The political, economic, and social transformation of the final two decades of the nineteenth century led to an increasing number of working women and to
In this chapter, I argue that the two leading Austrian and Hungarian bourgeois-liberal and feminist associations promoted women’s labour activism based on similar principles in their periodical press before the outbreak of World War One. Both organizations treated their official press organs as particular forums and platforms for women’s labour activism through which they could constantly communicate with their followers. In the Austrian context, I focus on the labour activism of the General Austrian Women’s Association (Allgemeiner Österreichischer Frauenverein, gawa) and its official organ entitled New Women’s Life (Neues Frauenleben). gawa was founded in Vienna in 1893 and was active until 1922. It began publishing New Women’s Life, its second monthly journal, in 1902 and managed to keep it alive until 1918. For the Hungarian context, I focus on the labour activism carried out by the Feminists’ Association (Feministák Egyesülete, fa) and its two official organs. fa was founded in Budapest in 1904 and operated until 1949. Its first journal was Woman and Society (A Nő és a Társadalom), published between 1907 and
gawa and fa, representing the radical left-wing of women’s organizations, had basically the same aims, profiles, and the backgrounds of their membership—(upper) middle-class women—was similar. They approached the challenges working women faced almost identically, and the strategies they developed to support working women were also similar. I demonstrate that the communication and discursive strategies both associations employed to encourage working women to join trade unions and urge them to fight for the equal rights of women in the labour market paralleled each other. I also argue that, contrary to the accusations of the social democratic and Christian-socialist women’s associations of both countries, gawa and fa encouraged the employment of not only (upper) middle-class women and defended the interests of women workers from these groups but did so also for women in the lower classes. However, their means to achieve the latter goal were limited. Additionally, I evaluate how successful the two organizations were in using their press to convince their female followers (members, readers of the journals, and their supporters) to join trade unions and (actively) participate in labour activism.4
Organized on the basis of modern ideals, gawa and fa rejected the principles of traditional women’s organizations of the early nineteenth century. Instead of charity work, they made an effort to use practical tools to support women. They pursued a rich variety of politics related to women’s work and carried out a wide range of activities related to job placement and the protection of working women’s interests, which has been an under-studied dimension of these organizations in scholarship on both countries thus far.5 There are also several identical features of these organizations’ journals in relation to their profile, structure, and content, including the strategies of their respective editorial offices. Furthermore, it is possible to identify a group of Austrian and Hungarian publicists who published articles in all three journals and shared their thoughts on working women’s status and their labour activism in both countries.
1 Sources, Methodology
The basis of my arguments is my analysis of New Women’s Life, Woman and Society, and The Woman: A Feminist Journal, which uses the methods of critical discourse analysis and content analysis.6 I analyzed every issue of the three journals published between January 1907 and the military mobilization of early August 1914 from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. In total, this investigation included 98 issues (2,889 articles) from the Hungarian journals
In addition to enabling me to thoroughly analyze the structure and content of the journals, these methods helped reveal that the press activity of gawa and fa focused primarily on the general protection of women’s interests, specifically those of working women, as opposed to women’s suffrage. Furthermore, examining the discursive strategies employed by publicists is essential because linguistic-rhetorical and stylistic devices played a fundamental role in shaping the opinions and identities of working women.7 In the longer term, persuasive strategies were a crucial means of encouraging women to organize. Such an analysis, therefore, demonstrates that both the Austrian and Hungarian editorial offices of the above journals gave prominence to articles covering the economic emancipation of women living outside the Dual Monarchy, which can be explained by the transnational embeddedness of gawa and fa.
2 Aims of the Two Organizations in the Field of Labour Activism and Working Women’s Protection and Their Related Press Activity before 1914
In addition to the commonality of their objectives, working methods, membership, and the characteristic features of their press activities, many other strands directly linked gawa and fa. The two associations originated in the middle- and partly upper-class milieu of educated women (teachers, doctors, female office workers, and university students of Jewish origin, as well as the wives of aristocrats and the grande bourgeois) and had strong relationships with each other. Furthermore, both gawa and fa were directly or indirectly linked to several transnational women’s organizations, e.g., the International Council of Women (1888–, Washington, DC) and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (iwsa, 1904–, Berlin). However, fa was more successful in the international arena during the period examined here.
