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{{Expand German|Mathilde Franziska Anneke|date=July 2013}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2022}}
{{Infobox person
{{Infobox person
|name = Mathilde Franziska Anneke
| name = Mathilde Franziska Anneke
|lived =
| birth_name = Mathilde Franziska Giesler
|birth_date = {{birth date|1817|04|04}}
| birth_date = {{birth date|1817|04|04}}
|birth_place = [[Sprockhövel|Hiddinghausen]], [[Province of Westphalia|Westphalia]], [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]]
| birth_place = [[Sprockhövel|Hiddinghausen]], [[Province of Westphalia|Westphalia]], [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]]
|death_date = {{death date and age|1884|11|25|1817|04|04}}
| death_date = {{death date and age|1884|11|25|1817|04|04}}
|death_place = [[Milwaukee, Wisconsin]], USA
| death_place = [[Milwaukee, Wisconsin]], USA
|image = Mathilde_Franziska_Anneke.jpg
| image = Mathilde_Franziska_Anneke.jpg
|caption =
| caption =
|other_names =
| other_names =
|spouse =
| spouse =
|children =
| children =
|movement = [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]], [[Women's rights movement]], [[Revolutions of 1848 in the German states|German Revolution 1848/49]]
| movement = [[Abolitionist]], [[Communist]], [[Women's rights|Women's Rights Movement]], [[Revolutions of 1848 in the German states|German Revolution 1848/49]]
|organization = [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|SPD]], [[Communist]] (friend of [[Karl Marx]]), [[Republican Party (United States)]] (friend of Senator [[Carl Schurz]])
| organization = [[Republican Party (United States)]], [[International Workingman's Association|First International]], [[National Woman Suffrage Association | National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA)]]
|monuments =
| monuments =
|awards =
| awards =
}}
}}
'''Mathilde Franziska Anneke''' (April 3, 1817 – November 25, 1884) was a [[German Americans|German-American]] feminist and revolutionary socialist who dedicated her life to the dissemination of knowledge through her writing, newspapers, and school.
'''Mathilde Franziska Anneke''' ([[née]] '''Giesler'''; April 3, 1817 – November 25, 1884) was a German writer, feminist, and radical democrat who participated in the [[Revolutions of 1848|Revolutions of 1848–1849]]. In late 1849, she moved to the United States, where she campaigned to end slavery, agitated to enfranchise women, and ran a girls' school.


== Biography ==
== Biography ==


===Early life, 1817–1841===
She was born Mathilde Franziska Giesler in Hiddinghausen, [[Westphalia]], the oldest of twelve children. She was highly educated, as was typical for young women of higher social status during the [[Biedermeier|Biedermeyer]] period. Her father lost the family fortune, and by 1835, faced bankruptcy. Alfred von [[Tabouillot]], a wealthy wine merchant of French descent, offered to pay off the family debts in return for Anneke's hand in marriage.<ref name=":0" />


On April 3, 1817, Mathilde Franziska Giesler was born to a wealthy family in Hiddinghausen (today [[Sprockhövel]]) in the Prussian province of [[Westphalia]].<ref name="r1">Karin Hockamp. ''"Von vielem Geist und grosser Herzensgüte": Mathilde Franziska Anneke (1817-1884)''. Bochum: Brockmeyer Verlag, 2012, pp. 11-16.</ref> Her parents were Karl Giesler (or Gieseler), a prosperous mine owner, and Elisabeth (Hülswitt) Giesler. She was the eldest of twelve children.<ref name=Bremner>{{cite book| editor1-last=James |editor1-first=Edward T.| editor2-last=James|editor2-first=Janet Wilson|editor3-last=Boyer|editor3-first=Paul S.|chapter=Wald, Lillian D.| last1=Bremner |first1= Robert H.|authorlink= |title= [[Notable American Women, 1607–1950]]|volume=III|location= [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] |publisher=The Belknap Press of [[Harvard University Press]]|work=The President and Council of [[Radcliffe College]] |date=1971|isbn=0674627342|page=}}</ref>{{rp|50}} She was educated in languages, literature, history, and classical studies and mixed with the educated, left-leaning Germans in her parents' circle.<ref name="r1"/>
Alfred von Tabouillot was an alcoholic, and the unhappy marriage ended in divorce.<ref name=":0">Richards-Wilson, Stephani. [http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=204 "Mathilde Franziska Anneke (née Giesler).]" In ''Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present'', vol. 2, edited by William J. Hausman. German Historical Institute. Last modified June 30, 2014.</ref> The ensuing custody battle over the children influenced her feminist views greatly,<ref name="wisconsinhistory.org">{{Cite web|url=https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS494|title=Anneke, Mathilde, 1817-1884 |website= Wisconsin Historical Society|accessdate=August 25, 2020}}</ref> as Anneke was blamed for the failed marriage despite her husband's alcoholism and abuse.<ref name=":0" />


