Keywords

For nearly two decades, attending conferences formed an important part of Käthe Schirmacher’s travel activities. From the mid-1890s onwards she participated in the transnational conventions and activities of various associations, especially of the International Council of Women (ICW), the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA), and the International Abolitionist Federation (IAF).1 This chapter takes her work in the IWSA as a case study for exploring how Schirmacher helped to connect national activisms through her language abilities. A major focus is on oral interpretation at transnational meetings, but the chapter also discusses other forms of mediation such as writing conference reports and translating written texts that provided information and publicity across borders.

Digging deeper into the contexts of these activities reveals tensions and contradictions on various levels. The different political situations and cultures from which the members of the IWSA came made it a challenging endeavour to find common ground and develop shared goals and strategies. To assist this process through interpreting was a delicate task that required differentiated knowledge and competences transcending mastery of languages alone.

What is more, the participants at the regular conventions often had to take on several functions, both on national and transnational levels. Schirmacher is a good case in point for this, too. She was officially appointed interpreter at several IWSA conferences but was also a board member. In addition, she was on the board of national organisations and reported publicly on meetings in various arenas. Taking these at times conflicting roles into account, this chapter gauges the particular agency of the person who translates and the limits of mediation in transnational civil spaces during the years of rising nationalism before the First World War.

Suffrage Activism in a Transnational Arena

The creation of the IWSA, as a transnational organisation with suffrage as its single issue, was a direct reaction to the very general approach of the older ICW. Since the ICW only accepted national umbrella organisations of women’s associations as members, it represented a broad variety of agendas, positions, and political practices. Although the ICW founders were suffragists themselves, both the relevance and the priority of suffrage in relation to other legal or economic aims were disputed.2 Consequently, a group of activists from the USA and various European countries aspired to create an organisation that had a clear political focus.3 Like the ICW, the IWSA had strong roots in the USA. In 1902, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) invited suffrage organisations from all over the world to send delegates to their thirty-fourth annual convention and called the event the ‘First International Woman Suffrage Conference’.4 To underline its international orientation, the organisers had sent letters to countries around the world asking questions about the status of women there. However, many of the reports replying to these questions were given by speakers who obviously belonged to the English-speaking colonies in the countries they represented.5 Both a genuine interest in the situation in other countries and a hierarchy of perspectives became visible at this event.

At the conference in Washington, delegates from seven countries agreed on a declaration of principles and thus prepared the creation of a more formalised transnational collaboration in the fight for women’s suffrage.6 Subsequently, the IWSA was founded in Berlin in 1904 by Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906), senior leader of the suffrage movement in the USA, Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947), the president of the NAWSA, Anita Augspurg (1857–1943), president of the German Union for Women’s Suffrage (Deutscher Verein für Frauenstimmrecht, DVF), Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847–1929), president of the British National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), and others.7 The DVF, established in 1902 in preparation for the German participation in the Washington conference, had organised the meeting in Berlin. Attended by delegates from nine European countries and the USA, it took place a few days before the opening of the ICW conference in the same city. Käthe Schirmacher was among the members and reported on the event.8

The ICW and the IWSA, founded sixteen years apart, were often portrayed as representing the moderate older generation and the more radical younger activists respectively.9 However, the two transnational organisations, linked by many protagonists engaged in both, can also be characterised by their respective strategies, both of which had advantages and limitations.10 Whereas the ICW had difficulties in developing a clear political stance without the risk of losing member organisations, the IWSA restricted its activities to the very specific agenda of suffrage to which all its interventions were linked. The initiative for the founding of a network of suffrage organisations was actually triggered by the inclusion of an anti-suffrage statement at the ICW congress in London 1899, but in 1904 the ICW also included women’s suffrage in its official programme.11 On the other hand, the IWSA’s single focus also had developed only incrementally. This is illustrated by the questionnaires sent out across the world in 1902, which touched on many legal and social issues and in which suffrage was mentioned only at the twenty-fifth question.12 The difference between inclusive approaches and single-issue strategies mirrored the situation in many countries in which women’s movements consisted of both large umbrella organisations representing a variety of agendas and single-issue associations exclusively campaigning for the vote for women.13 However, since the actual campaigning for any kind of rights had to take place on the national (rather than international) level, the main activities of the ICW and IWSA were building networks and circulating information.

The IWSA’s rather abstract goal of equal political participation left open the question of the form future societies might take. The single focus allowed the members to share a utopian discourse on a more just society without having to reach an agreement on this society’s concrete design. But this openness also meant that many other burning issues could not be touched upon at an official level. However, although the IWSA had a rule that debates on issues other than suffrage should be excluded, this did not exempt its members from having to deal with two particularly contentious issues: the choice of strategies and the debate over what kind of suffrage to campaign for: equal or universal? The growing militancy in parts of the suffrage movement in the UK called for a decision on whether to endorse their methods or at least not to condemn them.14

On both questions—militancy and universal suffrage—the transnationally active IWSA decided not to interfere in politics at the national level, although emotions sometimes ran high during the arguments over this question. This meant different things, however, in different places. The formula to fight for ‘equal suffrage such as men had or will have it’ that was widely accepted in the UK had a more ambivalent meaning in the German Reich or in Austria, where the immediate fight for universal suffrage was an option for many but not for all.15 The IWSA’s policy of non-interference regarding the use of militant or constitutional methods significantly changed its meaning as the degree of some associations’ militancy increased. In 1906 in Copenhagen, the IWSA demonstrated its neutrality by inviting representatives from militant associations and thus created a possibility of discussing the different approaches.16 When, however, in 1913 the congress in Budapest refused to either endorse or condemn militancy, this also meant that the international community of suffrage activists failed to find clear words in response to the death of suffragette Emily Wilding Davison (1872–1913), who two weeks earlier had thrown herself in front of the king’s horse at the Epsom Derby for the cause.17

Interpreting at the IWSA Conferences

The function of the interpreter, like all the other positions on the board of the IWSA, was voluntary, not paid work.18 The declared official languages of the Alliance were English, German, and French. This was reflected in the constitution adopted in Berlin in 1904, which stated that the three secretaries on the board ‘shall represent the English, German and French languages’.19 This was not intended to mean that these countries should necessarily be represented, as Schirmacher was to clarify on a later occasion.20 However, according to these stipulations, all participants had to communicate in one of these languages, regardless of their mother tongue. It is worth noting that French, as the language of diplomacy, was one of the official languages from the beginning, even though France was not a founder member. However, for structural and pragmatic reasons, from the very beginning, in many respects (correspondence, minutes, publications) English was the predominant language, although the regular conferences (later described as congresses) took place in various European cities using different languages.21 In the historical documents of the IWSA, this dominance of one language is both obvious—the minutes of the multinational organisation were only published in English—and barely perceptible: apart from the appointment of interpreters, the process of oral interpretation remained practically unmentioned.22 Whether contributions to the debates had been made in another language than English or how many participants needed interpretation to understand the discussions was not stated in the minutes. In a newspaper report on the founding meeting in Berlin in 1904, Käthe Schirmacher said that the negotiations in Berlin in 1904 were held in German and English.23

Although educated, middle-class European women often learned several languages, only a minority spoke all three official languages and some probably spoke none of them well. Käthe Schirmacher, who was fluent in all three languages and had profound experience with international conferences, was an obvious choice as interpreter and was appointed to that function at the IWSA founding meeting in 1904.24 She was also elected to the executive board as assistant secretary together with Dutch activist Johanna Naber (1859–1941).25 They worked with the secretary Rachel Foster Avery (1858–1919), the young companion of Susan B. Anthony in the latter’s extensive travels through Europe.26

