![Sample our Communication Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, 2013 & 2014 volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5927/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Information-Science2.jpg"})
Abstract
During the 1920s and early 1930s, the communist publications Der Weg der Frau (Women’s Way) and the Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung (Worker’s Illustrated Magazine) critiqued and modified the image of the commercialized Neue Frau (New Woman) in order to present a model of female modernity that adhered to the ideological commitments of the left. The magazines outlined problematic representations of the Neue Frau as a white-collar worker in film and popular novels and provided visual and textual evidence demonstrating the reality of paid labor for women. In order to emphasize the ‘fantasy’ of the white-collar worker, magazines reprinted images from films, reminding their readers that this image was fictional. As an alternative to the white-collar worker, publications presented the ideal Soviet woman as a model for a modern woman, connected to the emancipatory potential of revolution.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Der Weg der Frau (WdF) n. 1, January 1933, 4, 6. I would like to thank the reviewers for providing helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article and Joseph Bryan and members of the Rosa Luxemburg Working Group in German History for their encouragement and thoughtful suggestions.
2 See, von Ankum, Women in the Metropolis; Kosta, “Unruly Daughters and Modernity”; Rainey, “Fables of Modernity: The Typist in Germany and France,”; Biebl, Mund, and Volkening, eds. Working Girls; Peterson, Women and Modernity.
3 See for example, Weitz, Creating German Communism 1890 -1990, 188–220.
4 Wagner, ed., Icons, Iconotexts: Essays on Ekphrasis and Intermediality; Mitchell, Picture Theory; Burke, Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence.
5 Huyssen, “Mass Culture as Woman: Modernism’s Other”; Petro, Joyless Streets; Meskimmon and West, eds., Visions of the ‘Neue Frau’”; Hake, “In the Mirror of Fashion”; McCormick, Gender and Sexuality in Weimar Modernity and Grossman, “Continuities and Ruptures: Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Germany.”
6 Bridenthal, Grossman and Kaplan, eds. When Biology Became Destiny.
7 Hung and Weiss-Sussex, eds., Beyond Glitter and Doom. Recent scholarship which exemplifies new approaches to gender and Weimar culture include Weinbaum et al., eds., The Modern Girl Around the World; Graf, “Anticipating the Future in the Present”; Otto and Rocco, eds. The New Woman International; Jensen, Body by Weimar; Sutton, The Masculine Woman in Weimar Germany; Hung, “The Modernized Gretchen” and Eley, Jenkins and Matysik, eds. German Modernities.
8 Hung, “’Bad Politics’ and ‘Good Culture.’”
9 Grossmann, “The New Woman and the Rationalization of Sexuality in Weimar Germany”; Grossmann, Reforming Sex and Usborne, Cultures of Abortion.
10 Hung, “‘Bad Politics’ and ‘Good Culture,’” 443 and Eisenstadt, “Multiple Modernities,” Sachsenmaier et al., eds., Reflections on Multiple Modernities.
11 Smith, Berlin Coquette, 158–159.
12 Stöber, Deutsche Pressegeschichte, 120-121; Leiskau, Rossler, and Trabert eds. Deutsche Illustrierte Presse.
13 Hardt, “Pictures for the Masses”; Magilow, The Photography of Crisis; Gidal, Modern Photojournalism; Ross, Media and the Making of Modern Germany; and Fulda, Press and Politics in the Weimar Republic.
14 Knoch, “Living in Pictures,” 217-233.
15 Magilow, The Photography of Crisis, 60. See also, Harvey and Umbach, “Introduction: Photography and Twentieth Century German History.”
16 Stöber, Deutsche Pressegeschichte, 241; Morton, “The Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung in Weimar Germany”; Braskén, The International Workers’ Relief, 120–122; Sonntag, “Die 'AIZ' - ein Speigelbild proletarischer Lebensweise.”
17 Stöber, Deutsche Pressegeschichte, 244 and Zervigón, “Persuading with the Unseen?”
18 Romanenko, “Photomontage for the Masses.”
19 Barron, et al. New Objectivity.
20 Ricke, Die Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung, 73;
21 Hardt, Pictures for the Masses, 23.
22 Büthe, Der Arbeiter Fotograf, 18.
23 Stetler, Stop Reading! Look!, 1.
24 Mangilow, The Photography of Crisis, 37.
25 Lerg, “Media Culture in the Weimar Republic,” 97.
26 Wuerth and Monger, “The Body as a Battleground.”
27 Frevert, Women in German History, 180 - 181.
28 The literature on women and paid labor in the Weimar Republic is vast. But see Boak, Women in the Weimar Republic, 134–200.
29 Kosta, “Unruly Daughters and Modernity,” 276.
30 WdF, nr. 1, January 1933, p. 4, 6. See also WdF, nr. 2, 1931, 30 and nr. 2, February 1932, 15–17.
31 WdF, nr. 1, January 1933, 4, 6–7.
32 WdF, nr. 7, December 1931, cover.
33 Ibid., 19.
34 “Die Traumfabrik der Angestellten,” AIZ, July 1932.
35 Führich, “Woman and Typewriter,” 151.
36 Ibid., 152.
37 Ibid., 157.
38 See also “Eine Nervenmühle für Frauen,” AIZ n.25, 26 June 1927, 10.
39 See, “Aus dem Leben der Arbeiterin,” AIZ n.14, no date 1926, 7; “Russlands Junge Generation,” AIZ n.30, no date 1930, 6 and “Moskaus neuer Arbeiterype,” AIZ n.34, no date 1931, 677.
40 “Das Sowjet-Manchester,” AIZ n.5, February 1932, 102–103.
41 WdF, n 6, November 1931, cover.
42 See WdF, nr. 12, December 1932.
43 Boak, Women in the Weimar Republic, 71.
44 WdF, nr. 1, 1931, 12–13.
45 Lynn, “Entangled Femininities.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jennifer Lynn
Jennifer Lynn, Montana State University Billings, 1500 University Drive, Billings, Montana 59102-9856, United States of America. Email: [email protected]