on musicaleducation in the bourgeois public sphere profoundlyinfluenced the
conception of the workers’chorus asamodel of community and class. Signifi-
cantly, this collective bodywas imaginable onlyinall-maleterms and required
the equation of themale voice with the universalposition. Historians have docu-
mented the contribution of women’schoruses and mixed choruses to the work-
ers’choral movement and argued for the importance of amateur choral singing.⁷
However,the existence of songsthatthematize the exclusion of women suggests
that workers’choral societies mayhavecontinued to thriveinthe twentieth cen-
tury partlybecause of their affirmatiobn of the workers’movement asahomo-
socialmilieu.
Songsand anthems accompanied the socialist movement from the begin-
ning and contributed greatlytoits internationalist orientation and transnational
reach.“TheWorkers’Marseillaise”(1864,lyricsJacobAudorf)and“The Interna-
tionale”(1871,lyrics Eugène Pottier)established theFrenchrevolutionary tradi-
tion, includingthechantdes ouvriers(workers’song), as an important influ-
ence.⁸Workers’choral societies thrived inAustria and Switzerland and played
along-recognized role in German immigrant communities in theUnited States,
especiallyinChicago.⁹Proudlylocal in theirmusical commitments,individual
societies celebratedthe differencesbetween, say, miners in theRuhr region,tex-
tile workers in Saxony, and dockworkers in Hamburg.¹⁰In accordancewith the
SeeKarenAhlquist,“Men andWomen of the Chorus:Music, Governance, and Social Models
in Nineteenth-Century German-SpeakingEurope,”inChorus and Community,ed. KarenAhlquist
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press,2006), 265 – 292.
Forcomparative studies,see WilliamKoehler,ThePolitics of Singing:The GermanWorkers’
Choral Association in ComparativePerspective(Saarbrücken: Lambert,2011) and AxelKörner,
Das Lied von einer anderenWelt. Kulturelle Praxis im französischen und deutschen Arbeitermilieu
1840 – 1890 (Frankfurt am Main: Campus,1997). On the connection between musical culture and
working-class masculinity in Britain, also see Denise Odello,“MusicalAthleticism:Victorian
Brass Band Contests and the ShapingofWorking-Class Men,”Nineteenth CenturyContexts:An
InterdisciplinaryJournal38.2 (2016): 141 – 154.
See the songs reprintedinHartmutKeil andJohn B.Jentz, eds.,GermanWorkers in Chicago:A
DocumentaryHistoryofWorking-Class Culturefrom1850toWorldWar I(Chicago:University Illi-
nois Press, 1988), 331 – 336.
On the roleofworkerschoral societies in regional culture, see Antoinette’ Hellkuhl,Empor
zumLicht. Arbeitergesangvereine imwestfälischen Ruhrgebiet, 1878– 1914 (Stuttgart: Bertold Mar-
ohl, 1983); MargretTewes,Bochumer Arbeitersänger vor 1933(Bochum: Arbeitskreis Arbeitende
Jugend, 1985); and Paul Pach,Arbeitergesangvereine in der Provinz:“Vorwärts”Pirkensee und
“Volkschor”Maxhütte(Berlin:Tesdorpf, 1987). On the earlyperiod, seeBettina Hitzer,Schlüssel
zweierWelten. Politisches Lied und Gedicht von Arbeitern undBürgern 1848– 1875 (Bonn:Frie-
drich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2001), online at http://library.fes.de/fulltext/historiker/01141toc.htm, 1
March2017.
88 Chapter 4