Another assignment at the same convention reflected Schirmacher’s Romance language capacities. When the members of the executive board were tasked with establishing links with activists in countries not yet organised in the IWSA, she took responsibility for Italy and France.27 Italy joined the IWSA in 1906,28 with France following suit in 1909.29 Schirmacher had supported this by attending the founding meeting of the French suffrage alliance, organised in preparation for the French participation in the IWSA conference in that year.30

At the next IWSA conference in Copenhagen in August 1906, Schirmacher served as interpreter together with Eline Hansen (1859–1919) from Denmark.31 The appointment of a second interpreter was probably due to the fact that after some debate, at this conference it had been agreed that the speeches should be translated into Danish for the purposes of publicity in the host country.32 Several speeches were translated into Danish and handed to the press; a meeting in Scandinavian languages was also held during the conference.33 For the conferences in Amsterdam (1908) and London (1909), Schirmacher was again officially appointed as interpreter; on both occasions, she was supported by other delegates.34 At the 1911 congress in Stockholm, however, she was only present as a member of the German delegation.35 After losing her position as assistant secretary on the board of the IWSA in London (although she was appointed a member of the committee of admissions), she also no longer served as an interpreter.36 This task was now assigned to Anna Lindemann (life dates unknown) as interpreter for German and to Martina Kramers (1863–1934) from the Netherlands as interpreter for French.37 Like Schirmacher in the years before, they both also served as secretaries on the board of the IWSA.38 The minutes of the Stockholm congress are the first to indicate the languages of interpretation (German and French), thus implicitly stating that English was the default language of the meetings. The growing conflict over language issues became apparent when the French member association published a resolution demanding that ‘the reports of its delegates be printed in the French language’ in the congress proceedings—a request that was not met.39

At the 1913 congress in Budapest, the organisers showed a growing awareness of the language problem. For two evening meetings (which presumably were addressed to a wider public) the languages of the speeches and the translations provided were announced in the programme. A Hungarian summary of all speeches was provided at the end of both sessions.40 At several instances at this convention, language became an issue, for instance when Charlotte Despard (1844–1939) criticised that ‘the English language tended to swamp the other languages’ or when it was suggested that ‘considering that the discussion is conducted so largely in English, […] the French and German speaking nations should be given the front seats’ at the IWSA conventions.41 The increased efforts to enable an understanding between different languages in Budapest were reflected in the appointment of three ‘officers of the Alliance’ as main interpreters, Anna Lindemann, Martina Kramers, and Annie Furuhjelm (1859–1937).42 They were supported by three assistant interpreters.43 Although the assistants did not hold positions on the board, it is noticeable that two of them took offices at this conference; Marguerite de Witt-Schlumberger (1858–1924) was elected to the board and Mary Sheepshanks (1872–1960) was appointed editor of the IWSA journal Jus Suffragii.44 At this congress, Schirmacher had conveyed official greetings and expressed her interest in a renewed position on the board, but did not attend in person.45 The choice of interpreters, both in Stockholm and Budapest, once more emphasises how closely the function of the interpreter was linked to the board of officers and thus had a political character.

Common Ground and Conflict Zones

Considering the contentious and momentous topics discussed at the transnational meetings of the IWSA, it becomes clear that the interpreters’ work was both important and delicate. Often, controversies and conflicts were hidden behind supposedly formal issues such as the order of business (e.g. who was permitted to talk for how long) or qualification for membership (which became relevant in 1909, when concurrent associations from one country wished to become affiliated). However, apart from a general comment by the president in 1906, issues of language and communication between the different languages of the participants were rarely addressed in the minutes.46 At one point, the question arose as to whether all delegates had ‘understood the parliamentary procedure’ by which a certain controversial vote had been taken.47

While interpretation was not raised as an issue, the translation of written texts was explicitly discussed when it came to those fundamental documents which were essential for finding common ground. An initial discussion on translation had already taken place at the IWSA founding meeting in Berlin. In addition to her role as interpreter, Schirmacher had been appointed to translate the Declaration of Principles into French and German together with Sophia Rodger Cunliffe (life dates unknown) from the UK and Camille Vidart (1854–1930) from Switzerland.48 The minutes registered debates on translation and on rewordings of the principles in the same session but did not give details of the revisions. However, they recorded two significant decisions. First, the delegates declared both the German and the English versions as the official declarations of principles but did not clarify the status of the French version. This did not result in the inclusion of the German version in the minutes, which only contained the revised English version.49

Second, the delegates moved and carried that ‘in the German text the same masculine form that is employed in law should be used, in order that the same neuter significance should be given as in English’.50 It is likely that Schirmacher, as the German translator, suggested this solution to the differences in describing the gender of an individual in the two languages. Since the German version of the principles is not documented in the minutes, only an excerpt from it in a newspaper report shows what this meant: instead of using the usual feminine grammatical form of the noun ‘citizen’ (Bürgerin), the male form was modified by a female adjective (weiblicher Bürger—female citizen).51 This translatorial decision entailed a certain Anglicisation of the German language, but also emphasised the fundamental equality of male and female citizens.

At the 1906 conference in Copenhagen, agreements on procedure were an important issue. Only then did the delegates decide to have the minutes printed. Thus, the Berlin protocols were published together with the proceedings from Copenhagen. In her message as president, Carrie Chapman Catt recalled the still provisional format of the Berlin meeting two years earlier and linked the issue to the question of languages:

We came together as strangers; the point of view, and the experience of each body of delegates naturally differed from every other; the many languages created a ‘Confusion of tongues’, too, which prevented a quick understanding. We did not yet know what work the International Organization could do most effectively, nor how we could best help each other.52

Interestingly, she thus suggested a connection between linguistic understanding and the symbolic ‘language’ of procedure in a delegate body.

In the ongoing debate on the rules and orders of communication, Käthe Schirmacher successfully proposed asking for the standing orders of the Interparliamentary Conference for Peace that could be used as a model.53 She also successfully moved that ‘allusions to recent political conflicts between nations, must for the sake of international peace and courtesy, be carefully avoided, unless such subjects are on the program for discussion’.54 In so doing, she made the single-issue approach an explicit norm. The effect was demonstrated immediately after her resolution had been carried when an appeal from the Russian delegate to her ‘sisters in all nations’ not to support the existing government of her country received the reply that the Alliance could not undertake any steps as an association, but individual members might do so.55 Schirmacher also supported a proposal that not all country reports, but only the most important ones (selected by the general officers), should be read at the conference. The rest should be summed up by the secretaries and printed in the minutes.56 This gave more power to the board (of which she was a member) and shortened the procedures, thus making the translators’ work easier. At the following conference, only a selection of the printed country reports appeared on the programme, namely those which were newly formed or had ‘accomplished important results’.57

In Copenhagen, in addition to her duties as an interpreter, Käthe Schirmacher was very active as a delegate. She not only intervened in the discussions on the rules of procedures but also gave one of the very few speeches on a theoretical question. Under the provocative English title ‘What Woman Suffrage is Not’, she addressed the most common counterarguments to women’s demand for suffrage.58 It is noteworthy, however, that she dressed up her arguments in the form of a delimitation of a term, namely the concept of suffrage. The lecture was a continuation of a public debate in the press between Schirmacher and Martina Kramers about a possible link between suffrage and military service. While Kramers had argued for a substitute military service for women in order to qualify them for the right to vote, Schirmacher vehemently opposed any connection between the right to vote and compulsory military service.59 In this exchange, Kramers supported her argument by providing a translation of a central document of the Dutch suffrage movement to illustrate that Schirmacher had not fully understood the Dutch women’s approach.60

