Germans. 24. Short, for example, emphasizes that working-class children in Leipzig apparently only had textbooks available as reading material, but that this was merely somewhat true of the Hamburg lower middle classes: Short, “Everyman’s Colonial Library.” Aside from this study, it appears that not much work has been done in this direction since the studies by Rudolf Schenda: Volk ohne Buch and Die Lesestoffe der Kleinen Leute. An older overview of the literature can be found in Ritter, Arbeiterkultur. The autobiography of the later school reformer Wilhelm Lamszus (1881–1965), from the lower middle class, reinforces this linking function of textbooks for this social group. Lamszus affirmed that school readings were his entry point into the wider “world,” and not only his first reading experience brought to him by his older sister. He also seems to have borrowed many books from the school library, including works by Jack London but also other adventure novels whose settings were in Kilimanjaro or Latin America. See Pehnke, Der Hamburger Schulreformer Wilhelm Lamszus; idem, Die literarische Werkausgabe des Hamburger Friedens­pädagogen Wilhelm Lamszus. 25. Between 1890 and 1918, the number of history textbooks published was just as great as between 1700 and 1850 and more than twice the number as between 1918 and 1945. Jacobmeyer, Das deutsche Schulgeschichtsbuch. 26. Hammerstein, “Elementarschulen,” and Wolbring, “Weltorientierung durch Schulwissen.” 27. [Heckel], Atlas für die Jugend und alle Liebhaber der Geographie (1776); quotation on the Chinese in Pöggeler, “Printmedien im Kinder- und Jugendleben,” 134. 28. Philippi, Die Geschichten des sächsischen Volks (1834); Gigl, Geschichte der Bayern für die vaterländische Jugend (1823); Thieme and Dolz, Gutmann oder der Sächsische Kinderfreund (1824). 29. Gernert, Schulvorschriften für den Geschichtsunterricht, ix. 30. The Saxon teaching and examination regulations for Realschulen, for example, provided the following as a point of orientation in 1877: “Knowledge and understanding of the most

290 | Simone Lässig

i­mportant events and persons, especially cultural history ones.” Gernert, Schulvorschriften für den Geschichtsunterricht, xviii. See also Green, Fatherlands, esp. 189–223. 31. Gustav Lindner’s critique showed how much this was tied to the presentation of the extra-­ European world. He emphasized how much the narrative of modern history was dominated by war stories, while the discovery of America and the other continents or the Reformation could teach so much more than the stories “of states and princes”; “Geschichtsunterricht,” in Lindner, Encyklopädisches Handbuch der Erziehungskunde (1884) 336–37. 32. For changes during the war, see Donson, Youth in the Fatherless Land. 33. In Berlin, however, history was already being taught in 1806 at fourteen of sixty-five elementary schools surveyed; ibid., xv. The number of usable books also remained small, at least compared to the German Empire; Jacobmeyer, Das deutsche Schulgeschichtsbuch. 34. Meissner, Die Nationalisierung der Volksschule; source in Pöggeler, “Printmedien,” 112. 35. This assessment, however, is primarily related to textbooks on particular subjects, such as those for history, geography, and physical studies. Reading books, for example, became standardized earlier. 36. Compare, for example, the book by Peter Hopstein that went through several editions; Hopstein and Kuhlow, Vaterländische Geschichte für die Oberstufe (1911). 37. Hahn, Weltgeschichte für einfache Volksschulen (1879). 38. Compare Krüger, Grundzüge der Geographie und Geschichte für Volksschulen (1886); Luz, Grundstufe der Weltgeschichte für Volksschüler (1873). 39. Schlözer, Vorbereitung zur Weltgeschichte für Kinder (1779). 40. Haestors, Lehr- und Lesebuch oder die Vaterlands- und Weltkunde (1859), 178. 41. Heinrich Wolf, Angewandte Geschichte (1910), 187. 42. Ibid., 188. 43. Ibid., 189n1. 44. Meissner also comes to this conclusion for Prussia: Meissner, Die Nationalisierung der Volksschule, 129–31. 45. Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt, 1121. 46. N.B.: Those who were illiterate around 1865 remained so at the end of the nineteenth century when their children went to school. Schenda calculates that a maximum of 25 percent of the population was able to read around 1800 and 40 percent around 1830; among the Prussian recruits around 1850, about 20 percent were registered as illiterate, but by 1873, the authorities in Prussia counted 4.6 percent as illiterate and in 1890 only 0.8 percent; Schenda, Volk ohne Buch; Engelsing, Analphabetentum und Lektüre, 97; Maase, who quotes Langenbucher, is somewhat more optimistic about this and believes that at the end of the nineteenth century, “nearly the whole German population was able to read at least short literary texts”; Maase, “Popular Culture,” 218. 47. Decree of 11 July 1885, I.B. 7765, printed in Gernert, Schulvorschriften für den Geschichtsun­ terricht, 83–84. See also Alexander, “Agency and Emotion Work.” 48. Ibid. 49. Eley, “Empire by Land or Sea?” 50. For the general debate about children’s agency (not related to the history of knowledge), see Maynes, “Age as a Category”; Gleason, “Avoiding the Agency Trap.” 51. A recent collection of essays examining the role of maps in children’s literature, particularly as they affect children’s cognitive reading experience, can be found in Kümmerling-Meibauer and Goga, Maps and Mapping. On maps in general, Schneider, Die Macht der Karten, provides a foundational text for the historical study of the ways maps have been used across millennia to shape perceptions of the world. 52. Kretschmann, “Wissenspopularisierung,” 33. 53. Studies on the German Empire, however, emphasize the class-crossing nature of popular culture, in contrast to Great Britain, for example; see Maase, “Popular Culture,” 210.

Conclusion  | 291

54. See Belgum’s chapter in this volume, p. 54. 55 See Fiedler’s chapter in this volume, p. 126. 56 See Penny’s chapter in this volume, p. 176.

Bibliography Primary Sources Gigl, Georg Godhard. Geschichte der Bayern für die väterländische Jugend in den Volksschulen. Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1823. Haesters, Albert. Lehr- und Lesebuch oder die Vaterlands- und Weltkunde für die Oberklassen der Volksschule. Essen: Bädeker, 1859. Hahn, H. Weltgeschichte für einfache Volksschulen. Leipzig: Klinkhardt, 1879. [Heckel, Johann Christoph]. Atlas für die Jugend und alle Liebhaber der Geographie, hauptsächlich nach Büschings und Gatterer. Augsburg: Conrad Heinrich Stage, 1776. Hopstein, Peter, and Johannes Kuhlow. Vaterländische Geschichte für die Oberstufe der Volksschulen. Cologne: Bachem, 1911. Krüger, Carl A. Grundzüge der Geographie und Geschichte für Volks- und Bürgerschulen. Gdansk: E. Gruihn, 1886. Lindner, Adolf, ed. Encyklopädisches Handbuch der Erziehungskunde mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Volksschulwesens. Vienna, Leipzig: Pichler, 1884. Luz, Georg. Grundstufe der Weltgeschichte für Volksschüler. Kempten: Dannheimer, 1873. Philippi, Karl Ferdinand. Die Geschichten des sächsischen Volks: Ein Lehr und Lesebuch für sächsische Volksschulen. Dresden: Arnoldsche, 1834. Schlözer, August Ludwig von. Vorbereitung zur Weltgeschichte für Kinder. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1790. Thieme, Karl Traugott, and Johann Christian Dolz. Gutmann oder der sächsische Kinderfreund: Ein Lesebuch für Bürger- und Landschulen. 9th ed. Leipzig: Vogel, 1824. Wolf, Heinrich. Angewandte Geschichte: Eine Erziehung zum politischen Denken und Wollen. Leipzig: Dieterich, 1910.