As a teenager, however, Giesler's family suffered a decline in fortune due to investment losses. Her marriage at age nineteen was one strategy to secure family finances.<ref name="r2">Annette Hanschke. "Frauen und Scheidung im Vormärz: Mathilde Franziska Anneke. Ein Beitrag zum Scheidungsrecht und zur Scheidungswirklichkeit von Frauen im landrechtlichen Preußen". ''Geschichte in Köln'', 34, no. 1 (1993): 67–98.</ref> Alfred von Tabouillot, a wealthy wine merchant, agreed to pay off Giesler's father's debts in return for her hand in marriage.<ref name="r2"/> The union was short-lived, however, as her new husband was abusive and drank to excess.<ref name="r2"/> Mathilde left Alfred within a year, taking her infant daughter, Johanna (known as "Fanny"), with her.<ref name="r2"/><ref name=Bremner/>{{rp|50}} The grueling process of obtaining an official divorce (secured in 1841) made it clear that law and custom left women and children vulnerable.<ref name="r2"/>
She later married [[Fritz Anneke]], a former Prussian artillery officer, whom she had met in [[Münster]], Westphalia, and the couple began publishing a daily newspaper for the working class in [[Cologne]]. When Fritz was jailed for his political activities, Mathilde continued to write, manage, and publish the paper until it was banned by the authorities in 1847. One year later, Mathilde started a new paper, the first German feminist newspaper, ''Frauen-Zeitung'', in 1848.<ref name="wisconsinhistory.org"/> Upon his release from prison, Mathilde later travelled with Fritz during the Prussian invasion of the [[Palatinate (region)|Palatinate]], writing about it.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://frauenmediaturm.de/mathilde-franziska-anneke-1817-1884/|title=Mathilde Franziska Anneke, Frauenrechtlerin|date=2018-04-18|website=FMT, FrauenMediaTurm, Feministisches Archive und Bibliothek|language=de-DE|access-date=2018-12-06}}</ref> In May 1849, she rode alongside Fritz as an unarmed [[orderly]] and served as a messenger.<ref name=":0" /> After the Prussian victory, the couple fled Germany and emigrated to the [[United States]].


===As a German radical, 1839–1850===
They settled in Milwaukee, where Anneke established herself as a feminist author and publisher, becoming a friend and colleague of [[Susan B. Anthony]] and [[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]].<ref name="wisconsinhistory.org"/> In March 1852, Mathilde started the first feminist journal in the United States published by a woman, the ''[[Die Deutsche Frauen-Zeitung|Deutsche Frauen-Zeitung]]''.<ref name="wisconsinhistory.org"/> Anneke halted publication of the journal after six issues because of opposition from male printers.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/mathilde-franziska-anneke/|title=Mathilde Franziska Anneke {{!}} Encyclopedia of Milwaukee|website=emke.uwm.edu|language=en-US|access-date=2018-01-29}}</ref> Anneke published in German, which was still widely used in the United States during the 19th century.


In 1839, Giesler moved to [[Münster]], where she worked as a writer, publishing fiction, poetry, and columns in periodicals and prayer books. Moving in radical circles, she met her second husband, [[Fritz Anneke|Friedrich (Fritz) Theodor Anneke]], in 1845. A passionate communist and former Prussian military officer, Fritz shared Mathilde Anneke's dream of creating a unified, democratic, and egalitarian Germany. The couple married on June 3, 1847, and moved to [[Cologne]] in the Rhine Province of Prussia.<ref name=Bremner/>{{rp|50}}
The Annekes were vocal opponents of slavery during the [[American Civil War]]. Fritz served in the [[Union army]], as colonel and commanding officer of the [[34th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment]]. Mathilde and Fritz's son [[Percy Anneke]] became later an entrepreneur in [[Duluth, Minnesota]], where he was one of the founders and owners of [[Fitger Brewing Company]] until he sold his shares at the beginning of the [[prohibition]] and moved to [[Pasadena, California]].