Schirmacher’s public visibility at this conference, however, was also related to her work as interpreter. The major Danish newspaper Politiken covered the conference opening with a drawing of the delegates at work that took up the entire first page of the paper. The picture showed Carrie Chapman Catt addressing a large audience in a festive venue, and Schirmacher, presumably acting as interpreter, sitting at her side. The two women’s names were the only ones mentioned in the caption, although Schirmacher’s function was not specified.61

In 1908 in Amsterdam, Schirmacher had to juggle different roles. She was not only one of the secretaries on the board but also represented two ‘fraternal’ German organisations, the Liberal Women’s Party (Liberale Frauenpartei) and the Federation of Progressive Women’s Associations (Verband fortschrittlicher Frauenvereine, VFF).62 ‘Fraternal’ organisations were those that were not official members of the IWSA, which only accepted affiliates that dealt exclusively with suffrage. In 1908, Schirmacher was not listed as a member of the official German delegation.63 Both facts point to the complexities and tensions behind the process of becoming a delegate to a transnational body. No one just represented ‘their country’ but also certain standpoints and networks there. Schirmacher, despite living in Paris since 1895, was closely associated with the women’s movement in the German Reich. For example, she sat on the board of the VFF which linked associations of the radical wing. In some of these associations, Schirmacher was also an active member and held offices. In 1908, both the VFF and its member organisations struggled with conflicts over politics and strategies.64 Thus, the controversies in the national arenas were reflected in the transnational debate—and vice versa.

Procedures were still a major issue in Amsterdam in 1908. Since practices in civil spaces varied greatly between different countries, it proved challenging to agree on ‘parliamentary rules’ for the transnational body.65 However, using the statutes of another transnational organisation as a model did not prove to be a solution. As Käthe Schirmacher reported to the congress, her enquiries to the Interparliamentary Conference for Peace about rules they could use as a model had been fruitless. She had received an answer from M. Constant d’Estournelles, saying that he desired ‘to see what international parliamentary rules the ladies would formulate for he had to confess the men had none’.66 This may be evidence that women, who as a group had not previously had the opportunity to participate in transnational political negotiations, were more aware of the importance of a formalised process.

In 1908, the IWSA found a clearer strategy of political action in a transnational space. They published several resolutions in which the delegates expressed their views and sentiments on various national developments. They congratulated those who had made progress (such as Finland, where women had been fully enfranchised in 1906), noted with satisfaction that certain steps had been taken (e.g. by the UK Parliament), and criticised other countries for their resistance against innovations (Austria, for not having abolished laws forbidding women to join political organisations as Germany had done). Together with these comparative evaluations, they confirmed the priority of suffrage over all other goals and recommended their members should ‘avoid any entanglement with outside matters’.67 Many of the country reports took the same approach of a friendly form of transnational competition regarding the progress in which the activists hoped to engage their national governments. The consolidation of the transnational organisation was also expressed in a review of its first years.68

At the 1909 conference of the IWSA in London, the growing transnational organisation dealt with various controversial issues. These included the criteria for membership in countries where more than one federation wished to participate, and the extent to which the Alliance should determine what kind of suffrage its affiliated federations should fight for.69 Here, conflicts from different national and transnational arenas mingled. In the same debate, formal and political criteria of affiliation, views on strategies (especially militancy), the relationship with political parties, and the links between different political and social agendas were all up for discussion. Tensions were particularly strong among British activists, where the growing militancy of certain factions caused severe conflicts, and among German delegates, where the demand for universal suffrage was a controversial issue.70 Thus, the controversies in the German Reich and in the UK, although different, became entangled in a problematic way. This became visible, for example, with regard to the official IWSA formula that women should demand ‘suffrage for women on the same terms as it is or may be granted to men’.

While constitutional and militant suffrage activists in the UK could agree with this formulation, it was a particularly contentious issue in the German Reich, where the question of whether women should explicitly demand universal suffrage, as the Social Democrats did, was hotly debated.71 In the UK, on the other hand, the Liberal Party instrumentalised an adult male suffrage bill to block a women’s suffrage bill that had already been accepted in two parliamentary readings. As a result, many British women’s suffrage campaigners saw the demand for universal suffrage as a threat to their own cause.72 The issue emerged in the context of the membership debate when it was stipulated that only associations working exclusively for women’s suffrage should be considered for admission.73 This formula, originally aimed primarily at excluding political parties from the IWSA, was only superficially neutral, as women’s movements were structured differently in different countries and associations in Central European countries often had broader agendas. Potentially, it could even have implied the exclusion of founder societies.74 However, the IWSA board clarified at the next conference that these rules only had a bearing on new applications.75

Schirmacher believed that these conflicts and the critical stance of a part of the German delegation to the board’s way of dealing with them were the reason why she was not re-elected to the IWSA board in London.76 The morning after the election procedure, she used her role as interpreter to have her view documented in the minutes. She said (almost certainly in English) that ‘though I have been appointed as interpreter for this Convention, I feel that I must not continue my office if called upon, unless it is explicitly stated and entered into the minutes that I have always called for the suffrage for women on exactly the same terms as men have or may have it’.77 This prompted distinguished American delegate Anna Shaw (1847–1919) to declare, seemingly out of context, that the IWSA should thank Schirmacher ‘for all she has done for the Alliance’, a vote that was adopted by a ‘hearty majority’.78

The interruption was followed by a debate on the problematic mode of election of officers.79 Both reactions can be interpreted as confirmation of Schirmacher’s assumption about the reason for her non-re-election. In addition, the statement can be interpreted as a message to her German opponents that her critical position on universal suffrage, which had caused dispute in Germany, was in complete accordance with the IWSA’s politics at a transnational level.80 In a letter to her mother, Schirmacher analysed her defeat. She was convinced that her critical stance on universal suffrage, which had been known in the German movement since 1903 and had already cost her a seat on the board of the German Suffrage Association, was the reason why she was not supported by the German delegation in London. She also suspected that her refusal to give a speech in Budapest in French that had been announced in German, had led to negative feelings towards her among the Hungarian delegation.81 Thus the politics of language use and political differences mingled in an explosive way.

A report in the newly found British suffrage journal Common Cause covering the conflict-ridden conference in London 1909 highlights the issue of language but also emphasises the ‘fundamental understanding’ among the participants:

Someone, during the interminable discussions upon the conditions of affiliation, said, it was not easy to quarrel when you spoke different languages, and this may be true; but if it is hard to quarrel in an unknown tongue, it is equally hard to understand, and yet what struck us most was the deep and fundamental understanding in all things essential.82

The text’s praise for the earnest way in which the women from the other countries discussed the controversies over strategies employed by the suffrage movement in the UK and yet were united for a common cause also reveals a certain transnational dynamic, as the peaceful discussion was held up as a mirror to the quarrelling British activists.

The article lauds two personalities in particular—the president, Carrie Chapman Catt, who enticed the participants to find some agreement with her ‘humour and sweetness’ and the interpreter Käthe Schirmacher, who ‘did her work with such art as to make one revel in the mere doing of it’:

Anyone who understood both languages with which she was dealing, could not but feel that her use of the precise and logical French tongue was a positive illumination upon what one had thought one already understood.83

This recognition shows an awareness of both the value of good interpretation and the importance of emotional investment for the success of negotiations. But it also illustrates what makes any translation so precarious: the fact that what is said in a start language always has something added to it, an interpretation, a way of understanding a particular sentence, a decision about what undertones to include and what to leave out. This particular bilingual listener to Schirmacher’s oral translations appreciated her interpretations as clarifications. But someone else might criticise her precisely for how she had shed light on a particular meaning and thus obscured something else.

