Album aan het schoone geslacht toegewijd
The magazine entitled Album aan het schoone geslacht toegewijd (Album devoted to the fair sex), which appeared in 1839 and 1840, shows little resemblance to other Dutch women’s magazines of the period, when the only periodicals aimed specifically at women were fashion magazines. The Album offered poetry and prose and may be more usefully compared to some literary almanacs of the day (Jensen, 135).
The Album was a quarterly that probably existed for just one year as no more than four issues are known to us. Each issue consisted of about eighty pages of original Dutch prose and poetry as well as some folded plates and pieces of music.
The editors’ names are unknown, although we do have the names of some (male) contributors, nearly all active members of the literary scene (Jensen, 154): C.P.E. Robidé van der Aa, J.J.F. Wap, C.H. Clemens, J.F. Bosdijk, E.M. Calisch, Jacob Honig Jz. jr. and A. van der Hoop jr., who also wrote the dedicatory poem.
The editors stated their purpose in the preface:
A proper mixture of both prose and poetry is what we aim for, and particularly as regards the former, we would request the cooperation of all lady authors from this country who have already achieved some fame in this respect, and who are hence more suited than others to create something useful, good and beautiful for their own sex. We hope to be able to publish original pieces where possible, without rejecting the good that is transplanted from foreign soil; yet, whenever two pieces are of equal value, the one grown in home soil will always have our preference. (Album, Preface, p. xi)
This quotation shows that the editors’ preference was for home-grown literature; they did not rule out foreign work altogether, but the great majority of contributions to the Album were signed with Dutch names.
Their expressed wish to receive contributions from women seems not to have been granted: the only contribution from a woman is a poem by Petronella Moens. In content it differs markedly from the pieces by men (Jensen, 155), and its title, ‘Aan het schoone geslacht, of de minder sterke helft van het menschdom (To the fair sex, or the less strong half of humankind, Album, 3-8), may have been intended as a provocation. In it, Moens praises women for their inner qualities such as virtue, piety and patriotism. Her male colleagues, on the other hand, pay some attention to these qualities but mostly deal with women’s external beauty and create a romanticised and idealised picture of women. Jensen assumes that this may be the reason why women by and large failed to contribute to the Album: its tone must have put them off (Jensen, 158).
The Album featured no reviews, just original prose and poetry of varying length. And as the contributions were about ‘woman’ in general and not about any actual, named women, they proved a rather poor source for the WomenWriters database.
Bibliography:
- Album aan het schoone geslacht toegewijd. Dedicated to Her Imperial and Royal Majesty, the Princess of Orange [Anna Pavlovna]. (Gorinchem: H. Horneer, 1839-1840). Leiden University Library.
- Jensen, Lotte, ‘Bij uitsluiting voor de vrouwelijke sekse geschikt’; vrouwentijdschriften en journalistes in de achttiende en negentiende eeuw in Nederland (Hilversum: Verloren, 2001), 135, 154-161.
- Veltman-van den Bos, Ans J., Petronella Moens (1762-1843): de Vriendin van 't Vaderland (Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2000).
Susanne Parren, February 2007
Transl. Brenda Mudde
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