The Alice Salomon Archive, ASH Berlin

The ASA’s mission is to preserve, catalogue, make available, study, and disseminate documents related to the history of the university in the context of early international and women-led social work. It thus offers the interested public, researchers, and members of the university community unique access to the multifaceted origin story of social work in general and the ASH Berlin in particular.

Thus, the ASA collects and oversees diverse holdings related to the history of the field of Soziale Arbeit, or social work (formerly subdivided in Germany into Sozialarbeit [social work] and social pedagogy) and the social movements that gave rise to it – especially the middle-class women’s movement. The historical documents in the collection span from the 1890s to the 1970s. The collection focuses on pioneers and key players in Soziale Arbeit, initiatives of social movements and particularly the women’s movement, social work institutions in Berlin, and the development of social work as a profession in regard to theory, methodology, and research.

As an archive of the women’s movement, the ASA is a member of the i.d.a., an umbrella organization of German-language lesbian/women’s archives, libraries, and documentation centers, and plays an active role in i.d.a.’s Berlin network.

In 2023, the ASA began a collaboration with Jewish Places for the project “The Twins and Aunt Ly: A Digitization Project on Alice Salomon's Family History.” This project is funded by digiS (the Berlin Digitalization Research and Competency Center) and the Berlin Senate Department of Culture and Social Cohesion .

To begin with, biographies of Jewish women were developed and geographically situated on the website. These include members of the Salomon family itself, as well as women who attended the Soziale Frauenschule or played significant roles in the development of social work.