It was at this time that Anneke published a feminist treatise, ''Das Weib im Conflict mit den socialen Verhältnissen'' (Woman in Conflict with Society). In the 1847 piece defending [[Berlin]] feminist [[Luise Aston|Louise Aston]], Mathilde argued that society, and especially the Catholic Church, perpetuated a version of marriage that enslaved women.<ref name="r3">Bilic, Viktorija. "'Warum noch länger die demütige Magd, die ihrem Herrn die Füße wäscht?': Mathilde Franziska Anneke's Feminist Manifest Das Weib im Conflict mit den socialen Verhältnissen (1847)". ''The Sophie Journal'', 5, no. 1 (2020): 1–16.</ref> From that time on she distanced herself from organized religion.
In 1865, Anneke founded a girls' school in [[Milwaukee]] that remained open until 1884.<ref name=":0" />


Both Annekes organized and published in support of the democratic uprisings in Cologne in 1848. Mathilde continued writing and editing a newspaper after Prussian authorities briefly jailed Fritz for his dissent. In May 1849, shortly after having her first son (Fritz), Mathilde joined her husband in armed support of revolutionary forces in the southern state of [[Baden]]. Mathilde assisted Fritz on the battlefield, conveying messages on horseback. Eventually on July 23, 1849, Prussia and Baden defeated the revolutionary forces at [[Rastatt]], Baden.<ref name=Bremner/>{{rp|50}}
In 1858, four of Anneke's children caught [[smallpox]] and died. Her husband Fritz had refused to allow the family to be vaccinated. Shortly thereafter, Fritz traveled to Italy to report on the Italian independence movement; he and his wife would not live together for a long time.<ref name=":0" />

===In the United States and Switzerland, 1849–1865===

Like many other refugees of the Revolutions of 1848 (the [[Forty-Eighters]]), the Anneke family fled to the United States.<ref name=Bremner/>{{rp|50}} Following other relatives, they moved to [[Milwaukee]], Wisconsin, in 1849.<ref name="r4">Mischa Honeck. ''We Are the Revolutionists: German-Speaking Immigrants and American Abolitionists after 1848''. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011, pp. 104-136.</ref> This chapter of Anneke's life saw her publish beginning in 1852 the ''Deutsche Frauen-Zeitung'' (German Women's Newspaper), which was the first woman-owned feminist periodical in the United States. The new venture faced resistance from male printers who boycotted the periodical, and while Anneke continued publication in New Jersey in 1852, the ''Deutsche Frauen-Zeitung'' failed after a few years.<ref name="r4"/> Anneke continued to write for other German-language publications in the United States.

Anneke's time in New Jersey was fraught with tragedy as she lost four children, including her oldest son Fritz and three younger children. Johanna ("Fanny") left home, while Anneke, her husband, her son Percy, and her daughter Hertha returned to Milwaukee in 1858.

Soon after returning to Milwaukee, Anneke met the Anglo-American abolitionist [[Mary H. C. Booth|Mary Booth]], and the two developed a close relationship. There is some disagreement among scholars over how to characterize the relationship. Joey Horsley describes it as a lesbian one,<ref name="r5">{{cite web|last=Horsley|first=Joey|title=A German-American Feminist and Her Female Marriages: Mathilde Franziska Anneke (1817-1884)|access-date=April 17, 2021|url=https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/biography_extra/mathilde-franziska-anneke/|website=Fembio}}</ref> while Mischa Honeck describes it as a friendship exhibiting the emotional intensity common between female friends in the mid-nineteenth century.<ref name="r4"/> The two women did live together, pool their resources, raise each other's children, and express their passionate love for each other. Anneke moved in with Booth in 1859, while Fritz returned to Europe to report on the war in Italy.

