„Die Amerikaner kochen auch nur mit Wasser“ K.F.W. Wanders Sprichwortbild der Vereinigten Staaten

The article sheds light on a hitherto largely overlooked transatlantic dimension in the work of the paremiographer Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander (1803–1879), whose Deutsches Sprichwörter-Lexikon remains to this day the unsurpassed standard reference work in the field. Far from reflecting any narrowly national focus, Wander’s collection proves to be conceived in an international comparative perspective and grounded in a clearly liberal-democratic outlook. Already in his early and later forgotten study Das Sprichwort (1836), Wander reflects on the migration of proverbs and explicitly points to the United States as a future melting pot of proverbial traditions. Particular attention is given to Benjamin Franklin, whose Poor Richard’s Almanack and essay The Way to Wealth Wander demonstrably drew on. Numerous proverbs popularized or coined by Franklin found their way into Wander’s lexicon, in some cases with explicit source references. The article shows how Wander integrates American proverbial wisdom into the German context while also commenting on it critically, for instance in his political proverb breviary. Wander thus emerges not merely as a meticulous collector, but as a reflective paremiologist whose interest in the American proverb tradition began early and continued over decades.