Secondary Sources Adriaansen, Robbert-Jan. The Rhythm of Eternity: The German Youth Movement and the Experience of the Past, 1900–1933. 1st ed. New York: Berghahn Books, 2015. Alexander, Kristine. “Agency and Emotion Work.” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 7, no. 2 (2015): 120–28. Altenbaugh, Richard J. Vaccination in America: Medical Science and Children’s Welfare. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Arnold, Matthew. Culture and Anarchy. New ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994. Bowersox, Jeff. Raising Germans in the Age of Empire: Youth and Colonial Culture, 1871–1914. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Burke, Peter. What Is Cultural History? Cambridge: Polity, 2004. Carrin, Marine, Harald Tambs-Lyche, and Dominique Blanc, eds. Transfer of Knowledge and Children’s Agency: Reconstructing the Paradigm of Socialization. Delhi: Primus Books, 2016.

292 | Simone Lässig

Ciarlo, David. Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. Cooter, Roger. The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science: Phrenology and the Organization of Consent in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Daum, Andreas. Wissenschaftspopularisierung im 19. Jahrhundert. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1998. ———. “Varieties of Popular Science and the Transformations of Public Knowledge.” Isis 100 (2009): 319–32. Donson, Andrew. Youth in the Fatherless Land: War Pedagogy, Nationalism, and Authority in Germany, 1914–1918. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. Edwards, Paul N. “Historical Perspectives on the Circulation of Information.” American Historical Review 116, no. 5 (2011): 1392–435. Eley, Geoff. “Empire by Land or Sea? Germany’s Imperial Imaginary, 1840–1945.” In German Colonialism in a Global Age, edited by Bradley Naranch and Geoff Eley, 19–45. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Engelsing, Rolf. Analphabetentum und Lektüre: Zur Sozialgeschichte des Lesens in Deutschland zwischen feudaler und industrieller Gesellschaft. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1973. Fischer-Tiné, Harald. Pidgin-Knowledge: Wissen und Kolonialismus. Zürich: Diaphanes, 2013. Fleck, Ludwik. Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache: Einführung in die Lehre vom Denkstil und Denkkollektiv. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1980. Fuhrmann, Wolfgang. Imperial Projections: Screening the German Colonies. New York: Berghahn Books, 2017. Fyfe, Aileen. Science and Salvation: Evangelical Popular Science Publishing in Victorian Britain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Fyfe, Aileen, and Bernard V. Lightman, eds. Science in the Marketplace: Nineteenth-Century Sites and Experiences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Galison, Peter. “Removing Knowledge.” Critical Inquiry 31, no. 1 (2004): 229–43. Gall, Lothar, and Andreas Schulz, eds. Wissenskommunikation im 19. Jahrhundert. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2003. Ganaway, Bryan. Toys, Consumption, and Middle-Class Childhood in Imperial Germany, 1871– 1918. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009. Gernert, Dörte. Schulvorschriften für den Geschichtsunterricht im 19./20. Jahrhundert: Dokumente aus Preußen, Bayern, Sachsen, Thüringen und Hamburg bis 1945. Cologne: Böhlau, 1994. Gleason, Mona. “Avoiding the Agency Trap: Caveats for Historians of Children, Youth and Education.” History of Education 45, no. 4 (2016): 446–59. Goga, Nina, and Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer. Maps and Mapping in Children’s Literature: Landscapes, Seascapes and Cityscapes. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2017. Green, Abigail. Fatherlands: State-Building and Nationhood in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Hamlin, David D. Work and Play: The Production and Consumption of Toys in Germany, 1870– 1914. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007. Hammerstein, Notker. “Elementarschulen als Träger der Wissenskommunikation im 19. Jahrhundert.” In Wissenskommunikation im 19. Jahrhundert, edited by Lothar Gall and Andreas Schulz, 63–80. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2003. Honeck, Mischa. Our Frontier Is the World: The Boy Scouts in the Age of American Ascendancy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018.

Conclusion  | 293

Jacobmeyer, Wolfgang. Das deutsche Schulgeschichtsbuch 1700–1945: Die erste Epoche seiner Gattungsgeschichte im Spiegel der Vorworte. 3 vols. Berlin: LIT, 2011. Knoch, Habbo, and Daniel Morat. Kommunikation als Beobachtung: Medienwandel und Gesellschaftsbilder 1880–1960. Munich: Fink, 2003. Kretschmann, Carsten. “Wissenspopularisierung: Verfahren und Beschreibungsmodelle—ein Aufriss.” In Populäres Wissen im medialen Wandel seit 1850, edited by Petra Boden and Dorit Müller, 17–35. Berlin: Kadmos, 2009. Kury, Patrick. Der überforderte Mensch: Eine Wissensgeschichte vom Stress zum Burnout. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2012. Lässig, Simone. “The History of Knowledge and the Expansion of the Historical Research Agenda.” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute 59 (Fall 2016): 29–58. Lässig, Simone, and Swen Steinberg, eds. “Knowledge and Migration.” Special issue, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 43, no. 3 (2017). Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Mythologiques I: The Raw and the Cooked. New York: Octagon Books, 1969. Lightman, Bernard V. Victorian Popularizers of Science: Designing Nature for New Audiences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Maase, Kaspar. “Popular Culture.” In The Ashgate Research Companion to Imperial Germany, edited by Matthew Jefferies, 209–24. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2015. MacDonald, Robert H. Sons of the Empire: The Frontier and the Boy Scout Movement, 1890– 1918. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. Maynes, Mary Jo. “Age as Category of Historical Analysis: Agency and Narratives of Childhood.” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 1, no. 1 (2008): 114–24. Meissner, Andrea. Die Nationalisierung der Volksschule: Geschichtspolitik im niederen Schulwesen Preussens und des deutschsprachigen Österreich, 1866 bis 1933/38. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2009. Mintz, Steven. “Reflections on Age as a Category of Historical Analysis.” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 1, no. 1 (2008): 91–94. Mulsow, Martin. Prekäres Wissen: Eine andere Ideengeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit. 1st ed. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2012. Nieto-Galan, Agustí. Science in the Public Sphere: A History of Lay Knowledge and Expertise. London: Routledge, 2016. O’Connor, Ralph. The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802–1856. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Oertzen, Christine von, Maria Rentetzi, and Elizabeth S. Watkins, eds. “Beyond the Academy: Histories of Gender and Knowledge.” Special issue, Centaurus: An International Journal of the History of Science and Its Cultural Aspects 55, no. 2 (May 2013). Oksiloff, Assenka. Picturing the Primitive: Visual Culture, Ethnography, and Early German Cinema. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001. Osterhammel, Jürgen. Die Verwandlung der Welt: Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Munich: Beck, 2011. ———. “Welten des Kolonialismus im Zeitalter der Aufklärung.” In Das Europa der Aufklärung und die außereuropäische koloniale Welt, edited by Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, 19–36. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2006. Östling, Johan, ed. Circulation of Knowledge: Explorations in the History of Knowledge. Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2018.