gawa began its activity in fin de siècle Vienna due to the initiative of Auguste Fickert (1855, Vienna–1910, Maria Enzersdorf, Austria), a middle-class teacher, women’s rights activist, and devoted pacifist, who was the future editor-in-chief (Herausgeberin) of New Women’s Life. She was not only a leading figure of the radical (progressive) left-wing Austrian bourgeois-liberal (“bürgerlich-liberal”)
In comparison to other contemporary Austrian women’s associations, the radicalism of gawa was most obvious in its treatment of the closely interconnected issues of the plight of domestic servants and prostitution. Regarding the latter issue, gawa members did not believe that the legislation in place would restrict commercial sex. Meanwhile, in every arena, they sought to stress the importance of sexual education for children, which they represented as a partial solution for the problems related to the handling of domestic servants, i.e., to the “misery of maids,” as it was framed at the time. They called for the introduction of working women’s maternity support and the reform of marital legislation. From its very beginning, gawa advocated for the reform of the entire civil law code (Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch), which had been in effect since 1811.10
After the death of Auguste Fickert, Leopoldine Kulka (1872, Vienna–1920, Vienna), a journalist, board member of gawa, co-editor of New Women’s Life, and one of Fickert’s “best students” (Schülerin), was elected vice-president in 1911. She filled this position until her death. After 1910, the presidency remained vacant. As a devoted pacifist, Kulka actively participated in the establishment of the Austrian Branch of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (Österreichischen Zweiges der Internationalen Frauenliga für Frieden und Freiheit, 1920–1938, Vienna) and formulated close contacts with the leaders of fa.11 During her tenure as the leader of gawa and editor of New Women’s Life, Kulka was able to rely on Christine Touaillon (1878, Jihlava, Bohemia–1928, Graz), a gawa board member. In addition to these two women, another board member, Adele Gerber (1863, Vienna–1937, Vienna) is worth mentioning; she
fa was founded in 1904 at the international initiative of iwsa.12 Aletta Jacobs (1854, Sappemeer, Netherlands–1929, Baarn, Netherlands), a leading member of iwsa and the Dutch progressive women’s movement in 1902, was the leading voice behind its establishment, although at this stage, she was still thinking in terms of a joint Austro-Hungarian organization.13 In the end, fa established as an independent Hungarian auxiliary organization of iwsa. It was led by Vilma Glücklich (1872, Vágújhely/Nové Mesto nad Váhom/Neustadt an der Waag–1927, Vienna) and Rosika Schwimmer (1877, Budapest–1948, New York), two prominent activists involved in the Hungarian and international women’s and peace movements at the time. As a young bookkeeper, Schwimmer participated in the establishment and in the leadership of another progressive Hungarian organization dedicated to protecting woman office workers: the National Association of Women Office Workers (Nőtisztviselők Országos Egyesülete, nawow, Budapest, 1896–1919).14 Schwimmer chaired the political committee of fa between 1904 and 1920. She had been well embedded in the international women’s movement since the beginning of the 1900s, and she also became an internationally renowned publicist during these years. She was one of the first Hungarian women to earn a living from her journalism.15 Because of her experience in publishing, she was elected editor of Woman and Society, and in 1914, she became the managing editor of The Woman: A Feminist Journal. Vilma Glücklich, the first women to receive a degree at the University of Budapest, a teacher, and the closest colleague and friend of Schwimmer, served as president of fa from its establishment almost until her death. She also took on an essential role in the organization of the women’s international peace movement during and after World War One.16
We wish for a woman to acquire economic independence, such that she does not have to be restricted by financial considerations when selecting her life partner […], or the financial rewards of her work, so she may spend her own income, and that of her parents or her husband, on acquiring goods of genuine value.17
Besides the protection of working women’ interests (including industrial workers, agricultural employees, and domestic servants, along with those employed in the liberal professions), fa’s goals included the campaign for the extension of women’s institutional education and the battle against prostitution and the trafficking of girls. fa also struggled to prevent the exploitation of female labourers and solve the legally unsettled situation of domestic servants.18 Related to these issues, like gawa, fa allocated space in its official organs to discuss issues related to prostitution and the trafficking of girls, topics that were still considered taboo in the press of the Austrian and Hungarian social democratic and Christian socialist movements.19
Vienna, under the leadership of the Christian socialist politician Karl Lueger (1844, Vienna–1910, Vienna; mayor 1897–1910), was by no means an idyllic setting for a women’s association that wanted to promote the radical emancipation of women. In addition to ensuring gawa would receive publicity, Auguste Fickert and her fellow women were constantly fighting against what they branded the “Christian socialist scourge.”20 Unlike their Austrian counterpart, fa managed to win the support of the city administration of Budapest shortly after its establishment. As mayor of the Hungarian capital, István Bárczy (1866, Pest–1943, Budapest; mayor between 1906–1919), a member of National Democratic Civil Party, contributed considerable sums to fund fa’s operations, and more specifically to support its labour exchange. The contrast
