‘No, thank you, Mr Stork!’: Voluntary childlessness in Weimar and contemporary Germany
Voluntary childlessness is often perceived as a contemporary phenomenon. This article traces its history by looking at demographic data and visual representations of childlessness from the 1920s and 1930s. At that time, childlessness was on the rise among Germany's young urban couples – a devel...
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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Open Library of the Humanities
2014
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| _version_ | 1797093917016981504 |
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| author | Benninghaus, C |
| author_facet | Benninghaus, C |
| author_sort | Benninghaus, C |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Voluntary childlessness is often perceived as a contemporary phenomenon. This article traces its history by looking at demographic data and visual representations of childlessness from the 1920s and 1930s. At that time, childlessness was on the rise among Germany's young urban couples – a development that inspired concern and controversy. Caricatures, films, plays and other representations testify to the growing fascination with childlessness. Even images used in population propaganda appear as strangely ambivalent. While they were intended to criticise childlessness, they also insinuate the pleasures of a child-free existence. These, however, were time-specific. As comparisons with more recent images show that the "value of childlessness" as invoked by visual representations has shifted significantly. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T04:06:59Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:c68142f2-c3a5-4a03-bda5-d484d834cdd8 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T04:06:59Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | Open Library of the Humanities |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:c68142f2-c3a5-4a03-bda5-d484d834cdd82022-03-27T06:38:39Z‘No, thank you, Mr Stork!’: Voluntary childlessness in Weimar and contemporary GermanyJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:c68142f2-c3a5-4a03-bda5-d484d834cdd8EnglishSymplectic ElementsOpen Library of the Humanities2014Benninghaus, CVoluntary childlessness is often perceived as a contemporary phenomenon. This article traces its history by looking at demographic data and visual representations of childlessness from the 1920s and 1930s. At that time, childlessness was on the rise among Germany's young urban couples – a development that inspired concern and controversy. Caricatures, films, plays and other representations testify to the growing fascination with childlessness. Even images used in population propaganda appear as strangely ambivalent. While they were intended to criticise childlessness, they also insinuate the pleasures of a child-free existence. These, however, were time-specific. As comparisons with more recent images show that the "value of childlessness" as invoked by visual representations has shifted significantly. |
| spellingShingle | Benninghaus, C ‘No, thank you, Mr Stork!’: Voluntary childlessness in Weimar and contemporary Germany |
| title | ‘No, thank you, Mr Stork!’: Voluntary childlessness in Weimar and contemporary Germany |
| title_full | ‘No, thank you, Mr Stork!’: Voluntary childlessness in Weimar and contemporary Germany |
| title_fullStr | ‘No, thank you, Mr Stork!’: Voluntary childlessness in Weimar and contemporary Germany |
| title_full_unstemmed | ‘No, thank you, Mr Stork!’: Voluntary childlessness in Weimar and contemporary Germany |
| title_short | ‘No, thank you, Mr Stork!’: Voluntary childlessness in Weimar and contemporary Germany |
| title_sort | no thank you mr stork voluntary childlessness in weimar and contemporary germany |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT benninghausc nothankyoumrstorkvoluntarychildlessnessinweimarandcontemporarygermany |