Industrialización y Cotidianidad

Industrialisation and Everyday Life
Industrialisierung und Volksleben by Rudolf Braun is widely regarded as a classic of

modern social history, inspiring a whole series of profound debates about the
transition from pre-industrial society to the modern world. Utilising evidence
from an upland Swiss canton, Industrialisation and Everyday Life provides a
comprehensive survey of the impact upon popular life styles of the development
of widespread cottage industry, as land-hungry labourers added textile
manufacture to their existing agricultural concerns. Professor Braun analyses
the structure of such 'proto-industry', looking at the changes wrought upon
family life, domestic housing and popular culture in general. A great variety of
literary and artistic sources are drawn together in a vivid portrayal of the ways in
which early industrial development and social modernisation became fused
together.
This book is published as part of the joint publishing agreement established in
1977 between the Fondation de la Maison des Sciences de 1'Homme and the
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Press.
Industrialisation and
Everyday Life
RUDOLFBRAUN
Professor of Modern History at the University of Zurich
Translated by Sarah Hanbury Tenison
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University Press 1990
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and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
Originally published in German as Industrialiserung und Volksleben

by Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht 1960; second edition 1979
and © Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht in Gottingen
First published in English by Editions de la Maison des Sciences de

l'Homme and Cambridge University Press 1990 as Industrialisation and
Everyday Life
First paperback edition 2005
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 521 35311 4 hardback

ISBN 0 521 61929 7 paperback
ISBN 2 7351 0376 5 (France only)
Transferred to digital printing 2005

Contents
Prefaces page vii

Acknowledgements x
Note on measures and coinage xi
Introduction 1
1 The preconditions for industrialisation 8
2 Changes to the structure of family and population in the industrial

regions 37
3 Life and society of the population engaged in industry 61
4 The impact of industrialisation on the house and the rural economy 111
5 Work in the putting-out industry and its effect on the life of the
common people 131
6 The outworkers'attitude to poverty and crises 154
7 Conclusion 184
Postscript, by Ulrich Pfister 188
Appendix: a note on the administrative structure and social

stratification in the countryside of Zurich during the Ancien Regime,
by Ulrich Pfister 193
Notes 195
Sources and bibliography 223
Index 227
v
Preface to the English-language edition
In the preface to the second edition I mentioned that since the publishing of
this work in the year 1960 cottage industry — under the new terminology
'proto-industry' - has received increased attention in social and economic
historical reasearch, a tendency that still continues today. Therefore, the
publisher's wish to take this historiographic situation into account and to
summarise in a longer postscript the more recent research history as well as the
latest research results is quite legitimate. Two reasons prevent me, however,
from writing such an outline myself. First of all, I feel more like the grandfather
of the youngest research generation which is presently working on proto-
industrial subjects and problems. Secondly, my teaching commitments as well
as my own research interest have, for many years now, led me away from the
subject of proto-industry so that I have not followed the most recent develop-
ments closely and intensively enough. I have, therefore, asked one of my
assistants, Ulrich Pfister, to write the requested postscript. He is part of the
younger research generation and works in the field of proto-industrialisation
on his own projects. Thus, the pen is passed on to the grandson.
Rudolf Braun
Preface to the second (German) edition
Well brought up young ladies used to be taught 'not to put themselves

