Bertha Paulssen

Bertha Paulssen (born January 15, 1891 in Leipzig ; died April 2, 1973 in Gettysburg ) was a German-American social worker.

Life

Bertha Paulssen was a daughter of the businessman Otto Paulssen and Ida Heine. She attended the Büttner Höhere Töchter-Schule in Gohlis , then secondary school courses from the General German Women's Association and in 1910 graduated from the Petrischule Leipzig . She then studied mathematics and natural sciences in Göttingen and Leipzig until 1913 and was a visiting student at a college in the USA for a year . She received her doctorate in 1917 under Wilhelm Wundt at the Institute for Experimental Psychology at the University of Leipzig .

After completing her studies, she worked as a welfare worker in Frankfurt am Main , Kiel and Stettin . At the suggestion of Wilhelm Hertz , she went to Hamburg as a research assistant in 1923 , where she became a member of the government council and head of department in the city's youth welfare office. She supervised the state girls' homes and managed the welfare for the endangered and was responsible for around 800 employees. She also held teaching positions at the Institute for Social Education at the University of Hamburg . She was involved in the German Association of Social Workers and in the working group of the professional associations of welfare workers in Germany.

Paulssen was dismissed after the Nazis took power in 1933 and emigrated to England , where she made her way as a social worker in London and Birmingham . In 1936 she went to the USA. In New York City she worked as a social worker in the Lower East Side in the Henry Street Settlement and received a lectureship at Wagner College in 1938 , then an employment at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg , in 1943 she became the first female professor at Muhlenberg College . In 1945 she received a professorship at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg and taught at the Faculty of Sociology and Psychology until her retirement.

Fonts (selection)

• Simple reactions to variation and rhythmic structure of the previous period . Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1919
  • Simple reactions to variation and rhythmic structure of the previous period . Archive for the whole of psychology, 39 (112), pp. 149-213
• Educational work on neglected young women. Report of the 3rd session on psychopath care . Berlin 1925
• Voluntary welfare education , in: Arbeiterwohlfahrt. 4 (1929), H. 7, pp. 193-197

literature

• Peter Reinicke : Paulssen, Bertha , in: Hugo Maier (Ed.): Who is who of social work . Freiburg: Lambertus, 1998 ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 , pp. 452f.
• Maria Erling: Paulssen, Bertha , in: Susan Hill Lindley (Ed.): The Westminster Handbook to Women in American Religious History . Louisville, Ky. : Westminster John Knox Press, 2008 ISBN 978-0-664-22454-7 , p. 168
• Horst Gundlach : Wilhelm Wundt, professor, and Anna Berliner, student , psychology and history, 1993, pp. 143–151 Digisat , PDF
• Francis E Reinberger (Ed.): Essays in Honor of Bertha Paulssen . Gettysburg, Pa .: Lutheran Theological Seminary, 1965

Web links

• Literature by and about Bertha Paulssen in the bibliographic database WorldCat
• Emily Robinson: 170 Years of Women on Campus: Bertha Paulssen , near Muhlenberg, March 9, 2020