294 | Simone Lässig

Pehnke, Andreas, and Wilhelm Lamszus. Der Hamburger Schulreformer Wilhelm Lamszus (1881–1965) und seine Antikriegsschrift “Giftgas über uns”: Erstveröffentlichung des verschollen geglaubten Manuskripts von 1932. 1st ed. Beucha bei Leipzig: Sax Verlag, 2006. ———. Die literarische Werkausgabe des Hamburger Friedenspädagogen Wilhelm Lamszus (1881–1965). Beucha bei Leipzig: Sax Verlag, 2016. Pöggeler, Franz. “Printmedien im Kinder- und Jugendleben des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts.” In Kind und Medien: Zur kulturgeschichtlichen und ontogenetischen Entwicklung einer Beziehung, edited by Max Liedtke, 99–153. Bad Heilbrunn/Obb.: J. Klinkhardt, 1997. Proctor, Robert. Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don’t Know about Cancer. New York: Basic Books, 1995. Proctor, Robert, and Londa L. Schiebinger. Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008. Ritter, Gerhard A., ed. Arbeiterkultur. Königstein: Hain, 1979. Savage, Jon. Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture. London: Pimlico, 2008. Schenda, Rudolf. Die Lesestoffe der Kleinen Leute: Studien zur populären Literatur im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Munich: Beck, 1976. ———. Volk ohne Buch: Studien zur Sozialgeschichte der populären Lesestoffe 1770–1910. Munich: DTV, 1977. Schneider, Ute. Die Macht der Karten: Eine Geschichte der Kartographie vom Mittelalter bis heute. Darmstadt: Primus, 2004. Schwarz, Angela. Der Schlüssel zur modernen Welt: Wissenschaftspopularisierung in Grossbritannien und Deutschland im Übergang zur Moderne (ca. 1870–1914). Stuttgart: Steiner, 1999. Short, John Philipp. “Everyman’s Colonial Library: Imperialism and Working-Class Readers in Leipzig, 1890-1914.” German History 21, no. 4 (2003): 445–75. Shteir, Ann B. Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science: Flora’s Daughters and Botany in England, 1760–1860. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Smith, Pamela H., Amy R. W. Meyers, and Harold J. Cook, eds. Ways of Making and Knowing: The Material Culture of Empirical Knowledge. New York: Bard Graduate Center, 2017. Stocking, George W. Victorian Anthropology. New York: Free Press, 1987. Wolbring, Barbara. “Weltorientierung durch Schulwissen: Unterricht und Erziehung an Frankfurter Elementarschulen im Kaiserreich.” In Wissenskommunikation im 19. Jahrhundert, edited by Lothar Gall and Andreas Schulz, 81–110. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2003. Wolter, Stefanie. Die Vermarktung des Fremden: Exotismus und die Anfänge des Massenkonsums. New York: Campus, 2005. Zantop, Susanne. Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family, and Nation in Precolonial Germany, 1770–1870. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997. Zwierlein, Cornel, ed. The Dark Side of Knowledge: Histories of Ignorance, 1400 to 1800. Boston: Brill, 2016.

Index

Index

Abushiri revolt, 149 Ackermann, Eduard, 255, 258 adventure authorization of, 63–64 colonial adventure novel, 140, 142, 149 definition, 58–59 identification with, 62, 68–70, 74 adventurer, English (gentle)man as, 207, 208 advice literature, 82 Africa, 143, 184, 186, 190–93, 214 ahistorical depictions of, 125 conceptions of, 1, 246n36 East Africa, 149 missionary work in, 190–93 Northern Africa, 147, 192 African, 207–8, 214–15, 216, 218, 281 culture, 239 lack of Africans in Germany, 215 natives, 77n57 slave trade, 41 stereotypes, 89, 160 See also colonies: African agency children’s or juvenile, 222, 285 lack of research into, 13 in missionary literature, 184, 191, 194 through play, 21 of masses, 16 royal agency in times of crisis, 144, 151 agriculture, 8, 11 aid charitable, 182–83 educational, 223n8 Ainos. See under Japan airship, 1, 261, 263 album, 229–32, 236, 240–4, 247n57, 286 Alexander the Great, 88

Alge, Sines, 83 allegorical decoration, 237 Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, 47, 54n62 almanac, 11 Alsace-Lorraine, 281 Altenburg, 19, 26n88 America. See United States of America American Civil War. See under war American Indian Movement, 163, 168 American Revolution, 101 American War of Independence. See American Revolution Ancient Greece, 239 Anderson, Benedict, 244 Anderson, Matthew, 18, 20, 51, 75, 276 anthropology, 24n44, 172, 206 anti-European. See Southern United States anti-Semitism, 282 Arabs, 89, 192, 219, 243 Arctic Circle (North Cape), 259, 240 aristocracy, 97, 103, 137, 143, 145–46, 151, 208 armchair tourism, negative, 75, 149 army German, 145 U.S., 160 Asia, 113, 115–19, 123–24, 126, 149, 152, 173 around-the-world trips in, 206, 208 East Asia, 113, 117, 118, 119, 125, 149, 152 Kiautschou, 125, 144, 149 heathendom in, 191, 193 missionary work in, 186 transfer of knowledge from, 115 Asian, mixing with Africans, 281 Au Bon Marché, 230 authoritarianism, 97–98, 124 anti-authoritarianism, 141

296 | Index

autonomy of children, 15, 46 Enlightenment ideal, 37 Avenarius, Ferdinand, 264 Axster, Felix, 244 Baden expulsion of March revolutionaries from, 108n44 as source of German emigration to America, 102 Bailey, M. B, 129n49 Bälz, Erwin, 120 Barth, Christian Gottlob, 187 Basedow, Johann Bernhard, 26n80, 38–39, 42, 47 Elementarwerk, 38 Philanthropinum, 38 Battle of Adwa, 99 Bavaria, 10, 106n4, 279–80 Beato, Felice, 128n23 Belgium, 186 Belgum, Kirsten, 18, 20, 52, 223n7, 276, 278, 287, 291n54 Bellhouse, Mary, 42 bellicosity, 94, 96–97, 107n25 Berbers, 192 Berlin, 60, 64, 66, 67, 85, 290n33 Berquin, Louis de, 84 Bertuch, Friedrich J., 17, 26n80, 206 Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 184 Bible, 11, 15, 44, 96 biblical references, 274, 278, 279 Bierbaum, Otto Julius, 219 Pinocchio, Zäpfel Kerns Abenteuer, 219 Bildung, 2, 264 Biology, 84, 85, 97, 236 black, used as racial construct, 193, 207. 214–17, 282 Black Horn, Chief, 163 Blume, Judith, 18, 21, 91, 147, 178n43, 245–46 Blumenbach, Joachim Friedrich, 206 Boas, Franz, 172 Bodmer, Karl, 143, 170–71 Boeck, Carl von der, 139, 142, 144–45, 148, 151–52

Bohemia (Bohosudov), 193 Böhl, Johann Jakob, 39, 41, 50 Böhl, Niklaus, 50 books brochures, 18 comic, 159, 160, 165, 168, 174, 176, 283 handbooks, 98, 186–87 religious, 16–17, 187, 188 (see also missionary: literature) songbooks,16 See also textbook Boucicaut, Aristide, 230 bourgeois attitude to adventure, 58 attitudes toward war, 96–98, 101n27 embourgeoisement of royalty, 150 masculinity, 260 motherhood, 263 norms of individuality, 254 values, 39, 58, 59, 103, 138, 140–41, 144–45, 150, 256, 258, 261, 262 Bowersox, Jeff, 150, 196n14, 206, 254, 260, 277 Breitschwert, Wilhelm von, 208–11, 224n30 Das wunderbare Bilderbuch: Ein Festgeschenk voll komischer Sachen, zum Staunen und Lachen für heitere Kinder, 211 Lord Pudding’s und seines Dieners John Fahrten und Abenteuer in allen Ländern der Erde. Ein Bilderbuch für Groß und Klein, 208–12 British. See Great Britain Brockhaus, 16 Buddhism, 120–21 Buffalo Bill (Wild West show), 163, 165–68, 259, 267n31 Bull, John, 210 Bürger, Bürgertum,15, 253. See also bourgeois: values cabinets, royal, 9 cable, undersea, 3 Calw, 187