forward', an essential part of the education provided in the better girls'
boarding schools in the nineteenth century. It may well appear that I too have
learnt not to put myself forward: for years I have been wondering whether to
revise Industrialisation and Everyday Life but I could never decide to do it and
even now I find it hard. Not that I am shy; my problem is more fundamental:
this book was written as a thesis around twenty years ago. Although I have no
wish to repudiate my first-born, the umbilical cord was cut many years ago
and it has gone its own way ever since. So it is hard to identify with it, for I too
vii
viii Preface
have gone my own way, a way which my work on this thesis definitely helped
me to find and pursue. It has led me away from folklore and towards social and
economic history.
In spite of this, my little runaway has dogged my heels persistently; since
the late sixties, cottage industry as a subject has aroused truly astonishing
interest in very different fields of research, and, unless I am much deceived,
will be cultivated even more intensively. My spinners and weavers from the
Zurich Oberland have been caught up in this Renaissance and are regarded
with respect, often to such a degree that I would tremble lest their frail
shoulders should not be capable of supporting the weight of academic evidence
which has been heaped on them in the texts or footnotes of relevant works.
One effect of this new evaluation of cottage industry has been to give it a
new name: 'proto-industry', more suited to an object of fashionable research,
subjected to new questions, methods and scientific analysis. In 1977,
Industrialisierung vor der Industrialisierung (Industrialisation before Industrialisation)
by Peter Kriedte, Hans Medick and Jiirgen Schlumbohm was published and
became a standard reference book in the shortest possible time; it provides
what must be the most impressive presentation of the latest position in
international research with its variety of methods, its wealth of views and its
attempts at theoretical models. When compared with all this progress,
Industrialisation and Everyday Life seems to belong more to the genre of Heimatsro-
mane (tales of the countryside), with their titles printed in big letters so that
pensioners can buy them too.
So much for my timid dithering over the question of a new edition. It is also
the reason when the contents have been allowed to reappear unaltered, the
text as well as the particularly problematical and antiquated Introduction.
This little first-born simply cannot be dressed up in new clothes in an attempt
to conceal his age and origin. Nor indeed could I do it.
This new edition provides me with an opportunity for remembrance: not
long ago Herbert Kisch died unexpectedly and far too soon. He was a pioneer
of research into cottage industry and shortly before his death he initiated,
organised and conducted an international conference on proto-industrialis-
ation. The new edition is dedicated to him; may his charm and personality not
be forgotten!
Zurich, Spring 1979 Rudolf Braun
Preface to the first (German) edition
The present work is the first part of an investigation into the relationship
between industrialisation and the life of the common people. It deals with the
Prefaces ix
changes in their way of life under the influence of the putting-out industry in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Part two will concentrate on the
changes in their way of life under the influence of factory industry in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Both parts are to be considered as
separate works, even though the first part leads on to the second and many
threads run on from the first part into the second. The development is to be
pursued up to the present.
In 1955 I worked for eight months as a temporary hand in a textile factory
in the Zurich Oberland and lodged with a weaving family, so learning about a
factory hand's sorrows and joys. I recall this period, which meant more to me
than just a sociological experiment, with happiness and gratitude. The fate of
the population of the Zurich Oberland has been spun in cotton yarn for
generations. They have remained faithful to cotton through all the crises. In
spite of frequent hardship the factory people have retained their cheerful
enjoyment of life. Anyone who is able to get to know them will take much of
their life as his example.
I take great pleasure in thanking my esteemed teacher, Professor Richard
Weiss, for the help and sympathy which he has lavished on this work.
My thanks too to Dr Heinrich Krebser. He has been extremely kind in
allowing me to look at the archives of the Walder Ortschronik, which he had built
up, aware that even the most mu icane expressions of life in his factory parish
constitute valuable source material.
I owe very great thanks too to Dr H. Spoerry-Jaeggi for the understanding
he has shown towards my research. He employed me for eight months as a
temporary hand in his firm.
Thanks too to the gentlemen of the Zurich State Archive for their frequent
friendly advice and information, proffered when I was working in the archives.
The publication of this work has been made possible by a generous grant
from the Pro Helvetia foundation, for which I would like to express my
wholehearted thanks.
My final thanks are to Frau M. Mockli and Fraulein E. Liebl for reading the
proofs with me.
Acknowledgements
I must acknowledge the impressive achievement of Sarah Hanbury Tenison in

translating this book, and also express my deep gratitude to Dr Ulrich Pfister,
who undertook the difficult and tiresome task of finding equivalents for terms
relating to constitutional and socio-political institutions of eighteenth-century
Switzerland, and of translating contemporary Helvetisms. I wish to thank
them both.
Note on measures and coinage
1 Juchart (of plough land) = 32.7 metric ares=0.81 acres