An important aspect of this analysis is that the three journals essentially capture the moment when a self-conscious but not yet politically empowered group of (upper) middle-class Austrian and Hungarian women stepped out of obscurity and began leaving their mark on public life, in part through the press. New Women’s Life, Woman and Society, and The Woman: A Feminist Journal are distinctive because they were the first modern feminist journals in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy that gave women the space to make their voices heard on issues of labour activism. Their editors created an entirely new discursive space in which women’s work and women’s labour activism played central roles. The two associations and their journals closely collaborated, and publishing and communicating with their respective supporters and the general public through the periodicals were important dimensions of their labour activism. All the three periodicals, however, had a relatively restricted readership (compared to e.g., more popular family journals or fashion magazines). In terms of their social background, subscribers and readers of the journals, similar to the membership of the associations, were composed of (upper) middle-class women and men living in Vienna and Budapest and, primarily in the case of Hungary, in a few economically and socially more developed provincial cities.
In addition to the similarities between the journals (their structure, content, communication strategies, advertising policies, and use of images) and the indirect contacts between the associations within the framework of transnational women’s organizations, the editorial offices of gawa and fa were closely connected. Schwimmer’s first publications outside Hungary were published in the first official organ of gawa entitled Documents of Women (Dokumente der Frauen, 1899–1902, Vienna) and later in New Women’s Life, which she began contributing to regularly, publishing articles on the situation and perspectives of working women in Hungary. gawa and later fa considered it crucial to secure their press, and they made significant financial sacrifices to keep their journals alive. Their strategies to achieve this were shared in letters Auguste Fickert, Adele Gerber, and later Leopoldine Kulka exchanged with Rosika Schwimmer. Schwimmer turned to her Austrian colleagues for guidance several times when fa started planning the publication of Woman and Society. Occasionally she
3 Female Work and Women’s Labour Activism in the Journals of gawa and fa
A content analysis of articles published in the press organs of gawa and fa22 reveals that the Austrian and Hungarian journals devoted the greatest attention to women’s work and women’s labour activism in their thematic content.23 During the period between January 1907 and August 1914, 29 percent (556 articles) of the articles appearing in New Women’s Life and 35 percent (1,021 articles) of articles published in the Hungarian periodicals discussed these issues. Compared to this, the proportion of articles on female suffrage in the Hungarian journals was 15 percent.24 The proportion was 12 percent in New Women’s Life, which is partly the result of §30 of the law on associations (Vereinsgesetz). This law was enacted in Austria in 1867 and excluded women from membership in political associations and prohibited (theoretically) women’s organizations from publishing on female suffrage in their journals until 1918. Board members of gawa and the editorial office of New Woman’s Life worked to get around this law, and in addition to engaging in political activism, they published articles on the issue. Nevertheless, the number of articles about
Because women’s work and women’s labour activism were the most frequently discussed subjects, it is necessary to examine how the journals discussed these topics in greater detail. Through this analysis, three main tendencies emerged, which will be discussed in the following sections.25 First, the intellectual, scientific, and artistic work of women living outside the borders of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was the most frequently discussed topic in all three journals. Their aggregated ratio was 56.5 percent among articles dealing with women’s work and women’s labour activism. The foregrounding of this topic can be explained by the social background of gawa’s and fa’s membership. Certainly, editors wanted to inspire their readers’ career development strategies by providing them with a number of positive examples, especially from more industrially developed Western countries. The second comprehensive group of articles represents the labour activism of the organizations on behalf of middle-class working women. Regarding Woman and Society and The Woman: A Feminist Journal, a considerable proportion of articles examined the working conditions and the organization of women office workers, which was due to nawow’s contributions to the publications. Finally, articles representing the discursive strategies used by the associations and editorial offices to discuss the vulnerable situation of working lover-class women constitute the third cluster. Below, I highlight a few typical examples to illustrate the general characteristics of articles in these three categories.
