>My daughter’s working on props for a play, in which one of the characters presents their thesis.

Providing Mark Simonson sits at the back it really doesn't matter.

Nietzsche purchased his typewriter in 1882 (according to the Atlantic). Don't know how popular they became over the next 30 years.

Marvellous to see the illustrations of Nietzsche's typewriter script.

With regard to the presentation of the thesis, I am not so sure that it could be presented in any of the ways proposed at the time of WW1. Certainly, in the 1930s, in America, at Columbia, a doctoral thesis was only considered presentable when printed in book form by, for example, no fooling, and entirely coincidentally, Columbia University Press. The expense entailed ($500? a small fortune in those days) delayed, sometimes for years, the awarding of doctorates to impecunious candidates, some well known to me. I would be surprised to learn that things were any less strict under the German system just a decade or two earlier. Certainly the American system was draconian to an extreme, and was gradually abandoned.

Hmm... A chemistry PhD might not have been set in blackletter, Hrant (if it was typeset at all...). Didn't many in the sciences publish in serif typefaces? Before WWI, there were vigorous debates as to whether German should be set in Fraktur or serif typefaces. This implies to me that quite a lot of content was being printed in serif type. Otherwise, the discussion would not have been a big one.

The scientific community preferred Roman type, blackletter was used for novels etc. - AFAIK, theses were printed only after they had been accepted, so a draft in a play might well be handwritten.

I agree, Hrant, I agree!

Can I have that on a t-shirt?

ChrisL

I see two options that I have also seen examples of while working in a digitisation project at the local university library:

• handwritten with latin script, the acknowledgements and preface being handwritten in current script (not necessarily Sütterlin, but something similar); those were considered not to be part of the scientific text, which of course had to be in latin script.
  The sample I have seen was produced on an empty notebook of about 40 pages without rules, ca. 15x25cm. My guess for this choice in this case is the high number of formulas in the text (which was a mathematical dissertation if I remember correctly), and probably also a question of money.
• typoscript. While not everyone had a typewriter ready at hand in the 1900-1910’s, there used to be quite a remarkable number of "writing offices" where you could get your stuff typed from manuscript and/or from dictating it to one of the (usually relatively young and well-educated, both male and female) typewriter operators. Think of the number of internet cafés these days for a comparison (of course this is not really a parallel development, but the idea is that some new technique is invented, not everyone uses it at home or can't afford it, suddenly someone offers it as a service).
  Illustrations and/or formulae would still be handdrawn/written even in typed dissertations. I have seen an example from 1912 from the field of philosophy.

Which option was chosen might not only have been dependent from money issues, but also from the requirements the university needed you to fulfil. If you had to hand in several copies, it would have been easier and faster to type them or let them be typed by someone else because you could do carbon copies more easily than with handwritten things (still possible, but I have never seen a carbon copy of some 60 sheets of a dissertation in handwriting in any university library).
The number of formulae would also have played a role, so depending on which specific field and application your hypothetical chemistry doctoral candidate would chose her/his options with regard to several other factors (money, having a typewriter or having the possibility to use one in e.g. some relative’s office, number of copies requested by the local university administration, …).

Katharina!!! That is a scream! :-) The funniest part is that you chose someone with such an obvious beer-belly to use as a model :-)

ChrisL

Fritz K. Ringer: The Decline of the German Mandarins. The German Academic Community, 1890–1933.

>Stephen, in the US, people who write stuff are all liberals, goldangit.

People who read stuff too (captions on Fox don't count). Actually unless you are a plumber, small town mayor, or own 7 homes you're a liberal.

Katharina,
If you get those T-shirts produced, I will buy one, too!

ChrisL

I would want one too, but only with "correct" ligatures ;-)

I am serious about wanting the T-shirt and I am also serious about paying you for it,

ChrisL

Anytime, my friend.

ChrisL