Covering Conferences, Transferring the Suffrage Cause into National Arenas

Transnational propaganda played a central role in the activism of the IWSA. However, since the change of the law had to be fought for on the national level, be that by militant or political methods, the IWSA activists developed a special type of propaganda that made use of the exchange of knowledge across national and language borders in a specific way. They provided rich information on argumentations, strategies, and successes in many countries but left open the way in which this information was to be incorporated into activism and propaganda on the ground.

To provide these transfers, the IWSA developed several instruments. First, their public international meetings were designed not only as platforms for the exchange of national reports but also as publicity events. Even the founding convention in Berlin in 1904, where only a small group of invited delegates had met, was attended by the press.84 What is more, the locations of the conferences and congresses were often chosen in accordance with local developments and interests. For example, the IWSA decided on London in 1909 because the struggle for suffrage seemed to be coming to a head there.85 Second, the IWSA activists strived to advertise knowledge about their platform and activities to a broader public. They did so by making their debates available to as many as possible by printing and selling the minutes.86

Third, since the protocols were published only in English, the transfer to national publics had to be done differently, namely through the work of journalists who were involved in the movement. Among those who contributed to the coverage of the transnational activities in national arenas, Schirmacher also played an important role. Since the early 1890s, she had regularly attended international events and reported on them in the press and on lecture tours; her experience with more than one role gave her particularly nuanced insights into the dynamics of transnational activism. Her numerous conference reports, published in German and French journals of the movement and newspapers, meant that in many places in France, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland people learned about the events through her lens. However, her work as an activist and professional journalist also placed her in a precarious position between countries, professional roles, and political factions.

The IWSA was founded on the occasion of the ICW congress in Berlin in 1904. Käthe Schirmacher reported on both the large congress that took place in mid-June 1904 and the meeting of suffrage activists from different countries a few days earlier that resulted in the establishment of the Alliance. When covering the ICW congress, Schirmacher, who had been to all major women’s congresses since her visit to Chicago in 1893, took a historical perspective and compared the events that had taken place in various countries in the last decade.

Her article critically reflects the encyclopaedic nature of the large congresses that had attempted to cover all dimensions of the woman question. Given the growth of the women’s movement and the many different issues it had taken up, Schirmacher advocated holding more focused congresses on specific topics in the future. She registered the growing approval of the women’s movement in elite circles with satisfaction, but also mentioned political conflicts she had been involved in at the conference, namely her argument with the Social Democrats and her critical view of universal suffrage. She referred only very briefly to the founding meeting of the IWSA.87 Yet, in another report she focused on this earlier gathering, to which she attributed globally historical significance. She also discussed the relationship between the two organisations, the ICW and the newly formed IWSA, and stressed the importance of a single-issue movement that was able to push a particular agenda as a large organisation like the ICW could not.88 In both reports, she pointed to the predominance of what she called the ‘Anglo-Saxon-Germanic nations’ in the movement, implicitly expressing her growing distance from the French culture in which she had lived for so many years.89

The comparison between these accounts published in different media and the analysis of other reports she penned about the events in Berlin in June 1904 shows that Schirmacher adapted her descriptions to the audiences she expected. She made this explicit in her coverage of the ICW congress for the Viennese Fremden-Blatt, noting that readers unfamiliar with the women’s movement might be interested in more general observations, and this was why she included information on costumes and decorations. When writing for a French paper she listed the many nations that had participated and mentioned the members of the French delegation by name before noting the strong English-speaking and German presence during at the event.90 For the French public, too, she addressed specific audiences, for example by focusing on social issues in one article and discussing suffrage in another.91 However, in all reports about the two different meetings in Berlin (the ICW and the IWSA), she included information on language issues. For example, in the German text on the IWSA conference, she mentioned that the negotiations had been conducted in English and German and she had been the interpreter.92 In the feature for the Fremden-Blatt she claimed that German had been the dominant language at the ICW congress and that even the English-speaking representatives of the board made an effort to speak the language of the host country.93 In one of the French reports, she pointed out that the official languages at the ICW congress had been French, German, and English, but that the French delegates had problems following some discussions that were not translated.94

Several aspects are to be noted here. First, as a multilingual mediator and translator, Schirmacher is always attentive to language issues and considers them worthy of inclusion in her accounts of transnational events. Second, she depicts language as something to do with power and as therefore an instrument of politics. Third, as a journalist, Schirmacher accurately assesses her audiences and tailors her reports accordingly. This illustrates her nuanced knowledge of perspectives, cultures, and idiosyncrasies in different national and political environments. It also shows that she not only juggled several professional roles but also acted differently in different milieus, as is also evident in her coverage of the subsequent IWSA conferences and congresses. Here, too, language is a recurring theme. Increasingly, she also includes remarks about the suffragettes, whom she obviously regards as an avant-garde of the movement.95 Her strong political attachment to the IWSA is shown by the fact that she always writes positively about the association, even after the turbulent events at the conference in London in 1909 that cost her a position on the board.

The public echo of the 1909 London conference in Germany was, however, dominated by others. Whereas Adelheid von Welczeck (life dates unknown) had given a rather neutral report in the Zeitschrift für Frauen-Stimmrecht, Lida-Gustava Heymann countered this description by an extremely critical review of the conference in the same journal.96 Heymann, the German delegate whom Schirmacher more than any other held accountable for her not being re-elected to the board, lamented two things in particular, the rejection of universal suffrage as a common IWSA demand and the exclusion of the suffragette association Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) via the strategical criteria of affiliation.97 Schirmacher countered this by publishing a factual report in a newspaper that emphasised both the difficult negotiations and the important documents the congress had produced. It is worth noting that Schirmacher saw the IWSA constitution negotiated in London as an important contribution to transnational collaboration precisely because it left the agenda and the strategies largely to the affiliated associations.98

Neither of the two women (who had close if increasingly conflictual links in other organisations) mentioned each other’s name or the tensions between them publicly. Schirmacher did write a sharp rebuttal to Heymann’s article, but it seems to have remained unpublished.99 Whether this was a deliberate decision by Schirmacher or whether the editors of the Zeitschrift für Frauen-Stimmrecht refused to print it remains unclear. However, Schirmacher’s partner Klara Schleker, also a delegate in London, had tried to publish a critical response to Heymann’s report in the journal, but was refused.100 In her unpublished text, Schirmacher criticises the German delegation, and in particular Heymann’s life partner Anita Augspurg, who had resigned her vice-presidency in protest, for their bad conduct at the congress. And she argues that a correction of Heymann’s account is necessary to do justice to IWSA President Carrie Chapman Catt. She points to how the British suffrage journal The Common Cause had stressed Catt’s ‘admirable impartiality’ to which all participants at the congress could bear witness.101 The many German activists who had not been in London need to be informed of this impeccable conduct, Schirmacher argues.102 In this way, she references her knowledge of events in the transnational arena and its rules of communication to prevail in her conflict with German suffragists. In a sense, she is saying that she was the better mediator in political arenas outside Germany.

