Abstract
The publication deals with the “Swiss Association of Friends of Young Girls” (“Verein Freundinnen Junger Mädchen” (FJM)), an organisation founded in Geneva in 1886 out of a worldwide movement against trafficking in girls and prostitution (the international association was founded in Geneva in 1877). The Protestant organisation was soon active throughout Switzerland; the Catholic association “Pro Filia,” founded in 1896 in Fribourg under the name “Association nationale suisse des œuvres de protection de la jeune fille,” existed in parallel, but is not discussed in this publication.
The FJM set itself the goal of protecting young women who travelled alone as tourists, but above all as job seekers. The newly created social space of the railway station was the starting point for the work of the association's voluntary women. The offer was characterised by two directions: the educational/protective intention took precedence over emancipatory empowerment, especially in the first decades of the association. It is striking how flexibly the FJM was able to adapt its services to social developments; in business language, one could speak of a good sense of a functioning business model. In the long run, the most important service derived from the fight against trafficking in girls and prostitution was the assistance at the train station, where representatives of the association received the young women and tried to make their first steps in their new environment easier in every way. Other services offered included job placement, accommodation in inexpensive boarding houses (Martha houses), which were often owned by the FJM, as well as courses for further education and various forms of leisure activities. Despite the flexibility mentioned above, the basic model of the association proved to be too weak a foundation in recent decades. Firstly, because many of the services offered by the FJM were replaced by paid professional offers from state and private organisations. Secondly, the educational-supervisory model in particular lost its appeal among increasingly independent young women, and thirdly, it became more and more difficult to find enough qualified volunteers. In 1999, the association made a new attempt under the new name “Campagna,” but ultimately, the umbrella organisation of the FJM dissolved in 2021, with individual sections remaining active at the local level. The most important service today is the station assistance (“Bahnhofhilfe”) in eight large train stations, which the association now provides together with its Catholic counterpart and with financial support from the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB). The “Bahnhofhilfe” is offered not only to young women, but also to all persons travelling by train. A new focus is on the care and accompaniment of people who, for various reasons, cannot travel alone.
This publication was prompted by the integration of the Compagna Switzerland archive into the Gosteli archive, the archive on the history of the Swiss women's movement. At the same time, holdings of the Zurich and City of Basel sections are available in the Sozialarchiv (Zurich) and the Staatsarchiv Basel respectively. The authors emphasise that they did not want to present a scientific research work, but a source-based documentation. The book achieves this goal in an excellent way; linguistically precise and yet easy to read, an exciting narrative emerges on the basis of the available documents and is enriched by great visual material. The deliberately sparse references to literature on women's history provide the necessary orientation. An appreciation from a gender-historical perspective is not within the competence of the reviewer; in any case, the material at hand hopefully motivates historians for further research work.
The reviewer's focus in the following is on the implications of the FJM's work for mobility history. At first glance, it may seem surprising why a book on the history of the FJM is also very valuable for mobility history. However, unlike traditional approaches in transport history, mobility history can only work if it succeeds in re-reading sources and literature that originated in a completely different context and recognising their significance for the history of mobility.
In this publication, (at least) the following relevant findings emerge.
“Bahnhofhilfe” directs attention to the significance of the social space of the railway station for the hitherto often forgotten group of young women and thus complements existing studies such as Robin Kellermann's dissertation on the history of waiting. The work of the FJM facilitated travel for young women in combination with the railway. The interaction of these two components unfolds a great potential and illustrates the emancipatory character of mobility, thus contrasting with the view that primarily emphasises the restrictions of mobility for women. Thirdly, the study addresses the importance of security for young women, at least from the point of view of the volunteers providing care, as the voices of the travelling young women hardly appear in the sources. The provision of accommodation by the FJM draws attention to the important and complex interplay between travel and residential mobility. The leisure activities offered by the FJM to young women provide insight into the options of leisure mobility for young women over time. Finally, the members of the association and their social and geographical networks can become the subject of further research.
All in all, the available archival material offers a variety of starting points for studies on the history of mobility. It is thus to be wished to the authors of this extremely valuable book that this potential will be taken up by other researchers.