Index  | 297

Campe, Joachim Heinrich, 20, 37–56, 276, 278, 287 Canada, 184, 186 caricature, 108n44, 216, 219, 220, 224n53, 236, 254, 259, 260, 265 Catholic, Catholicism, 22n2, 95, 101, 106n8, 182–95, 281 Catlin, George, 170, 174 Central America, 142 Chakkalakal, Silvy, 5, 17 character masks, 206–7, 259, 260 African, 207–8, 214–15 charity, 62, 183–86, 194 Chateaubriand, François-René de, 171 chemistry, 1, 261 childhood, history of, 5, 7, 20, 285 China, 117–18, 146–47, 182–94, 196n28, 197n50, 210–12 Christianity, 8, 115, 121, 184, 189, 191, 192. See also missionary chromolithography, 72, 229 church, 184–89, 276, 278, 282 Catholic, 22n2, 106n8, 187 Protestant, 186–87, 191 Ciarlo, David, 176, 277, 289n22 cigarette, 18, 176, 230 Cipangu. See under Japan circus, 91, 163–65, 169 citizen citizenship, 3, 5, 6, 12, 46, 95–97, 107n12, 107n26, 140, 148, 262, 279, 285 world citizens, 3, 279 vs. state citizens, 279 civil life, 98 civil servant, 8 civil war. See under war civilization civilizing, 1–3, 5, 8, 10, 107n22, 118, 121, 124, 126, 148, 149, 160, 162, 166, 170, 185, 191, 194, 215–16, 238–39, 259–61, 277, 281 margins of, 260 stages or hierarchies of development, 10, 207 toys as foundation stones of, 256

class as category of difference, 25n71, 165, 275, 284 cross-class appeal or consumption, 165, 177n20, 256, 262, 266n14, 290n53 divisions, 256 double ideal of middle-class childhood, 253, 257, 265 feudalization of middle class, 258 lower, 16, 18, 31, 92, 98, 150, 210, 278, 282, 283, 286 lower middle, 15, 287, 289n24 merchant, 48, 50, 51 middle, 8, 10–11, 15–19, 23n24, 23n27, 41, 46, 51, 58, 64, 85, 87, 137, 140–41, 143, 145, 151, 188, 211, 216, 230–32, 239, 253, 254, 256, 260, 262–64, 276, 278, 282, 286 middle-class respectability, 266n14 upper, 256, 278 working, 15, 18, 25n64, 106n3, 108n39, 140, 150, 172, 256, 289n24 classroom, 18, 82, 85–86, 90, 187, 236, 280 reaching beyond the, 18, 74, 282 Clausewitz, Carl von, 99, 106n9 collecting, 9, 18, 172, 193, 228–45 collection, digital, 94 collective reading, 185 colonial, colonialism anticolonialism, 160 colonial fantasies and images, 23n34, 41, 51, 72, 89, 90, 126, 141, 142, 146 (see also globalization) colonial process, 111, 149 trade, 46 colonial themes, 46, 89, 259–61 German; figures and games in, 206 history, 22n9, 98, 99, 101 stereotypes, 24n44, 89, 185 colonies African, 19 German East Africa, 147, 191 German Southwest Africa, 197n50 British, 101 French, 89, 101

298 | Index

colonies (cont.) German, 141, 144, 149, 159, 176 Japanese, 118 Comenius, Johann Amos, 83 comic potential, 204 commerce. See trade communication nation as a community of, 4 networks and spaces of, 9, 99 shifts in structures of, 26n85, 205, 260 technology, 3, 122 community, epistemic. See thought collectives Confederacy. See Southern United States confession. See religion Confucianism, 121 Congo Free State, 197n50 Congregation of Mariannhill Missionaries, 187 consciousness, 229, 235, 279 pan-German national, 138 conservative, political, 95, 106n4, 108n28, 115 consumer consumer goods, 138, 206 culture and society, 15, 16, 206, 228, 229, 233, 253, 289n22 Cook, Thomas, 203 Cooper, James Fenimore, 63, 140–41, 162, 165, 166, 169–71, 175, 207 Leatherstocking Tales, 140, 162, 166, 170, 207 courage, 59, 62, 69, 88, 97, 145, 175, 218, 258, 260 craft, craftsmanship, 1, 8, 9, 116, 141, 144, 148, 264–65 creativity of children, 6, 21, 285 as final stage of social evolution, 120 in Romantic thought, 256 Croatians, 282 Cronau, Rudolf, 168, 169, 174 culture, mass, 13, 207 visual, 19, 176 Cunningham, Hugh, 185 curiosity, 2, 9, 17, 51, 95, 152, 206, 214, 279

curricula, 10, 12, 16, 22n22, 24n49, 39, 47, 61, 64, 65, 74, 75, 76n30, 76n35, 205, 265, 278–80, 288n9 data (and information), vs. knowledge, 273–74 Defoe, Daniel, 37, 39–42, 47, 51, 52n2, 53n48, 140 Robinson Crusoe, 37–39, 42–43, 50–51, 140, 153n17, 221 Dejima, 115 democratization of knowledge, 11, 19, 27 political, 258, 279 of war, 97 demography, 5, 101 destruction of beliefs and mores, 190 caused by colonization, 120, 168 caused by war, 105 detemporalization, of knowledge, 12 didactic, 3, 5, 44, 51, 83, 93, 106n9, 122, 140, 143, 148, 172, 188, 262 Dielitz, Theodor, 20, 57–75, 76n21 authorial philosophy, 61–65, 68, 74–75 background, 58, 61 general educational principles, 60 digital tools, 94, 114, 285–86 dime-store novel, 14, 18 direct method, 83, 85 discipline, 8, 12, 46, 96, 104, 121, 151, 260 self-discipline, 256 discovery play as a means of, 255 scientific, 9, 14, 17, 95 stories of, 94 of the world, 3,107n11, 233, 277, 286, 290n31 dissemination of images, 9, 14 of knowledge, 57, 64, 126, 144, 182–84, 222 of stories, 37, 165 of values, 60 diversity, human, 171, 174, 191, 194 dolls, 256, 263, 265 Donson, Andrew, 96, 105

Index  | 299

Duccoterd, Xavier, 83 Düsseldorf, 67, 281 Dutch East India Company, 115 dynasty, 151, 259. See also Hohenzollern dynasty early modern period, 99 economy. See trade education institutional, 6, 222 lower, 280 educator, 6, 20, 37, 39, 43, 57, 59, 96, 231, 240, 263 role of, 60 Egypt, Egyptians, 206, 239, 281 Eigen-Sinn (willfulness), 286 elite, intellectual, 10, 137 Elster, Otto, 144, 146, 147, 149, 151 emancipation, 2 of Japan, 124, 126 emigration, 8, 9, 23n31 German, 100, 102, 281 See also immigration emotion effects/responses, 69, 184, 283 emotional identification, 20–21, 138, 144 emotionality of children, 6, 19, 23n20, 97, 125, 126, 183 of Japanese, 116 encyclopedias, 14, 26n80, 66, 82, 205, 222, 228, 260, 277 Bilderbuch für Kinder, 205–6 enemy, 89, 100, 189, 190 engineer, role in designing and playing with toys, 261, 262 England. See Great Britain Englishmen as adventurers, 207–12 traveling, 207 Enlightenment educational reform and pedagogy, 38, 40, 255 importance of children in, 5, 7, 18 literature in, 14, 17, 58, 59 rationalism, 2, 8 universalism, 97, 277, 280, 289n20

entertainment industry, 12, 276–78 epistemological, 244, 274 Erasmus of Rotterdam, 83 Erlin, Matt, 40 Ethiopia, 99, 206 ethnography, ethnographic authenticity, 63 institutions, 162, 171–72 literature, 138, 142–43, 152 knowledge, 19, 61, 72, 77n52, 205–7, 286, 170, 207 ethnology ethnological, field of study, 10, 24n44, 127, 246n48 exhibitions and museums, 18, 19, 93, 162, 171–75, 178n59 ethnological troupes (Völkerschauen), 173 knowledge, 9, 175 literature, 19 Eurocentrism, 62, 98, 119, 125, 148, 149, 152, 244 evangelization, 187, 190, 195 everyday life, 7, 10, 11, 82–89, 258 evolution, 120, 127n3, 239, 246n48, 246n49 evolutionary paradigm, 239, 246n48 exclusion, 2, 99 exhibitions. See under ethnology exile, 9, 115, 215 exoticism, 17–19, 41, 44, 61–63, 72, 77n62, 116, 120, 122, 128n23, 138–49, 206, 211–12, 215–16, 220–21, 238, 242, 259–60 expansion colonial and global, 102, 105, 108n39, 113, 140–41, 149, 152 of education and teaching methods, 85, 185–86 Japanese, 117 of knowledge, 2, 11, 127, 277 experimentation educational, 39, 42, 245 “experiment-based experience,” 52n2 scientific, 1, 38, 277 exposition. See ethnology: exhibitions and museums