Schirmacher’s precarious status in the German movement is reflected in the fact that in London in 1909, as in Amsterdam the year before, she was not a member of the German delegation.103 A letter to her mother illustrates the extent to which she perceived the transnational arena as the basis of her activism, the community where she contributed important work and was celebrated. It also shows her growing nationalism and anti-Semitism in the way she describes her opponents and in her description of Anglo-German political relations. She explained to her mother that already in Berlin in 1904, despite the reservations German activists had about her, they could not prevent her being appointed to the board because of her important services as an interpreter. She listed her accomplishments for the IWSA, her work as interpreter at the congresses and all the Alliance’s French correspondence. She also reminded her mother of her lecture tours to many European countries and the associations she had helped to found, work, she suspected, that many London delegates probably knew nothing about.104

Despite her disappointment, however, Schirmacher did not hold the international association responsible for her failure. This is apparent not only in the way she reported on the London congress but also by her ongoing work for the IWSA, for example on the Committee of Admissions to which she was appointed in 1909.105 The fact that she still had support in Germany and was held in high esteem by the board of the IWSA is also shown by the fact that Schirmacher was again a member of the German delegation in 1911 and was entrusted with a new task, the translation of a brochure from the USA.106 How much she valued her involvement in the transnational work and saw it not as a contradiction to her nationalism but as a context in which she could build alliances and gain influence is evident in her efforts to be re-elected to the board in Budapest in 1913. However, by this time she was much more marginalised than four years earlier and did not receive nearly enough votes to achieve this goal.107

Media and Means for Transnational Transfer—Jus Suffragii and the Translation Fund

Journalism in the national media was an important means of bringing the cause of women’s suffrage and the goals and activities of the IWSA to the attention of wider publics. To support this effort and to connect the work across countries, the IWSA established its own journal in 1906. The founding editor and driving force until 1913 was the multilingual Martina Kramers from the Netherlands. At the Copenhagen congress in 1906, following debates about the fallacies and misrepresentations of women’s suffrage work in the press, she had been tasked with launching a monthly bulletin in English to help to provide the affiliated associations with accurate information on the suffrage cause across national borders for their own publicity.108 At first, this was a hectographed typed report on the press coverage of the conference, with insider information such as who was on a lecture tour in which part of Europe.109 In the first and subsequent issues, Kramers repeatedly explains the concept and the approach. The affiliated associations were to send in reports on their countries, which she would translate into English. However, she could only do this if the reports reached her:

You may send newspapers with blue marks, if you have no time for a letter; you may send them in French, German or Italian, and I dare say, that with the help of friends, I can manage to understand the Scandinavian languages and Spanish too […] Remember that I cannot make the bulletin valuable myself. All depends on you, each and all.110

She also reminded her readers that the enterprise could only be continued if enough subscriptions were made. The following issue was already printed in 500 copies and contained reports from ten countries. Kramers now also asked for free copies of major feminist journals in various countries.111

From January 1907, the journal, which until then had the rather prosaic name of Bulletin or Monthly Correspondence, was published under the title Jus Suffragii. The more intellectual title indicated both an interest in a wider audience and a desire to avoid the association with a particular national language; the choice of a Latin term, however, also demonstrates the elite European context in which the journal was conceived. Soon, Jus Suffragii spawned a lively exchange between countries and movements that continued even during the war years.112 As an important space for transnational transfers of information and strategies that were also reflected in the various national suffrage journals, it was influential far beyond the small circle of its actual readers. Information from Jus Suffragii was used and republished in suffrage journals in various countries, often without naming the source.113 In 1908, the journal, which proved financially profitable and was deemed a successful venture by all, was discussed at length at the Amsterdam congress. A French edition and a German edition (the latter was proposed by Käthe Schirmacher) were considered, as well as the advantages of both variants and their cost.114

In 1911, the editor could report that through the generous support of two members, a French edition had been printed since 1910.115 In the same year, the IWSA allowed for more space in Jus Suffragii and gave the editor the freedom to cover news outside the contributions of the affiliated societies, which can be seen as an important step towards a journal that was also of interest also outside the IWSA.116 Articles by IWSA members on women’s suffrage and the press appeared in the following issues, reflecting increased attention to press strategies and publicity.117

In 1913, however, a fundamental change took place. Carrie Chapman Catt planned to establish a headquarters of the IWSA and an international press office in London and to publish Jus Suffragii from there. She urged Kramers, who had published the journal from Rotterdam since 1906, to resign as editor and thus allow the move to London. When Kramers refused, Catt used knowledge she had about Kramers’ extramarital relationship to a married man to force her to step down.118 Kramers left the organisation deeply disappointed, but not without pointing out her skills and accomplishments and asking Catt whether she would be able to replace her with someone who, like her, was ‘able to read nine languages’ and had ‘friends and correspondents in all nations’.119 Her story, like Schirmacher’s, shows that language skills were an important advantage but not a unique selling point.

That the IWSA board knew about the importance of transfer by translation and honoured it was evidenced, for example, by the fact that Catt provided a foreword for the French translation of one of the books she had acknowledged as an unofficial manual, Alice Zimmern’s Suffrage in Many Lands.120 In 1911, the IWSA also made funds available for the translation of another text that had previously been published as a pamphlet of the National American Suffrage Association, an article on experiences with women’s suffrage in Colorado since 1893.121 At the 1911 Stockholm congress, Käthe Schirmacher had suggested that this text, which demonstrated the positive impact of women’s equal political participation, should be translated into German and French and published as IWSA publicity material. The move was carried and a committee consisting of Schirmacher and Cécile Léon Brunschvicg (1877–1946) was entrusted with the task. Their translations appeared soon after.122 The resources to accomplish this were provided by donations, as a remark by the editor of Jus Suffragii revealed:

Surely the generous contributors to the Translation Fund will rejoice to see mentioned in our organ how many nations wish to avail themselves of the proffered aid, and probably the zealous translators of the Lindsey-article will be no less eager to know in how great request their work is already.123

Which other translations were accomplished with the support of the said translation fund is difficult to say. Explicit mention is made of the translation of Catt’s address into German in 1911. This was, however, funded by donations made specifically for that task.124

The text Cécile Brunschvicg and Käthe Schirmacher translated into French and German in 1911 was written by the well-known investigative journalist George Creel (1876–1953) and social reformer and judge Ben B. Lindsey (1869–1943), both of whom actively supported women’s suffrage. Originally published as a journal article justifying women’s suffrage, the text was soon republished as a brochure for suffrage publicity in the USA. It listed initiatives and laws passed since the enfranchisement of women in Colorado in 1911 and countered arguments against equal suffrage for women. Schirmacher translated the thirty-page treatise without cuts and quite literally. However, she made two interventions. First, she changed the title into ‘Die Praxis des Frauenstimmrechts’ (The Practice of Woman Suffrage) thus placing the focus on women rather than equality and on political practice rather than evaluation, in contrast to the original title ‘Measuring Up Equal Suffrage’. Her translation of the subtitle ‘An Authoritative Estimate of the results in Colorado’ also reinforced this tendency by rendering ‘estimate’ as ‘Urteil’ (judgement). Second, Schirmacher provided examples given in the source text with additional contextualising information, including notes on Colorado’s population and economy, political institutions, legal practices, and aspects of civic engagement in the USA, and also provided currency conversions for her German audience.125 At two points, she even corrected the authors. In particular, she countered Creel’s and Lindsey’s critical comments on militant methods in the fight for suffrage with a remark on different situations in different countries.126

The translation of this American pamphlet was obviously a success as the German translation appeared in a second edition as early as the end of 1911, and a third edition was published in 1912.127 However, the most important project of translation and transfer that the IWSA accomplished in its first decade was the handbook on women’s suffrage in different countries that had been under discussion for several conferences.128 Despite her earlier work on the same issues, Schirmacher was no longer involved in this project, nor was she mentioned.

