The Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände was a German cultural and literary journal that existed from 1807 to 1865. It appeared daily until 1851, when it was changed to a weekly journal. The Morgenblatt was published by Cotta in Tübingen and later in Stuttgart, and was the most important German literary and cultural journal of its time.
Conception and history
The Morgenblatt was founded by Johann Friedrich Cotta, who had in 1806 envisioned creating a South German equivalent of Der Freimüthige, a journal edited in Berlin by August von Kotzebue, but Cotta's letters to Goethe show that the idea of being regional was soon dropped, and the name Morgenblatt was decided in late 1806. The topic of the Morgenblatt was supposed to be everything that could interest an educated reader, with the exception of politics, complementing Cotta's Allgemeine Zeitung. The journal was not tied to any literary trends or programmes, but tried to cover the entire breadth of literary production. It covered a wide range of cultural topics including travelogues and literary criticism. The intended audience was an educated, but not scholarly, cultural elite, explicitly including women. Cotta discontinued several journals specialised on foreign literature and merged them into the Morgenblatt. The journal first appeared on 1 January 1807, shortly after being announced in the Allgemeine Zeitung, in an edition of 1100 copies costing 8 Saxon thalers per year. It was quite successful both with critics and with the general public. The circulation increased to 1810 copies by 1819, but the journal had many more readers via subscription libraries or other reading clubs, and its total readership has been estimated around 15,000. The journal appeared daily until 1851, then weekly until 1865. Most famous authors of the era wrote or were featured in the Morgenblatt, starting with Jean Paul, who opened the first issue with a eulogy referencing the possible future end of the journal. Others included Heinrich von Kleist, Johann Gottfried Seume, Eduard Mörike, Theodor Fontane and Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. To discover more authors, the journal also used competitions, starting with one in 1807 where Goethe was a judge. The journal was published in Tübingen until 1820, in Stuttgart and Tübingen until 1855, when it was published in Stuttgart and Augsburg for a short time, and then in Stuttgart and Munich until the end. The name was changed to Morgenblatt für gebildete Leser in 1837. When the long-term editor died in 1865, the journal was discontinued at the end of the year, with readers preferring other products like Die Gartenlaube.
Editors
The first editor was Karl Grüneisen, who led the journal 1807-1808, followed by Georg Reinbeck from 1808-1811. Both quit after disagreements with Cotta. The main editors were then Friedrich Haug and. After criticism by Karl Böttiger, Cotta replaced Weisser by Friedrich Rückert, who was an editor 1815-1817. Recommended by Böttiger, Therese Huber became an editor in 1816, after publishing various contributions, many of them anonymously, as was very common in the Morgenblatt. Huber was the first woman supporting her family with a salaried editorial position at a journal and has been described as the first woman to hold an editorial position and even as the first journalist in Germany. Huber had full responsibility for the journal from 1817, when Rückert and Haug quit, to 1823. She was not only author and editor for the journal, but also contributed many of her own translations. The journal had its most successful period under her editorship, with more than 1800 copies sold in 1820, and somewhat declined after she left, but this decline has also been attributed to problems with censorship related to the Carlsbad Decrees. In 1823, Cotta announced the move of the Morgenblatt editorial office to Augsburg, and Huber moved there. However, Cotta eventually decided to leave the offices in Stuttgart and Huber's editorial duties came to an end. The editorship was then taken over by Cotta himself and his son. The brothers Wilhelm Hauff and, after his early death, Hermann Hauff became the editors from 1 January 1827. Adolf Müllner edited the Literatur-Blatt, the literary supplement from 1820 to 1825. According to some reports, he used it extensively for self-promotion of his dramas. From 1825, it was edited by Wolfgang Menzel who used his influence to advance national liberalism and to attack more liberal intellectuals.
Selected contents and contributors
Goethe, whose works were published by Cotta, was regularly featured and also contributed some content, for example an essay about a new edition of his works. Heinrich Heine's reports of his journeys in Italy first appeared in the Morgenblatt in 1828-29. Friedrich Engels contributed as the correspondent for Bremen in 1841. In 1842, the novella Die Judenbuche by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff was first published in instalments in the Morgenblatt, with the title chosen by the editor Hermann Hauff. In 1860, parts of what was to become Theodor Fontane's Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg were published in the Morgenblatt. Some of the journal's female authors include Fanny Lewald, Helmina von Chézy, who had been editor of the Französische Miszellen, Louise von Gall, and Fanny Tarnow, who often wrote anonymously or under pseudonyms. Ottilie Assing wrote for the journal both before and after her emigration to the United States, and her interpretation in more than 130 reports was highly influential on the views of the German intellectual public on the problem of slavery in 1860s America. With the list of authors also including Caroline Pichler, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Friederike Brun and others, almost all notable female writers of the time were featured in the journal.
