want to show howayoung worker comesto socialism, how he feels, how he
acts.”³⁰
The written exchanges between worker-writers and editors discussed so far
onlyinvolve men and malerelationships. While women appear in the life writ-
ings–as familymembers, sexual partners, and work colleagues–they never be-
come fullydevelopedfigures.Unsurprisingly,the introductions allude to women
onlywhen referringtothe very different status of sexuality,marriage, and family
life in working-class lives. Concerned with the presentation of the worker as a
social type and human being,the editors simplyassumemasculinity and class
position to be mutuallyconstitutive,mediated through the dream of an ungen-
dered(but decidedlymale) vision of the people or of humankind.
In another context,the life writingsoffemaleworkers would add further in-
sights in what ways arguments between editors and worker-writers over emotion-
al tones and styles served to establish the function ofgender in depictions of the
workingclass.³¹As has been shown, the male worker’sdesireto assert his indi-
viduality against the determinants of classand to recount his personal struggles
in theavailable languages of interiority found expression through bourgeois con-
structionsofmasculinity–which also meant thatthe emancipatory effects ofau-
tobiographical writing werenot readilyavailable to women workers. More specif-
ically, as the final emanation of the emotional socialism discussed in chapter4,
workers’lifewritingsfrom the turn of the century made certain that emotions
and emotionality could stillbeclaimedfor amale-dominated narrative of
class. This chapter onlyallows forabrief mention of the complications ofgender
and classthematizedinAdelheidPopp’scritically acclaimedDie Jugendge-
schichte einer Arbeiterin(1909,published in English asTheAutobiographyofa
WorkingWoman), which appeared, initiallywithoutattribution, inabook series
called“Life Stories.”Radicalized in the workers’movement,Popp (1869–1939)
started the proletarian women’smovement inAustria and edited theArbeiterin-
nen-Zeitungduring the 1920s. Heraccount of being socialized in theViennese
Bruno Hans Bürgel,VomArbeiter zum Astronomen. DerAufstieg eines Lebenskämpfers(Ber-
lin: Im DeutschenVerlag,1935),8.
Twoexamples areGerhardBraun, ed.,Im Kampf ums Dasein!WahrheitsgetreueLebenserin-
nerungen einesMädchens aus demVolke alsFabrikarbeiterin,Dienstmädchen undKellnerin(1908)
and Carl Moszeik, ed.,Ausder Gedankenwelt einer Arbeiterfrau, von ihr selbst erzählt(1909).Nu-
merous other texts have been included in RichardKlucsaritis andFriedrich G.Kürbisch,eds.,
Arbeiterinnen kämpfen um ihrRecht.AutobiographischeTexte zuKampf rechtloser und entrecht-
eter“Frauenspersonen”in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz des 19.und 20.Jahrhunderts
(Wuppertal: Hammer,1975). On the question ofgender and sexuality,see Birgit A.Jensen,
“BawdyBodies or MoralAgency? The Struggle for Identity inWorking-ClassAutobiographies
of Imperial Germany,”Biography28.4 (Fall2005): 534 – 557.
152 Chapter 7