In August 1860, Anneke and Booth moved to [[Zürich]], where they lived with Fritz until he sailed back to the United States to fight in the [[American Civil War]] in 1861. The Annekes continued to correspond regularly and sometimes show affection to each other, but they never lived together again. Meanwhile, Anneke and Booth raised three of their children and collaborated to write abolitionist fiction. "Die Sclaven-Auction" (The slave auction) appeared serially in ''Didaskalia'' that year, and other collaborative works would follow.<ref name="r4"/> They often struggled to get paid for their writing, and their husbands were not forthcoming with financial support, so the two women often had to go into debt to afford necessities. Both were also often unwell, and Booth's progressing [[tuberculosis]] finally convinced her to return to the United States in summer 1864 to see her oldest daughter and receive medical care.<ref name="r4"/> Anneke was devastated by the separation and saddened although not surprised to learn of Booth's death on April 11, 1865.

===Later life in the United States, 1865–1884===
[[File:Mathilde Franziska Anneke, 1874-75.jpg|thumb|upright|Anneke circa 1875]]
Anneke returned to Milwaukee in 1865 with another female friend, Cäcilie Kapp, and opened a private girls' school called the Töchter-Institut (Daughters' Institute).<ref name="r6">{{Cite web|title=Mathilde Franziska Anneke (née Giesler) (1817-1884)|last=Richards-Wilson|first=Stephanie|url= https://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entries/mathilde-franziska-anneke-neacutee-giesler/|website=immigrantentrepreneurship.org |access-date=April 17, 2021}}</ref><ref name=Bremner/>{{rp|51}} Some of Milwaukee's most prominent German American families sent their daughters to the school, and Anneke won wide respect in the community despite espousing views that identified her with radicalism.<ref name="r7">Michaela Bank. ''Women of Two Countries: German-American Women, Women's Rights and Nativism, 1848-1890''. New York: Berghahn Books, 2012, pp. 33-34.</ref>

Anneke had participated in women's suffrage events back in the 1850s and became more focused on the cause after the war. She corresponded with leaders such as [[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]], [[Susan B. Anthony]], and Elizabeth Miller. She was elected as a vice-president (representing Wisconsin) at the inaugural meeting of the [[National Woman Suffrage Association]] in 1869, joining women who protested that the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]] had not prohibited discrimination in voting law on the basis of sex as well as race. Woman suffrage was unpopular among men in the US, especially immigrant men, who associated it with temperance and Yankee Protestantism. Anneke found herself mediating between the organized suffrage movement and the immigrant community within which she felt comfortable.<ref name="r8">Alison Clark Efford. ''German Immigrants, Race, and Citizenship in the Civil War Era''. Cambridge University Press, 2013.</ref> In 1876, she founded a women-only chapter of the [[International Workingmen's Association]].<ref name="r8"/> Although she occasionally gave speeches in English, she preferred to use German throughout her life.

Mathilde Anneke died on November 23, 1884, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was buried in Milwaukee's [[Forest Home Cemetery]].<ref name=Bremner/>{{rp|51}}


==References==
==References==
Line 39: Line 57:


