Theodor Tantzen, ESSHA and Leiden

Moving backward in time from 1893 was an enormous challenge but VERY fruitful. It did mean reading extensively in Oldenburg history. This has been extremely worthwhile.

[On a side technical note, I discovered that I could use the camera function of my i-Phone to scan text into a GoogleDoc that I could then clean up. Reading through the document a third time, I could create already typed notes, which I then printed. Reading through 4 times really fastened the material in my mind!]

Rethinking my work on Theodor Tantzen and north German rural politics within the context of the Vormärz and the needs of the conference panel helped me the appreciate the social and economic locus of progressism in Oldenburg. Going forward, I will want to see how this worked out in the Prussian districts of Aurich and Stade.

The ESSHA conference as always was incredibly exciting. Our session commentator, Niels Grüne made a set of inclusive and useful coments that I will address on this site at Projects/Theodor Tantzen, along with PDFs of my original and revised abstracts, the complete paper, and the3 read version. Our panel organizer, Joanna Innis, was very interested in drawing connection between the Landvolkbewegung in Schleswig-Holstein and Oldenburg. Upon reflection it sees to e that I should be able draw some interesting comparisons. Let’s see if I’m given enough time!

Leiden was a most amazing place. I will not be attending the 2027 conference in Lyon, but look forward to their venue for 2029.

A HUGE Detour

My milieu work took longer tban expected. When about completed, I received notification that my paper proposal for ESSHA had been accepted. It was, however, one of two accepted papers that the organizers had placed within an already-prepared prepared pair of sessions created by a team working on progressive politics in the first half of the 19th century. I was contacted by the panel organizers and asked if I could make my paper fit with these. I thought about it a week and decided that I could make adjustments. I underestimated the extent of these.

I based my decision on the expectation that I could make a quick return to Oldenburg in the fall. The tickets were purchased, files were ordered up. Come August, my left knee began regularly collapsing when I walked. When questioned about whether it would hold up in Germany, I decided that perhaps it would not and cancelled my tickets. I felt confident that I could make good the archival deficit. Ten weeks on, I am not confident that i can achieve what I set out to do.

I began my reoriented paper trying out a series of hypotheses. Sadly, they do not seem to have worked out. I will discuss these in my next post.

An exciting discovery

I am currently breaking my voting data down into milieu - Conservative, Catholic, Liberal, Socialist - as part of my work on Theodor Tantzen and the German Democrats. Temporally and intellectually consuming. I have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to determine where to place the miniature splinter parties that collected votes, especially in the second half of the 1920s. 38 separate parties listed on the electors ballots! Press voices were apoplectic.

Along the way, I uncovered new polling place information the increases the accuracy of my data. One of the questions plaguing me has been the vast size of the polling places in southern Oldenburg 1. It seemed irrational that my polling places (Westerstede, Edewicht, Zwischenahn and Apen) were so large. Yesterday, reading an online PDF of Der Ämmerländer, available through the Landesbibliothek Oldenburg, I found that each of the four Ämter were divided into more realistically sized polling places. I was able to add 18 new places. In this way I can properly isolate the four larger Amt seats from their surrounding countryside. Sadly, only the 1919 issues of the newspaper are available online. I will need to return to Oldenburg. Boohoo.