300 | Index

fables, 83–84 fairy tale, 83, 26n88, 233 faith, 62, 182–83, 189, 192 family changing norms of, 148, 253, 254, 263 idealized, 230, 263 themes in media, 40, 84, 88, 213, 252 Far East, 116, 123, 146, 149 fatherland. See patriotism Feest, Christian, 169 feudalism, 103 “feudalization of German middle class,” 258 Ficker, Julius, 106n8 film, 15, 19, 26n88, 159, 160, 253, 284, 289n21 First Sino-Japanese War. See under war First Transcontinental Railroad, 203 Fischer-Sallstein, Konrad, 144, 149 foe. See enemy Forbin-Janson, Charles de, 185 foreign-language instruction and texts, 18, 38, 46–49, 51, 54n61, 81–83, 88, 90, 276 foreign children’s fascination with the, 19, 238 history, 279 knowledge, 2, 4, 101, 205–8, 277 representations of, 223n6, 277, 286, 289n22 travel, 58, 204 vs. familiar, 2, 287 Forge, Anatole de la, 89 Foucault, Michel, 99, 108n38 France, 44, 81, 88–90, 99, 100, 104, 129n50, 141, 185, 196, 257 Franco-Prussian War. See under war Frank, Patty, 162–63 Frederick the Great (of Prussia), 41 freedom Edenic, 253 love of, 102, 103, 148 personal, 124, 256 religious (of Japan), 121 of thought through education, 264 Freiburg im Breisgau, 102 French Revolution, 97, 107n22, 107n26

French Third Republic, 88 Friedrich III, German emperor, 138 Fröbel, Friedrich, 255 Fuhrmann, Wolfgang, 19, 289n21 Gable, Jonathan, 129n49 games, 21, 146, 204–7, 212–23, 223n16, 224n34, 224n37, 224n39, 259–63, 266, 275–76, 283 war games, 253, 258–60 Gartenlaube (journal), 14, 168 Gehrke, Albert, 103 gender, 6, 17, 25n71, 85, 94, 104, 153n6, 165, 177n20, 192, 194, 214, 216, 253, 258, 261–63, 274, 284, 286 geography, 19, 44–45, 64–65, 75, 85, 94, 106n6, 107n25, 114, 117–18, 121, 123–24, 126, 128n37, 177n20, 205–6, 216, 223n8, 236, 239, 259, 276, 279–80, 290n35 geopolitics, 101 German East Africa. See colonies: African German Empire, 4, 6, 9–11, 15, 84–85, 88–89, 93–94, 97, 100–1, 103, 108n40, 115–16, 124, 141–42, 149, 187, 191, 276–77, 279–80, 285, 290n33, 290n53 German League, 97, 103 German Southwest Africa. See colonies: German German Wars of Unification. See under war Germanness, 103 Gerstäcker, Friedrich, 63, 141, 143, 169, 171 globalization, 3, 7, 8–11, 24n38, 24n39, 50, 99, 121–22, 195, 280 entanglement with nationalization, 8–11 glorification, of war, 93, 97, 108n40 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 2 Grand Tour, 143, 209 Great Britain as colonial or imperial power, 41, 99, 101, 141, 142, 208 comparison with Japan, 118, 119, 128n37

Index  | 301

education, 96, 223n8 influence on Latin America, 102 literature 63, missionary literature, 184, 192 opium trade in, 211 press, 142 Protestantism, 184 role in wars, 99, 103, 104, 215 Sunday School Movement, 186 voyages of discovery, 45 Great Indian Peninsular Railway, 201 Greek, 76n30, 98, 239 Griep, Carl, 85 Groos, Karl, 255, 258, 263 Gymnasium. See school Haberland, Wolfgang, 173 Habsburg Empire, 186 Hagenbeck, Carl, 19, 26n89, 27, 33, 169, 173, 174, 178n61 handbook. See under book Harms, Heinrich, 119, 128n37 Hartmann, Horst, 172 Hawaii, 192 Hawes, Joseph M., 12 heathendom, 183, 185–86, 188–91, 193–94 Heimat, 10, 24n39, 24n49, 205 Heimatkunde, 205 Heinrich, Prince of Prussia, 20, 138–52 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 39 Herero, 259 heterogeneity, 118, 125–26, 240, 243, 244 Hildebrandt, Paul, 258, 262, 263 Hirt, Arnold, 19 Hirt, Ferdinand, 19 history book, 64, 284 colonial, 272, 276–82 cultural, 5, 11–14, 95, 123, 279–80, 290n30 intellectual, 273, 275 of knowledge, 4, 7, 20, 102, 113, 160, 272–88, 288n7 reading, 15 of science, 273, 275, 277 world, 1, 64, 95, 98, 238, 279–82

Hoffmann, Heinrich, 212 Des Herrn Fix von Bickenbach Reise um die Welt in 77 Tagen, 212 “Johnny Look-in-the-Air,” 214 “The Story of the Inky Boys,” 214 Struwwelpeter (Shock-Headed Peter), 212 Hohenzollern dynasty, House of, 95, 138, 140, 150, 150 Holy Childhood Association, 283–83, 185–86, 189, 194, 196n24 Holy Roman Empire, 106n8 Hölzl, Richard, 184, 187 Horace, 1 Hosemann, Theodor, 58, 69, 72, 74, 77n52 background, 66–68 visual style, 67 Huguenots, 84, 281 humanities, 385–86 digital, 114, 285 humanity, 3, 98, 166, 187, 191, 257, 264, 274 Humboldt, Alexander von, 143, 233 Hungary, 257, 281 hunting, 72, 166, 218 Hutten, Ulrich von, 1, 22n2 Hüttner, Johannes, 163 iconography, 170, 210, 235, 286 iconic turn, 289n21 identification. See identity identity, 41, 50 identity formation, 191, 278, 286–87 national (German), 10, 24n39, 126, 253, 280 illustrated broadsheets cover images, 72 frontispieces, 72–74 lithographs, 67–71 moment of choice, 69 Images of Land and Sea authenticity, 63 organization, 65, 74–75 source material, 63 visuality, 57, 62, 66, 72–74 See also Dielitz, Theodor; Hosemann, Theodor; Winckelmann & Söhne imagology, 205

302 | Index

immigration, 102, 281 imperialism. See colonialism; globalization India, 99, 115, 152, 211–12 Indians (Native Americans), 260–64, 165–69, 177n26, 207, 210, 219, 220, 239, 260. See also Native Americans industrial revolution, 8 intertextuality, 163, 165, 205, 266, 286 Islam, 187, 192 Italian Wars of Unification. See under war Italy, 106n8, 142, 186, 208 Jacobsen, Adrian, 173 Japan Ainos, 118, 210 as Cipangu, 115 Jeddo (Tokyo), 117 as Prussia of Asia, 126 Jeddo (Tokyo). See under Japan Jensz, Felicity, 184 Jesso. See Japan: Ainos Jesuits, 115–16 Jews, Jewish, 25n60, 281, 288 Joan of Arc, 89 Julius Caesar, 89 257 Kaempfer, Engelbert, 115–16, 127n9 kaleidoscope, 272, 283–84, 287 KaMpande, Cetshwayo. See under Zulus Kara Ben Nemsi. See under May, Karl: characters Karl May Museum. See under May, Karl Kaufmannsbilder, 230 Keck, Annette, 43 Key, Ellen, 6 Kiautschou. See under Asia: East Asia Kirchhoff, Alfred, 8 Klippel, Friedericke, 47 knowledge administrators of, 278 bearer of, 12, 18, 276, 278, 280 canon of, 11 definition of, 273–76 spaces of, 11, 272–73, 278–79 typologies of, 20

