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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
In the early 1860s, the Ruhr Valley town of Dortmund had no schools for girls beyond the elementary level with the exception of a few private establishments that trained domestic servants. This dearth of educational opportunities is hardly surprising in a town of just 25,000 people at a time when even many larger German cities were bereft of secondary schools for girls. By 1914, however, when Dortmund's population had grown tenfold to well over 250,000, girls or their parents could choose among numerous types of institutions beyond the basic elementary school—several secondary schools, middle schools, and a variety of vocational and commercial institutions, most of them under municipal control.
1 Albisetti, James, Schooling German Girls and Women: Secondary and Higher Education in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988); “The Reform of Female Education in Prussia, 1899–1908: A Study in Compromise and Containment,” German Studies Review 8, no. 1 (February 1985): 11–41. For a concise overview History of Education Quarterly see also Kraul, Margret, “Höhere Mädchenschulen,” in Handbuch der deutschen Bildungs-geschichte, vol. 4, 1870–1980: Von der Reichsgründung bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs, ed. Berg, Christa (Munich: Beck, 1991), 279–303; Herrlitz, Hans-Georg, Hopf, Wulf, and Titze, Hartmut, Deutsche Schulgeschichte von 1800 bis zur Gegenwart: Eine Einführung, 3rd ed. (Weinheim: Juventa, 2002), 87–106. A detailed analysis of German girls’ education can be found in Kleinau, Elke and Opitz, Claudia, eds., Geschichte der Mädchen- und Frauenbildung, vol. 2, Vom Vormärz bis zur Gegenwart (Frankfurt a.M.: Campus, 1996).Google Scholar
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12 Children were enrolled in Volksschulen according to religious confession and attendance was compulsory until age fourteen. Lamberti, Marjorie, State, Society, and the Elementary School in Imperial Germany (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Kuhlemann, Frank-Michael, “Niedere Schulen,” in Handbuch, vol. 4, 179–207. On the conditions in Dortmund see Sollbach, Gerhard E., Das Dortmunder Schulwesen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Geschichte Dortmunds im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert 2 (Dortmund: Historischer Verein, 1991), 125–35. Many parents preferred private schools over municipal or state-sponsored schools because they would ensure exclusivity through tuition, see Schlüter, Anne, Neue Hüte – alte Hüte? (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1987), 59–61; Zinnecker, Jürgen, Sozialgeschichte der Mädchenbildung (Weinheim and Basel: Beltz, 1973), 49–51. Most municipal schools were established after mid-century, see Albisetti, Schooling German Girls, 37. In Westphalia, the first municipal higher girls’ school was established in 1826 in Minden, see Peter Lundgren, Margret Kraul, and Karl Ditt, Bildungschancen und soziale Mobilität in der städtischen Gesellschaft des 19. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), 48.Google Scholar
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17 A similar development occurred in the Westphalian town of Ratingen where Catholic and Protestant girls’ schools competed with each other, see Münster-Schröer, Frauen in der Kaiserzeit, 151–55.Google Scholar
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21 LArM/BASch, Nr. 3217, reviews for 1875, 1877, 1881, and 1882.Google Scholar
22 LArM/BASch, Nr. 3217, 30 October 1882, 24 November 1882, 9 March 1883; PArDo Nr. A13, 9 January 1883.Google Scholar
23 Dortmunder Zeitung, 4 February 1884. Two-hundred fifty-one students were Protestant, 37 Jewish.Google Scholar
24 LArM/BASch, Nr. 3217, letter dated January 1885.Google Scholar
25 In 1884, 202 municipal higher girls’ schools, 1,007 private institutions, and 14 state-sponsored schools existed in Prussia, according to Bertha von der Lage in “Das Mädchenschulwesen Deutschlands,” Allgemeiner Frauenkalender für 1885, ed. Morgenstern, Lina (Berlin: Verlag der Deutschen Hausfrauenzeitung, 1885), 234. In 1901, there were 213 public and 656 private higher girls’ schools in Prussia according to Bäumer and Lange, Handbuch, 156. On the predominance of private institutions in the nineteenth century see also Zinnecker, Sozialgeschichte, 32–38; and Albisetti, Schooling German Girls, 30–35.Google Scholar
26 StArDo-3, Nr. 2953, Blatt 219, 26 March 1885.Google Scholar
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29 StArDo-3, Nr. 2953, Blatt 10, 26 July 1886 and Blatt 18–20, 3 November 1886.Google Scholar
30 StArDo-3, Nr. 2953, Blatt 29, 5 March 1887; Blatt 40, 6 April 1887; Blatt 94, 12 July 1890. According to Goeker, enrollment at the municipal school had increased from 318 in 1887 to 468 in 1890.Google Scholar
31 StArDo-3, Nr. 2953, Blatt 98, 11 November 1890; underlined in the original.Google Scholar
32 StArDo-3, Nr. 2953, Blatt 101, 12 December 1890.Google Scholar
33 StArDo-3, Nr. 2889, Blatt 22, 4 January 1891.Google Scholar
34 LArM/KSchDo, Nr. 11, 1907.Google Scholar
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36 LArM/KSchDo, Nr. 11, 26 September 1902.Google Scholar
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44 StArDo-3, Nr. 2889, “Errichtung einer städtischen Mädchen-Mittelschule,” 1891.Google Scholar
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48 Marie Reinders Realschule, 37; Reinders's letter is reproduced.Google Scholar
49 StArDo-3, Nr. 2905, Blatt 71, 9 March 1909.Google Scholar
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51 Kirchlicher Anzeiger, 16 March 1913.Google Scholar
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56 StArDo-3, Nr. 2865, Blatt 30, 94, 234, 256–84. Housekeeping classes in Volksschulen were established in 1894 and continued to be taught at least until 1914.Google Scholar
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58 StArDo-3, Nr. 1744, Blatt 30, brochure of Bahte's school.Google Scholar
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