"Modern America" — an interview (1910)
A syndicated New York interview, reprinted in the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (New South Wales) on 14 May 1910, catches Preuschen — billed as “the greatest woman painter in the world” — at the height of her fame, touring the United States and gathering material for a book on America. It is the only source that lets her speak in English, and she is merciless:
I think New Yorkers are all about 13 years old. You all take life with the deadly seriousness which young people of that age invariably assume.
America is young, and has the faults and virtues of its youth. It goes in for new movements, like woman’s suffrage and easy divorce. Those are good things, that we are too odd and stupid to perceive in my country.
The byline garbles her married name as “Tolmänne” — that is Telmann (she was Preuschen-Telmann), a useful clue for finding more of her in newspaper archives.