Clara Roth, Author, Social Activist, Educator

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Introduction and biography from my upcoming publication about Clara Roth

Clara Roth Chip Carving Sample
Clara Roth 1855-1942

Who was Clara Roth? A Jewish woman forced to flee from her home during the Holocaust. A social activist in Europe at a time when women in social activism were disparaged by the male dominated society. An artist and educator whose promotion of Slöjd in education for children and young adults was influential in the introduction and expansion of hand craft as an essential part of pedagogy. 

Clara Roth, née Morgenstern, was an influential 19th century Jewish educator, social activist and author. She was born on May 10, 1855 in Breslau, Poland to Lina Morgenstern the famous social activist. Clara Roth worked as a teacher and social worker in Berlin before retiring to the family home in Grunewald, Germany. Subsequently she was later forced out of Grunewald by Nazis and moved into a former Jewish orphanage in north Berlin. She died there in 1942.


Roth was the eldest daughter of Lina Morgenstern of Breslau, Poland. Roth attended school and successfully passed the Kindergarten Teacher exams. At the age of 20 she moved to London, finding employment as a Kindergarten Teacher. Roth created one of the first British kindergartens to be based on Friedrich Fröbel’s innovative theories of childhood education. In 1882 Roth moved to Italy where she met and married cello virtuoso Philipp Roth of Berlin. Her husband’s financial problems led to their divorce in 1884.


Roth found employment as a technical translator for Thekla von Gumpert, the influential proponent of Fröbel’s theories. Von Gumpert’s philosophy of pedagogy can be summed up in this quote from a letter von Gumpert wrote to Henrich Schwerdt, the 19th century educator:


“The purpose of my literary activity has always remained the same, in that I attach value to youth literature only if it is not used for idle entertainment, but as a means of education, in such a way that it seeks to form the mind and heart and to stimulate and guide willpower. That is why I direct the eyes of children, and especially girls, to different living conditions in order to show them that man can be happy and become happy in all situations, but that only conscientious loyalty to duty on a small and large scale ensures this happiness for him. Such faithfulness to duty thrives on the ground of a pious faith.”


Roth moved to Stockholm in 1884, intending to set up a kitchen to benefit local workers. The Grand Duchess of Baden gave her job recommendations along with personal instructions to study the developing theories of Swedish Slöjd. This six-month stay in Stockholm inspired in her a recognition of the value of manual skills training for children and young adults.  Roth found purpose in writing for German newspapers and journals for young people, primarily about sunk carving (chip carving) and relief carving in wood. Through the Leipzig, Germany publishing house of Seemann & Co., Roth published instructions and pattern templates for chip carving, relief carving as well pewter and brass embossing. 


Clara Roth passed away in 1942.


Lina Morgenstern Biography by Clara Roth

in Honor of her 100th Birthday on 25 Nov. 1930 by her daughter Clara Roth

Originally published in "Blaetter des Juedischen Frauenbundes", vol. 11, 1930, pp 6-7.

Translated by Irene Newhouse, September 1996

The picture of Lina Morgenstern is still fresh among many of the older generation:  petite, with wise eyes peering through glasses, a resonant voice that carried through the largest assembly halls, simple, unassuming, literarily inclined, naive in spite of all her wisdom; her conversation valued by important people, full of goodness and openhanded in the face of poverty, often standing by those in need herself.

Lina Morgenstern was born 25 Nov. 1830, the second daughter of the affluent Jewish couple Albert and Fanny Bauer in Breslau.  The spirit reigning in the parental home was a model for the children, industry, uprightness, philanthropy and every aspect of culture laid the foundation for their later many-sided, especially social activities.  Her school essays and examinations demonstrated extraordinary talents.  Inventing stories, poetry and music were her favorite occupations.  In the eventful year 1848, on her 18th birthday, she invited her friends to set aside one penny daily to support indigent school-age children, and thus founded her first organization, the "Breslauer Pfennigverein", which is still doing outstanding work in her home city.

Lina Bauer married in 1854 & followed her husband Theodor Morgenstern, a young exiled Pole, to Berlin, where after a few years the affluence they'd brought with them broke down and it was necessary for the young woman to help earn money.  She collected the fairy tales and stories she'd invented for her children after the day's hard work, and became one of the favorite children's authors, whose books "Das Bienenkaetchen", "In der Daemmerung", "Die Storchstrasse", "Die kleinen Menschen" were found in every nursery.  A few years ago, a selection of these stories appeared under the title "100 Geschichten aus der Kinderwelt", published by Thiemann.

