Einstein's Natural Daughter

These observations derive from more than twenty years of research by the Princeton European Fertility Project. Coale Ansley J. , “The decline of fertility in Europe since the eighteenth century as a chapter in demographic history”, in The decline of fertility in Europe: The revised proceedings of a conference on the Princeton European Fertility Project , ed. by Coale Ansley J. and Watkins Susan Cotts (Princeton, 1986), 1–30; Coale Ansley J. and Treadway Roy , “A summary of the changing distribution of overall fertility, marital fertility, and the proportion married in the provinces of Europe”, ibid ., 31–181. Hajnal's line in Hajnal J. , “European marriage patterns in perspective”, in Population in history: Essays in historical demography , ed. by Glass D. V. and Eversley D. E. C. (London, 1965), 101–43; illegitimate births also divided according to Hajnal's line in Shorter Edward Knodel John , and van de Walle Etienne , “The decline of non-marital fertility in Europe, 1880–1940”, Population studies, xxv (1971), 375–93.

Shorter Edward , “Sexual change and illegitimacy: The European experience”, in Modern European social history , ed. by Bezucha Robert J. (Lexington, Mass., 1972), 231–69, pp. 234–6, 249; quotation from Mitterauer Michael and Sieder Reinhard , The European family: Patriarchy to partnership from the Middle Ages to the present , transl. by Oosterveen Karla and Hörzinger Manfred (Chicago, 1982), 126. Knodel John demonstrated that repeal of restrictive marriage practices resulted in declining illegitimacy rates in “Law, marriage and illegitimacy in nineteenth-century Germany”, Population studies, xx (1966–67), 279–94.

Shorter Edward , “Female emancipation, birth control, and fertility in European history”, American historical review, lxxviii (1973), 605–40, pp. 609–10; Coale , in Coale and Watkins , Decline of fertility (ref. 1), 10.

Knodel John and Hochstadt Steven , “Urban and rural illegitimacy in Imperial Germany”, in Bastardy and its comparative history, ed. by Laslett Peter Oosterveen Karla , and Smith Richard M. (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), 284–312, pp. 308–9.

Shorter , “Sexual change and illegitimacy” (ref. 2), 244; Shorter , “Female emancipation” (ref. 3), 614, fig. 2. Spiritual liberation, for Shorter, seems to be what Ibsen Henrik portrayed in his plays Pillars of society and A doll's house.

A sharp indictment of Shorter's model is found in Tilly Louise A. Scott Joan W. , and Cohen Miriam , “Women's work and European fertility patterns”, Journal of interdisciplinary history, vi (1976), 447–76. I find their criticism impressionistic and unpersuasive, especially for the late nineteenth century and for Central Europe. It is sometimes suggested that changes in diet, and a consequent variation in age of menarche, may contribute to changes in fertility. Dietary improvement, resulting in earlier menarche of at most four years, seems insignificant in the face of enormous demographic changes late in the nineteenth century. Tanner J. M. , “The secular trend towards earlier physical maturation”, Tijdschrift voor sociale geneeskunde, xliv (1966), 524–39.

Zurich , Statistical Office, Statistik der Stadt Zürich , no. 2 (1905), pt 1, “Statistik der Einbürgerungen 1902–1904”, 1. For statistical purposes Einstein (who received his citizenship in 1901) may have been listed as an Italian, since his parents then lived in Italy. According to this source, in 1902–4, 19 Italians became citizens of Zurich. In 1901, when Einstein received his papers, 225 foreigners became citizens of Zurich. Zurich, Statistical Office, Die Bevölkerungsbewegung in der Stadt Zürich 1899–1903, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Wanderungen und mit zwei graphischen Darstellungen (Statistik der Stadt Zürich, no. 4; Zurich, 1907), 40. This second source indicates that, in the years in question, 17,007 foreigners arrived to reside in Zurich, among whom were 2667 Italians, 1082 Austro-Hungarians, and 3222 people of unspecified nationality (p. 54).

Zurich , Statistical Office, Die Wohnungs- und Grundstückserhebung in der Stadt Zürich im Oktober/November 1896: Ii Textliche Darstellung (Zurich, 1907), 26, 35–36; Zurich, Statistical Office, Mitteilungen aus den Ergebnissen der Wohnungs- und Grundstückserhebung in der Stadt Zürich im Oktober/November 1896 (Zurich, 1898). This material and accompanying tables — indexed by streets in Zurich — provide much information about Einstein's residences during his student years.

Zurich , Statistical Office, Tabellarischer Nachweis der Bevölkerungsvorgänge in der Stadt Zürich für die Jahre 1901–1903 (Statistik der Stadt Zürich, no. 3; Zurich , 1906), 1.

Zurich , Statistical Office, Die Bevölkerungsbewegung in der Stadt Zürich 1899–1903 (ref. 7), 21–22, 139.

