Social History,Popular Culture,and Politics in Germany Geoff Eley,Series Editor Series Editorial Board Kathleen Canning,University of Michigan David F. Crew,University of Texas,Austin Atina Grossmann,The Cooper Union Alf Lüdtke,Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte,Göttingen,Germany Andrei S. Markovits,University of Michigan German Pop Culture:How “American”Is It? edited by Agnes C. Mueller Character Is Destiny:The Autobiography of Alice Salomon,edited by Andrew Lees Other Germans:Black Germans and the Politics of Race,Gender,and Memory in the Third Reich,Tina M. Campt State of Virginity:Gender,Religion,and Politics in an Early Modern Catholic State, Ulrike Strasser Worldly Provincialism:German Anthropology in the Age of Empire,H. Glenn Penny and Matti Bunzl,editors Ethnic Drag:Performing Race,Nation,Sexuality in West Germany,Katrin Sieg Projecting History:German Nonfiction Cinema,1967–2000,Nora M. Alter Cities,Sin,and Social Reform in Imperial Germany,Andrew Lees The Challenge of Modernity:German Social and Cultural Studies,1890–1960, Adelheid von Saldern Exclusionary Violence:Antisemitic Riots in Modern German History, Christhard Hoffman,Werner Bergmann,and Helmut Walser Smith,editors Languages of Labor and Gender:Female Factory Work in Germany,1850–1914, Kathleen Canning That Was the Wild East:Film Culture,Unification and the “New”Germany, Leonie Naughton Anna Seghers:The Mythic Dimension,Helen Fehervary Staging Philanthropy:Patriotic Women and the National Imagination in Dynastic Germany,1813–1916,Jean H. Quataert Truth to Tell:German Women’s Autobiographies and Turn-of-the-Century Culture, Katharina Gerstenberger The “Goldhagen Effect”:History,Memory,Nazism—Facing the German Past,Geoff Eley,editor Shifting Memories:The Nazi Past in the New Germany,Klaus Neumann Saxony in German History:Culture,Society,and Politics,1830–1933, James Retallack,editor Little Tools of Knowledge:Historical Essays on Academic and Bureaucratic Practices,Peter Becker and William Clark,editors Public Spheres,Public Mores,and Democracy:Hamburg and Stockholm, 1870–1914,Madeleine Hurd Making Security Social:Disability,Insurance,and the Birth of the Social Entitlement State in Germany,Greg Eghigian The German Problem Transformed:Institutions,Politics,and Foreign Policy, 1945–1995,Thomas Banchoff Social History,Popular Culture,and Politics in Germany Geoff Eley,Series Editor (Continued) Building the East German Myth:Historical Mythology and Youth Propaganda in the German Democratic Republic,1945–1989,Alan L. Nothnagle Mobility and Modernity:Migration in Germany 1820–1989,Steve Hochstadt Triumph of the Fatherland:German Unification and the Marginalization of Women, Brigitte Young Framed Visions:Popular Culture,Americanization,and the Contemporary German and Austrian Imagination,Gerd Gemünden The Imperialist Imagination:German Colonialism and Its Legacy, Sara Friedrichsmeyer,Sara Lennox,and Susanne Zantop,editors Contested City:Municipal Politics and the Rise of Nazism in Altona,1917–1937, Anthony McElligott Catholicism,Political Culture,and the Countryside:A Social History of the Nazi Party in South Germany,Oded Heilbronner A User’s Guide to German Cultural Studies,Scott Denham,Irene Kacandes,and Jonathan Petropoulos,editors A Greener Vision of Home:Cultural Politics and Environmental Reform in the GermanHeimatschutz Movement,1904–1918,William H. Rollins West Germany under Construction:Politics,Society,and Culture in Germany in the Adenauer Era,Robert G. Moeller,editor How German Is She? Postwar West German Reconstruction and the Consuming Woman,Erica Carter Feminine Frequencies:Gender,German Radio,and the Public Sphere,1923–1945, Kate Lacey Exclusive Revolutionaries:Liberal Politics,Social Experience,and National Identity in the Austrian Empire,1848–1914,Pieter M. Judson Jews,Germans,Memory:Reconstruction of Jewish Life in Germany,Y. Michal Bodemann,editor Paradoxes of Peace:German Peace Movements since 1945,Alice Holmes Cooper Society,Culture,and the State in Germany,1870–1930,Geoff Eley,editor Technological Democracy:Bureaucracy and Citizenry in the German Energy Debate,Carol J. Hager The Origins of the Authoritarian Welfare State in Prussia:Conservatives, Bureaucracy,and the Social Question,1815–70,Hermann Beck The People Speak! Anti-Semitism and Emancipation in Nineteenth-Century Bavaria, James F. Harris From BundesrepubliktoDeutschland:German Politics after Unification,Michael G. Huelshoff,Andrei S. Markovits,and Simon Reich,editors The Stigma of Names:Antisemitism in German Daily Life,1812–1933,Dietz Bering Reshaping the German Right:Radical Nationalism and Political Change after Bismarck,Geoff Eley CHARACTER IS DESTINY Character Is Destiny The Autobiography of Alice Salomon Edited by Andrew Lees The University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2004 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America cPrinted on acid-free paper 2007 2006 2005 2004 4 3 2 1 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Salomon, Alice, 1872–1948. Character is destiny : the autobiography of Alice Salomon / edited by Andrew Lees. p. cm. — (Social history, popular culture, and politics in Germany) isbn0-472-11367-4 (acid-free) 1. Salomon, Alice, 1872–1948. 2. Women social workers—Germany—Biography. 3. Women social workers—United States—Biography. I. Lees, Andrew, 1940– II. Title. III. Series. hv40.32.s35 a3 2004 361.3'092—dc22 2003015479 ISBN13 978-0-472-11367-5 (cloth) ISBN13 978-0-472-02510-7 (electronic) With Love and Admiration for Lynn and Laura, Who Also Teach Contents Preface and Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Character Is Destiny 1. A Child with a Garden, 1872–1889 11 2. Apprenticeship, 1893–1899 24 3. Widening Horizon 37 4. London–Berlin 48 5. The Aberdeens, Scotland, Ireland, 1904–1908 61 6. Two Jobs for Life, I: The School for Social Work, 1907–1913 68 7. Two Jobs for Life, II: Of‹cer of the International Council; Canada and First Glimpse of U.S.A. 81 8. Brief Harvest before the Storm 89 9. “The Evidence of Things Not Seen,” 1914 101 10. Patriotism Is Not Enough, 1914–1916 105 11. In the War Of‹ce, 1917–1919 112 12. Fourteen Years of Democracy, I: Years of Chaos, 1919–1924 121 13. Fourteen Years of Democracy, II: My Foreign Affairs, 1920–1933 133 14. Fourteen Years of Democracy, III: Social Reconstruction, 1924–1929 150 15. Fourteen Years of Democracy, IV: Then Came the Collapse 159 16. The Golden Ring of Friendship 165 17. The Stream of Lava 173