Lives of glamour and poverty: The actresses' movement in Germany, 1899--1919.
Item
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Title
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Lives of glamour and poverty: The actresses' movement in Germany, 1899--1919.
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Identifier
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AAI9959195
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identifier
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9959195
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Creator
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Klein, Sabine Macris.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Marvin Carlson
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Date
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2000
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Theater | History, European | Women's Studies | Sociology, Industrial and Labor Relations
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Abstract
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In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany, actresses' lives were frequently characterized by the phrase 'glamourous poverty.' Recognition of the economically desperate circumstances in which actresses were commonly found triggered a movement which attempted to reform their working situations. While examining the actresses' movement, this study at the same time provides a survey of acting as a profession for women in turn-of-the-century Germany.;The first area to draw the activism of actresses and their supporters among leaders of the actor's union, the managers' syndicate, the women's movement, and theatre critics was the system of costume provision. The issue spurred the creation of the Coordinating Office for Female Stage Personnel in 1899, the first organization of actresses with an activist goal: to alleviate financial distress among working actresses. Over the course of the next fifteen years, in promoting their rights to marry freely, bear children without penalty, and control the use of their salaries, actresses emphasized their similarity to other skilled, professional working women. German actresses attempted not only to improve their legal and economic situations by pursuing reforms in these areas, but also to achieve a degree of bourgeois respectability. By 1914, with support from the actors' union and national women's groups, actresses' attempts to lobby the German Reichstag for national theatre industry regulations which would include important protections for women performers were on the verge of fruition. The outbreak of World War I essentially destroyed these efforts for legislative regulation, but many of the reform goals pursued by actress activists before the war were finally achieved with the establishment of a national standard contract in 1919. Between 1899 and 1919, actresses obtained stronger legal protections, financial compensation for their work closer to that of their male peers, improved social status, and greater access to political structures that governed their lives. Despite the mixed success of many of the activists' efforts, actresses were agents in the change of their own social standing and the quality of their work lives.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