Articles belonging in these clusters use a specific discourse with distinctive linguistic, stylistic, and communicative elements, demonstrating the significant overlap of the Austrian and Hungarian journals. Similarities can also be observed in terms of the articles’ structure and the journalistic genres that provided frameworks for discussing each topic. One reason for this resemblance is that Rosika Schwimmer honed her journalistic skills through her work for the Austrian women’s and women’s movement press, i.e., largely gawa and the
Gender-specific labour activism played a prominent role in the activism of both gawa and fa, which is reflected on the pages of their journals. This was clearly stated in the statutes of the associations as well, which resonate with each other to a significant degree. According to the 1893 statute of gawa, the aim of the association “is to promote […] the economic interests of women.”26 In line with this, fa formulated its objectives in 1905 as follows: “[the aim of fa is] the emancipation of Hungarian women in all fields and the protection of women’s labour interests.”27 The practical framework of this was fixed by the Legal Aid Section (Rechtsschutz-Sektion) of gawa and by the Career and Practical Counsellor’s Institution (Pályaválasztási Tanácsadó, Gyakorlati Tanácsadó) of fa. While the main profile of gawa’s Legal Aid Section was to support women in need and to provide them with legal advice free of charge, the Career and Practical Counsellor’s Institution focused on career counselling, job placement, and on the organization of (re)training courses for women.28 All the three journals regularly reported on these institutions’ achievements and the challenges they faced.
3.1 Foreign Women’s Intellectual, Scientific, and Artistic work as Inspiration for Labour Activism
More than half the articles on women’s work published in New Women’s Life dealt with the intellectual, scientific, and artistic work (57 percent) of women living outside the Monarchy. In the Hungarian journals, the proportion was almost the same (56 percent). Although I have briefly indicated the reasons editors devoted more attention to women working in these kinds of professions outside the Monarchy than those living and working within the borders, it is worth examining the issue in greater detail. In addition to the international networks of gawa’s and fa’s leaders, the organizations had similar strategies for covering these issues in their journals. Both organizations purchased the periodicals of the German women’s movement, the content of which
In Anglo-Saxon countries, France, and Germany, women in the early twentieth century were able to take up (albeit not in large numbers) jobs that were closed to Austro-Hungarian women until 1914. For this reason, the editors of the journals intended to provide positive examples for progressive-minded members of gawa and fa. Both Auguste Fickert and Rosika Schwimmer as well as other members of the respective editorial offices of fa’s and gawa’s journals considered it essential to inform their readers about the career opportunities of foreign women, most often in the form of very short, two or three-line news items. They supplemented these pieces of objective news with their own commentaries, encouraging their readers to use their knowledge to obtain professional qualifications and a job that would provide a decent living.
Articles in this category can be further divided into three sub-categories. In the first category are articles about the first women employed in certain careers.30 In the second category are articles about the longer history of women’s successful integration into certain occupational fields.31 The third category of articles features reports of honors and prizes awarded to women who had excelled in their professions.32 Articles in all three categories are generally brief, mentioning only the bare facts, and do not include any information on these women’s working conditions. All three journals mention the women by name, obviously hoping to bring them closer to readers. New Women’s Life once reported that the most talented architect in New York City was a woman (“Frau Kellog”). The article listed her work and the buildings she had designed, but her first name was not revealed.33 Similar articles were published in Woman
Below are some typical examples of articles editorial offices used to inspire their readers. Several times, articles in the Austrian and Hungarian periodicals published the exact same news, which was either because the editors of the Hungarian journals took articles from New Women’s Life or that all the editors subscribed to the same journals. Both New Women’s Life and Woman and Society reported on the first female mayor of Europe in 1908. While the Vienna journal reported only that “in the small Buckinghamshire town of Hygh-Wycombe, a lady, Mrs. Dove, has been elected mayor,” editors of Woman and Society considered it important to share a few details about her family life and her children as well.37 This might have been a strategy to convince their married readers with children that a family does not necessarily preclude women from having a career.
