Popularizing the nation

In countless articles on culture, politics, landscape, industry, history, and other topics, the Gartenlaube played an influential role in nineteenth-century Germany's larger effort to forge a national identity for itself. In fact, Belgum argues that the search for, and development of, national identity in Germany was inextricably linked to the writings of the Gartenlaube and other popular magazines. Such publications served both as a public repository of mythic memory for the nation and as a source of new national images for a self-consciously modern Germany.