==Further reading==
==Further reading==
* Bus, Annette P. "Mathilde Anneke and the Suffrage Movement." In ''German Forty-Eighters in the United States''. Edited by Charlotte L. Brancaforte, 79–92. New York: Peter Lang, 1989.
* Efford, Alison Clark and Viktorija Bilic, eds. ''[https://ugapress.org/book/9780820360225/radical-relationships/ Radical Relationships: The Civil War–Era Correspondence of Mathilde Franziska Anneke]''. Trans. Viktorija Bilic. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2021. (Includes translations of some letters 1858–1865.)
* Haubrich, Paul. "[http://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/articles/class-of-1846-mathilde-franziska-anneke/ Class of 1846: Mathilde Franziska Anneke]". ''Milwaukee Independent'', May 22, 2016.
* Haubrich, Paul. "[http://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/articles/class-of-1846-mathilde-franziska-anneke/ Class of 1846: Mathilde Franziska Anneke]". ''Milwaukee Independent'', May 22, 2016.
* Krueger, Lillian. "[https://content.wisconsinhistory.org/digital/collection/wmh/id/11410 Madame Mathilda Franziska Anneke: An Early Wisconsin Journalist]". ''Wisconsin Magazine of History'', vol. 21, no. 2 (December 1937): 160-167.
*Krueger, Lillian. "[https://content.wisconsinhistory.org/digital/collection/wmh/id/11410 Madame Mathilda Franziska Anneke: An Early Wisconsin Journalist]". ''Wisconsin Magazine of History'', vol. 21, no. 2 (December 1937): 160–167.
* "Mathilde Franziska Anneke." ''Lexikon Westfälischer Autorinnen und Autoren, 1750 bis 1950''. <nowiki>http://www.lwl.org/literaturkommission/alex/index.php?id=00000003&layout=2&author_id=00000280</nowiki>. Accessed August 19, 2017.
* Piepke, Susan L. ''Mathilde Franziska Anneke (1817 - 1884): The Works and Life of a German-American Activist (including English translations of "Woman in Conflict with Society" and "Broken Chains")''. New York: Peter Lang, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0820479132}}.
*Ortlepp, Anke. "''Auf denn, Ihr Schwestern!": Deutschamerikanische Frauenvereine in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1844–1914''. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2004.
*Piepke, Susan L. ''Mathilde Franziska Anneke (1817 1884): The Works and Life of a German-American Activist''. New York: Peter Lang, 2006. (Includes English translations of ''Woman in Conflict with Society'' and ''Broken Chains.'')
* Terbeek, Erin. "[https://shepherdexpress.com/news/happening-now/famous-milwaukeeans-mathilde-anneke/#/questions Famous Milwaukeeans: Mathilde Anneke]". ''Shepherd Express'', December 1, 2012.
* Terbeek, Erin. "[https://shepherdexpress.com/news/happening-now/famous-milwaukeeans-mathilde-anneke/#/questions Famous Milwaukeeans: Mathilde Anneke]". ''Shepherd Express'', December 1, 2012.
*Wagner, Maria. ''Mathilde Franziska Anneke in Selbstzeugnissen und Dokumenten''. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1980. (Includes transcriptions of Anneke's letters.)


==External links==
==External links==
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[[Category:People from the Province of Westphalia]]
[[Category:People from the Province of Westphalia]]
[[Category:German-American Forty-Eighters]]
[[Category:German-American Forty-Eighters]]
[[Category:German feminists]]
[[Category:German revolutionaries]]
[[Category:German revolutionaries]]
[[Category:Writers from Milwaukee]]
[[Category:Writers from Milwaukee]]
[[Category:Socialist feminists]]
[[Category:German socialist feminists]]
[[Category:LGBTQ people from Wisconsin]]
[[Category:LGBTQ educators]]
[[Category:19th-century German LGBTQ people]]
[[Category:American lesbian writers]]
[[Category:German lesbian writers]]
[[Category:19th-century American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:19th-century American women writers]]

[[Category:American women non-fiction writers]]

Latest revision as of 02:07, 24 September 2024

Mathilde Franziska Anneke
Born
Mathilde Franziska Giesler

(1817-04-04)April 4, 1817
DiedNovember 25, 1884(1884-11-25) (aged 67)
Organization(s)Republican Party (United States), First International, National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA)
MovementAbolitionist, Communist, Women's Rights Movement, German Revolution 1848/49

Mathilde Franziska Anneke (née Giesler; April 3, 1817 – November 25, 1884) was a German writer, feminist, and radical democrat who participated in the Revolutions of 1848–1849. In late 1849, she moved to the United States, where she campaigned to end slavery, agitated to enfranchise women, and ran a girls' school.

Biography

[edit]

Early life, 1817–1841

[edit]

On April 3, 1817, Mathilde Franziska Giesler was born to a wealthy family in Hiddinghausen (today Sprockhövel) in the Prussian province of Westphalia.[1] Her parents were Karl Giesler (or Gieseler), a prosperous mine owner, and Elisabeth (Hülswitt) Giesler. She was the eldest of twelve children.[2]: 50  She was educated in languages, literature, history, and classical studies and mixed with the educated, left-leaning Germans in her parents' circle.[1]

As a teenager, however, Giesler's family suffered a decline in fortune due to investment losses. Her marriage at age nineteen was one strategy to secure family finances.[3] Alfred von Tabouillot, a wealthy wine merchant, agreed to pay off Giesler's father's debts in return for her hand in marriage.[3] The union was short-lived, however, as her new husband was abusive and drank to excess.[3] Mathilde left Alfred within a year, taking her infant daughter, Johanna (known as "Fanny"), with her.[3][2]: 50  The grueling process of obtaining an official divorce (secured in 1841) made it clear that law and custom left women and children vulnerable.[3]