3.2 The Representation of Labour Activism Done by Organizations on Behalf of Middle-Class Women
Articles in the second cluster represent the gender-specific labour activism performed by gawa and fa on behalf of middle-class women. Articles in this category are longer than the news pieces in the first category, and they reflect the views of the editorial offices, moving away from objective reporting. Furthermore, their content is provocative, emotionally charged, and their authors’ enthusiasm, anger, indignation, and even disillusionment is often perceptible. The same holds true for their titles.38
Between 1909 and 1911, New Women’s Life regularly reported on one of gawa’s most important projects, namely the construction work around Heimhof,39
The editorial office of New Women’s Life regularly drew parallels between the working conditions of middle-class women abroad and those in Austria. In 1908, the journal reported that Finnish universities had opened their faculties of law to women, which the editors predicted would soon happen in Austria.41 Obviously they were wrong as the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna was opened to women only ten years later.42 The periodical also reported on the proposals to extend old-age pension and medical insurance to women working in domestic service and agriculture, and used Anglo-Saxon countries as positive examples in connection with these developments.43 Editors also devoted lengthy articles to the “actress question.” Like several periodicals of the German women’s movement, the editors of New Women’s Life repeatedly reminded their readers of the sad financial state of actresses, “who had no wages for six months after the end of the season, between September and Pentecost.”44
The situation of Austrian female teachers working in public schools was also a frequent subject of articles in New Women’s Life. In addition to sharing articles about their working conditions and organizations, gawa actively tried to advocate on their behalf by submitting petitions to the House of Representatives, and publishing them in the journal as well. In 1908, gawa called for the employment of female language teachers in boys’ secondary schools.45 Following the death of Auguste Fickert, the new leadership of gawa continued to promote
Hungarian journals, while praising the labour activism of women living primarily in England, France, Germany, and Austria, sharply criticized Hungarian conditions, sometimes with irony, other times with anger. Concerning achievements in the social policy of other countries, readers were informed that in England and Austria, “domestic work” (work in cottage industry) was regulated by decrees that prevented the exploitation of women “engaged in the manufacturing of clothes, lingerie, and shoes.”48 It must have been rather bizarre for readers of Woman and Society to hear about the work of Marie Raschke (1850, Gaffert, Germany–1935, Berlin), one of the leaders of the legal committee of the Federation of German Women’s Associations (Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine, 1894–1933), who was planning to establish a bank “to promote women’s efforts to become self-reliant” in Berlin. An institution like this would have been unimaginable in Hungary.49 The situation of teachers in Western countries was also given a positive spin: In 1908, it was reported that the German state had finally authorized a few teachers to marry (albeit on a case-by-case basis).50 As mentioned above, the Hungarian journals also appreciated the labour activism of Austrian women. In 1910, they shared a statistic according to which women workers’ organizing and activism in Austria surpassed that of men. This, according to the editorial office of Woman and Society, was “a sign that the enthusiastic agitation of their leaders was able to make progress even in such unfavorable times.”51
Commonly discussed topics were the need to increase women’s wages, the proposed ban on Sunday work and the night shift, the lack of appropriate institutions for maternity and child protection, and the issue of health insurance. In 1911, when the ban on women’s night work was about to be introduced in
The revision of the wage scheme for civil servants was also a recurring subject in the Hungarian journals. nawow made several petitions to the Ministry of Commerce, asking them to remedy problems. Again, following the model of New Women’s Life’s editorial office, the texts of these petitions were published in the journals. Board members of fa intensively worked on opening up “higher prestige” careers to women. Several polemical articles were published to legitimize women’s presence in professions that heretofore were performed only by men. Well-known agricultural specialists drew readers’ attention to the value of qualified women in the field of farming. An article in this subject stated, “if the devotion and contribution of women in this field was more emphasized,” it would also solve several problems related to women’s emancipation.53
