Alice Salomon (19 April 1872, Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 - 30 August 1948) was a German social reformer and pioneer of social work

Social work

Social Work is a professional and academic discipline that seeks to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of an individual, group, or community by intervening through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, and teaching on behalf of those afflicted with poverty or any real or...

 as an academic discipline. Her role was so important to German social work that a commemorative stamp (pictured) was issued in her memory. A university, a park and a square in Berlin are all named after her.

Biography

Alice Salomon was the third of eight children, and the second daughter, of Albert and Anna Salomon. Like many girls from affluent families in this period, she was denied further education, despite her ambition to become a teacher. This ended in 1893 when she was 21, and she recorded in her autobiography that this was "when her life began".

In 1900 she joined the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine ("Federation of German Women's Associations" - BDF hereinafter). In due course she was elected deputy chairman, and kept this role until 1920. (The Chairman was Gertrud Bäumer

Gertrud Bäumer

Gertrud Bäumer was a German politician who actively participated in the Feminist movement. She was also a writer, and contributed to Friedrich Naumann's paper Die Hilfe....

). The organisation supported destitute, abandoned, or single mothers and aimed to prevent their children being neglected.

From 1902 to 1906 she studied economics at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin, though she had no relevant qualification. Her publications were sufficient for university entrance. She earned her doctorate in 1908 with a dissertation entitled Die Ursachen der ungleichen Entlohnung von Männer- und Frauenarbeit (loosely, "Causes of Pay Inequality Between Men and Women"). Also in this year she founded a Soziale Frauenschule ("Social Women's School") in Berlin, which was renamed "Alice Salomon School" in 1932 and is now called Alice-Salomon-Fachhochschule für Sozialarbeit und Sozialpädagogik Berlin ("Alice Salomon College of Further Education for Social Work and Social Sciences of Berlin").

In 1909 she became secretary of the Internationalen Frauenbund ("International Women's Federation"). She converted from Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 to the Lutheran Church in 1914. In 1917 she was made chairman of the Konferenz sozialer Frauenschulen Deutschlands ("Conference of German Women's Social Schools") that she herself had founded; by 1919 sixteen schools belonged to it.

In 1920 she resigned from the BDF from fear of anti-semitic

Anti-Semitism

Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...

 propaganda. Five years later, she founded the Deutsche Akademie für soziale und pädagogische Frauenarbeit ("German Academy for Women's Social and Educational Work") which was directed by Hilde Lion. Speakers at this institution included Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...

, Carl Gustav Jung, Helene Weber

Helene Weber

Helene Weber was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union . She had an instrumental role in founding modern German law.-Biography:...

 and others of similar eminence.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, this organisation published thirteen monographs on the social and economic conditions faced by the poor in Germany. For Alice Salomon's 60th birthday, she received an honorary doctorate from Berlin University and the Silver State Medal from the Prussian State Ministry.

Treatment by the Nazis

In 1933 when they acceded to power, the Nazi party stripped her of all her offices and six years later, when she was 65, she faced interrogation by the Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

. The Nazis objected to Salomon's Jewish origins, her Christian humanist ideas, her pacifism and international reputation. She was expelled from Germany, where she had been running a relief committee for Jewish emigrants.

She went to New York, her German citizenship and her two doctorates having been taken from her. In 1944 she became an American citizen. A year later, she was honorary President of the International Women's Federation and the International Association of Schools of Social Work.

She died in New York.

Selected publications

Translator's note: These are in German.

• Charakter ist Schicksal, Lebenserinnerungen, herausgegeben von Rüdiger Baron und Rolf Landwehr, Beltz Verlag, Weinheim und Basel, 1983 ISBN 3-407-85036-0 (Auszug in: Lixl-Purcell (Hg): Erinnerungen deutsch-jüdischer Frauen 1900 - 1990 Reclam, Lpz. 1992 u.ö. ISBN 3379014230 S. 120 - 125)

Selected bibliography

Translator's note: These are in German.

• Elga Kern, Führende Frauen Europas, Sammelbuch, München 1927
• Muthesius, Hans, hrsg, Alice Salomon, die Begründerin des sozialen Frauenberufs in Deutschland, ihr Leben und ihr Werk. [von Dora Peyser et al.], Köln, C. Heymann 1958
• Margarete Hecker: Sozialpädagogische Forschung: Der Beitrag der Deutschen Akademie für soziale und pädagogische Forschung. In: Soziale Arbeit. 1984/Nr. 2, S. 106-121
• Joachim Wieler: Er-Innerung eines zerstörten Lebensabends - Alice Salomon während der NS-Zeit (1933-37) und im Exil (1937-48). Lingbach, Darmstadt 1987, ISBN 3-923982-01-1
• Manfred Berger (Pädagoge): Alice Salomon. Pionierin der sozialen Arbeit und der Frauenbewegung. Brandes & Apsel, Frankfurt am Main 1998. ISBN 3-86099-276-7
• Carola Kuhlmann: Alice Salomon. Ihr Lebenswerk als Beitrag zur Entwicklung der Theorie und Praxis sozialer Arbeit. Deutscher Studienverlag, Weinheim 2000, ISBN 3-89271-927-6
• Gudrun Deuter: Darstellung und Analyse der Vortragszyklen an der Deutschen Akademie für soziale und pädagogische Frauenarbeit in den Jahren 1925-1932. Bonn 2001 (unveröffentl. Diplomarbeit)
• Norbert Rühle: Jeanette Schwerin. Ihr Leben, ihr Werk und ihre Bedeutung für die Soziale Arbeit heute, München 2001 (unveröffentlichte Diplomarbeit)
• Anja Schüler: Frauenbewegung und soziale Reform. Jane Addams und Alice Salomon im transatlantischen Dialog, 1889-1933. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-515-08411-8
• Manfred Berger: Frauen in sozialer Verantwortung: Alice Salomon. In: Unsere Jugend. 2008/Nr. 10, S. 430-433

Source

This article was abridged and translated from :de:Alice Salomon in the German wikipedia

German Wikipedia

The German Wikipedia is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and mostly publicly editable online encyclopedia.Founded in March 2001, it is the second-oldest and, with over articles, the second-largest edition of Wikipedia, behind the English Wikipedia...

on 28 March 2009.

External links

Translator's note: These are in German.

• http://www.alice-salomon-archiv.de/start.html
• http://www.socialnet.de/rezensionen/2650.php
• http://www.taz.de/regional/berlin/aktuell/artikel/1/zum-glueck-gelangweilt/#Szene_1
• http://www.alice-salomon-berufskolleg.de/ASBK/