As a German radical, 1839–1850

[edit]

In 1839, Giesler moved to Münster, where she worked as a writer, publishing fiction, poetry, and columns in periodicals and prayer books. Moving in radical circles, she met her second husband, Friedrich (Fritz) Theodor Anneke, in 1845. A passionate communist and former Prussian military officer, Fritz shared Mathilde Anneke's dream of creating a unified, democratic, and egalitarian Germany. The couple married on June 3, 1847, and moved to Cologne in the Rhine Province of Prussia.[2]: 50 

It was at this time that Anneke published a feminist treatise, Das Weib im Conflict mit den socialen Verhältnissen (Woman in Conflict with Society). In the 1847 piece defending Berlin feminist Louise Aston, Mathilde argued that society, and especially the Catholic Church, perpetuated a version of marriage that enslaved women.[4] From that time on she distanced herself from organized religion.

Both Annekes organized and published in support of the democratic uprisings in Cologne in 1848. Mathilde continued writing and editing a newspaper after Prussian authorities briefly jailed Fritz for his dissent. In May 1849, shortly after having her first son (Fritz), Mathilde joined her husband in armed support of revolutionary forces in the southern state of Baden. Mathilde assisted Fritz on the battlefield, conveying messages on horseback. Eventually on July 23, 1849, Prussia and Baden defeated the revolutionary forces at Rastatt, Baden.[2]: 50 

In the United States and Switzerland, 1849–1865

[edit]

Like many other refugees of the Revolutions of 1848 (the Forty-Eighters), the Anneke family fled to the United States.[2]: 50  Following other relatives, they moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1849.[5] This chapter of Anneke's life saw her publish beginning in 1852 the Deutsche Frauen-Zeitung (German Women's Newspaper), which was the first woman-owned feminist periodical in the United States. The new venture faced resistance from male printers who boycotted the periodical, and while Anneke continued publication in New Jersey in 1852, the Deutsche Frauen-Zeitung failed after a few years.[5] Anneke continued to write for other German-language publications in the United States.

Anneke's time in New Jersey was fraught with tragedy as she lost four children, including her oldest son Fritz and three younger children. Johanna ("Fanny") left home, while Anneke, her husband, her son Percy, and her daughter Hertha returned to Milwaukee in 1858.

Soon after returning to Milwaukee, Anneke met the Anglo-American abolitionist Mary Booth, and the two developed a close relationship. There is some disagreement among scholars over how to characterize the relationship. Joey Horsley describes it as a lesbian one,[6] while Mischa Honeck describes it as a friendship exhibiting the emotional intensity common between female friends in the mid-nineteenth century.[5] The two women did live together, pool their resources, raise each other's children, and express their passionate love for each other. Anneke moved in with Booth in 1859, while Fritz returned to Europe to report on the war in Italy.

In August 1860, Anneke and Booth moved to Zürich, where they lived with Fritz until he sailed back to the United States to fight in the American Civil War in 1861. The Annekes continued to correspond regularly and sometimes show affection to each other, but they never lived together again. Meanwhile, Anneke and Booth raised three of their children and collaborated to write abolitionist fiction. "Die Sclaven-Auction" (The slave auction) appeared serially in Didaskalia that year, and other collaborative works would follow.[5] They often struggled to get paid for their writing, and their husbands were not forthcoming with financial support, so the two women often had to go into debt to afford necessities. Both were also often unwell, and Booth's progressing tuberculosis finally convinced her to return to the United States in summer 1864 to see her oldest daughter and receive medical care.[5] Anneke was devastated by the separation and saddened although not surprised to learn of Booth's death on April 11, 1865.

Later life in the United States, 1865–1884

[edit]
Anneke circa 1875

Anneke returned to Milwaukee in 1865 with another female friend, Cäcilie Kapp, and opened a private girls' school called the Töchter-Institut (Daughters' Institute).[7][2]: 51  Some of Milwaukee's most prominent German American families sent their daughters to the school, and Anneke won wide respect in the community despite espousing views that identified her with radicalism.[8]

Anneke had participated in women's suffrage events back in the 1850s and became more focused on the cause after the war. She corresponded with leaders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Miller. She was elected as a vice-president (representing Wisconsin) at the inaugural meeting of the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869, joining women who protested that the Fifteenth Amendment had not prohibited discrimination in voting law on the basis of sex as well as race. Woman suffrage was unpopular among men in the US, especially immigrant men, who associated it with temperance and Yankee Protestantism. Anneke found herself mediating between the organized suffrage movement and the immigrant community within which she felt comfortable.[9] In 1876, she founded a women-only chapter of the International Workingmen's Association.[9] Although she occasionally gave speeches in English, she preferred to use German throughout her life.

