Theo Jung

For a volume on practices of silence edited by Karolin Wetjen, Philipp Müller, Richard Hölzl and Bettina Brockmeyer, I wrote a chapter on the emergence of the silent march as a mode of protest.

Der Schweigemarsch. Entstehung und Funktionsvielfalt einer Protestpraxis in Europa und den Vereinigten Staaten (ca. 1880–1925)

[The Silent March. Emergence and Functions of a Protest Practice in Europe and the United States (c. 1880–1925)]

The chapter shows how the silent march first became established in the protest repertoire at the turn of the twentieth century, when in the context of the emerging political mass market various groups experimented with new modes of public protest. It approaches its topic in three steps. Firstly, it asks to what extent the boom of the silent march around 1900 was linked to earlier events of silent protest or to other practices established during the 19th century. Secondly, taking the French case as an example, I sketch the diversity of the contexts in which this mode of protest was used at the turn of the 20th century. The third, longest section takes a closer look at three protest movements in which the silent march played a particularly prominent role (the labor movement, the women’s movement and the African-American civil rights movement). Finally, I draw some comparative conclusions about the functions of this mode of protest and their historical development.