Controversies in Translation

Translation and interpretation played a crucial role at various levels of the IWSA’s work but were also a source of conflict. The ability to correspond in different languages (or efficient support in this task) was indispensable for the IWSA’s leading officers. Among other things, Jus Suffragii was a vital instrument for providing translations of relevant information and establishing a common standard of knowledge. This also made it a subject of conflict which became apparent when President Catt decided to move the press office to London. To reach a common understanding of central topics, trusted translations of key texts were essential. At the transnational meetings, interpreting between the participants’ different languages was of great importance and the choice of interpreters from the board of the Alliance demonstrated the political character of this particular office. Most importantly, in order to be able to communicate on these issues and to develop joint activities in a productive way, accepted rules of order, providing a common culture for the organisation, were needed. Getting the central message to the public and to policymakers in national arenas required yet another form of ‘translation’: not only the mastery of different languages, but also the ability to ‘translate’ demands and arguments into concrete political situations on the ground. Many IWSA activists were active on several of these levels but were also entangled in activities and functions outside the IWSA. In the case of Schirmacher, these positions were manifold. She was connected with civil society institutions and associations in France and in Germany. Most importantly, however, she earned her living as a journalist and travelling lecturer in various countries. Therefore, her relationship with the IWSA affected her standing in these professional fields—and vice versa.

The importance of translation was intersected by hierarchies of relevance, hierarchies between languages, countries, different associations, and between political factions. As the president and the vice president were from English-speaking countries, reflecting their countries’ importance in the struggle for women’s suffrage, the predominance of their language in IWSA correspondence and at the conferences was probably inevitable. However, this only underlines the entanglement of political and linguistic matters. Against the backdrop of a transnational strategy that used countries more advanced in women’s political participation as examples for those that still refused to change their systems, the practices of translating and interpreting were also linked to questions of power. They served to propagate a particular culture and its norms worldwide.

Another way of dealing with different languages was to not translate. The ability to sometimes communicate in a common language and without the help of translators was particularly important in the IWSA. Unlike the ‘encyclopaedic’ conferences of the ICW, where a rough understanding of what was said at the lectern probably sufficed to enjoy the event, the serious political debates in the single-issue organisation required precise and direct communication. Those who wanted not only to find common ground but also to agree on a particular formulation had to understand each other as precisely as possible. Part of the solution was the development of a reduced but specialised language that was useful only for the topics under discussion.

The minutes of the IWSA conferences show that there was a growing awareness of the many languages spoken by the delegates. This, however, had more than one implication and was met by different, even contradictory responses. The diversity of languages led to increased efforts to facilitate communication by providing the necessary translations, but also to a call to learn each other’s languages, especially English, the predominant conference language, in order to get by without translation. Whether the focus was on translation or a common language, the regular meetings of delegates from different countries not only led to the experience of being connected across borders by a common cause, but also reinforced the perception of national differences and fuelled nationalist sentiments. Sometimes—as we can see in the case of Käthe Schirmacher—one person could embody all these responses (Fig. 8.1).

Fig. 8.1
A photograph of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance Congress featuring Kathe Schirmacher as third in the second row with Millicent Fawcett as President.

(National Library of Norway)

International Woman Suffrage Alliance Congress with Millicent Fawcett presiding, London 1909. Klara Schleker and Käthe Schirmacher as second and third in the second row

Full size image

Notes

  1. 1.

    On the ICW and IWSA see Leila Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997); on the IAF: Bettina Kretzschmar, ‘Gleiche Moral und gleiches Recht für Mann und Frau’: der deutsche Zweig der Internationalen abolitionistischen Bewegung (1899–1933) (Sulzbach: Helmer, 2014); Anne Summers, ‘Introduction: The International Abolitionist Federation’, Women’s History Review 17, no. 2 (2008), 149–52; despite their self-naming as ‘international’ bodies I refer to the ICW, IWSA and IAF as transnational organisations since they do not establish relations between states but rather link civil societies of different countries.

  2. 2.

    Gisela Bock, ‘Das politische Denken des Suffragismus: Deutschland um 1900 im internationalen Vergleich’, in Gisela Bock, Geschlechtergeschichten der Neuzeit. Ideen, Politik, Praxis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 168–203, at 197–199.

  3. 3.

    Rupp, Worlds, 21–22; on the contemporary use of the term ‘radical’: Bock, ‘Das politische Denken’, 194; Angelika Schaser, Frauenbewegung in Deutschland 1848–1933 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2006), 6; Johanna Gehmacher, Elisa Heinrich, and Corinna Oesch, Käthe Schirmacher: Agitation und autobiografische Praxis zwischen radikaler Frauenbewegung und völkischer Politik (Vienna et al.: Böhlau, 2018), 314–15 (Oesch).

  4. 4.

    Report: First International Woman Suffrage Conference. Held at Washington, U.S.A, February 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 1902 (New York, NY: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1902).

  5. 5.

    Most of the reporters, some of them male, had English names. In some cases (e.g. Austria and Italy) a relation to the American embassy could be traced, others were characterised as Christian clergymen by their titles. See Report: First International Woman Suffrage Conference, 15–16.

  6. 6.

    Report: First International Woman Suffrage, 4, 13.

  7. 7.

    Rupp, Worlds, 21–24; see also Leila J. Rupp, ‘Transnational Women’s Movements’, in: European History Online (EGO), published by the Institute of European History (IEG), Mainz 16 June 2011, accessed 21 June 2022, http://www.ieg-ego.eu/ruppl-2011-en; Anne-Laure Briatte, Bevormundete Staatsbürgerinnen: Die ‘radikale’ Frauenbewegung im Deutschen Kaiserreich (Frankfurt/M. and New York: Campus, 2020), 258–59, 271–72.

  8. 8.

    Report: Second and Third Conferences of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, Berlin, Germany, June 3, 4, 1904, Copenhagen, Denmark, August 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 1906 (Copenhagen, Capital Region: Bianco Luno, 1906), 5–6; Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Der zweite Internationale Kongreß für Frauenstimmrecht’, Frauen-Rundschau, no. 23 (1904), 708–9.

  9. 9.

    E.g., with reference to contemporary characterisations: Rupp, Worlds, 20, 25.

  10. 10.

    The friendly relations were documented by the exchange of delegates: Report: Second and Third Conferences, 19; The International Woman Suffrage Alliance. Report of the Fourth Conference, Amsterdam, Holland, June 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 1908 (Amsterdam: F. Van Rossen, 1908), 12.

  11. 11.

    Gisela Bock, ‘Wege zur demokratischen Bürgerschaft: transnationale Perspektiven’, in Geschlechtergeschichten der Neuzeit. Ideen, Politik, Praxis, ed. Gisela Bock (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 204–40, at 220; on another (short-lived) initiative to develop a more radical transnational body, the Union international des femmes progressistes, in which Schirmacher also was involved: Gehmacher, Heinrich, and Oesch, Käthe Schirmacher, 316–18 (Oesch).

  12. 12.

    Report: First International Woman Suffrage Conference, 14–15.

  13. 13.

    Bock, ‘Wege’, 200.

  14. 14.

    On the militant suffragettes see June Purvis and June Hannam, eds., The British Women’s Suffrage Campaign: National and International Perspectives (Abingdon, Oxon and New York, NY: Routledge, 2021).

  15. 15.

    See for a comparative view on suffrage campaigns Birgitta Bader-Zaar, ‘Zur Geschichte des Frauenwahlrechts im langen 19. Jahrhundert. Eine international vergleichende Perspektive’, Ariadne 40 (2001), 6–13; Bock, ‘Wege’.

  16. 16.

    Report: Second and Third Conferences, 26–27.

  17. 17.

    Johanna Gehmacher, ‘Covering the Suffragettes. Austrian Newspapers Reporting on Militant Women’s Rights Activism in the United Kingdom’, in The British Women’s Suffrage Campaign. National and International Perspectives, eds. June Purvis and June Hannam (Abingdon, Oxon and New York, NY: Routledge, 2021), 199–221 at 213.

  18. 18.

    The detailed report of the treasurer listed expenses for stenographers and for typing the minutes, but not for the interpreters, see Report: Second and Third Conferences, 51–54.

  19. 19.

