Feminist Activism, Travel and Translation around 1900

The right to vote, equal access to education and work, protection from exploitation - these were some of the demands of the women`s movements that emerged in many countries around 1900. A large number of women from different walks of life took part. This book examines how the knowledge and ideas of these movements spread across national and linguistic borders. What ways did activists find to exchange concepts, arguments and strategies? Three transnational forms of mediation that have been little discussed in the history of the women`s movement are at the centre of the study: travel, translation and journalism. Tying in with questions of translation studies, transnational conceptual history, cultural studies travel research and media history, this study thus develops new perspectives on women`s movements around 1900. It shows how intensively women`s movements in the transatlantic space were connected with each other - even when their self-image referred to their own country and they were subsequently remembered primarily in national historical contexts. The project pleads for a consistently transnational perspective on social and political movements in order to overcome limitations to national-historical questions and methodological nationalism. The aim is to document exchange relations, networks and mutual influences, but also hierarchies between states and societies, which were also expressed in the relations between women`s movements. In a biographical case study of Käthe Schirmacher (1865 - 1930), a women`s rights campaigner who was as versatile as she was feisty, not only does the importance of language skills and intercultural competences become apparent, but it also becomes comprehensible what transnational lives many activists led. Using the example of publication projects in several languages - e.g. on the suffrage struggles in different countries - the study shows that not only information and knowledge, but also newly developed concepts (e.g. feminismé - feminism - Feminismus) circulated between the languages. When they changed in new contexts, they often took on new meanings that need to be traced. The examination of Käthe Schirmacher`s lecture, study and conference travels not only demonstrates the importance of intensive travel for women`s movements around 1900, but also the not always easy economic background of such travels and the difficult balance between living for the movement and living from the movement. Finally, the examination of journalism in the context of women`s movements not only documents the great public interest in women`s movement issues, but also shows how closely journals of the movement - for example through exchange subscriptions and correspondent reports - were networked with each other.