Both organizations vigorously encouraged working women to “join their professional organizations [to advocate] for their own interests.”54 Furthermore, the labour activism of several of the institutions established by gawa and fa, which was undertaken on behalf of middle-class women, was significant. While gawa was not capable of doing much beyond its legal aid service, fa’s consultancy offices were more effective. Articles in fa’s journals regularly reported on the popular career counseling services and parents’ meetings, which offered guidance to younger women and their parents and also publicized the discussion evenings organized by fa. A series of language or vocational training courses were organized by fa, for example, on typing, shorthand, and business correspondence.55 Through these trainings, leaders of fa sought to overcome the shortcomings of, and therefore supplement, secondary vocational education in Hungary.56
3.3 Discourse Strategies for Covering the Unprotected Situation of Lower-class Women
Articles covering the unprotected status and exploitation of working-class women compose the third cluster of articles. Among the three categories of
The few articles discussing the lack of working-class women’s labour activism served as a tool for the fa to promote its own communication strategies and to act as if it had been actively and intensively addressing these issues. The editors’ intention to encourage their readers to take collective action against the injustices lower-class women had to endure in their workplaces remained only theoretical. Although authors of the articles painted vivid pictures of the disastrous conditions of women working in tobacco factories or garbage dumps, they could do little to prevent their exploitation. And because these articles were most probably not read by lower-class women, the publicists only aim could have been educating (upper) middle-women about these issues. gawa and fa pursued this kind of education also within the framework of lecture series and debates involving the participation of lawyers and economists. Neither the majority of gawa and fa members nor readers of the journals had first-hand experience and information about the living and working conditions of lower-class women. Nevertheless, they made an effort to collect information on the issue: Rosika Schwimmer, for example, used to contact factory managers and trade union leaders to receive information and statistics on the situation of these women.
As a result of these factors, a serious conflict on this issue emerged among the different branches of women’s organizations. Austrian and Hungarian social democratic and Christian socialist organizations accused gawa and fa of fighting for the improvement of only (upper) middle-class women’s working conditions and of fighting for women’s rights only on paper and with words, i.e., in theory. In the meantime, the social democratic women’s associations organized loud demonstrations, and Christian social groups tried to solve the “misery of maids” in practice, which was one of the major social problems in both Austria and Hungary at the time. Christian socialists also opened training schools for domestic servants as well as servants’ homes.
Within the framework of women’s education, Woman and Society reported several times on women’s work in industry, for example, in the milling industry—one pillar of the Hungarian economy—in which female labourers worked thirteen hours a day.57 The situation of female workers employed in the chemical industry was also addressed.58 Poems criticizing “male despotism” also served editors’ aims: on the one hand, they sought to evoke sympathy and pity from their readers; on the other hand, they used discursive strategies to shock and rouse their readers from their apathy.59 Regarding female labour in industry, New Women’s Life shared some positive news as well. In 1909, the journal enthusiastically reported that a number of vocational schools where girls could be trained as seamstresses, milliners, jewelers, and florists had been opened in Austria.60 It was also reported that the Austrian education system encouraged girls to become hairdressers, children’s dressmakers, and gold, silver, and pearl cutters.61 However, one year later, the editorial office complained that although women could pursue industrial studies in Austria, they were rarely employed as apprentices, making it difficult for them to find employment in these fields.62
The only area where gawa and fa members had direct experience was the issue of domestic servants because several members could afford to employ domestic help. Both gawa and fa regularly addressed the issue of domestic
It is worth taking a closer look at the reasons the issue of domestic servants was underrepresented in all three papers. Some sources suggest that there may have been a “division of labour” between the bourgeois-liberal feminist and the social democratic movements on this issue; that is, that while bourgeois-liberal feminist organizations agreed to report primarily on the working conditions and labour activism of middle-class women, the social democratic organizations would cover the issue of domestic servants. Following this logic, the journals may not have devoted more space to the issue of domestic servants because it was of little relevance to middle-class women’s career-building strategies. Another potential interpretation is that the editorial offices were more concerned with actually solving problems rather than discussing them. As such, they were more focused on providing employment opportunities for women without qualifications and ensuring their legal protection within the framework of gawa’s legal aid service and fa’s Career and Practical Counsellor Institutions.