    Ibid., 117. At later occasions, English, German, and French were called the ‘official languages’. See ibid., 28.

  20. 20.

    Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Madame la Directrice [Nous recevons la lettre suivante…]’, La Française. Journal de Progrès des Féminin, 4 April 1909.

  21. 21.

    Rupp, Worlds, 74.

  22. 22.

    German minutes were also kept but remained unpublished. See Report: Second and Third Conferences, 7, 17.

  23. 23.

    Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Der zweite Internationale Kongreß für Frauenstimmrecht’, Frauen-Rundschau, no. 23 (1904), 708.

  24. 24.

    Report: Second and Third Conferences, 5–6.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., 5, 7, 9, 10.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., 9.

  27. 27.

    Ibid., 10.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., 21.

  29. 29.

    The International Woman Suffrage Alliance. Report of Fifth Conference and First Quinquennial, London, England, April 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, May 1, 1909 (London: Samuel Sidders and Company, 1909), 26.

  30. 30.

    Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Union Française pour le Suffrage des Femmes’, La Française. Journal de Progrès des Féminin, 28 March 1909; Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Le prochain Congrès du Suffrage a Londres’, La Française. Journal de Progrès des Féminin, 21 March 1909; Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Madame la Directrice, [Nous recevons la lettre suivante…]’, La Française. Journal de Progrès des Féminin, 4 April 1909.

  31. 31.

    Report: Second and Third Conferences, 16.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 17.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 37, 25.

  34. 34.

    Report of the Fourth Conference, 19; Report of Fifth Conference, 25.

  35. 35.

    International Woman Suffrage Alliance. Report of the Sixth Congress of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, Stockholm Sweden, June 12–17, 1911 (London: Women’s Printing Society, 1911), 16. From 1911 onwards, the international meetings of the IWSA were called congresses.

  36. 36.

    Report of Fifth Conference, 46.

  37. 37.

    Report of the Sixth Congress, 24.

  38. 38.

    Ibid., 14.

  39. 39.

    Jus Suffragii, 15 July 1911, 80; Report of the Sixth Congress, 96–9.

  40. 40.

    The International Woman Suffrage Alliance. Report of Seventh Congress, Budapest, Hungary, June 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 1913 (Manchester, England: Percy Brothers, 1913), 9, 10.

  41. 41.

    Ibid., 57, 67.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., see also Report of the Sixth Congress, 3.

  43. 43.

    Report of Seventh Congress, 29.

  44. 44.

    Ibid., 3, 66, see also: Sybil Oldfield, ‘Mary Sheepshanks Edits an Internationalist Suffrage Monthly in Wartime: Jus Suffragii 1914–19’, Women’s History Review 12, no. 1 (1 March 2003) 119–31, at 119.

  45. 45.

    Report of Seventh Congress, 68.

  46. 46.

    Report: Second and Third Conferences, 45.

  47. 47.

    Report of the Fourth Conference, 28.

  48. 48.

    Report: Second and Third Conferences, 7.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., 4.

  50. 50.

    Ibid., 8.

  51. 51.

    Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Der zweite Internationale Kongreß für Frauenstimmrecht’, Frauen-Rundschau, no. 23 (1904), 708–9.

  52. 52.

    Report: Second and Third Conferences, 45.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., 34.

  54. 54.

    Ibid.

  55. 55.

    Ibid., 34–35.

  56. 56.

    Ibid., 33.

  57. 57.

    Report of the Fourth Conference, 15.

  58. 58.

    Report: Second and Third Conferences, 20.

  59. 59.

    Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Schreiben an Frau Martina Kramers in Rotterdam von Dr. Käthe Schirmacher in Paris, 14 Juni 1906’, Beilage der Frauenbewegung. Parlamentarische Angelegenheiten und Gesetzgebung, 1 July 1906; Martina G. Kramers, ‘Antwort an Dr. Käthe Schirmacher’, Die Frauenbewegung, 1 August 1906.

  60. 60.

    Ibid.

  61. 61.

    Politiken, 8 August 1906; see also Johanna Gehmacher, ‘In/Visible Transfers: Translation as a Crucial Practice in Transnational Women’s Movements around 1900’, German Historical Institute London Bulletin XLI (2019), no. 2 (2019), https://www.ghil.ac.uk/publications/bulletin/bulletin_41_2/, 27–28.

  62. 62.

    Report of the Fourth Conference, 10, 11; On the VFF and the Liberale Frauenpartei: Briatte, Bevormundete Staatsbürgerinnen, 179–82, 308.

  63. 63.

    Report of the Fourth Conference, 8.

  64. 64.

    See for more detail: Gehmacher, Heinrich, and Oesch, Käthe Schirmacher, 320–25 (Oesch); on the tensions in the VFF see also Briatte, Bevormundete Staatsbürgerinnen, 254.

  65. 65.

    Report of the Fourth Conference, 20.

  66. 66.

    Ibid., 22.

  67. 67.

    Ibid., 5–7.

  68. 68.

    Ibid., 53–56.

  69. 69.

    Report of Fifth Conference, 37–39.

  70. 70.

    Anonymous, ‘Our Point of View’, The Common Cause, 6 May 1909; Adelheid von Welczeck, ‘Kongress des Weltbundes für Frauenstimmrecht in London vom 26. April bis 1. Mai 1909’, Zeitschrift für Frauen-Stimmrecht, 15 May 1909; Lida Gustava Heymann, ‘Kritisches zum Kongress des Weltbundes für Frauenstimmrecht in London vom 26. April bis 1. Mai 1909’, Zeitschrift für Frauen-Stimmrecht, 1 June 1909.

  71. 71.

    Gehmacher, Heinrich, and Oesch, Käthe Schirmacher, 351–62 (Oesch); cf. also Ute Gerhard, ‘Im Schnittpunkt von Recht und Gewalt – zeitgenössische Diskurse über die Taktik der Suffragetten’, in Faltenwürfe der Geschichte. Entdecken, entziffern, erzählen., ed. Sandra Maß and Xenia Tippelskirch (Frankfurt/M. and New York: Campus, 2014), 416–30, at 416.

  72. 72.

    Käthe Schirmacher, Die Suffragettes (Weimar: Alexander Duncker Verlag, 1912), 75.

  73. 73.

    Report of Fifth Conference, 38; see on these debates: Gehmacher, Heinrich, and Oesch, Käthe Schirmacher, 363–64 (Oesch); Gehmacher, ‘In/Visible Transfers’, 34.

  74. 74.

    Lida Gustava Heymann, ‘Kritisches zum Kongress des Weltbundes für Frauenstimmrecht in London vom 26. April bis 1. Mai 1909’, Zeitschrift für Frauen-Stimmrecht, 1 June 1909.

  75. 75.

    Gehmacher, Heinrich, and Oesch, Käthe Schirmacher, 363–64 (Oesch).

  76. 76.

    Nl Sch 257/001, Käthe Schirmacher, Gegenkritik [manuscript].

  77. 77.

    Report of Fifth Conference, 48.

  78. 78.

    Ibid.

  79. 79.

    Ibid.

  80. 80.

    Gehmacher, Heinrich, and Oesch, Käthe Schirmacher, 363 (Oesch).

  81. 81.

    NL Sch 013/002, KS to Clara Schirmacher, 12 May 1909.

  82. 82.

    Anonymous, ‘Our Point of View’, The Common Cause, 6 May 1909.

  83. 83.

    Ibid.

  84. 84.

    Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Der zweite Internationale Kongreß für Frauenstimmrecht’, Frauen-Rundschau, no. 23 (1904), 708–9; Anonymous, ‘International Women’s Suffrage Conference at Berlin’, Women’s Suffrage Record, June 1904.

  85. 85.

