Alice Salomon

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Photograph by Alice Salomon, Schwadron Collection, Israel National Library
Alice Salomon signature 1926 (cropped) .jpg
Chairman of the first German women's congress in Berlin in early March 1912. Back row from left: Elisabeth Altmann-Gottheiner , Martha Voss-Zietz, Alice Bensheimer , Anna Pappritz . Front row from left: Helene von Forster , Gertrud Bäumer , Alice Salomon.

Alice Salomon (born April 19, 1872 in Berlin , † August 30, 1948 in New York ) was a German liberal social reformer in the German women's movement and a pioneer of social work as a science. In this context, she introduced the term social diagnostics . Alice Salomon's work was honored in Germany from the 1980s onwards by giving names to universities, traffic routes, children's and auxiliary facilities.

Life

origin

Alice Salomon was the second daughter and fourth of eight children of Albert Salomon (1834–1886) and his wife Anna, geb. Potocky Carnations (1838-1914). In her autobiography she wrote that her mother called for her "the name of one of the children of Queen Victoria ..., the Grand Duchess of Hesse" Alice (who, in addition to founding aid associations to support the sick, the poor and the mentally handicapped, particularly addresses women's issues, however also turned to the tasks of girl education), because the Duchess was a devoted and loving daughter, a shining example.

Salomon grew up in a bourgeois house near Anhalter Bahnhof . After the then usual schooling for girls of her class, she led the - for her unsatisfactory - existence of a house daughter . Like many girls from well-to-do families, she was not allowed to complete an apprenticeship even though she would have liked to become a teacher. This “period of suffering” came to an end in 1893: Alice Salomon herself later said that her life only began when she was 21 years old. She became a member of the girls and women groups for social aid work that Jeanette Schwerin had set up. Soon Salomon grew up to be Schwerin's “right hand” and after her death in 1899 took over responsibility for the groups.

Women's education

Published dissertation by Alice Salomon, archived in the Ida-Seele archive

In 1900 Alice Salomon joined the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine , was later elected deputy chairman and remained so until 1920 (chairwoman was Gertrud Bäumer ). In cooperation with the Women's Association, she campaigned, among other things, for material and psychological support for impoverished, "abandoned", single parents and overburdened mothers, in order to prevent or prevent their children from becoming neglected.

From 1902 to 1906 Salomon studied economics , history and philosophy at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin, although she did not have a high school diploma. Her publications were recognized as a requirement for attending the university. She received her doctorate in philosophy in 1906 . Her dissertation was published under the title The causes of unequal pay for men and women . On October 15, 1908, she founded the nationwide first interdenominational social women's school in Berlin-Schöneberg (since 1932 Alice Salomon School , until 1990 (State) University of Applied Sciences for Social Work and Social Pedagogy since 1991 Alice Salomon University Berlin - ASH Berlin).

The founder of the school advertised her educational institution in numerous articles, always referring explicitly to the women's movement as the goal of training. For her, her school was a place of “modern education”, where young women are educated to make use of the duties and rights that the women's movement has fought for them. She viewed the social female profession superficially as an “aptitude profession”. That is why, for them, social training was “not just a matter of imparting knowledge, but a question of developing conscience, cultivating character traits”. The success of the private educational institution was overwhelming, its curriculum pointing the way for numerous similar start-ups. The increasing number of pupils soon made it necessary to build a school of their own, which was completed immediately before the start of the First World War .

In 1909 Salomon became secretary in the International Women's Council . In 1914 she converted from Judaism to the Christian faith of the Protestant denomination. In 1917 Salomon became chairwoman of the Conference of Social Women’s Schools in Germany , which she founded , to which 16 schools belonged by 1919. In 1920 she resigned from the board of the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine (BDF) after she had been passed over for fear of anti-Semitic propaganda in the election for the BDF chairmanship and Marianne Weber was elected chairwoman in her place . In this regard, Salomon wrote in her autobiography: “Gertrud Bäumer, the President of the German Women's Association, had told me in the first years of the war that I should be her successor ... At that time, a pretty unanimous vote would have been certain. However, we postponed the election until after the end of the war; but now my colleagues informed me that the members were reluctant to appoint someone with a Jewish name and Jewish ancestry to chair because the attitude of the population was no longer reliable in this regard. ”Five years after this experience, she founded the Pestalozzi-Fröbel-Haus the German Academy for Social and Educational Women's Work (headed by Hilde Lion ). This was not designed to compete with the university, but rather as a training facility for women in social professions, but also for trained female academics with professional experience to gain further qualifications in the field of social work. A research department headed by Alice Salomon was attached to the institution in December 1926, which was later expanded into an institute for social science research . In the academy, lectures by important scientists of the time on cultural, social, ethical and religious issues were held at intervals. Albert Einstein , Carl Gustav Jung , Eduard Spranger , Ernst Cassirer , Eugen Fischer as well as Gertrud Bäumer and Helene Weber were among the group of lecturers, as was Romano Guardini , who gave a much-noticed series of lectures on ethics in the auditorium of the Pestalozzi-Froebel-Haus in November 1927 -religious basic questions of existence held.

