In my work, I question the dominant depiction of a relatively coherent ideal of the Modern Woman in the scholarship. Next to the continuities between visual and textual images, I intend to highlight contestation, ambiguities and change. Gender serves as a primary category of analysis in my study. Historians using gender can examine the ways
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in which gender identities are constructed and how they function to maintain or disrupt
normative roles for men and women.33 The idea that gender is constructed through
different discursive practices helps explain why femininity is represented in multiple and
contradictory ways.34 Joan Scott, in a recent forum in the American Historian Review
noted that “Various representations of masculinity and femininity have been invoked to mobilize constituencies, to tar enemies, to put groups and individuals in their place.
Gender is after all, ‘a primary way of signifying power.’”35 Thus, even though I focus on
“women,” I use gender to tease out and recognize the fractured nature of the category of “women” and the ways in which differing concepts of femininity are constructed through visual and textual representations. While masculinities are not the focus of this project, they do play a role in the analysis. While not all visual and textual images explicitly contain discussions of masculinity, there are inherent assumptions about the gender order which rest on notions of a traditional gender hierarchy. Also, there are moments in time – and thus in my study – when the Modern Woman is paired with a particular form of masculinity. This includes the “effeminate” male in relation to the “overmasculinized” woman during the Weimar Republic, the male boss as a symbol of “authority” in a
variety of advertisements and the role of soldierly masculinity during the Third Reich. The theoretical approach of gender also allows historians to examine gender in
relation to other categories of difference. Joanne Hershfield notes in, Imagining la Chica
33
Scott, “Gender and The Politics of History”, 42.
34
For discussions concerning a gendered approach to images, see also, Rosemary Betterton, ed., Looking On: Images of Femininity in the Visual Arts and Media (London, 1989); Carolyn Korsmeyer, Gender and Aesthetics: An Introduction (London, 2004); and, Judith Lorber, Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics (Los Angeles, 2005).
35
Joan Scott, “Unanswered Questions,” in “Forum: Revisiting ‘Gender as a Category of Historical Analysis’,” American Historical Review 113 (2008): 1344-1429, here, p. 1423.
20
Moderna: Women, Nation and Visual Culture in Mexico, 1917-1936, published in 2008, that her work is “organized around the conviction that visual images of women embody popular discourses about sexuality, work, motherhood, and feminine beauty, as well as
other social categories that intersect with gender such as race, class, and ethnicity.”36
Visual and textual representations of “women” are never isolated from other categories of difference, including age, marital status and social background.
As Griselda Pollack has noted, feminist scholarship concerning visual images has also moved beyond simple denunciations of stereotypical images of women to “a more exacting assessment of the productive role of representation in the construction of
subjectivity, femininity, and sexuality.”37
As the art historian Amelia Jones points out, “feminism has long acknowledged that visuality (the conditions of how we see and make meaning of what we see) is one of the key modes by which gender is culturally
inscribed.”38 Current scholarship stresses the necessity of not only analyzing the product
but the process of image making in order to provide a more nuanced and multi-faceted
discourse of female representations, rooted in historical analysis. Thus, it is not merely the photograph or illustration in the illustrated magazine that I am interested in, but the ways in which its multiple meanings are a process of negotiating the various political, social and cultural discourses about women in a particular historical context.
36
Joanne Hershfield, Imagining la Chica Moderna: Women, Nation and Visual Culture in Mexico, 1917- 1936 (Durham, 2008).
37
Griselda Pollack, “Missing Women: Rethinking Early Thoughts on Images of Women,” in OverExposed: Essays on Contemporary Photography, ed. Carol Squiers (New York, 1999), 229-246, here, 229. See also, Patricia Hayes, ed., Visual Genders, Visual Histories (Malden, 2006); in particular, Hayes, “Introduction: Visual Genders,” 1-19.
38
Amelia Jones, “Conceiving the Intersection of Feminism and Visual Culture,” in The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader, ed. Amelia Jones (Routledge, 2003), 1- 8.
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Alongside gender, I use the theoretical and methodological approach of “intermediality” which examines the relationship between visual and textual images. In a broad sense, the term “intermediality” refers to direct or indirect encounters between two or more media, including the interrelatedness between text and pictures. Peter Wagner in Icons, Iconotexts: Essays on Ekphrasis and Intermediality, notes that the “...verbal and visual combine to produce rhetoric that depends on the co-presence of words and
images.”39 W.J.T. Mitchell argues that scholars should not just examine the differences
and similarities between words and pictures but also ask, “. . .why does it matter how
words and images are juxtaposed, blended, or separated?”40 Texts, for example “explain,
narrate, describe, label and speak to or for images” while images “illustrate, exemplify,
clarify, ground and document the text.”41 Thus, the multiple meanings of the images and
the text are dependant upon one another. The placement of the images in the magazine, the type of image (such as a photograph or drawing) their primary function (advertisment or illustration) alongside the corresponding text combine to produce a variety (but not an
unlimited number) of meanings.42 Yet, in order to understand the correlation between
texts and images, it is vital that they be situated in their historical context.