1 Mannwerk or Mannmaht (of grass land) = 29 metric ares=0.72 acres
1 Gulden=2 Pfund=40 Schilling=\6 Batzen

1 Schilling=\2 Pfennigs 12 Heller
XI
Introduction
The following enquiry is concerned with the social and cultural upheaval
which took place during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in a rural
environment under the influence of the putting-out, or cottage, industry.
Given the folklorist nature of our enquiry, we need to recognise how the
fundamental conditions of human life and society are changed when men
depend wholly or partly on industry for their livelihood, and how these
changes in the lives of the common people are revealed in popular culture. The
countryside of Zurich has been chosen for our enquiry, especially the Zurich
Oberland, a region which underwent very early and intensive industrialis-
ation. Three hundred years later, this region is nowadays still faithful to the
various branches of the textile industry.
A folklorist approach
Folklore is a branch of the arts, a definition which obliges us to understand the
changeability of all the conditions of human existence in terms of people's
changing mental attitudes. Without promoting a one-sided theory of the
spiritual and causative interpretation of history and culture, it should simply
be emphasised that the arts have the task of perceiving economic and technical
changes - to wit industrialisation - against the background of a development
in mental history which preceded and accompanied the changes.1 It is from
this vantage point that we will look for the driving forces of history and try to
extrapolate them from their secondary effects. Deducing economic changes
from particular constellations in mental history is essentially a matter for
economic historians. The folklore analysis begins where economic history
(and history generally) stops. The aim and object of folklore is to investigate
the transposition of mental impulses within the sphere of popular thoughts
and values and to pursue personal culture through its transformation into
popular culture bound up with tradition and community. This purpose
provides the basic questions of our enquiry: how is industrialisation received
on the popular level and how is the life of the common people shaped by the
process of industrialisation? Since their life can be perceived in the relationship
1
2 Introduction
between people and objects, we can research into the links between the
mentality of the industrial workers and the new material world and popular
culture pertaining to this mentality.
The folklorist viewpoint is thus briefly outlined and distinguished from
other disciplines in the arts. However, our choice of theme requires further
justification. Folklorist research into those people whose work and basis for
existence binds them to the process of industrialisation is still in its infancy.
This is due on the one hand to the present state of historical knowledge and
technical theory, which does not concern us. On the other hand, there are
problems inherent to the object of our research: industrialisation seems by its
very nature to be hostile to community and tradition. We stress 'seems'
because we cannot share this attitude. Industrialisation and industrial labour
has until now been perceived and judged almost exclusively from the point of
view of'uprooting, disruption and stereotyping'2 and any discussion generally
starts from hidebound assumptions and views: industrialisation and industrial
work destroy old crafts, working patterns and associations; they displace
ancient folklore, long-lived customs and practices and traditional forms of
community; there is a dynamism inherent to the industrial system of produc-
tion which disregards human and material ties, and so on. Industrialisation is
only too eagerly made into a whipping boy and held responsible for our
uncultured age, for our rootless lives and for our loss of centre. This is not the
place to counter such views, judgements and preconceptions, or to discuss the
cultural value (especially the popular cultural value) of industrialisation and
industrial labour. Let us assume only that our investigation will show how the
life of the common people and their culture are altered under the influence of
industrialisation, not in the sense of disruption and destruction, but in the
sense of being given a new shape, one adjusted to the altered conditions of
existence. What is more, the investigation will demonstrate that it is only
industrialisation which guarantees large sections of the population a home-
land. Indeed, industrialisation provides people with a homeland, allowing
them to stay put on their own soil among their own folk.
We are dealing here not with a factual but a methodological problem: if
industrialisation appears by its very nature to be hostile to community and
tradition, how then can we justify researching this subject from a folklorist
point of view, which considers everything relating to tradition and community
to be of central significance? Can substantive folklorist research be possible in
this context?
Two fundamentally important preconditions allow us to place the folklorist
approach alongside other disciplines in the arts: both the need for community
and belief in tradition are deeply entwined in the human psyche.3 Even the
process of industrialisation is subordinate to the effect of these two fundamen-
tal forces, once it is rooted in the life of the common people and is accepted and
supported by them. In any case, and this is of decisive significance, belief in
Introduction 3
tradition should not be confused with folklore, nor the need for community
with traditional forms of community. Both folklore and traditional forms of
community have to change along with the process of industrialisation, but
belief in tradition and the need for community ensure that new forms of
folklore and community emerge from the new industrial base. The changes in
the life of the common people are revealed in a new popular culture adapted to
the changed conditions. There can therefore be no danger that the foiklorist
approach is invalid. Let us start by referring these preliminary and general
remarks to the problem in hand, in order to define our theme and to justify our
monographical approach.
Defining the topic

