This dissertation examines Weimar-era constructions of the salaried worker, or die Angestellten, as expressed in German photography and its dissemination in mass media through the theoretical lens of Siegfried Kracauer, who lived and worked as a cultural critic and journalist during this period in Germany. The Angestellten were the fastest-growing demographic within Germany during the 1920s, their numbers booming following the end of the First World War, before which they were but a fraction of the population. Their situation was closely tied to that of the turbulent economy, and as such they generally endured low incomes and redundancy within the salaried work place. Nevertheless, the salaried classes maintained a superficial connection to upper classes whose dignified appearances were imitated with ready-made clothing bought at department stores. Thus the Angestellten were economic equals to the proletariat, but ideologically maintained themselves as superior to blue-collar workers. The growing number of female white-collared workers, often regarded as synonymous with the New Woman, made up over one-third of the salariat population after the war. These working women particularly aided the surge of the salariat and subsequently such jobs at typists and secretaries became gendered as feminine, further exasperating unemployment numbers among male salariats. Despite the instability of employment and low incomes, the salaried type became a ubiquitous presence in Weimar media. Kracauer points out that this salaried type was one identified visually, and this image of the Angestellten was promulgated by the new media of photography. Kracauer’s analysis of the Angestellten suggests the salariat as “spiritually homeless” figures formed from commercial goods and fantasy aspirations influenced by film and media. Their identity is a façade obscuring nothing, and they remain blind to the severity of their circumstance because of the urban distractions that pull continuously at their attention. In this way, the salariat aligns with and is subject to Kracauer’s concept of the mass ornament, the “inconspicuous surface-level expressions” that, if concentrated upon and analyzed, may reveal the circumstances of reality beneath the “surface glamour.” It is in this overlapping of Angestellten and mass ornament that this dissertation pivots, manifest in the Weimar-era photographs of salaried workers, their environments, and the commercial goods that help to define their mass-produced identities. I have chosen photographs from various contexts, including the street photography of Lyonel Feininger and Friedrich Seidenstücker, the typological portraits of August Sander, the photo essays of Sasha Stone, and the advertisements of Ellen Auerbach and Grete Stern of studio ringl + pit. I argue that these photographs contain rhetorical potential as mass ornaments that, when analyzed through Kracauer’s theoretical approach, offer insights to the role of photography in salaried class construction of the Weimar Republic. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / 2019 / November 14, 2019. / Angestellen, class construction, Photography, Siegfried Kracauer, Weimar Republic / Includes bibliographical references. / Adam Jolles, Professor Directing Dissertation; Nathan Stoltzfus, University Representative; Lynn Jones, Committee Member; Lauren Weingarden, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_752414 |
| Contributors | Bender, Stephanie (author), Jolles, Adam (professor directing dissertation), Stoltzfus, Nathan (university representative), Jones, Lynn, 1958- (committee member), Weingarden, Lauren S., 1948- (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Fine Arts (degree granting college), Department of Art History (degree granting departmentdgg) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text, doctoral thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (419 pages), computer, application/pdf |
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