Creating a Maidservant Community through Newspapers: The Berliner Dienstboten-Zeitung, 1898-1900

While the Berliner Dienstboten-Zeitung (Berlin Servants' Newspaper) has been cited frequently in research on maidservice in Berlin at the turn of the century, the development of the paper between 1898 and 1900 and its role in organizing female domestics have been largely overlooked. This essay analyzes how the editor of the BDZ created a feeling of community among his readers and ultimately inspired them to organize. Unlike other publications for and about servants around 1900 that tended to preserve traditional bourgeois values and interests without reference to servants' own issues and concerns, the BDZ was unique in that it revised its representation of maidservice in response to its readers. Though the BDZ and its community of readers were never able to effect significant social or political change, the newspaper nevertheless played a crucial role in raising social and scholarly awareness of maidservants' issues. (JKB)