Mathilde Anneke died on November 23, 1884, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was buried in Milwaukee's Forest Home Cemetery.[2]: 51 

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b Karin Hockamp. "Von vielem Geist und grosser Herzensgüte": Mathilde Franziska Anneke (1817-1884). Bochum: Brockmeyer Verlag, 2012, pp. 11-16.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Bremner, Robert H. (1971). "Wald, Lillian D.". In James, Edward T.; James, Janet Wilson; Boyer, Paul S. (eds.). Notable American Women, 1607–1950. Vol. III. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674627342. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  3. ^ a b c d e Annette Hanschke. "Frauen und Scheidung im Vormärz: Mathilde Franziska Anneke. Ein Beitrag zum Scheidungsrecht und zur Scheidungswirklichkeit von Frauen im landrechtlichen Preußen". Geschichte in Köln, 34, no. 1 (1993): 67–98.
  4. ^ Bilic, Viktorija. "'Warum noch länger die demütige Magd, die ihrem Herrn die Füße wäscht?': Mathilde Franziska Anneke's Feminist Manifest Das Weib im Conflict mit den socialen Verhältnissen (1847)". The Sophie Journal, 5, no. 1 (2020): 1–16.
  5. ^ a b c d e Mischa Honeck. We Are the Revolutionists: German-Speaking Immigrants and American Abolitionists after 1848. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011, pp. 104-136.
  6. ^ Horsley, Joey. "A German-American Feminist and Her Female Marriages: Mathilde Franziska Anneke (1817-1884)". Fembio. Retrieved April 17, 2021.
  7. ^ Richards-Wilson, Stephanie. "Mathilde Franziska Anneke (née Giesler) (1817-1884)". immigrantentrepreneurship.org. Retrieved April 17, 2021.
  8. ^ Michaela Bank. Women of Two Countries: German-American Women, Women's Rights and Nativism, 1848-1890. New York: Berghahn Books, 2012, pp. 33-34.
  9. ^ a b Alison Clark Efford. German Immigrants, Race, and Citizenship in the Civil War Era. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Further reading

[edit]
  • Bus, Annette P. "Mathilde Anneke and the Suffrage Movement." In German Forty-Eighters in the United States. Edited by Charlotte L. Brancaforte, 79–92. New York: Peter Lang, 1989.
  • Efford, Alison Clark and Viktorija Bilic, eds. Radical Relationships: The Civil War–Era Correspondence of Mathilde Franziska Anneke. Trans. Viktorija Bilic. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2021. (Includes translations of some letters 1858–1865.)
  • Haubrich, Paul. "Class of 1846: Mathilde Franziska Anneke". Milwaukee Independent, May 22, 2016.
  • Krueger, Lillian. "Madame Mathilda Franziska Anneke: An Early Wisconsin Journalist". Wisconsin Magazine of History, vol. 21, no. 2 (December 1937): 160–167.
  • "Mathilde Franziska Anneke." Lexikon Westfälischer Autorinnen und Autoren, 1750 bis 1950. http://www.lwl.org/literaturkommission/alex/index.php?id=00000003&layout=2&author_id=00000280. Accessed August 19, 2017.
  • Ortlepp, Anke. "Auf denn, Ihr Schwestern!": Deutschamerikanische Frauenvereine in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1844–1914. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2004.
  • Piepke, Susan L. Mathilde Franziska Anneke (1817 – 1884): The Works and Life of a German-American Activist. New York: Peter Lang, 2006. (Includes English translations of Woman in Conflict with Society and Broken Chains.)
  • Terbeek, Erin. "Famous Milwaukeeans: Mathilde Anneke". Shepherd Express, December 1, 2012.
  • Wagner, Maria. Mathilde Franziska Anneke in Selbstzeugnissen und Dokumenten. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1980. (Includes transcriptions of Anneke's letters.)
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