Our field of research is the countryside of Zurich. The industrialisation of this
area was an historical process and as such unique and unrepeatable. The
nature and shape of the Zurich textile industry in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, with its putting-out (Verlag) system of production, were
determined by the political and economic framework in which they developed.
During this lengthy process the Zurich putting-out industry emerged with
features peculiar to its locality and period. Man as the creator and upholder of
cultural life shaped from his struggle with the prevailing environment the
mental, social, economic and technical foundations of this early system of
industrial production and manufacture, which attained its first peak in the
eighteenth century.
The putting-out system was harnessed to the legal organisation and
structure of the Zurich city-state with its territory. A feature of the putting-out
system of production was that it extended beyond the city walls into the
surrounding countryside and that its workforce included not only town
burghers but also peasant subjects. The putting-out system thus involved
representatives of both classes, distinguished politically and socially by their
origins, i.e. their birth. The effect of this division was to give the members of
each class different opportunities to participate in economic life. They were
allotted, according to their origins, differentiated functions in the putting-out
system.
The first social class was made up of privileged town burghers. As the
originators of the State's political and economic system, they were keen to
ensure that the new system of production and manufacture was under their
control and management. They monopolised the putting-out system. Only
town burghers were entitled to buy in raw materials and to distribute finished
goods. Their monopolistic control was tightest in the eighteenth century,
protected by a network of regulations. The peasant subjects formed the second
social class involved in the putting-out process. They did not possess the
trading and manufacturing prerogatives of the town burghers. They were
4 Introduction
allowed only specific functions in production and manufacture; processing the
raw material with all the various associated functions. However, the range of
these specific functions was so extensive that a hierarchical order was able to
emerge among the peasant subjects involved in the putting-out system.
Another feature of this system was that intermediate stages could be inserted
into the production process with entrepreneurial opportunities of their own.
Turning raw materials into yarn and cloth involved a complex process, and
the distribution of the raw material and the allotment and coordination of the
various tasks all allowed the peasant subjects latitude and opportunity to act
as entrepreneurs (with all the associated risks) even when they could not
infiltrate the upper echelons of the putting-out hierarchy - i.e. they remained
excluded from the management. Within specific limits, then, the putting-out
system provided the peasant subjects it employed with opportunities for social
advancement and social differentiation. We will get to know these peasant
entrepreneurs, the Tuchler (clothiers), who often described themselves proudly
as Fabrikanten (manufacturers) .4 They formed an intellectual and social elite in
the countryside and acted as a catalyst, which wrought the great upheaval at
the end of the eighteenth century.
The two classes represented in the putting-out system are thus briefly
introduced. As far as our folklorist enquiry is concerned, the second social
class, the peasant subjects, forms its chief object, whereas a study in economic
history would have aimed at putting the first class of town burghers in the
forefront, they being the leaders and managers of the putting-out system. As
the putting-out system developed, it drew great sections of the population of
the Zurich territory within its catchment area. These peasant subjects' own
social and economic structure gave the putting-out system both directly and
indirectly its local and period character: the local environment and culture
restrict or promote the process of industrialisation, and so participate in the
process not only as passive receptors but by actively shaping it. We will pursue
this aspect in Chapter 1. Our field of research is particularly suited to this; the
Zurich territory comprises on the one hand regions which were predestined by
their social, legal and economic structure to adopt the putting-out system.
Consequently, these regions underwent intensive industrialisation. On the
other hand, the territory also extends over regions where putting-out was not
established at all until the nineteenth century because their social, legal and
economic structures excluded or impeded such development. This provides us
with a means of comparing and assessing the determining factors.
Putting-out was, as stated above, harnessed to the Zurich city-state system,
which endowed the Zurich putting-out industry with its local character; its
social structure as much as its forms of production, manufacture and trade. In
the field of force between two magnetic poles the following configuration
emerged; pulling from above were the privileged town burghers who represen-
ted the ruling class and shaped the putting-out system according to a tangle of
