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Spaces of Honor: Making German Civil Society, 1700-1914
Heikki Lempa
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The common understanding is that honor belongs to a bygone era, whereas civil society belongs to the future and modern society. Heikki Lempa argues that honor was not gone or even in decline between 1700 and 1914, and that civil society was not new but had long roots that stretched into the Middle Ages. In fact, what is peculiar for this era in Germany were the deep connections between practices of honor and civil society. This study focuses on collective actions of honor and finds them, in a series of case studies, at such communal spaces as schools, theaters, lunch and dinner tables, spas, workers' strikes, and demonstrations. It is in these collective actions that we see civil society in making.
Spaces of Honor sees civil society not primarily as an idea or an intellectual project but as a set of practices shaped in physical spaces. Around 1700, the declining power of religious authorities allowed German intellectuals to redefine civil society, starting with a new language of honor. Then, in the middle of the eighteenth century, an increasing number of voluntary associations and public spaces turned it into reality. Here, honor provided cohesion. In the nineteenth century, urbanization and industrialization ushered in powerful forces of atomization that civil society attempted to remedy. The remedy came from social and physical spaces that generated a culture of honor and emotional belonging. We find them in voluntary associations, spas, revived guilds, and labor unions. By the end of the nineteenth century, honor was deeply embedded in German civil society.
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One: Honor in Eighteenth-Century Germany
Chapter 1. Creating the Language of Civil Society
Chapter 2. Educating Honor for Civil Society
Part Two: Middle-Class Honor in the Long Nineteenth Century
Chapter 3. Honor in Weimar
Chapter 4. Redefining the Language
Chapter 5. Spas
Part Three: Working-Class Honor in Imperial Germany
Figure 12. The Social Democratic politician and the first president of Germany in 1919, Friedrich Ebert, started as a saddler journeyman. The eighteen-year-old saddler, fifth from the left, in the circle of his colleagues in Wesel employed by the Konrad Scherz Company in 1889. Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo / Alamy Stock Photo.
Figure 10. The Promenade on the pavilion of Kreuzbrunn in Marienbad was a central public space. Litograph, around 1870. bpk Bildagentur / Dietmar Katz.
Figure 9. The Iron Fountain Pavilion and the Arcades (Arkadenbau) in Bad Kissingen. Lithograph by Christian Weiss and H. Kuber, 1850. PhotoStock-Israel / Alamy Stock Photo
Figure 8. A print of Marienbad from 1847 shows the round shape of the city. Adalbert Eduard Danzer, Topographie von Marienbad als Führer im Curorte selbst und in dessen Umgebungen (Leipzig: Jackowitz, 1847). Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
Figure 7. City map of Pyrmont. In the southeastern corner is the castle (A). The Hauptallee (E) is northwest from the castle. Heinrich Matthias Marcard, Beschreibung von Pyrmont, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Weidmanns Erben, 1784). Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.
Figure 6. Anordnung der Kaiserlichen Tafel 1808. Seating at the imperial table during Napoleon’s visit to Weimar, October 6, 1808. Abteilung Historische Drucke, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz.
Figure 5. The city map of Weimar by Franz Ludwig Güssefeld (1784) portrays Weimar from the east to the west. The ducal castle (A) is placed here in the south, although it is in the east. The Wittumspalais (G) is in the west but portrayed in the north. Alamy Stock Photo.
Figure 4. High jump and pole vault were divisible and therefore measurable exercises in GutsMuths’s scheme. Engraving by Johann Heinrich Lips in GutsMuths, Gymnastik (1793), 219. Alamy Stock Photo.
Figure 3. The Board of Merits (Meritentafel) of the Dessau Philanthropinum (1777). The names of the students are in the middle. On the bright, left-hand side the students received their nails for virtue and diligence; on the dark, right-hand side they received nails for misbehavior. Andreas Pečar and Frank Kreißler, eds., Der Fürst in seiner Stadt—Leopold Friedrich Franz und Dessau. Ausstellungskatalog (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2017). Stadt Dessau-Roßlau, Stadtarchiv.
Figure 2. “Love of honor (Ehrliebe). Example of two children who are praised by their parents because of their good behavior; an example of a young woman who is taking care of her headdress; an example of an old man who is looking for recognition through his life story.” An engraving by Daniel Chodowiecki in Johann Bernhard Basedow, Kupfersammlung zu J. B. Basedows Elementarwerke für die Jugend und ihre Freunde (Berlin: Crusius, 1774), 11–12, Image XXII b. The Picture Art Collection. Alamy Stock Photo.
Figure 1. August Hermann Francke and Christian Thomasius portrayed in Halle/Glaucha 1729. The poem recognizes both of them. “As long as Halle stays the site of muses (Musen-Sitz) / created by Thomasius / as long as the orphanage of Francke stays / the reputation of both men remains.” pbk Bildagentur. Abteilung Historische Drucke, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz.
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