4
This chapter homes in on a distinct moment in the history of women’s civil society in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, when women joining the newly established modern women’s associations began to advocate for the protection of their (women’s) interests. Comparing the work of the two most powerful bourgeois-liberal feminist associations of the Dual Monarchy and their official press organs, which chronicled these moments of activism before 1914, it demonstrates that the journals—which reveal a number of similarities between the Hungarian and Austrian associations—provided a public forum for gawa and fa to discuss how to effectively represent the interests of working women. The chapter also shows that gawa helped stimulate the newly established fa and its labour activism, highlighting that fa’s labour activism became more strident in some respects by the eve of World War One. In connection to the knowledge transfer between gawa and fa, I have explained the importance of the personal contacts and relationships between the leaders of the two associations and members of the Vienna and Budapest editorial offices of New Women’s Life, Woman and Society, and The Woman: A Feminist Journal. These kinds of connections between the Austrian and the Hungarian bourgeois-liberal feminist women’s movements challenge both the nationalist perspective of the existing Hungarian historical scholarship on the movement and the widespread methodological nationalism in Austria, which has resulted in an over-emphasis on the German-speaking organizations of the Monarchy.
In addition to its contributions to the history of Austrian and Hungarian women’s intellectual work, this chapter offers fresh insight into the history of women’s employment in industry, agriculture, and in the rapidly developing service sector. The three categories of articles discussed above were associated with the particular discursive strategies employed by the respective editorial offices of the three papers—where there was significant overlap with respect to personnel. As articles in each of the three categories reveal, there were important similarities and differences in the way gawa and fa communicated with their followers and addressed the wider public. Relatedly, the primary aim of the editors and publicists was neither the castigation of politicians nor criticism of men in general. Rather, both Austrians and Hungarians sought to promote women’s labour activism and offer solutions to those working women’s problems that had not yet been resolved by social welfare policies.
In addition to the (upper)-middle classes’ efforts to safeguard the interests of working women, gawa and fa sought to defend working women from the lower classes. However, their means in this respect were limited. Despite this, the labour activism of gawa and fa can still be considered successful
It was the war that brought about changes to issues related to women’s work and education, as the conflict made necessary women’s employment in many jobs that had been historically filled exclusively by men before 1914. The war also led to gawa and fa adopt some of the same principles as many proletarian and Christian socialist women’s societies.
Rigler 1976, 54–55; Sullerot 1972, 143.
For more details, see Gyáni 2020; Maderthaner 1986; Appelt 1985.
Anderson 1992, 35–38. For the history of women’s organizations in Austria and Hungary, see, e.g., Hauch 2006, 965–1003; Zimmermann 1999.
This research is based on my PhD dissertation, in which I analyzed the history and the press activity of gawa and fa between 1893 and 1918: Czeferner 2020. For the results of this research as it relates to press history, see Czeferner 2021.
In Hungary, the lack of focus on this subject is partly because of the preoccupation of the secondary scholarship with female suffrage. For some exceptional studies dealing with this rich variety of politics, see Hauch 2006, 965–1003; Bader-Zaar 1999, 365–383; Zimmermann 1999; Mucsi 1980, 333–342.
I relied on the principles of Allan Bell and Teun A. van Dijk, who developed critical discourse analysis. van Dijk 2006; Bell 1991. These principles were adapted to my sources.
On this, see von La Roche 2008; van Dijk 2006, 116–120.
Hacker 2006, 131–133.
Stenographishes Protokoll 1893, 8–13.
Malleier 2001, 48–59.
Letter from Auguszta Rosenberg to Rosika Schwimmer, 4 December 1904, Rosika Schwimmer Papers [rsp], Box 6, New York Public Library Manuscripts and Archives Division [nypl], General Correspondence i.a. MssCol6398.
Letter from Aletta Jacobs to Rosika Schwimmer, 1 August 1902, rsp, Box 6, nypl, General Correspondence i.a. MssCol6398.
It must be noted at this point, that besides fa, nawow was also involved in the publication of Woman and Society and The Woman: A Feminist Journal until 1915. The cornerstone of their cooperation, dominated by fa, will not be discussed here as they are of little relevance to the topic of this chapter. For the objectives of nawow, see A Nőtisztviselők Országos 1909.
Zimmermann and Major 2006, 484–491.
Zimmermann 2006, 162–166.
Tájékoztatás a Feministák Egyesületének céljairól és munkatervéről [Report on the objectives and plan of work of the Feminists’ Association], 1905, Feministák Egyesülete [Feminists’ Association, hereafter fa], item a, P999, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [National Archives of Hungary, MNL OL].