39
Peter Wagner, ed., Icons, Iconotexts: Essays on Ekphrasis and Intermediality (Berlin, 1996), 17.
40
W.J.T. Mitchell, Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (Chicago, 1994), 91.
41
Mitchell, Picture Theory, 94.
42
As Amelia Jones points out, images (in this context advertisements) rely on texts to finalize their constructions, often making an image seem “natural” and “logical.” This concept can be applied not only to the role of gender in advertisements, but also to captions and articles that accompany photographs and drawings. Jones, “Feminism, Incorporated: Reading ‘Post-feminism” in an ‘Anti-feminist’ age,” in The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader, 314 – 329.
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The contexts in which the images appear and their specific functions are neither
mutually exclusive nor static, they can and often do, change over time.43 Although
scholars recognize the need for images to be placed in an appropriate context, Peter Burke, in Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images As Historical Evidence, published in 2001,
points out the need to examine “contexts in the plural.”44
This entails exploring the precise meaning of “contexts” for any specific study on a number of levels. Most important for my study are the following two: first, the initial production of the image, including artistic and social conventions of the time (which help shape how an image is made), motivations for production and methods of distribution must be analyzed. The production of the images, influenced by social, political, economic and cultural factors, must be examined in order to present a critical reading of representations because images and texts are tied to the ideological forces informing the institutional structures of the publication, alongside the intent to inform readers of an event or social conditions in a particular manner while competing with other publications. Secondly, the images and the accompanying texts will be examined to see how the magazines discussed the various elements of the Modern Woman and presented her to readers.
For this project, particular attention is paid to places within the publications that specifically focus on femininity and the relation of women to work, sexuality and consumerism. While considering where a publication designated an image or idea as
43
Peter Burke, Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images As Historical Evidence (Ithaca, 2001), 187. Burke notes that “a series of images offers testimony more reliable than that of individual images,” by providing a particular view of change over time and allows the historian to compare a specific theme, in one time period, to understand different social perspectives of one event or idea. Thus, illustrated magazines, published on a bi-weekly or weekly basis provide an excellent realm of interrogation for the use and change of images over time.
44
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“modern” or “new,” I also look for patterns of repetition in language and images.45 In
addition, I consider the importance of the overall format of the magazines and how the publications constructed a complete picture of their Modern Woman. Thus, different sections, such as advertisements, sports pages or fashion columns are emphasized in different proportions within the analysis, depending on the illustrated magazine. This approach allows for a more “open-ended” examination of the publications, without letting
one category of images or text dominate or influence the outcome.46
While images can be considered a point of entry into contemporary views of a specific time and place, they must not be mistaken for direct access to a social world.
Yet, I argue that images are part of “reality,” magazines contribute to the “visual
landscape” available to members of society. Images can offer insights into social, cultural and gender constructs. However, to get at these insights it is important to differentiate between the types and functions of images, including photographs, illustrations and advertisements. For example, photographs can tell us much about contemporary living and working conditions, material culture and gender relationships, both as pieces of evidence and how photographs were used in the past. However, historians must recognize the limits of photographs as historical evidence. One cannot see outside the frame, or always identify the producer, and must remain critical in regards to the unspoken elements of an image. Regardless of how alluring it may seem to read a photograph on its
45
See, Lesley Jeffries, Textual Construction of the Female Body: A Critical Discourse Approach (New York, 2007) and Rosalind Ballaster et al., Women’s Worlds: Ideology, Femininity and the Woman’s
Magazine (Houndmills, 1991).
46
Concentrating only on advertisements, for example, would slight the communist publications. This is not because the communist press felt the need to protest consumerism, but because their advertizing sections were marginal. Similarly, ignoring the differences between the placement of the images in relation to other content in the magazines would trivialize the editorial intent, because the layout of a magazine is constructed with a specific purpose in mind.
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own terms, textual evidence in conjunction with the image leads to a more complicated
understanding of the multiple layers of meanings.47 It is also essential to remember what
was possible to photograph in a specific historical period, how it was photographed and what the photographer deemed suitable subject matter.
Moreover, as scholars and critics have long noted, photography was laden with ties to the “scientific understanding” of the world, one that was “objective,” where reality passed through a lens which editors presented to the public. Editors often treated photographs as unbiased images of people and events, with the understanding that the public accepted them without criticism. As media scholar Hanno Hardt states, “Photographs are assigned the power to establish the real conditions of society, either in the form of middle-class conceptions of tradition and survival or in the provocative style
of social criticism, with its attacks on the social and political establishment.”48 The
camera supplied the means to define a seemingly unprejudiced “truth,” and the perspective of “truth” was formed by both the individual taking the photograph and how
a publication chose to place the photograph in its publication.49
Illustrations and graphics will be analyzed carefully as well. Illustrations in the humor section of a magazine, for example, present easily understood gender stereotypes of men and women and serve to entertain as well as indicate specific social classes, ethnicities or political positions. Thus, physical characteristics and human emotions are
47
See special issue “Photography and Historical Interpretation” in History and Theory 48 (2009): 1 – 168.
