The Traffic in Girls

Wagener, Friedrich Wilhelm Hermann, 1815-1889Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.0

Word count: 192K words
Chapters: 20

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Der Mädchenhandel by Friedrich Wilhelm Hermann WagenerAuthor: Wagener, Friedrich Wilhelm Hermann, 1815-1889,Language: German, Class: HQ: Social sciences: The family, Marriage, Sex and Gender, Release Date: Mar 14, 2019

Editor's review

This is a nineteenth-century German work by the social reformer Wagner discussing the "trade in girls," now available as a free e-book from Project Gutenberg. Its value lies not in literary merit but in offering a first-hand document of nineteenth-century social history and gender issues: the author discusses human trafficking and the situation of women from the perspectives of social order, family structure, and moral legislation, allowing readers to observe the social anxieties, charitable discourse, and institutional imagination of the time. The original is in German, and its language bears the marks of its era; reading it requires some knowledge of German and an awareness of historical context. It is suitable as supplementary material for social history, gender studies, and research on German-language sources, and also for readers interested in nineteenth-century writings on social problems as thematic selected reading. It is best treated as a historical source rather than a general-audience book, read with a questioning mind and situated alongside secondary research.

Who it's for

A good fit for

University readers studying nineteenth-century social history and gender issues
Researchers who need original German sources for thematic analysis
Readers interested in the history of human trafficking in Europe and the discourse of moral reform
Readers with intermediate or higher German reading ability who are willing to engage with old documents

Not a good fit for

General readers who only want light stories or introductory books
Readers with weak German who cannot handle nineteenth-century prose
Readers expecting systematic contemporary legal or sociological analysis

Reading tips

Read introductory secondary research first to understand the context of nineteenth-century "trade in girls" discourse before turning to the original text.
Excerpt the author's arguments on family, morality, and institutions by theme, making source cards for easy comparison.
When encountering unfamiliar words, infer from context first and verify them after finishing a section, avoiding frequent interruptions.
Read alongside other social reform texts of the same period to compare argumentative approaches and problematics.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a work on social problems?

The materials indicate that it is a social science work centered on the social problem of the "trade in girls," not a fictional novel. It should be read as a historical document, with attention to the author's argumentation and period stance, rather than expecting plot and characters.

Can I read this book without knowing German?

The original is in German and dates from the nineteenth century, so its style and vocabulary differ from modern German. Without any German, reading would be very difficult; a more practical approach is to first learn about its content through relevant secondary research, then decide whether to tackle the original.

What should I keep in mind when reading the e-book edition?

This edition comes from Project Gutenberg as a free e-book, a digitized presentation of a public-domain text. It is advisable to use a reader that supports annotations and bookmarks to mark old spellings and difficult sentences, and to distinguish the original content from modern editorial information.

Is it suitable for a course paper?

It can serve as one historical source for social history or gender studies, but should not be used alone. It is better to place it alongside contemporary legislation, charitable organization materials, and later research, explaining its stance and limitations, so that citations are more reliable.

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About the author

Wagener, Friedrich Wilhelm Hermann, 1815-1889 Author

Friedrich Wilhelm Hermann Wagener (1815–1889) was a German-language author about whom little biographical information survives. His dates of birth and death are recorded in bibliographic sources, but his nationality, profession, and educational background are not well documented in publicly available materials and cannot be established with certainty. Only one of his works is held in this collection, Der Mädchenhandel, a title meaning “the trafficking of girls” or “the trade in women.” Judging from the title, the work appears to be a piece of social reportage or social criticism dealing with the buying and selling of women and girls, and it carries a clear sense of real-world concern and exposure. The available bibliographic evidence suggests that Wagener's style is direct, focused on recording and commenting on social problems rather than on fictional narrative. Publications on such themes in the nineteenth-century German-language sphere were often connected with moral reform and social-reform discourse, giving the work a certain value as a historical source. Because biographical and scholarly materials are scarce, both the details of his life and the full character of his work call for further investigation.