Alice Masaryková

Photo by Alice Masaryková

Alice Garrigue Masaryková , also Alice Masaryk (born May 3, 1879 in Vienna , † November 29, 1966 in Chicago ) was a sociologist and daughter of the co-founder and first President of Czechoslovakia , Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk .

Life

family

Alice Masaryková was born in Vienna and was the first of four children of the married couple Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and the American Charlotte Garrigue . Her siblings were Herbert, Olga, Eleanor and Jan Masaryk . In her memoir, Alice Masaryková describes her childhood as happy and also tells of her special interest in languages, religion and reading in general.

education

When Masaryková was three years old, the family moved to Prague . She began her schooling in 1886 and last attended the first girls' high school, Minerva . Then she studied medicine at the Charles University in Prague . Even though she was aware of the privilege of being one of the few women admitted to university, she still dropped out and switched to history, sociology and philosophy . Masaryková lived in London , Leipzig and Berlin (1901–1902) in order to deepen her university education and because of the research for her doctoral thesis . She received her doctorate on June 23, 1903.

job

Between 1904 and 1905 Masaryková was invited to the University of Chicago Social Settlement ( UCSS ). There she made the acquaintance of Julia Lathrop , Mary McDowell and Jane Addams . So she said:

“ I was so lucky that I came to Chicago just as modern social work began in America. I got to know great women who were the first to see the need for healthy Americanization. […] My visit to Chicago convinced me that three things enrich social work: spiritual awareness, a good education and a dedication to hard work. "

- Alice Masaryková

After her return to Bohemia, Masaryková worked from 1905 to 1910 as a teacher at a grammar school in České Budějovice , where she taught geography and history. In 1910 she returned to Prague and worked at another school until 1914.

In 1911 Masaryková was a co-founder of the sociological department at Charles University in Prague. This was based on a series of lectures with a focus on social problems such as the living and working situation of industrial workers, alcoholism and venereal diseases . According to a close confidante of Masaryková, Anna Berkovcova , she was convinced that every student - whether future lawyer, doctor, theologian or teacher - should be well versed in sociology so that he or she could better understand the future professional environment.

After her imprisonment in 1915, Masaryková was not allowed to continue practicing her profession as a teacher. The closure of the sociology department with the start of World War I resulted in private lectures in sociology for students from her home. In 1918 she founded the first school for social work in Czechoslovakia together with her colleague Anna Berkovcová . Masaryková's thoughts on founding the school were passed down by Anna Berkovcová, who said that the social problems had multiplied by the end of the war, and Masaryková realized that these problems had been ignored for too long and that giving alms as care was no longer enough. She was convinced that a new republic her father was working on would need a well-organized welfare program. She said that a democracy can only function well if its social welfare is based on solid social structures. Therefore, she found the training of well-trained social workers to be of paramount importance. The school was primarily based on the sociology founded by Jane Addams and George Herbert Mead at the University of Chicago . Masaryková and Berkovcová are thus understood as the founders of social education in Czechoslovakia.

With the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, Masaryková was appointed President of the Czechoslovak Red Cross on February 6, 1919 . She held this position until the invasion of Nazi Germany in 1938. In her role as president, she was able to fundamentally change the welfare system. For example, polyclinics and soup kitchens have been set up for socially disadvantaged people. Masaryková accepted a renewed invitation from the University of Chicago. In the USA she took over a short-lived series of lectures by her brother Jan Masaryk on the social situation in Czechoslovakia. Due to several traumatic experiences, she spent the years 1940 to 1945 in psychiatric treatment before she returned to Czechoslovakia at the end of the Second World War. There she was confronted in 1948 with the death of her brother Jan, who at the time held a high political position. The circumstances of his death are largely unclear. It did not last long, however, as the communists' seizure of power forced them to emigrate again. She spent the rest of her life in the United States, where she remained politically active. From 1950 to 1954 she spoke regularly on the radio station Radio Free Europe to support those who remained in Czechoslovakia in their struggle for democracy .

politics

The role played by her father Tomáš Gariggue Masaryk in the establishment of the independent Czechoslovak state influenced Alice Masaryk's life and work. In 1915 she was imprisoned in a prison in Vienna for 8 months. She was accused of keeping her father's political writings while he was in exile. Considerations of an execution were only rejected and Alice Masaryk released after the USA had exerted influence on the Austrian government. This influence, which helped to save Masaryková, was based on the public support she found among American sociologists and other famous figures such as Julia Lathrop , Jane Addams and Mary McDowell .

