Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 228, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1910 — Ways of Berlin Women [ARTICLE]

Ways of Berlin Women

“I believe that the typical German hausfrau Is a myth,” said a New York woman who returned the other day from a year's residence in Germany. “I don’t see how the average German woman finds any time to be a hausfrau. I sometimes wondered when the German woman found time to do anything at home. “I spent eight months in Berlin with my daughter, who . was studying’ music. From eleven to twelve in the morning the cases were packed with German women, who go out to take -their second breakfast in- the public restaurants, a thing unknown in America. “They take along their sewing or embroidery and sit an hour or two over their cup of coffee or glass of beer. At the concerts, too, they take their work and spend hours day after day listening to the music. You can spend an afternoon listening to beautiful music, a magnificent orchestra with fine vocal artists, for 1C cents. That is an illustration of some of the things that help to exile Americans. “At three in the afternoon again you will see the case crowded with German women taking their afternoon tea. I think American women are rftore domestic than. German, because I never heard of American 4 women who left their homes in the evening to pass the

time at the club. A German friend took me one evening to the German women’s club The club has a magnificent suite of apartments including auditorium, reading room, parlor and smoking room. “When she took me into the last apartment it almost feazed me for a minute. It was blue with smoke. I had never before seen a room filled with elegantly gowned, cultivated women all smoking. These were the wealthy societv women of Berlin, titled some of them. “They were cosmopolitan in their dress and manners and did not present any striking points of difference from the American women except in the smoking. It made the occurrence of last summer, when our Immigration officials detained a second class passenger, a woman art dealer, for inquiry into her sanity because she smoked cigarettes, appear very funny in retrospect. “The German women’s clubs, like those of the Englishwomen, are based on the same principle as men’s clubs; these are places for social enjoyment and for the convenience of members in taking meals, c-ntertainiug friend* and so on. They do not take up Work in. study philanthropy, reform and so oa. Ilka »k e wor en’s clubs in America." ”