Friedrich Froebel's new pedagogic methods awakened the interest of the young mother.  After getting to know his pupils Professor von Holzendorf & the Baroness von Mahrenholz-Buelow, the "Berliner Kindergarten-Verein" was founded in 1862, [whose chairperson Lina Morgenstern became], as well as a seminary for Kindergarten instructors, and in 1864, on the instigation of Henriette Goldschmidt, of Hamburg, a school for kindergarten instructors to teach high school graduates Froebel methods.  Lina's first large opus, "Das Paradies der Kindheit" appeared at this time, taking Froebel's methods out into the world, and, in addition to many German editions, was translated into nearly all the major languages.

When war broke out in 1866, men were called up into the army, putting families already at subsistence level into dire straits, the small active woman conceived the plan for the Berlin Volkskuechen after a sleepless night.  Prominent men, to name a few - Virchow, Max Ring, Eugen Richter, Dunker, among others, let themselves be convinced by the idea, signed a petition, and in 14 days the first Volkskueche was already open.  These weren't charity kitchens which Lina M., soon known as "Suppenlina" to the common people, created, but anyone could, without stigma purchase a filling meal for 15 or 25 Pfennig.  Self sufficiency for the enterprise was made possible by the voluntary contributions of time of most of the administrators and numerous ladies after an initial collection for startup funds.  There were soon Jewish-organized Volkskuechen along the lines of Berlin's in Breslau and Vienna.  Kaiserin Augusta became interested in the new organization, and although Lina Morgenstern declined all patronage, there was a relationship almost amounting to friendship between the two women.  Thus she appealed, in character for her, to the Kaiserin on behalf of her beleaguered people in 1879, was well as later to Queen Carmen Sylva of Romania during the later pogroms there.  Kaiserin Augusta delegated the feeding of troops passing through Berlin to the Berlin Volkskuechen-Verein, and Lina Morgenstern achieved the astonishing with the associated first aid facilities.  

Lina Morgenstern founded, with Auguste Schmidt and Louise Otto Peters  the "Deutsche Alleghenies Frauen-Verein" (German General Union of Women) in Leipzig in 1865; she belonged to its board of directors many years.  She was an old-style champion of women's rights, only ethical and political efforts made sense to her.  Through the "Academie zur wissenschaftlichen Fortbildung junger Damen" (Academy for the scientific higher education of young ladies) she sought to content herself with the cause of women's intellectual rights.  Women's suffrage seemed unattainably utopian at the time, but which was later propagated for younger generations through the efforts of Minna Cauer.  No one was more suited to mediate between the young radicals and Lina Morgenstern's position than she herself, so we find both women united in the organization and execution of the first International Women's Congress in Berlin in 1896.

The increasing "angel making" - conscienceless women killing illegitimate newborn infants - led Lina Morgenstern to found the "Kinderschutzverein" (Society for the Protection of Children) in 1868.  Infants were taken in for a very small fee and handed over to reliable foster mothers, who had to have the children examined by a doctor at regular intervals, and the mothers themselves were obligated to maintain contact with their children.  She did not however, neglect those in social disgrace and in 1880 founded the "Verein zur Rettung minorenner strafentlassener Maedchen"  (Society for the Rehabilitation of Underage Girls released from Prison).

But let's go back to 1870.  After the war, after the "Gruenderzeit" (Founders' Time - the German term for the period during which Germany was being united), the cost of living rose enormously.  After a speech held in Berlin's City Hall, "What can we do about the increased price of food?" the "Berliner Hausfrauen-Verein" (Berlin Housewives' Union) was founded, whose chair she occupied until her death on 16 Dec. 1909.

"Wo ist viel Ehr, ist viel Feind" (Where there's much honor, there's much enmity) -- so she was attacked from right and left.  Most strongly by the Social Democrats, who saw in her efforts a glorification of the bourgeoisie.  At a demonstration that they organized against her, she barely escaped with her life.

The Hausfrauen-Verein was first organized as a consumer cooperative, a laboratory for food inspection soon adjoined the retail outlet, then a free placement office, a bonus fund reliable domestic staff, which even today  rewards 200 girls every November, and the cooking school, opened 1880, in which practical courses in public health and domestic science are enhanced by lectures.  The Union has its own publication the "Deutsche Hausfrauen-Zeitung" (German Housewives' Newspaper) in which the interests of all women here and abroad were represented and which Lina Morgenstern personally edited until her death.  In these years her works "Human Nutrition and the Cultural Development of Cuisine", her big "Universal Cookbook", "Domestic Science for Housewives" [2 vols.] and the 3-volume "Female Employment in Germany in the 19th Century", as well as many works for children, biographies, etc., appeared.  They demonstrate the inexhaustible diligence of this almost 80 year old woman.

Ceaselessly active on behalf of the general welfare, Lina Morgenstern never achieved affluence herself, but, as City Councilor Marggraf said in his eulogy in the City Hall, she laid the seed for nearly every social organization that seems so obvious to us now.

Morgenstern Biography Courtesy © 2001, Irene Newhouse Bauer Home Page


Women In 19th Century Slöjd and Handcrafts: A brief online resource list