Korea, 118, 128n34 Kruse, Käthe, 252, 265 Kuril Islands, 118 La Fontaine, Jean de, 84 Latin, 14, 47–48, 50, 76n30, 82 Latin America, 102, 289n24 Le Men, Ségolène, 206 Lehmann, Ignaz, 83 Leipzig, 103, 106n3, 166, 172, 247n57, 255, 257, 289n24 leisure, 13, 65, 74, 208, 232 lens, 13, 57–58, 66, 68, 70, 74, 152, 172, 272 Leonhard, Jörn, 96 Leprince de Beaumont, Jeanne-Marie, 44, 47, 49 Magasin des Enfants, 44 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 39 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 273 liberal, 97, 116 anti-liberal, 100 liberalism, 108n30, 141, 143, 215 libraries, 15, 17, 106n3, 276, 289n24 Liebig’s Extract of Meat Company Ltd., 230–45 life worlds, 7, 11, 282 Li-hang-li (Maria), 189–90 Lindner, Gustav, 95, 290n31 literacy, 11, 15, 282, 287 literary studies, 7 literary text, 47, 81, 90, 290n46 literary tropes, 208 cannibal island, 214 Lorenz, Karl, 97, 245n12 Louise, Queen of Prussia, 100, 138 Louvier, Ferdinand August, 83 loyalty, 97, 149, 150, 228, 259 Lüdtke, Alf, 286 Lüneburg, 100 Lutz, Hartmut, 170–71 macrocosmos, 244 mankind. See humanity Mann, Thomas, 252, 253 Mannszucht. See training Marryat, Frederick, 63, 141

Index  | 303

masculinity, 97, 107n26, 108n35, 260, 262 May, Karl, 259, 261 Karl May Museum, 161–63, 165–66, 168 characters Hadschi Halef Omar, 18 Kara Ben Nemsi, 18 Old Shatterhand, 18 Winnetou, 18 media educational, 11, 113, 236, 274, 278, 282 entertainment, 17, 21, 236 mass, 12–13, 15–16, 116–17, 229, 277, 278, 280, 289n22 popular, 7, 9, 12, 229, 278 medicine, 1, 24n44, 115 Meiji, emperor of Japan, 115, 123–25 Meiners, Christoph, 128n19, 129n42 Menzel, Adolph, 239 merchant. See trade Merveldt, Nikola von, 43 Mexican wars of independence. See under war Mexico, 101, 103 Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 84 Michels, Robert, 98 microcosmos, 244 middle class. See under class Mignolo, Walter D., 244 migration mass, 221 militarism, 94, 98, 108n30 military toys, 257–59 missionary literature, 182–95 periodicals Das Heidenkind, 187, 191–92, 197n50 Das Negerkind, 187, 190, 197n47 Der Deutsche Kinderfreund, 188 Der kleine Missionar, 187 Jahrbücher des Vereins der Heiligen Kindheit (JVHK), 186 Kleine Afrika-Bibliothek (KAB), 187, 191, 193 The Little Missionary, 184

Missions-Kinderfreund, 188, 191, 194 Missionsblatt für Kinder, 188 organizations Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft, 188, 191 modern languages, 47–50, 82–83. See also foreign-language instruction and texts modernity, 102, 104, 170, 233, 239, 244, 253, 261, 263, 276 Möllhausen, Balduin, 143, 169, 171 Mommsen, Hans, 96 monarchy, 103, 137–53 Moravia, 184 Morocco, 192 Morrison, Hugh, 184 Müller, Carl, 19, 26n88 multilingualism, 49, 211 museum, ethnological, 18, 162, 178n59 Museum für Volkerkunde, 162 music, 81, 84, 253 Muslims, 12 myth, founding, 281 Napoleonic Wars. See under war narration (frame narration), 42–46 narrator, 62, 69 narrative counter- and master, 296 travel, 207 home-away-home pattern, 222 National Socialism, 93, 100, 168, 217 nationalization, 2 8–11, 94, 98, 150, 280–81, 289n22 Native Americans, 259, 260 navalism, 144, 150 Navy, Imperial German, 138, 142, 145 Netherlands, 192 Netto, Friedrich, 138–40, 146–48, 152 Neubauer, Friedrich, 95 Neugebauer, Karl Volker, 97 New Guinea, 192 New Zealand, 45, 148, 184 Nipperdey, Thomas, 96 Nippon. See Japan

304 | Index

North America, 9, 101, 103, 143, 160, 170–72, 185, 187, 194, 224n34 Northern United States (Union), 100–104, 108n42 nudity, 85, 91n26 object, colonial, 10 observation, 99, 244, 253, 286 official colonial, 9 Prussian, 239 Old Shatterhand. See under May, Karl: characters Oltmer, Joachim, 9 Opium War, 211 ordinance, 283 Orient, 65, 118, 126 orientation, 4, 10, 12, 20, 41, 81, 84, 120, 263, 272–73, 289n30 Osterhammel, Jürgen, 4, 12 other, the, 98, 190, 194 others, 3, 10, 21, 62, 146, 149, 176, 183–85 othering, 21, 154n58 Ottilien Congregation, 187, 191, 192 Pacific, 45, 173, 174, 191, 203 paganism, 121 Pallottines, 187 Pan-German League, 95, 152 paper industry, luxury, 230 parents, 11, 16, 18, 26n80, 105, 160, 163, 172, 183, 189, 219, 221, 230, 231, 252–53, 255, 259, 262, 263, 282 Paris, 86, 88, 89, 230 Parker, S. Chester, 42 Parliament, 96 parody, 210 Pasha, Emin, 233 past, 1, 59, 77n58, 88, 102, 125, 162, 163, 239, 272 pastor, 12, 51, 187, 278 patriotism, 96, 98, 184, 259 Paul Wilhelm, Duke, 143, 169 peace, 95, 100, 105 power (Friedensmacht), 108n40

peasant, 8 pedagogical, 59, 60, 229, 232, 270 pedagogue, 18, 20, 46, 58, 95, 175, 255, 256, 276, 277, 278 pedagogy, 255–256 pediatric, 6 Penny, H. Glenn, 19, 77n57, 159, 176–77, 266, 276, 284, 287 people, foreign, 8, 10, 17, 148, 205, 223n6, 246n49, 279 periphery, 68, 244, 260–61 Perry, Matthew, 115 Persians, 98 Petermann, August, 19 Philanthropen, 255 philanthropists (philanthropic), 47, 140, 205, 255, 26n80, 38–39, 40, 41, 43, 48, 49, 182 physics, 1, 76n30 picture books, 204 ABCs of nations, 206 compendia of costumes and manners, 211 ethnographic ABCs, 206 propagandistic, 219 piety, 8, 193 Pine Ridge Reservation, 163 plant, 228, 233, 236, 243, 279 playground, 175, 276 Plischke, Hans, 169–70 Ploetz, Carl J., 83, 84 Ploetz, Gustav, 84, 88, 89, 90 poem, 84, 90, 257 poetry, 23n20, 81, 283 Poland, 8, 10 politics, 95, 99, 103, 104, 105, 118, 138, 191, 197n50, 258, 277 Polo, Marco, 115 population, 5, 8, 10, 15, 18, 105, 108n44, 118, 120, 124, 127, 182, 211, 278 German, 290n46 groups, 12 indigenous, 118, 148, 172 rural, 15, 16, 108n39 white, 103 working-class, 108n39 Porter, Bernhard, 108n39