In the autumn of 1928, the Women's Academy began its own extensive research project on the existence and upheaval of the family in the present . Thirteen monographs on this topic were published between 1930 and 1933 under the direction of Salomon and Bäumer. It brought together a wealth of authentic material: “On the one hand it was touching how families make survival possible for themselves in the face of inflation, depression and unemployment, how they work, do business, experience joy, celebrate parties and worry about the future of their children, on the other hand It is shocking how dullness, monotony, political ignorance can arise under socially and economically narrow and unfavorable conditions ”.

In 1929 Salomon called the International Association of Schools of Social Work ("International Association of Schools for Social Work") into being, which she chaired for many years. In 1932 Alice Salomon was at the height of her career. On her 60th birthday, she received the Silver State Medal from the Prussian State Ministry, and Berlin University awarded her an honorary doctorate .

emigration

In 1933 the National Socialists pushed the internationally known pioneer of social work out of all public offices. Four years later, shortly after returning from a lecture tour from the USA, the now 65-year-old was forced to emigrate following interrogation by the Gestapo . For this purpose, u. a. find the following motifs:

  • their Jewish origin ,
  • their Christian-humanist ideas,
  • their advocacy of pluralistic professional work,
  • her open pacifism,
  • their international appearance.

Before the interrogation, it was clear to the Nazis that Salomon would be faced with the decision of “expulsion or arrest”. She left Germany on June 18, 1937. Until they were expelled, Salomon had worked on an aid committee for Jewish emigrants. She emigrated to the USA via England and lived there in New York. In 1939, her German citizenship and both doctoral degrees were revoked. In 1944 she acquired American citizenship . One year later she became honorary president of the International Women's Federation and the International Association of Schools for Social Work .

In her new home, Salomon was unable to continue her professional career. Her attempt to publish her autobiography can be considered indicative of the situation. Accompanied by consolations, promises and rejections, she was denied this important request. The memoirs appeared in Germany in 1983 (new edition 2008), in the USA in 2004. On August 30, 1948 Salomon died in New York. Few people attended the burial at Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn.

estate

The most important legacy is in the Alice Salomon Archive at the Alice Salomon University in Berlin. Part of the estate (especially the correspondence with important personalities from social work, politics, culture and science) is kept in the Ida-Seele archive in Dillingen an der Donau .

gallery

Writings and publications

  • Handbook of the women's movement. (2 vol.), 1901.
  • Women's social duties. 1902.
  • The causes of unequal pay for men and women. Leipzig 1906 (Dissertation at the Philosophical Faculty of the Friedrich Wilhelms University Berlin, July 14, 1906)
  • Social education for women. Berlin 1908.
  • Maternity leave and maternity insurance. 1908.
  • Introduction to economics. 1909 (6th edition 1923).
  • What we owe to ourselves and to others. Speeches and essays for young girls. Leipzig / Berlin 1912.
  • Twenty years of social aid work. Karlsruhe 1913.
  • History of women's social work. 1913.
  • Representation of the workers' movement in Germany. 1913.
  • Introduction to Economics. 1919.
  • Guide to Welfare. Leipzig 1921.
  • The German national community. 1922.
  • Training as a social profession. 1924.
  • Culture in the making. American travel impressions. 1924.
  • Fear and nervousness at work. Congress for Company Welfare. 1925.
  • Social diagnosis. Berlin 1926.
  • Social therapy. 1926 (together with Siddy Wronsky ).
  • Training for a social profession. Berlin 1927.
  • Youth and work memories. In: Elga Kern (Hrsg.): Leading women in Europe. Munich 1928, pp. 3-34.
  • Research on the existence and upheaval of family life in the present. 1930–1932 (eleven volumes).
  • Social leaders. Their lives, their teachings, their works. Leipzig 1932.
  • Heroic women. Zurich 1936.
  • Education for social work. 1937.
  • Character is fate, memories. Edited by Rüdiger Baron and Rolf Landwehr. Beltz Verlag, Weinheim / Basel 1983, ISBN 3-407-85036-0 (excerpt in: Lixl-Purcell (Hg): Recollections of German-Jewish Women 1900–1990. Reclam, Leipzig 1992, ISBN 3-379-01423-0 , Pp. 120-125).
  • Life memories. Youth, social reform, women's movement, exile. Published by the Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin. Edited and translated from English by Rolf Landwehr. Brandes & Apsel, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-86099-119-0 .

Honors

The Deutsche Bundespost honored Alice Salomon on January 12, 1989 with a  stamp  as part of the  definitive series  “ Women of German History ”. The stamp had a face value of five hundred pfennigs and is under the number  Michel no. Cataloged in 1397.

The search engine Google honored Salomon on April 19, 2018 on the occasion of her 146th birthday with a doodle .

Facilities and traffic routes named after Salomon

Furthermore, an Intercity-Express , a postage stamp of the Deutsche Bundespost , streets in Freiburg im Breisgau and in the Bonn district of Vilich are dedicated to or named after her.

Alice Salomon University Awards

The Alice Salomon Poetics Prize , combined with the Alice Salomon Poetics Lecturer , has been awarded by the Alice Salomon University of Berlin since 2006 and is endowed with 6000 euros (as of 2019). Since 2018, the Alice Salomon Poetics Prize has been awarded annually, alternating with the Alice Salomon Award .

