Urban journey: A woman’s guidebook to self-discovery in Berlin

In 1913, the publication of a woman’s guidebook to the German capital, What a Woman Must Know About Berlin, marked a profound transformation in the relationship between women and their urban environment. The book’s female authors, writing for a female audience, depicted the city as the terrain to journey from a confi ning older defi nition of womanhood, grounded in the domestic realm and family ties, to a new modern self who was defi ned by personal growth and urban engagement. In mapping out this novel way of being, the guidebook represented a radical departure from conventional advice literature for middle-class women as well as a challenge to contemporary mainstream narratives that represented the city as a place of moral and physical danger for female residents.