Between the 1760s and 1914, thousands of young Americans crossed the Atlantic to enroll in German-speaking universities, but what was it like to be an American in, for instance, Halle, Heidelberg, Göttingen, or Leipzig? In this book, the author combines a statistical approach with a biographical approach in order to reconstruct the history of these educational pilgrimages and to illustrate the interconnectedness of student migration with educational reforms on both sides of the Atlantic. This detailed account of academic networking in European educational centers highlights the importance of travel for academic and cultural transformations in nineteenth-century America.
Зміст
Acknowledgments
Note on Sources and Quotations
Introduction
Chapter 1. Movement and the History of Higher Education
- Educational Dynamics
- Five Phases of Educational Reform and Student Migration, 1760s-1914
- Transatlantic Dynamics: Linking War and Education in America and Europe
- Regional Dynamics: The South in the History of US Higher Education
- Disciplinary Dynamics: Revisiting the Ideal of “German Science”
- Summary
Chapter 2. US Student Numbers at Göttingen, Halle, Heidelberg, and Leipzig
- The Challenges of Numbers
- Revisiting Existing Scholarship
- Different Student Statuses
- US Student Numbers Abroad I: Statistical Overview
- US Student Numbers Abroad II: Developments over Time
- Comparison: Total Student Numbers
- US Students’ Backgrounds: Regional Origins and Socio-Economic Backgrounds
- Religion
- Age
- Summary
Chapter 3. The German University, Masculinity, and “The Other”
- White Men vs. the Other?
- Matriculation Procedures for White Able-Bodied American Men
- African American Men
- Gay American Men
- White US Women
- Blind and Deaf Americans
- Summary
Chapter 4. Choosing a University: The Case of Leipzig
- The Appeal of Innovation
- Interdisciplinary Collaborations at Leipzig
- Antiquated Leipzig up to 1830
- On the Eve of Greatness: The Mid-Nineteenth Century
- Leipzig’s Sudden Heyday
- Leipzig’s Decline since the Late 1890s
- Summary
Chapter 5. Transatlantic Academic Networking
- The Idea of German-American Networks in Science and Scholarship
- US Students’ Faculty Choices at Halle and Leipzig
- Transatlantic Routes of Study
- Patterns in Transatlantic Mentor-Disciple Relationships
- Women’s Roles in Academic Networks
- Case Study: Wilhelm Wundt and his American Disciples
- Summary
Chapter 6. Networking Activitiesof Leipzig’s American Colony
- Formal and Informal Networking
- The American Students Club
- The American Church
- A Central Leipzig-American Networker: Caspar René Gregory
- Hospitable Families, the Knauths, and US Consuls
- Family and Friends
- Housing Matters
- Summary
Chapter 7. Forging American Culture Abroad
- Approaching a Foreign Culture
- The Guide Book
- Language Considerations
- Impressions of German Student Life
- Reflecting German Student Culture in Activities of the American Students Club
- Little America in Leipzig
- Summary
Chapter 8. Returning Home
- The German Venture and the Transformation of US Higher Education
- Shifting the Scientific-Scholarly Focus to North America
- Scouting Young Academic Talent in Europe
- Women’s Colleges as a Career Boost
- The Ph.D. Degree
- Material Improvements I: Libraries and Books
- Material Improvements II: Laboratories, Apparatuses, and Journals
- Summary
Conclusion
Appendix I: Tables
Appendix II: List of Leipzig Professors of Interest to US Students
Appendix III: List of Leipzig-American Dissertations
Bibliography
Про автора
Anja Werner studied at the University of Leipzig, the Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle—Paris III, and Harvard University. From 2006 until 2009 she was affiliated with Vanderbilt University, where she coordinated the international Alexander von Humboldt in English project, whose annotated, new English translation of the Political Essay on the Island of Cuba was published in 2011. Her latest projects include a multiauthor volume on Black intellectual history in global contexts and research on the Deaf Atlantic World at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany.