The study analyses forms of female noble philanthropy in 19th-century Salzburg. It shows how noblewomen-individually or within charitable associations-supported the needy, motivated by Christian compassion, moral obligation, and the imperative of noble representation. Philanthropy offered one of the few spaces where noble and bourgeois women acted together-albeit under conditions of social asymmetry. Leadership roles were mostly reserved for noblewomen, while operational tasks were assumed by bourgeois women. Drawing on a broad range of sources, the study highlights actors, networks, and scopes of action. Philanthropy emerges as both an expression of social duty and a means of preserving noble identity amid social transformation.
The article investigates the use of parish registers as a source for occupational statistics in the periods before modern occupational censuses. Parish registers contain many indications of occupations, but their representativeness is not guaranteed from the beginning. This research compares Austrian parish data of 1890 with data from the Austrian 1890 census. It turns out that parish registers are a good source for estimating the occupational structure on the level of sectors. They are not quite as good in measuring occupation on the less aggregated level of branches. They are useless in a measurement of social stratification within branches or sectors. The findings apply to all regions where parish registers or similar records of births, marriages, and deaths, are available.
The persistence literature connects recent outcomes to events long ago. Although this literature is promising, it raises serious questions about how to distinguish deep causal factors that persist across time from alternative explanations derived from the rapidly changing historical context or misuse of historical sources. We discuss two prominent examples that ground the rise of the Nazi Party in distant historical events. Several econometric and historical errors undermine the papers' contention that deeply rooted culture and social capital fueled the Nazi rise. The general lesson is that beyond careful econometrics and serious consideration of underlying mechanisms, persistence studies must pay scrupulous attention to the historical context and the limitations of historical data.
Though long de-mystified by economic history literature, the idea of a German "economic miracle" of the 1950s occasionally shows up in popular discourse, propelled by political motivation. The article starts with a brief summary of older arguments for reconstruction as opposed to a structural break having caused economic recovery. It then addresses the more recent discussion on the continuation of the economic order after 1945. Both debates, however, have neglected the international dimension of Germany's spectacular growth episode. The article therefore asks, if indicators of the structural transformation to a market economy can be found on the global level.
Despite being studied for decades, the debate on pre-modern standards of living and real wages is constantly being reevaluated and expanded. This article contributes to the debate by using new data and providing a novel perspective on existing data for the Austrian cities of Vienna, Salzburg and Rattenberg. First, we discuss the real wages of the three cases in comparison. Second, we propose a more nuanced approach when calculating real wages: Based on Robert Allen's work, we have constructed modified consumer baskets that are region-specific, change over time and include previously undervalued expenditures such as energy and housing. Finally, we place the new long-term real wage series for the Austrian cities in the context of European real wage data and the "Little Divergence" debate.
By providing aworking definition of an expatriate colonial business, this article examines the role of the Woermann group's integration into and support of colonialism through trade, plantations, and logistics. Focusing on its activities in Cameroon and the pivotal role of the Woermann Linie during the Herero and Nama genocide in German South West Africa, it illustrates the company's entanglement with German colonial rule. Even after the end of Germany's colonial overseas empire, colonial influences persisted in the company's structure and practices, emphasizing the enduring impact of coloniality on business operations.
Taking German Cameroon as an example, this article uses the concept of the colonial intermediary to analyze Africans' role in colonial capitalism. While researchers have shown that the colonial state depended on Africans, the importance of African intermediaries in European trade has hardly been explored: European companies also depended on Africans for their business. The article argues that colonial capitalism in Cameroon was not only coercive but also opened new avenues for profit, social advancement, and accumulation for African traders, employees, and subcontractors. Studying the life histories of four African economic intermediaries, the article analyzes the opportunities of colonial capitalism, Africans' strategies of profit making, and Africans' role in colonial exploitation.
Many people born outside England, defined as aliens, lived in late medieval London. Despite a growing literature on immigration in late medieval England and acceptance that speech was highly significant in premodern societies, studies of native-alien coexistence in London have focused on physical confrontations and have overlooked nationality-based insults. This article analyses these slurs, drawing on the records of English church and equity courts. It argues that there is little evidence supporting the view that late medieval England was characterised by a continuous and generalised anti-alien sentiment. Instead, it concludes that nationality-based insults were time and context-specific and that even the terminology of the abuse was informed by specific political and economic tensions.
This article examines the interrelation between corporate strategies, employment changes and workers' experiences in the German shipbuilding industry in the light of economic crisis. From the middle of the 1970s onwards, due to global economic crisis and global competition this originally large-scale industry evolved into a medium-sized high-technology sector. Against this backdrop, the study reveals different management strategies of shipyards in the northwest of Germany and how these implicated employment structures and working conditions. Based on oral history interviews with shop floor workers and engineers in the construction offices, individuals' narrations show diverse experiences of work degradation and subjective implications on different workers' roles, positions and realities.
While several studies have shed light on the emergence of consumer society in Western Europe and the Atlantic world, our knowledge on the spread of new consumption patterns in regions beyond the core areas of European economic development is still limited. To gain insights into patterns of retail trade, distribution chains and consumer behaviour in the Baltic region, this article analyses an account book of a hitherto unknown retail merchant from Courland, written during the 1770s. This account book-the so-called "Mitau Ledger"- is a unique source, as it reveals distribution channels of manufactured goods in the Baltic hinterland from the perspective of a regional trader and offers valuable information on consumer patterns, craft production and fashion trends in 18th-century Courland.
Social inequality is examined here using Munich's tax bill of 1397 as an example. Social and thus political inequalities were an unresolved problem area of late medieval cities in Central Europe. The tax book is particularly suitable for investigating the dimensions of rich and poor (Gini coefficient of 0.73), gender aspects, contemporary proportions of social groups living below the poverty and need thresholds, as well as the socio-topographical distribution of poverty and wealth in the city. In addition to the customary direct wealth tax, the income of all city dwellers was also taxed above a fixed minimum threshold. Thus, apart from the clergy and servants, the majority of economically active men and women in the cities became visible in social history.
The unexpected loss of a large cargo of barley taken on loan in Barcelona in 1021 suggests that the merchandise was intended for export. The Jewish merchant concerned, named Benevenisti, may have lost the cargo as a result of a shipwreck. An Arab source from the uth century reports a maritime connection between the Muslim city of Tortosa, Barcelona and Narbonne, which was used by Jewish traders. Wrecks of Andalusian merchant ships off the Provencal coast show that this connection already existed at the turn of the 10th century. Jewish traders also appear to have travelled on these ships. The contacts between the Jewish communities of the coastal towns in question may have been used for trade transactions. The merchant Benevenisti could have exported his barley to Tortosa via this trade route.
This article proposes to take a fresh look at Germany's colonial past and its key players in order to trace the particular influence of economy in colonial contexts. It presents the Gutehoffnungshutte (GHH) as a colonial actor outside the sectors typically explored in the context of the colonial economy. GHH's prestige project of the Sanaga Bridge in the colonial state of Cameroon is used to analyse colonial networks in the first wave of globalization as well as connecting colonial projects in the metropolis with material, logistics and personnel on the ground at colonial construction sites. It traces path dependencies and competitive advantages that enabled the GHH to become a key player not just in Germany's industrialisation process, but also in the German colonisation of Africa.