Shorter Knodel , and van der Walle , “Decline” (ref. 1), 387; Coale and Treadway , “Summary” (ref. 1), 149.

Thomann H. and Feld W. , Die Familienstatistik der Stadt Zürich , i (Statistik der Stadt Zürich, no. 12; Zurich, 1912), 5.

The collected papers of Albert Einstein, i: The early years, 1879–1902, ed. by Stachel John (Princeton, 1987), p. xxxviii, where allusion is made to the daughter surviving into 1903, presumably after Einstein and Marić married on 6 Jan. 1903.

Neumann H. , “Uneheliche Geburten”, in Handbuch der Staatswissenschaften , ed. by Conrad J. Lexis W. Elster L. , and Loening Edg. ( Jena , 1901), 247–60, pp. 250–1. Hohorst Gerd Kocka Jürgen , and Ritter Gerhard A. , Sozialgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch: Materialien zur Statistik des Kaiserreichs 1870–1914 (Munich, 1975), 36. Bajor Stefan , “Illegitimacy and the working class: Illegitimate mothers in Brunswick, 1900–1933”, in The German working class 1888–1933 , ed. by Evans Richard J. (London, 1982), 142–73, pp. 146, 149 for Brunswick legitimations and conclusions about working-class patterns.

Jarausch Konrad , “Students, sex and politics in Imperial Germany”, Journal of contemporary history, xvii (1982), 285–303, pp. 290–1; Knodel and Hochstadt , “Urban and rural illegitimacy” (ref. 4), 308; Bajor , “Illegitimacy” (ref. 14), 155 for police harassment of partners in concubinage.

Coale and Treadway , “Summary” (ref. 1), 35. Serbia , Direction de la Statistique d'état, Annuaire statistique du Royaume de Serbie, sixième tome 1901 (Belgrade, 1904), 151: In 1901 there were 1065 illegitimate births in a total of 96,348 births; in 1900 there were 1249 illegitimate births in a total of 104,772 births.

Hammel E. A. , “The zadruga as process”, in Household and family in past time , ed. by Laslett Peter (Cambridge, 1972), 335–73, p. 369; Halpern Joel M. , “Town and countryside in Serbia in the nineteenth-century: Social and household structure as reflected in the census of 1863”, ibid ., 401–27. Serbia's patriarchal and patrilocal collective households, or zadrugas, have received attention from anthropologists and demographers for more than a century.

According to the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Servia”, s.v., general literacy in 1910 was 17%; the Great School of Belgrade was reorganized in 1905 as a university, with faculties of law, medicine, theology, philosophy, and engineering. “Tesla” and “Pupin”, Dictionary of scientific biography , ed. by Gillispie Charles C. (16 vols, New York, 1970–80), s.v. Tesla was born in Serbia, Pupin in the Banat (then controlled by Austria) to illiterate Serbian parents. Pupin's home town, Idvor, was located on the Tamish River about 25km north of the river's confluence with the Danube — hence about 20km northeast of Marić's birthplace, Titel. Pupin Michael , From immigrant to inventor (1922; New York, 1953), 12. Pupin's autobiography provides a remarkable picture of Serbian village life in the Banat during the 1860s and 1870s.

Trbuhović-Gjurić Desanka , Im Schatten Albert Einsteins: Das tragische Leben der Mileva Einstein-Marić (Berne, 1983), 21–28; Collected papers of Albert Einstein , i (ref. 13), 380; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition, “Ujvidék”, s.v. Pupin, Immigrant (ref. 18), 23, writes about the seat of the Serbian religious patriarch in Karlovci (Karlóeza, or Karlowitz), which until 1881 was part of the Military Frontier. Pupin recalls (p. 9) that his father decried the transfer of Idvor from Austrian to Hungarian rule in 1869; Marić's father, however, was content to serve the Hungarians.

Coale , “Decline of fertility” (ref. 1), 15–16; Demeny Paul , “Early fertility decline in Austria-Hungary: A lesson in demographic transition”, Daedalus , xcvii, 2 (1968), 502–22, on 518–20; Andorka Rudolf , “La Prévention des naissances en Hongrie dans la région ‘Ormansag’ depuis la fin du XVIII^e siècle”, Population, xxvi (1971), 63–78.

Coale and Treadway , “Summary” (ref. 1), 117, 149, 151. Over the period 1878–93, illegitimacy in Ujvidék, measured as illegitimate births per 100 births, declined from around 10% to around 8%, with yearly swings occasionally just short of 4 percentage points. Josef von Kórösy and Gustav Thirring, Die Natalitäts- und Mortalitäts- Verhältnisse ungarischer Städte in den Jahren 1878–1895 (Budapest, 1897), 91.

Shorter Knodel , and van de Walle , “Decline” (ref. 1), 387.

Rudolf Andorka in Budapest has kindly provided me with a summary of his unpublished observations on this census material.

For example, Prinzing Friedrich , “Die uneheliche Fruchbarkeit in Deutschland”, Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft, v (1902), 37–46, p. 42.

Knodel John , “From natural fertility to family limitation: The onset of fertility transition in a sample of German villages”, Demography, xvi (1979), 493–521, p. 508.

Evans Richard J. , The feminist movement in Germany 1894–1933 (London, 1976), 132; Allen Ann Taylor , “German radical feminism and eugenics, 1900–1908”, German studies review, xi (1988), 31–56, p. 42.

Neuman R. P. , “Working class birth control in Wilhelmine Germany”, Comparative studies in society and history, xx (1978), 408–28, p. 418.

Woycke James , Birth control in Germany 1871–1933 (London, 1988), 68, 167.

Shorter Edward , A history of women's bodies (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1982), 191–7.

Neuman , “Birth control” (ref. 27), 416–17; Woycke , Birth control (ref. 28), 49, 167.

Woycke , Birth control (ref. 28), 138–9.

Neuman , “Birth control” (ref. 27), 418.

ibid., 419–20.

Woycke , Birth control (ref. 28), 21–22.

von Nell Adelheid , Die Entwicklung der generativen Strukturen bürglicher und bäuerlicher Familien von 1750 bis zur Gegenwart (diss., Univ. Bochum, 1973), summarized in Reinhard Spree, Health and social class in Imperial Germany: A social history of mortality, morbidity and inequality, transl. by McKinnon-Evans Stuart and Halliday John (Oxford, 1988), 203; Spree Reinhard , “Angestellte als Modernisierungsagenten: Indikatoren und Thesen zum reproduktiven Verhalten von Angestellten im späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert”, in Angestellte im europäischen Vergleich: Die Herausbildung angestellter Mittelschichten seit dem späten 19. Jahrhundert , ed. by Kocka Jürgen (Göttingen, 1981), 279–308, p. 297.

Pyenson Lewis , The young Einstein: The advent of relativity (Bristol, 1985), 65.

Livi-Bacci Massimo , “Social-Group forerunners of fertility control in Europe”, in Coale and Watkins , Decline (ref. 1), 182–200, pp. 194–5. Knodel John emphasized the exceptional nature of “the early and rapid decline of Jewish fertility and the very low levels achieved even before the turn of the century”, in his Decline of fertility in Germany, 1871–1939 (Princeton, 1974), 140.

Goldstein Alice , Determinants of change and response among Jews and Catholics in a nineteenth century German village (Jewish social studies monograph series , no. 3; New York, 1984), 27, 30–31. In their study of 14 German villages, Knodel and Wilson find that by the last quarter of the nineteenth century, about one-quarter of all brides were pregnant. Knodel J. and Wilson C. , “The secular increase in fecundity in German village populations: An analysis of reproductive histories of couples married 1750–1899”, Population studies, xxxv (1981), 53–84, p. 61.

Collected papers of Albert Einstein, i (ref. 13), 336, for the reaction of Einstein's mother in February 1902, apparently after the birth of the child: “This Miss Marić has given me the most bitter hours of my life”.

Trbuhović-Gjurić , Schatten (ref. 19), 35; Jarausch Konrad H. , Students, society, and politics in Imperial Germany: The rise of academic illiberalism (Princeton, 1982), 111. Freie Magrita J. , “In Opvoeding en onderwijs”, in Vrouwen van Nederland 1898–1948 , ed. by Schenk M. G. (Amsterdam, 1948), 89–107, p. 102.

Weber Marianne , “Vom Typenwandel der studierenden Frau [1917]”, in Weber Marianne , Frauenfragen und Frauengedanken: Gesammelte Aufsätze (Tübingen, 1919), 179–201. I am grateful to Ulrike Rinderhofer for instruction about Weber.

Trbuhović-Gjurić , Schatten (ref. 19), 26, 35.

Neuman , “Birth Control” (ref. 27), 422–6.

Einstein to Besso , 9 March 1917, in Speziali Pierre (ed. and transl.), Albert Einstein - Michele Besso, Correspondance 1903–1955 (Paris, 1972), 102–4. Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, i (ref. 13), 258, 262, for Einstein's mention of Marić's goitre in 1900. My translation departs from the one in Jeremy Bernstein's “Besso”, New Yorker, 17 February 1989, 86–92, p. 90. Einstein may indicate here congenital cretinism due to thyroxin deprivation and caused by prenatal development in a mother with goitre; one notes that Kendall Edward Calvin at the Mayo Clinic isolated crystalline thyroxin in 1914. Einstein referred to Marić's condition as tubercular in 1917. At this time, tubercular parents were held to produce neurotic children. Walter Bradford Metcalf, Tuberculosis of the lymphatic system (New York, 1919), 39.

Neuman , “Birth Control” (ref. 27), 420–1.

Premarital sexual relations remained beyond the pale of Christian doctrines, of course.