Andrew S. Bergerson, Li Gerhalter and Thorsten Logge (Eds.): From Langenbrück to Kansas City. The Kiefer-Scholz Family, Hamburg 2021.
Kennen Sie schon Thekla Scholz? Sie arbeitete als Dienstmädchen und war 23 Jahre alt, als sie 1911 von Schlesien aus in die USA migrierte. Ihre Korrespondenzen sind die Grundlage einer neuen Open Access Publikation (Link).
Das Buch ist das Ergebnis einer transnational organisierten Lehrveranstaltung im Sommersemester 2020, an der die fünf Universitäten beteiligt waren: Missouri-Kansas City und Missouri-St. Louis (LV-Leiter: Andrew Bergerson), Wien (Li Gerhalter), Hamburg (Thorsten Logge) und Wroclawski (Joanna Wojdon).
Transatlantische Zusammenarbeit
Die Kapitel wurden von den Studierenden der verschiedenen Universitäten in international und interdisziplinär zusammengesetzen Arbeitsgruppen geschrieben. Sie behandeln folgende Themen:
- Thekla E Scholz as a young German migrant women in the USA around 1910: What does the „American dream“ mean to whom?
- Sustaining relationships via letters and postcards after migration in the 1920s
- Maintaining and adapting German culture to post-WWI America: Language, music, and eating habits
- The supply situation in Silesia after World War I: How world history can change the position of young migrant women within their personal environment
- Migration and transatlantic catholicism: The Scholz sisters as actors in catholic traditions in the US – and as a missionary in Africa
- A photo journal of Langenbrück (today Moszczanka) in 2020/2021
Kurzbeschreibung
In 1911, Thekla E. Scholz migrated at the age of 23 from her rural village in Upper Silesia to work as a maid in the United States. She and her husband Robert J. Kiefer, an itinerate cabinet maker and musician, settled in Kansas City after he served in the German Army during the First World War. Thanks to Thekla Scholz’s lifelong habit of preserving holy cards, letters, photographs, and postcards, scholars can study her migration and subsequent life in Missouri as well as the ongoing challenges faced by her family and friends in both countries. Continue reading