Alice Salomon Poetics Prize

Alice Salomon Award

literature

  • Elga Kern: leading women in Europe. Scrapbook. E. Reinhardt, Munich 1927.
  • Dora Peyser : Alice Salomon, the founder of the social women's profession in Germany. Your life and your work. C. Heymann, Cologne / Berlin 1958.
  • Margarete Hecker: Social educational research: The contribution of the German Academy for social and educational research. In: Social Work. 1984 / No. 2, pp. 106-121.
  • Joachim Wieler: Recalling a destroyed evening of life - Alice Salomon during the Nazi era (1933–1937) and in exile (1937–1948). Lingbach, Darmstadt 1987, ISBN 3-923982-01-1 .
  • Manfred Berger : Alice Salomon. Pioneer of social work and the women's movement. Brandes & Apsel, Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-86099-276-7 (4th edition 2018).
  • Ders .: Alice Salomon on the 50th anniversary of her death. In: Theory and Practice of Social Pedagogy (TPS). 1998, H. 4, pp. 57-59.
  • Ders .: homecoming. Alice Salomon died fifty years ago. In: Sozialmagazin 1998 / H. 7-8, pp. 6-7
  • Gudrun Deuter: Presentation and analysis of the lecture cycles at the German Academy for Social and Educational Women’s Work in the years 1925–1932. Bonn 2001 (unpublished diploma thesis).
  • Christiane Goldenstedt: Alice Salomon and Hilde Lion. Pioneers of social women's work, Spirale der Zeit 5/2009, writings from the House of Women's History, pp. 73–77, Barbara Budrich Verlag (also in English)
  • Anja Schüler: Women's Movement and Social Reform. Jane Addams and Alice Salomon in the Transatlantic Dialogue, 1889–1933. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-515-08411-8 .
  • Carola Kuhlmann: Alice Salomon and the beginning of social vocational training. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-89821-791-0 .
  • Manfred Berger: Women in Social Responsibility: Alice Salomon. In: Our youth. 2008, No. 10, pp. 430-433.
  • Ders .: Alice Salomon - pioneer of the social women's profession. On the trail of the internationally known pioneer of social work. In: Theory and Practice of Social Pedagogy (TPS). 2008, H. 4, pp. 50-51.
  • Eckhard Hansen, Florian Tennstedt (Eds.) U. a .: Biographical lexicon on the history of German social policy from 1871 to 1945 . Volume 1: Social politicians in the German Empire 1871 to 1918. Kassel University Press, Kassel 2010, ISBN 978-3-86219-038-6 , p. 134 f. ( Online , PDF; 2.2 MB).
  • Adriane Feustel: The concept of the social in Alice Salomon's work. Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86331-029-5 .
  • Rita Braches-Chyrek: Jane Addams, Mary Richmond and Alice Salomon. Professionalization and discipline development of social work. Budrich, Opladen (ua) 2013, ISBN 978-3-8474-0015-8 .

Web links

Commons : Alice Salomon  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Alice Salomon  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. Curriculum vitae from the dissertation, ( Memento from May 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) see: Literature The causes of unequal pay ...
  2. Salomon 1983, p. 12.
  3. Salomon 1928, p. 8.
  4. Rühle 2001, p. 9.
  5. Speech by Alice Salomon at the opening of the Social Women's School ( Memento from January 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 61 kB)
  6. 100 anniversary [1]
  7. Salomon 1908, p. 42
  8. Salomon 1927, p. 204.
  9. Salomon 1983, pp. 186f.
  10. cf. Deuter 2001, p. 10ff.
  11. Hecker 1984, p. 216.
  12. She said goodbye to her friends in a circular with the following words: “You all know that I have never done anything that can harm Germany ... You know that I have always firmly believed in the victory of the good in human nature and lived for it. I will keep all of this according to the law according to which I started ... I go into a life of struggle for bread - but in good cheer and joyful confidence - completely unbroken in spiritual and moral strength, in my sense of worth, not that can be impaired from outside. "(quoted in Berger 2011, p. 83 f)
  13. Alice Salomon: Report on the Congress for Company Welfare in Blissingen / Holland . In: Vossische Zeitung , July 2, 1925.
  14. 146th birthday of Alice Salomon. Retrieved July 11, 2020 .
  15. City map for Alice-Salomon-Weg, Coesfeld, 48653, DE | Cylex®. Retrieved July 11, 2020 .
  16. ^ City of Hechingen | Schools. Retrieved July 11, 2020 .
  17. Website of the Alice Salomon day care center in Hanau ( Memento from April 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  18. April 19, 1872, Alice Salomon . ( Memento from July 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: Jüdische Zeitung , April 2010
  19. Sandra Teuffel: Volker Ludwig receives Alice Salomon Poetics Prize 2015. Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin, press release from January 26, 2015 from Informationsdienst Wissenschaft (idw-online.de), accessed on January 26, 2015.
  20. Heike Radvan receives the Alice Salomon Award. Retrieved July 11, 2020 .