Index  | 305

Portugal, 192, 214 postcards, 117, 193, 233, 240, 242, 247n57 poverty, 7, 124, 163, 168 power international, 101, 104, 105 world power, 1, 101, 124, 284 Poznan, 8 Pratt, Marie Louise, 244 press, 100, 117, 142, 143, 152, 235, 254 German, 168, 169 printing, 190 release, 162, 232 See also media; publicity prevention, 96 Prince Maximilian of Wied, 58, 101, 170, 174 print, 23n31, 23n34, 187, 192, 232 market, 138, 152 popular, 14 religious, 187 run, 67, 72, 187, 192, 197n47 process, political, 124 progress, 2, 7, 8, 97, 107n22, 118, 146, 239, 256, 262 propaganda, 18, 144, 145, 150. See also picture books: propagandistic prose, 14, 88–90 protagonist, 19, 39–42, 47, 59, 62, 69–70, 138, 141, 144, 147, 148, 208, 212, 213, 216, 218, 221 Prussia, 8, 23n20, 41, 60, 83, 88, 94, 96–98, 100, 103–5, 106n4, 108n30, 108n44, 113, 115, 118, 119, 121, 122, 126, 138, 143, 145, 150, 186, 279–80, 283, 290n46. See also German Empire psychoanalysis, 6 psychology, development, 6, 17 publication, 2, 14–16, 25n58, 25n69, 37, 48, 49, 59, 85, 116, 125, 182, 184, 187, 191, 206, 229, 245n12 publicity, 3, 143. See also media; press publisher, 6, 17, 49, 57–60, 64, 67, 68, 83–84, 95, 140, 190, 211, 241 pupil, 6, 8, 12, 18, 23n20, 25n75, 39, 41, 42, 44, 46, 48, 81, 83–85, 88–90,

93–96, 98, 100, 102, 124, 125, 128n37, 172, 174, 179–80, 283, 287. See also school Queen Victoria, 211 race, 7, 103, 118, 126, 166, 171, 189, 190, 193, 206, 259, 274, 277, 281 racism, 233, 235. See also race Radebeul, 161–63 rational, 2, 8, 12, 262, 264 reading, associations communal, 14 group, 14, 25n60 Realschule. See under school reason, 8, 39, 255, 264 recoding, 274 reformer, 38, 97, 140, 212, 255, 265 education, 18, 39, 228, 255, 289 region, 2, 9, 11, 64, 65, 72, 75, 89, 94, 104, 113, 116, 117, 125, 143, 190, 192, 233, 237–38, 282 German regions, 11, 100, 102, 103, 105, 106n4 regional, 2, 10, 11 18, 61–62, 66, 94 Reimarus, Elise (father Samuel), 43 Reinfried, Marcus, 85, 87 religion, 39, 76n30, 106n6, 117, 121, 122, 183, 189, 190, 192, 194, 259, 274. See also Christianity; church Renaissance, 281 revolution, 2, 7, 8, 52n2, 109, 150, 287, 1848 102, 104 French, 97, 107n22, 107n26 media, 15 See also industrial revolution rhyme, 60, 83, 84, 220, 221 rickshaw, 123 Robinson Crusoe, 37, 38, 42, 43, 50, 51, 221 Allgemeine Revision, 48 as literary trope, 219 Pädagogische Unterhandlungen, 39, 43 Robinson, der Jüngere, 37–56, 276, 278 Sammlung einiger Erziehungsschriften, 43 See also under Defoe, Daniel romanic, 102

306 | Index

Romanticism, 256 room, children’s, 276 Roseman, Mark, 6 Rossmann, Philipp, 83–89 Rothenberg, J., 142 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 42–43, 48, 205, 255 Emile, or on Education, 42, 48, 205 rural, 15, 16, 51, 85, 87, 88, 90, 108n39, 284 Russia, 99, 108n32 142, 152, 206, 211, 257, 281 Russo-Japanese War. See under war sacred, 11 Saint Petrus Claver Sodality, 187, 190 Sakhalin, 118 Salgari, Emilio, 142 Salzmann, Christian Gotthilf, 42 Saxony, 280 Scandinavia, 19 Schlözer, August Ludwig von, 281 Schmidhammer, Apard, 217 Mucki: Eine wunderliche Weltreise, 217 Schmidt, Ferdinand, 83–86, 89 Schneider, Miriam, 18, 20, 153, 159, 160, 165, 169 scholarship, 12, 15, 43, 166, 175, 177n5, 184, 246n34, 273, 277 historical, 11, 184 school classics-focused secondary (Humanistisches Gymnasium), 12 elementary, 10, 12, 94–96, 113–14, 125–26, 127n4, 138, 205, 228, 280–83, 290n33 excursion, 19 girls, 83, 100, 127n4 lower, 98, 106n9, 127, 280 municipal citizens’ (Bürgerschule/ Realkundliche Schule), 12 Realschule, 60, 64, 76n30, 82, 85, 103, 289n30 secondary, 193, 205, 283 scientific secondary (Realgymnasium) Volks-, 12

schooling, 20, 39, 186, 278 compulsory, 6, 11, 12, 16, 140, 278, 279, 282 mass, 6, 282 Schurz, Carl, 103 Schwager, Friedrich, 187 science, 1–4, 6, 17, 76n30, 82, 114, 172, 246n49, 262 German, 12 history of, 4, 273, 275, 277 modern, 275 natural, 1, 3, 19, 114, 123, 126 scientization, 273, 280–81 Scotland, 184 Yard, 207, 216 Sealsfield, Charles, 63, 141, 169 secession, 102 secularization, 11, 121, 137 self-defense, 103 self-sacrifice, 94, 95, 97, 105 settler, 9, 175, 184 Seven Years’ War. See under war Shintoism, 121 shipwreck, 37, 39, 42, 47, 72, 140, 150–51 Short, John Philipp, 106n3, 108n39, 289n24 Siebold, Philipp Franz Balthasar von, 115 Silesia, 8 slavery, 103, 104, 215 slave trade, 9, 41, 47, 219 social Darwinism, 97, 99, 120, 125, 282 Social Democrats, 6, 18, 95, 106n4, 107n25 social unrest, 96 society consumer, 15, 253 estate-based, 2 German, 10, 13, 96, 114, 116, 121, 150, 253, 263, 276 middle-class, 2 modern, 99 Sonderweg, of Germany, 100, 107n20 song, 23n20, 81, 83, 84, 231, 243, 283. See also music songbook, 16. See also music sorting, 3, 236–40, 244