Masaryková was one of the first women to take up a post in the parliament of the newly founded Czechoslovakia on October 28, 1918, and was subsequently asked to head the Czechoslovak Red Cross . When her mother died in 1923, Masaryková took on the role of a political representative at her father's side and was commonly understood as the “first lady” of the new state.

In 1928 Masaryková was the president of the First International Conference of Social Work and gave a speech at a subsequent event in 1939 which outlined her political position. So she said that there is a need for every country to strive for freedom, equality and fraternity in order to create a democratic unity of all people. She was convinced that a democracy that is genuinely interested in the well-being of all people would be more economically stable and politically more humane . Masaryková, like her father, actively supported women's academic networks. Tomáš Masaryk, for example, provided financial start-up support for a project of an international organization of women of the International Federation of University Women (IFUW).

Works

• The Bohemian in Chicago, in: Charities and the Commons (1904), 13, p. 206-210.
• Foreword, in Mary E. Hurlbutt (ed.) (1920a) Social Survey of Prague, Vol 3, Prague: Ministry of Welfare, pp.7-8.
• From an Austrian Prison, in: The Atlantic Monthly (1920b), 126, pp. 577-587.
• The Prison House, in The Atlantic Monthly (1920c), 126, pp. 770-779.
• A Message from Alice Masaryk, in: The Survey (1921a), 46, p. 333.
• The Program of the Czechoslovak Red Cross after 18 months, in: Revue Internationale de la Croix-Rouge (1921b), pp. 736-739.
• Help for Russia, in: Revue Internationale de la Croix-Rouge (1921c), pp. 863-864.
• The Bond Between Us, in Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work (1939), New York, Columbia University Press, pp. 69-74.

literature

• Alice Garrigue Masaryk, 1879–1966. Her Life as Recorded in Her Own Words and by Her Friends (1980).
• Bruce Keith, Alice Masaryk (1879-1866), in Mary Jo Deegan (ed.), Women in Sociology, New York 1991, p. 298-305.
• Christine von Oertzen, Strategy Understanding - On the Transnational Networking of Female Academics 1917–1955, Göttingen 2012.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Nadezda Kubickova, Alice Masaryk (1879–1966), Czechoslovakia, in: Bulletin of the European Journal of Social Work 4 (2001) No. 3, p. 303 ff.
2. ^ M * Bruce Keith, Alice Masaryk (1879–1866), in Mary Jo Deegan (ed.), Women in Sociology, New York 1991, pp. 298-305, p. 298.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Kubickova, Alice Masaryk, p. 304.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Deegan, Women in Sociology, p. 299.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Kubickova, Alice Masaryk, p. 307.
6. ^ Deegan, Women in Sociology, p. 300.
7. ↑ ^{a b c d} Deegan, Women in Sociology, p. 301
8. ↑ Kubickova: Alice Masaryk, p. 307 ff.
9. ↑ Kubickova: Alice Masaryk, S. 309th
10. ↑ Kubickova, Alice Masaryk, S. 305th
11. ↑ Deegan, Women in Sociology, pp. 299f
12. ↑ Deegan, Women in Sociology, pp. 304f.
13. ^ Deegan, Women in Sociology, p. 302.
14. ^ Ruth Crawford Mitchell, Alice Garrigue Masaryk, 1879–1966. Her Life as Recorded in her Own Words and by Her Friends, Pittsburgh 1980, pp. Xix – xxiv