As outlined in the document referenced in footnote 17.
Fickert even published a mocking poem entitled “Dignity of Women” (Würde der Frauen) to criticize Karl Lueger and Christian socialist women’s organizations. Ehmer 1996, 73–92.
Gehmacher 2011, 58–64.
For the searchable Excel database of articles from the three journals between 1907–1918, see SchwimmerBlog, Cikkadatbázisok [Article database],
Categorization of the articles was based on their subject-matter and by the selection of words of primary importance (key words) in their texts (Andor 2009). According to my classification, articles were published on the following topics: alcoholism, actualism, general women’s rights, family law, fashion, high cost of living, child protection, war/peace/pacifism, literature, white slavery, women’s labour and women’s labour activism, sexuality, women’s movements in general, education, prostitution, and women’s suffrage.
This does not reflect earlier claims of the theoretical literature. See, e.g., Nagyné 2001; Nagyné 1981.
Articles published on women’s work and women’s labour activism were grouped into the following sub-categories: placement service of the association, domestic servants, health care, intellectual work, industrial work, exploitation of women labourers, work in the field of traffic, agricultural work, gender-specific labour protections, artistic work, women clerks, working women in the field of sport, women’s labour activism, social work, women’s labour in the service sector, scientific work, and general labour law.
A Feministák Egyesülete 1905 évi közgyűlésén elfogadott alapszabály-módosításai [Amendments to the statutes of the Feminists’ Association, adopted at the 1905 Annual General Meeting], April 1905, Box 1, item a, P999, MNL OL.
Tájékoztatás a Feministák Egyesületének céljairól és munkatervéről [Report on the objectives and plan of work of the Feminists’ Association], 1905, item a, P999, MNL OL, 3–4; Bader-Zaar 1999, 365–383.
A Feministák Egyesülete idegen nyelven előfizetett lapjai [Foreign language journals of the fa], Box 55–58, P999, MNL OL; Box 1, item a, P999, MNL OL.
“Szemle” 1907. The newly elected women members of the Finnish Parliament are listed by names in the article. See “Rundschau. Ausland” 1910.
“Különféle hírek” 1908a: “Eight women now practice as lawyers in Paris,” meaning that the number has doubled compared to the previous year.
“Különféléit [sic!]” 1911. The Grand Prize of the French Academy of Fine Arts went to the sculptor “Heuvelmanns Lucienne,” a name that was Magyarized and probably misprinted.
E.g., “Some of the hard work men do.” Here, the journalist criticized men who considered child-rearing and housekeeping an easy task. “A férfiak némely súlyos munkája” 1907.
Kulka 1911; “Aufruf zur Schaffung eines Einküchenhauses” 1909.
Bader-Zaar 1999, 365–383.
Workers were given a business license, and their working hours and wages were regulated. Ferenczi 1907.
The text of the brief news piece is the following: “Married teachers have not been tolerated in the profession, but now this injustice is being changed.” “Különféle hírek” 1908a.
Schwimmer and other board members of fa called for the ban or at least the restriction of men’s night-shift work as well. “Mérleg” 1911.
The author added that “the state is the supplier of the material for prostitution” (“Szemle” 1908).
In 1910, 19.3 percent of the workforce employed in the chemical industry were women. See Mucsi 1980, 333–342.
Charlotte Gilman Perkins (1860, Hartford, ct–1935, Pasadena, ca) was a famous American feminist. In her poem on child labour, she highlights the man’s heartlessness toward his child: “Only the human father, the clever, thinking soul, Eats the wages of his child’s labour with a light heart.” Gilman-Perkins 1911.
Vocational schools for women were opened in Vienna, Graz, Klagenfurt, Prague (Praha, Prag), Brno (Brünn), and Olomouc (Olmütz). “Inland” 1909a.
“Inland” 1909a.
See the article by the artist Lili Baitz (1872, Bad Aussee, Austria–1942, Bad Aussee, Austria): “The (industrial and craft) schools are largely open to them, but they are not admitted to the workshops. Nowhere are girls accepted as apprentices. However talented they may be, it is very difficult for them to acquire more than dilettantish skill in their respective trades.” Baitz 1908.
On this subject matter, see Gyáni 2000; Zimmermann 1999; Gyáni 1983.
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