Index  | 307

South America, 77n57, 99, 101, 147, 148, 149 Southern United States (Confederacy), as anti-European, 103 Spain, 50, 89 Spalding, Almut, 43 speed, 1, 2, 126, 203, 217, 218, 220, 221. See also time-space compression spiritual, 6, 149, 182, 184, 256 Stach, Reinhard, 40 standardization, 3, 12, 13, 277 steamship, 1, 10 Stegen, Johanna, 100 stereotypes, 214 aesthetic potential of, 214 Steuben, Friedrich Wilhelm von, 103 Stiehl Regulations, 279 Stollwerck, 230–32 Stornig, Katharina, 18, 21, 182, 195, 196n24 Stosch, Albrecht von, 142, 145 Stosch-Sarrasani, Hans, 163 strategy, 59, 62, 184 Strouhal, Ernst, 212 student, 46, 49, 60, 64–65, 75, 87, 89, 163, 193, 284 Stuttgart, 172 subjectivity, 60, 163, 166–66, 273–74, 286 Sue, Eugène, 141 Suez Canal, 203 superiority, 8, 108n42, 121, 124, 125, 146, 149, 221, 277, 279, 282 superstition, 8 Sweden, 94 Switzerland, 49, 186 Sybel, Heinrich von, 106n8 Sybel-Fickers Debate, 106n8 Taiwan (Formosa), 118 Tapfheim, 194 Tasmania, 206 taxonomy, 236, 238–39 teacher, 6, 8, 12, 16, 23n20, 25n75, 39, 44, 47, 50, 60, 64, 95–96, 98, 107n25, 108n40, 127, 183, 186–87, 228, 232, 263, 276, 277–84,288n9

conservative, 95 seminar, 16, 279 teaching materials, 12, 81–85, 90, 279 teaching methods, Anschauungsunterricht (object lessons), 205 techne, 81–82, 83, 88, 89, 90 technological modernity, 170, 261–62, 263 technology, 1, 3, 26n85, 152, 261–62, 263, 267n36 color printing, 211, 230 travel, 146 telegraph, 3, 122, 261 telephone, 3, 261 Tenorth, Heinz-Elmar, 95, 107n14 terminology, 45, 46, 47 territory, 113, 118 teutonic, 102 textbook history, 3, 94, 100, 101, 102, 273, 279, 280, 281, 289n25 market, 16, 278 Thirty Years’ War. See under war thought collectives, 275 Thucydides, 106n9 Thuringia, 19 Timaeus, John (Johann), 47 time-space compression, 203, 207, 212, 222 Tirpitz, Alfred von, 145 Togo, 191, 194 topic modeling, 94, 107n10 totalizing view, 244 toy reform movement, 264–65 toys technology toys, 261–2, 267n36 tin soldiers, 256, 257, 266 toymaker, toy trains, 252, 253, 256, 261, 262, 263, 266 See also dolls tract, philosophical, 14 trade, 3, 9, 46, 102, 115, 121, 145, 211 school, 41, 48 trading cards, 16, 18, 19, 21, 93, 146–47, 178n43, 228–45, 276, 283 traditional, 2, 7, 8, 10, 11, 83, 150, 210, 212, 217, 222, 237–38, 263, 264, 265

308 | Index

training, 6, 46, 96, 253 linguistic, 43 military, 104 teacher, 127n4 transformation cultural, 120 of family, 253, 254–5, 257, 258 of German image of Japan, 114, 115, 127 of knowledge, 284 of media, 15 in production, 169 translation, 2, 24n56, 38, 44, 47–50, 52n7, 53n48, 54n61, 82–83, 119, 121, 140, 141, 207, 212 transnational, 2, 4, 24n56, 38, 41, 42–43, 48, 50, 99, 170, 184, 195, 196n28, 276 Trapp, Ernst Christian, 48, 50, 54n58 travel, 2, 3, 63, 72, 138 anthologies, 18, 20, 57–58, 59, 60, 64 literature, 20, 23n31, 39, 44, 45, 46, 51, 58, 60, 61, 62, 65–66, 76, 82, 138, 143, 147–48, 150 literature for young readers, 37, 57, 60, 62, 74, 146, 149 report, 116, 124, 125 for research purposes, 9 royal, 138, 140–1, 143, 149, 151–52 writing vocabulary, 44–46 See also migration; discovery: of the world travelogues, 14, 66, 142, 143, 14, 152, 222. See also travel treaties, geographical, 14, 16, 124 troop, 104, 160. See also militarism truth, 17, 18, 113, 281 moment of, 68–70, 74 universal, 194 twentieth century, early, 2, 11, 24n46, 82, 118, 124, 137, 159, 160, 162, 171, 176, 191, 217, 223n7, 233, 261, 282

unifying order, 244 United States of America, 24n46, 100–5, 163, 165, 168, 169, 170, 172, 187, 203, 215, 221, 243, 260 universalism, 2, 184 university, 22n1, 96, 102 urban, 5, 8, 14, 15, 87, 88, 230, 231, 232, 233, 254–55, 260

“ukaz,” 98, 108n32 unification, 95, 116, 204, 280

Walburga, 194 wall charts, 81, 83, 85–87

values bourgeois, 59, 98, 256, 261 historical, 5 imperial thought and nationalism, 10 middle-class, 137 military, 98, 151 patriotic, 138, 140, 151 pedagogical, 59, 60, 229, 232, 270 political, 141 religious, 183, 189 societal, 273, 275 true, 264 vaterländisch, 24n49, 279, 290n36. See also patriotism Vercingetorix, 89 Verne, Jules, 203 Around the World in Eighty Days, 204 From the Earth to the Moon, 207 Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours, 204 Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, 207 Voyages extraordinaires (Extraordinary Journeys), 207 victory, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 108n42, 189 virtue, 53n13, 59–61, 68–69, 74–75, 96, 97, 108n40, 141, 150, 169, 258–60, 281 visual material, 9. See also iconography Völkerschauen, 165, 173. See also zoological garden, human völkisch, 101–2 volunteer, 103, 104

Index  | 309

war American Civil War, 24n46, 94, 98, 100–5 American War of Independence, 101 in antiquity, 106n9 civil, 97, 109n51 First Sino-Japanese War, 117 First World War, 5, 11, 24n49, 33n71, 93, 94, 96, 100, 105, 107n14, 108n39, 128n37, 137, 219, 230, 284 Franco-Prussian War, 88, 257, 259 German Wars of Unification, 94, 98, 101 Italian Wars of Unification, 99 of Liberation, 95, 97, 108n28 Mexican wars of independence, 99 modern, 96, 100, 105, 108n42, 145 Napoleonic Wars, 94, 99, 141 relationship to civilization, 107n22 representation of, 89, 97 Russo-Japanese, 117, 124 Seven Years’ War, 99, 101 story, 105 Thirty Years’ War, 94 warfare, 96, 108n42, 258 Warneck, Gustav, 186–87 weakness military, 99 national, 102 wealth, 8, 96 Welskopf-Henrich, Liselotte, 160, 175, 261 West Prussia, 8 Westermanns Monatshefte, 14–15 Westernization, 120, 124 Wette, Wolfram, 96 Wetzel, Franz, 182–83 Wezel, Johann Karl, 51, 52n5, 54n74 Robinson Krusoe, 51, 54n74 White, Hayden, 284 whiteness, 193

Wild West show. See Buffalo Bill Wild, Reiner, 40 wilderness, 8, 141, 170, 207 Wilhelm I, German emperor, 88–89, 138 Wilhelm II, German emperor, 95–96, 138, 145–6, 152 Wilhelmine era, 5, 7, 138, 150 Wilke, Carl, 85 Winckelmann & Söhne, 57–58, 66–67, 71, 73, 77n44, 77n62 Winnetou. See under May, Karl: characters wireless, 3 Wissenschaft. See science Wolf, Heinrich, 281–82 Wolgast, Heinrich, 228–29, 240 Wolter, Stefanie, 25n85, 25n90, 146n34, 277, 289n22 women, 15–16, 43, 148, 212–13, 231, 266n14 work, 6, 45, 46, 84, 87, 186, 190, 191 worker, 15, 25n65, 85, 124, 235 workforce, industrial, 8, 110 world interpretation, 4, 7, 233, 238, 272, 274, 277 order of the, 5, 277 worldviews, 93, 94, 100, 142, 152, 153, 190, 274, 277 Xavier, Francisco de, 127n7 Yellow Peril, 117 youth, organization, 13, 277, 288n16 Zantop, Susanne, 23n34, 41, 57, 64, 108n39, 204, 289n20 Ziemann, Benjamin, 105, 108 Zöllner, Reinhard, 113 zoological garden, human, 19 Zulus KaMpande, Cetshwayo, 215 Anglo-Zulu War, 215