    Report of the Fourth Conference, 26–27.

  86. 86.

    Report: Second and Third Conferences, 17.

  87. 87.

    Nl Sch 414/025, Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Der Berliner Frauenkongress 1904’ [newspaper clipping].

  88. 88.

    Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Der zweite Internationale Kongreß für Frauenstimmrecht’, Frauen-Rundschau, no. 23 (1904), 708–9.

  89. 89.

    Ibid.; Nl Sch 414/025, Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Der Berliner Frauenkongress 1904’ [newspaper clipping].

  90. 90.

    Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Der internationale Frauenkongress in Berlin’, Fremden-Blatt, 22 June 1904; Nl Sch 414/008, Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Le Congrès Féministe International de Berlin’ [newspaper clipping, 1904].

  91. 91.

    Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Le Congrès féministe international de Berlin’, La Semaine Littéraire, 8 July 1904.

  92. 92.

    Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Der zweite Internationale Kongreß für Frauenstimmrecht’, Frauen-Rundschau, no. 23 (1904), 708–9.

  93. 93.

    Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Der internationale Frauenkongress in Berlin’, Fremden-Blatt, 22 June 1904.

  94. 94.

    Nl Sch 414/008, Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Le Congrès Féministe International de Berlin’ [newspaper clipping, 1904].

  95. 95.

    E.g. Nl Sch 180/049, Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Die Ergebnisse des Frauen-Kongresses’ [newspaper clipping, 1906]; Nl Sch 585/038, Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Vom internationalen Frauenkongress’ [newspaper clipping, 29 June 1908].

  96. 96.

    Adelheid von Welczeck, ‘Kongress des Weltbundes für Frauenstimmrecht in London vom 26. April bis 1. Mai 1909’, Zeitschrift für Frauen-Stimmrecht, 15 May 1909; Lida Gustava Heymann, ‘Kritisches zum Kongress des Weltbundes für Frauenstimmrecht in London vom 26. April bis 1. Mai 1909’, Zeitschrift für Frauen-Stimmrecht, 1 June 1909.

  97. 97.

    Lida Gustava Heymann, ‘Kritisches zum Kongress des Weltbundes für Frauenstimmrecht in London vom 26. April bis 1. Mai 1909’, Zeitschrift für Frauen-Stimmrecht, 1 June 1909.

  98. 98.

    Käthe Schirmacher, ‘Der fünfte internationale Kongress für Frauenstimmrecht (Frauen-Rundschau)’, Greifswalder Zeitung, 30 May 1909.

  99. 99.

    Nl Sch 257/001, Käthe Schirmacher, Gegenkritik [manuscript].

  100. 100.

    Gehmacher, Heinrich, and Oesch, Käthe Schirmacher, 364 (Oesch).

  101. 101.

    Anonymous, ‘Germany (Foreign News)’, The Common Cause, 10 June 1909.

  102. 102.

    Nl Sch 257/001, Käthe Schirmacher, Gegenkritik [manuscript].

  103. 103.

    Report of the Fourth Conference, 8, 10, 11; Report of Fifth Conference, 17.

  104. 104.

    NL Sch 013/002, KS to Clara Schirmacher, 12 May 1909.

  105. 105.

    Report of Fifth Conference, 3.

  106. 106.

    Report of the Sixth Congress, 3, 16.

  107. 107.

    Report of Seventh Congress, 59.

  108. 108.

    Report: Second and Third Conferences, 25–33.

  109. 109.

    Bulletin or Monthly Correspondence, 15 September 1906.

  110. 110.

    Ibid.

  111. 111.

    Bulletin or Monthly Correspondence, 15 October 1906.

  112. 112.

    On the history of the Jus Suffragii see Sybil Oldfield, ed., International Woman Suffrage: Ius Suffragii 1913–1920. Vol. IV October 1918–1920 (London: Routledge, 2003); see also Oldfield, ‘Mary Sheepshanks’.

  113. 113.

    I thank Dóra Czeferner for this information. For her work on the women’s movement in Hungary see Dóra Czeferner, ‘Weibliche Identität in Mitteleuropa und Wissenstransfer zwischen den ungarischen, österreichischen und deutschen Frauenorganisationen 1890–1914’ Öt Kontinens/Five Continents 2 (2015), 7–30.

  114. 114.

    Report of the Fourth Conference, 24–26, 29.

  115. 115.

    Report of the Sixth Congress, 27.

  116. 116.

    Ibid., 38.

  117. 117.

    Käthe Schirmacher, ‘How Can Women Influence the Press?’, Jus Suffragii, 15 August 1911; Mirovitch Zeneide, ‘What to Do against Press Calumnies and Misstatements?’, 15 August 1911; Catherine E. Marshall, ‘Women’s Suffrage and the Press’, Jus Suffragii, 15 December 1911.

  118. 118.

    Mineke Bosch and Annemarie Kloosterman, eds., Politics and Friendship. Letters from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 1902–1942 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1990), 31; see also Rupp, Worlds, 95–96; Gehmacher, Heinrich, and Oesch, Käthe Schirmacher: Agitation und autobiografische Praxis zwischen radikaler Frauenbewegung und völkischer Politik, 238 (Heinrich).

  119. 119.

    Martina Kramers to Carrie Chapman Catt, 2 June 1913, in: Bosch and Kloosterman, Politics and Friendship, 127–29.

  120. 120.

    Alice Zimmern, Le Suffrage des Femmes dans tous les Pays, trans. C. Leon Brunschvicg, foreword: Carrie Chapman Catt (Librerie des Sciences Politiques et Sociales, 1911), 1–2.

  121. 121.

    George Creel and Ben B. Lindsey, Measuring up Equal Suffrage (New York: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1911).

  122. 122.

    Jus Suffragii, 15 September 1911; George Creel and Ben B. Lindsey, Die Praxis des Frauenstimmrechts. Ein maßgebendes Urteil über seine Ergebnisse in Colorado. Mit Erlaubnis des ‚Delineator ‘übersetzt von Käthe Schirmacher [with permission of the ‚Delineator‘ translated by KS] (second edition, Dresden-Blasewitz: Weltbund für Frauenstimmrecht, 1912); George Creel and Ben B. Lindsey, Le suffrage des femmes au Colorado, trans. C. Leon Brunschvicg (Paris: Scheffer, 1911); a Dutch edition is mentioned in the treasurer’s report for the year 1911, bibliographical evidence for this is still to be found. See Report of Seventh Congress, 70.

  123. 123.

    Jus Suffragii, 15 August 1911, remark by the editor, 82.

  124. 124.

    Report of Seventh Congress, 70.

  125. 125.

    Creel and. Lindsey, Die Praxis, 1, 3, 5, 12, 15, 21.

  126. 126.

    Ibid., 13, 15.

  127. 127.

    Jus Suffragii, 15 December 1911, 33; Creel, Die Praxis.

  128. 128.

    Chrystal Macmillan, Marie Stritt, and Maria Vérone, Woman Suffrage in Practice. Second Impression with Corrections and Additions (London and New York: National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies and The National American Women’s Suffrage Association, 1913); Chrystal Macmillan, Marie Stritt, and Maria Vérone, Le Suffrage des Femmes en Pratique (London and Paris: Maria Vérone, 1913); Chrystal Macmillan, Marie Stritt, and Maria Vérone, Frauenstimmrecht in der Praxis (London, 1913); see also Susan Zimmermann, ‘Schwimmer, Róza (Bédy-Schwimmer, Bédi-Schwimmer, Rózsa, Rosika) (1877–1948)’, in Biographical Dictionary of Women’s Movements and Feminisms: Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries, eds. Francisca de Haan, Anna Loutfi, and Krassimira Daskalova (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2006), 485.