Archive for Sexology

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The following sampler gives a first impression of the documents in our collection, which contains many more items than are shown here. The entire collection can be studied on location at our archive during regular opening hours.

--Please note: All images are quick load JPEG's. To get the full size picture, just click on them for a larger image.

The Berlin physician Albert Moll was, next to Iwan Bloch and Magnus Hirschfeld, the third great promoter of sexology. Like Hirschfeld, he was of Jewish descent (baptized as a Protestant), had been examined by Rudolf Virchow for his medical doctorate, and also remained unmarried, but there the similarity ends. Moll was politically conservative and, in spite of his organizational energy, seems to have been a quarrelsome loner. He despised both Freud and Magnus Hirschfeld as scientific charlatans and tried to counter them at every turn. Thus, in 1913, he organized the International Society for Sex Research as a rival organization to Bloch’s and Hirschfeld’s Medical Society for Sexology. In rivalry to Bloch, he also edited his own "Handbook of the Sexologies", deliberately introducing the plural and thereby demonstrating his rejection of Bloch’s unified concept of the new science. He did, however, get along rather well with Havelock Ellis, who contributed to the Handbook, and with Max Marcuse, whom he supported as a journal editor. In 1926, Moll succeeded in organizing an International Congress for Sex Research in Berlin, with the opening ceremony being held at the Reichstag. A second conference 1930 took place in London. Moll wrote a number of important sexological books, such as "Contrary Sexual Feeling" (1891), "Investigations concerning the Libido Sexualis" (1897), to which Freud owed an unacknowledged debt, and "The Sexual life of the Child" (1909). In the latter book, Moll, for the first time, divided the sexual response into four phases: "1. The onset, 2. the equable voluptuous sensation, 3. the voluptuous acme, 4. the sudden diminution and cessation of the voluptuous sensation" (pp. 22 - 23). Having studied in Nancy under Bernheim, he was also the most active promoter of hypnosis in Germany. As a hobby, he pursued the unmasking of spiritists and spiritism, thereby becoming a popular figure in the press. After 1933 he remained in Nazi Germany and even managed to get his memoirs published: "A Life as a Physician of the Soul" ("Ein Leben als Arzt der Seele", 1936). However, he eventually lost his medical licence. He escaped further humiliations and his transportation to one of the death camps by dying of natural causes on Sept. 23, 1939, on the same day as Sigmund Freud. For a list of Moll's writings, click here.

1. Private photograph of Albert Moll in the 1920’s. [62K]	2. Satirical poem in a popular magazine praising Albert Moll for having unmasked a spiritist by secretly spraying the summoned "ghost" with paint from a syringe. The spot remained visible on the "medium" after the séance. (Ulk, June 17, 1892). [210K]	3. Letter of May 10, 1898 written by Albert Moll in San Francisco to his father. The Palace Hotel on Market Street was, at that time,the city’s largest and best. After the earthquake of 1906, it was rebuild in new splendor and still exists today. [230K]

4. Letter of May 22, 1889 written in Denver, Colorado by Albert Moll to his friend Max Dessoir. The Brown Palace Hotel also still exists today. As the other letters in our collection make clear, Moll stayed at the best hotels during his entire American journey. [152K]	5. Diploma for Albert Moll confirming his election as a Fellow of the Chicago Academy of Medicine, June 24, 1898. [131K]	6. Title page of the 1919 English translation of Moll's "Sexualleben des Kindes" (1909). [77K]

7. Title page of Moll's "Handbook of the Sexologies", second edition of 1921 (1st ed. 1911). [114K]	8. Front cover of Moll's "Hypnotism", fifth edition, 1924. [106K]	9. Photo of the opening session at the Reichstag of Moll's International Congress for Sex Research in Berlin 1926. [139K]

10. Program of Moll's congress in Berlin 1926. Highlights: Opera performance of "Salome", conducted by the composer Richard Strauss, papers by Eugen Steinach, Alfred Adler, Bronislaw Malinowski, Edward Westermarck, Harry Benjamin, Charles Drysdale, Norman Haire, Dora Russell and many others. [635K]	11. Title page of the proceedings of Moll's congress in London 1930. The speakers were generally less distinguished than had been those at the Berlin congress, although the volume contains another paper by Harry Benjamin. [42K]	12. Albert Moll on his deathbed. [52K]

-- Please note: All images are quick load JPEG's. To get the full size just click on them for a larger image.

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