48
Hanno Hardt, “Photography for the Masses: Photography and the Rise of Popular Magazines in Weimar Germany,” Journal of Communication Inquiry 13 (1989): 7-30.
49
Although photographs may have seemed impartial and carried an air of objectivity based on technological advancements of reproduction, some contemporaries sharply criticized the expansion of the illustrated press and the use of photographic representations. For example, see Siegfried Kracauer, The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, ed. by Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge, MA, 1995).
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exaggerated and function to produce an immediate emotive response. Illustrated fashion sections, while displaying trends and fads, serve to inform, entertain and present the reader with options to buy ready-made clothing, patterns for women to sew their own clothes, ways to “modernize” an old dress, or create a new garment out of an old one.
These illustrations (oftentimes in black and white drawings) portray an “ideal” body and relate to the various ways in which the “covering” or “uncovering” of the female body
constructs hierarchies of what are acceptable and unacceptable styles for women.50
Clothing, as Irene Guenther in Nazi Chic has noted, is political because it relates not only to social change but also - because political regimes can “define ‘ideals of national taste,’
- to ‘acceptable forms and images of . . . individual and collective identity.’”51
Another important category of images includes advertisements, which are meant to entice, induce spending and encourage participation in consumption. Advertisers promoted a specific type of Modern Woman to market their goods to that influenced the
manner in which women became both a consumer and a commodity.52 Yet, one must be
careful to recognize that advertisements were often a large source of revenue for a publication. Magazines may have been more flexible concerning the types of images included in the advertising section, compared to the overall content of the magazine. The size and placement of advertisements throughout the magazine, not just in the individual sections, have an additional function of linking articles or short stories to consumer
50
The approach of “uncovering” and “covering” is drawn from the work of John Harvey, “Showing and Hiding: Equivocation in the Relations of Body and Dress,” Fashion Theory 1 (2007): 65-94.
51
Guenther, Nazi Chic?, 10. See also, Sabine Hake, “In the Mirror of Fashion,” in Women in the Metropolis, ed. Katharina von Ankum, 185-201 and Mila Ganeva, Women in Weimar Fashion: Discourses and Displays in German Culture, 1918 – 1933 (Camden, 2008).
52
Victoria de Grazia and Ellen Furlough, eds., The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective (Berkeley, 1996).
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goods.53 Taking into consideration the function and type of visual and textual images, one
can see how individual elements of a magazine combined to create a holistic construction of the Modern Woman, even if it was an ambiguous and paradoxical representation.
It is difficult to measure how ordinary men and women responded to the publications, but not entirely impossible. While recognizing the limits of my sources regarding reception, I outline four areas in which to explore the relationship between the audience and the magazine. First, I consider the circulation numbers, availability of the
publication and target audiences in order to get a general sense of who may be the
primary readers.54 Secondly, letters to the editor can show us what topics readers were
satisfied or unsatisfied with, their concerns and comments. Thirdly, advice columns, which required interaction between the magazine and reader, could reveal both demographic data (gender of reader, age, location) and the kinds of issues and problems readers are concerned with. Fourth, when publications alter their design, masthead, size content or production schedule, an editor traditionally included an address to readers explaining why the changes were made based on readership (i.e. did readers demand the inclusion of specific material), financial considerations or in relation to new forms technology and design practices.
The illustrated magazine is unique in its function to inform, entertain, persuade and explain by using a combination of visual images and text. Unlike films where images flicker across the screen, or novels which construct a “verbal image,” illustrated
53
A good example of this can be found in the Illustrierte Beobachter where a half page ad for women’s shampoo was juxtaposed with various articles concerning women’s work, role in the home and the economy. These ads, with the article placed directly above them, took up an entire page and ran consistently for several months in 1931 and 1932.
54
This also includes an understanding of reading culture and speculation that magazines can be shared or accessed in a public space (i.e. beauty salons would provide reading material for their customers).
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magazines offer a unique forum that allows the reader to extrapolate meaning by both “seeing” and “reading.” In order to expand my study within and beyond the Weimar Republic, my major group of primary sources will be illustrated magazines, representing a broad political spectrum from the far left to the far right.
My criteria for choosing these magazines include the mixture of general and female readership, the availability via newsstand or subscription and the overall popularity of the publications. Also included are the major illustrated magazines produced by specific political parties. In Weimar Germany, important publications from
the left include the Communist Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung (1925-1938), the KPD
women’s magazine Weg Der Frau (1931-1938) and the Social Democratic Frauenwelt
(1924-1933). The liberal Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung (1918-1945) represents a middle-
class magazine. I also use the NSDAP Illustrierte Beobachter (1926-1945). I will
continue for the Third Reich with the popular Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, alongside the
Illustrierte Beobachter and the N.S Frauenwarte(1932-1945).