Part I
The Bauhaus in Weimar and Beyond: Gendered Bodies and the Search for Utopia
1
Soft Skills and Hard Facts: A Systematic Assessment of the Inclusion of Women at the Bauhaus
Patrick Rössler and Anke BlĂŒmm
Even more than in the case of their male counterparts, many women studying at the Bauhaus distinguished themselves from other females of their generation. Both in terms of education and lifestyle, the institution differed substantially from what other environments offered to young people of their age. Because of this, scholarly literature on gender at the Bauhaus has largely taken a critical perspective on the institutionâs internal policies, particularly in relation to the role of women at the school. In her groundbreaking study on The Gendered World of the Bauhaus, Anja Baumhoff identified patterns of male power that structured the opportunities of students. To summarize her argument, Gropiusâs ideological foundation at least of the early Bauhaus followed the tradition of the medieval BauhĂŒtte (or stonemasonsâ guild), with self-discipline as a guiding principle and a collectivism that required complete subordination of students.1 The orientation towards craftsmanship marginalized women,2 and despite the fact that even early Bauhaus programs claimed to enroll and educate students regardless of their sex,3 the institutionâs policies did otherwise. Baumhoff identified a âhidden agendaâ of Gropius and the Mastersâ Council (Meisterrat) to reduce the high number of female students as well as their participation in the higher-esteemed workshops (such as carpentry) and to curtail their artistic ambitions. By contrast, a special Womenâs Class was founded as early as 1920,4 and it soon merged with the weaving workshop. This was regarded predominantly as a conceptually âsoftâ area that kept women away from âhardâ work in traditional male employment.5 Moreover, it did not allow the weavers to become professional craftsmen and guild members, as the Weimar Chamber of Crafts did not have a weaving department; thus no guild titles were awarded in this particular area.6
For this work, Baumhoff drew on a wealth of materials preserved in the official archives of the Thuringian State, which hold all records of the Bauhaus (as a governmental institution), from Gropiusâs personal archive administered at the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin, and from correspondence of former Bauhaus students and additional interviews. These materials yield a picture that depicts the Bauhaus as, in her words, a âpedagogical environment that was not progressive in gender terms,â one which preserved âconventional social form and values [âŠ] and hierarchies within the school that revealed a web of paternalism, authority, power, and gender inequalities.â7
The picture is, however, not as clear-cut as this summary suggests. Baumhoff herself points out that several women deliberately (and successfully) adapted to the male-dominated structures, while others felt quite comfortable in the womenâs areas, which allowed them to avoid competition with their male fellow students.8 Gunta Stölzl, for instance, later recalled that the founding of the Womenâs Class was initiated by the young female students themselves.9 The example of her own life and work also suggests that, in some cases, the ambitions of female Bauhaus members themselves were directedâquite conservativelyâmore towards marriage and motherhood than to their own creative or artistic work.10 In general, it seems that a profound dedication was a prerequisite for living up to Gropiusâs ideals; he believed that from the large body of Bauhaus members, only a small number of talented and ambitious (and probably male) students would be suited to reach the highest level of artistic expression.11
Not surprisingly, of the six students who managed to achieve appointment as masters, as Bauhaus professors were called, but with the qualifier of âjuniorâ before this title (Jungmeister); five were male and only one, Gunta Stölzl, was female. She was assigned, of course, to the weaving workshop.12 Yet despite its somewhat marginalized status, the weaving workshop itself contributed fundamentally to modernist design at the Bauhaus; with its abstract patterns, it paralleled developments in other workshops (as well as in the art world in general) and was part of the Bauhausâs success in the consumersâ world of Weimar Germany.13
In recent years further scholarship, based primarily on biographical work on particular female artists, has enhanced our understanding of the role women played at the Bauhaus.
Digging deeper into the lives and oeuvres of, for instance, Gertrud Arndt,14 Marianne Brandt,15 Lou Scheper-Berkenkamp,16 Ivana Tomljenovich-Meller,17 Irene Bayer-Hecht,18 Lucia Moholy,19 Marguerite Friedlaender-Wildenhain,20 Alma Siedhoff-Buscher,21 or Ricarda Schwerin22âto name just a fewâhas raised awareness of the exceptional creativity of women at the Bauhaus without neglecting the structural barriers these women faced. Yet all studies on the distribution of power within the institution still lack a firm base for their arguments that goes beyond these exemplary lives. Almost two decades ago, Baumhoff had already remarked on the lack of available specific information on the gender distribution of students participating in various workshops, and on the overall representation of women in different areas of Bauhaus life.23
In this essay, we will provide basic, essential data on the representation of women at the Bauhaus, making use of a comprehensive systematic overview of Bauhaus members that goes beyond the seminal 1990 work of Folke Dietzsch, who was the first to systematically collect data on Bauhaus members that was suitable for statistical analysis.24 In a project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) over a period of four years,25 members of our team completed in-depth biographical research in archives, collections, and publications in order to identify all people who had a formal relationship to the Bauhaus and can thus be counted among the total number of BauhÀusler or Bauhaus members. Based on this research, we were able to enter information on more than 1,400 individuals into a database, allowing for an in-depth analysis through strategies of descriptive statistics. Our results give, for instance, an insight into the numbers of women present in different periods of Bauhaus history, in the different workshops, and with regard to different social networks and circles of friendship. Our essay will also include information on the BauhÀusler as a whole, because the data on women need a larger framework for an insightful interpretation.
The Bauhaus Student Body: A Formal Description
Since the time when the Bauhaus first became the focus of intense academic interest in the 1960s, a range of methodological approaches have been applied to its study. While significant bodies of research exist on the Bauhaus mastersâ oeuvres, the institutionâs structure, its pedagogical innovation, or the product design emerging from the workshops, we still know little about those without whom the Bauhaus would not have been possible: the student body as a wholeâthose BauhĂ€usler who learned at and...