“Illegitimacy” as a mass phenomenon. Unmarried mothers and their children in the 19th century

19世纪初，欧洲人口结构最显著的变化之一是非婚生子女的数量不断增加。税率从2%到4%，部分增加到20%以上，局部超过60%。尽管对这种现象的结构性原因进行了广泛的研究，但到目前为止，还缺乏对作为一种群众性现象的“非婚生”这一社会和文化历史的考察。拟议的审查就是为了提供这一点。它打算分析巴登西南部和瑞士城市巴塞尔的大量私生子现象；然而，这项研究将不再是经典的结构性历史，而是将重点放在“私生子女”的做法、经验和后果上。它将揭示尚未被审查的、根本不同形式的“非婚性”：黑森林高海拔地区的农村“非婚性”，未婚母亲带着她们的孩子从巴登西南部地区迁徙到美国和巴塞尔，以及巴塞尔医院(斯皮尔特)和巴塞尔的“非婚性”的缩影。还出现了一个迄今未被承认的巴登西南部母亲非婚生子女交易网络，该网络发生在巴塞尔/巴登西南部边境地区。

One of the most striking demographic changes in Europe in the early 19th century was the growing number of children that were born out of wedlock. The rates increased from 2 to 4%, in parts to over 20%, locally more than 60%. While the structural causes for this have been extensively researched, a social and cultural-historical examination of the "illegitimacy" as a mass phenomenon is lacking, so far. The proposed examination is meant to provide that. It intends to analyze the phenomenon of massive illegitimate births for Southwest Baden and the Swiss city Basel; however, instead of the classic structural history, the study will focus on the practices, experiences, and consequences of "illegitimacy". It will reveal the yet unexamined, fundamentally different forms of “illegitimacy”: the rural "illegitimacy" in the higher altitudes of the Black Forest, the migration of unmarried mothers with their children from the southwestern region of Baden into the USA and to Basel, and the microcosm of "illegitimacy" in the Basel hospital (Spital) and in the city of Basel. There also emerges a so far unrecognized network of trading in non-legitimate children of southwest Baden mothers, which took place in the Basel/Southwest Baden border region.