The Emotional Bond of Brotherliness: Protestant Masculinity and the Local and Global Networks among Religious in the Nineteenth Century.

MISSIONARY societies; GERMAN religions; MISSIONARIES; WICHERN, Johann Hinrich; MASCULINITY; SELF-doubt; PROTESTANTISM; HISTORY; SOCIAL history; NINETEENTH century

In the 1930s, not far from the Hanse city of Hamburg, Johann Hinrich Wichern set up the German Home Mission movement (Innere Mission). The brotherhood of the Rauhes Haus was a central pillar of the movement. The brothers worked as city missioners, and carried out religious social work as the leaders of care homes and hostels for the homeless among the very poorest in society. This article describes both the institutional structure of the new brotherhood and the emotional relationships that bound the young men to their leader and among themselves. Concern about oneself, expressed in the brothers’ correspondence as persistent self-doubt, is a significant marker of Protestant masculinity at this time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]