Acknowledgements
We would like to thank a host of people—scholars, students, archivists, and librarians—for their contributions to this project over the past five years. First and foremost is the assistance we have received from Nikolaj Pors, Lili Elbe’s biographer, who has been researching her life assiduously for nearly two decades. Nikolaj has generously shared with us his research and his fount of personal information provided by Lili’s family and friends.
Our Digital Editors, Dr. Nikolaus Wasmoen (University of Buffalo) and Rebecca J. Parker (Loyola University Chicago), have done prodigious work on this digital edition and archive. We are especially grateful for their work on adapting the Versioning Machine collation software for display of multiple editions in four languages, and for their willingness to work with teams of students on this project, training and supervising them on multiple tasks.
Our Project Manager Emily Datskou (Loyola University Chicago) expertly managed the multi-faceted, multi-year project that resulted in this digital archive. Her attention to detail, organizational skills, command of the intricacies of the project, and knowledge of queer studies and gender theory have been crucial to its completion.
Margaret Heller, Digital Services Librarian; Greer Martin, Metadata Technologies Librarian; and, Gino Angelini, Systems Administrator, all from Loyola University Chicago, built the web environment and populated the website, which was designed by students in Dr. Elizabeth Hopwood’s Digital Humanities practicum (Fall 2018). A special thanks to Taylor Brown from that class who designed the website logo. Ashley Howdeshell from the University Archives assisted in the scanning of original materials, and Jennifer Stegen and the staff in Interlibrary Loan acquired numerous documents for the digital archive that were difficult to procure. Niamh McGuigan, Head of Reference, assisted in researching obscure sources and, with Margaret Heller, advised us on copyright law and permissions.
Xiamara Hohman (Loyola University Chicago) and Danielle Richards (Loyola University Chicago) volunteered countless hours to encoding, collating, and proofing various editions and their translations, and contributed as well to the textual notes for this edition. Monica Brown (University of Chicago), Anna McCue, Zanabe Othman, Maria Palacio, and Tatjana Willms-Jones (Loyola University Chicago) served as editorial and technical assistants, encoding and collating editions and archival materials; and Matthew Gallagher, Quinn Christianson, and Caroline McCraw (Loyola University Chicago) digitally scanned, proofed, and edited primary and supplemental materials for the archive. Caroline also assisted in preparing the collation viewer.
Dr. Marianne Ølholm (University of Copenhagen), senior translator on the project, translated the Danish edition and supplemental Danish-language materials into English and did extensive research on Danish references and materials. Kristin Jacobsen (Loyola University Chicago) and her Danish tutor Maiken Boyen assisted in translating Danish-language materials from the Royal Library archive, and Tatjana Willms-Jones and Sebastian Wuepper (Loyola University Chicago) assisted in translating German-language materials from the Ernst Harthern archive and researching German-language newspapers. Dr. Anne Callahan, Professor Emerita of French at Loyola, translated the chapters from Hélène Allatini’s 1939 memoir and Magnus Hirschfeld’s 1935 book.
Librarians and faculty in the Center for Textual Studies and Digital Humanities at Loyola have given us tremendous support over the years. We owe a debt of gratitude to the deans of the Libraries, Robert Seal, Dean Emeritus, and Dr. Marianne Ryan, for allowing our project to be the first digital edition and archive hosted by Loyola University Libraries. Dr. Kyle Roberts, Director of the Center for Textual Studies and Digital Humanities, provided resources and guidance throughout the project, and Dr. Elizabeth Hopwood, Assistant Director of the Center, provided technical assistance as well. The initial funding for this project was made possible by the late Dr. Samuel Attoh, former Dean of the Graduate School at Loyola.
The Danish Arts Foundation (Statens Kunstfond) and the Danish Authors’ Society (Dansk Forfatterforening) provided funding for the English-language translation of the Danish first edition and Marianne’s work with the co-editors in Chicago and Berlin. A Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society also supported our research at the archives and the preparation of archival materials for the website. A teaching award presented to Pamela Caughie by the Center for Ignatian Pedagogy and the Office of the Provost provided additional funding for student assistants. The Department of English and the Center for Textual Studies and Digital Humanities at Loyola provided research assistants for this project.
Many archivists at Det Kongelige Bibliotek (The Royal Library), Copenhagen, Denmark, and the Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek (Swedish Labour Movement’s Archive and Library), Huddinge, Sweden have assisted us over the years, far too many to name. However, we want to especially thank Jenny Edlund, Information Officer and Web Editor at Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek, for arranging to have the typescript in the Ernst Harthern archive digitally scanned for our use, and Henrik Storgaard, photographer from The Royal Library, for photographing the articles from Politiken for us.
Andrea Rygg Karberg, former curator at the ARKEN Museum, Denmark and a contributor to the catalog of the Gerda Wegener exhibition there, has generously responded to many questions about the Wegeners’ art. And Mathilde Bombeaux, Chargée de valorisation du patrimoine, ville de Beaugency, helped us identify several figures in the narrative and provided important historical information about Beaugency (Balgencie in the narrative).
For their technical assistance over the years, we warmly thank Susan Schreibman, Professor of Digital Humanities, Maynooth University, Kildare, Ireland; and Roman Bleier, PhD, Digital Arts and Humanities, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, the founding and technical editors, respectively, of the Versioning Machine; and Elisa Beshero-Bondar, Associate Professor of English, University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg, director of the Digital Mitford Project.