Introduction 5
laws and business regulations for town and countryside. Pulling from below
were the peasant subjects who gave the putting-out system its character,
according to the differing local byelaws and social and economic structures in
different parts of the territory.
This brings us to the important matter of reciprocity; as the putting-out
system developed, it changed the social and economic structure, altered the
organisation and working of the State and prepared the ground for the great
upheaval at the turn of the nineteenth century. This applies as much to the
town and its burghers as to the countryside and its peasant subjects.
As we stressed at the beginning, the main object of this investigation is to
pursue the changes to people's life styles under the influence of the putting-out
system. People, with their traditional mental attitudes and life styles, bound
themselves to an existence based on the putting-out industry, thereby necess-
arily producing more stable living conditions, which were ineluctably
entwined with the process of industrialisation. People's behaviour towards
their previous (chiefly rural) lives and community, to their intellectual and
material world, changed. New life styles and forms of community developed,
protected and supported by new compulsory norms of behaviour, which can
be observed in human relationships. New forms of settlement, building and
homes arose. Agriculture acquired a new face along with altered ground rights
and land use. In short, the life and culture of the common people were altered
under the influence of the putting-out system. The more deeply entrenched
industrialisation became, the greater and more lasting was its impact, shaping
both man and landscape. An established and settled workforce emerged, along
with an environment and culture which can be described in the cultural
morphological sense as an industrial landscape. While these brief observations
represent at this stage no more than a working hypothesis, they do help to
define the aims of our enquiry more clearly. Once again our field of research is
shown to be particularly suitable, since the countryside of Zurich contains,
alongside its highly industrialised regions, others which were not (or only
slightly) industrialised until the nineteenth century. This provides a means of
comparing the changes to life styles under the influence of the putting-out
system: industrial landscapes, neighbouring and overlapping zones, as well as
purely agricultural regions are all found within the same political and legal
framework, providing material for examples and comparisons. The new
creative powers aroused in the lives of the common people by the putting-out
industry may thus be distinguished clearly.
The changes to the life styles, and the altered lives and values of the
common people should, however, not be understood solely as a result of the
putting-out industry. We stress this most emphatically and will often refer
back to this during the course of our enquiry. Our task is rather to understand
these changes as the product of a conflict between the process of industrialis-
ation and the existing political, social and economic order. It is this which
6 Introduction
imbues the changes with their chronological, mental and local historical
relevance; hence our monographical approach. It is only when comparable
conditions are available, as is the case in the state of Zurich, that these changes
can be analysed in the sense outlined above.
This brings us to a further delimitation: we are restricting our research to
the countryside of Zurich and direct our gaze chiefly on the Oberland. We
neither can nor wish to compare it with other Swiss or foreign industrial
landscapes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This would fall
outside the perimeter of this study. In the same way, we refer only seldom to
parallel developments in the industrial landscapes of Switzerland or the rest of
Europe. Although this may be considered a weakness, we must be bold and
stand by our decision.
In the same way, our study is limited chronologically: we restrict ourselves
to the Ancien Regime, although much of our source material extends beyond
this period. The great changeover at the close of the eighteenth century is only
briefly outlined towards the end of the book. As already mentioned in the
Preface, we intend to investigate in a future study the transition from the
putting-out industry to the factory industry, with its machine manufacture
and the consequent effect on the life styles of the Oberland population up to the
present day. The material for this sequel is in greater part already gathered. In
order to understand the changes under the influence of the factory industry in
the Zurich Oberland, we need to know more about the conditions of existence
and how they gave rise to the early industrial putting-out system. The
following investigation will provide more than sufficient documentation.
We must emphasise, in order to avoid misunderstandings, that this investigation cannot
and does not intend to provide a history of the Zurich putting-out industry. In the same
way the nature and shape of the putting-out system, in terms of its economic
history and significance, is not presented.5 Further, we have avoided describ-
ing the outworkers' spinning and weaving methods and the accompanying
processes, in so far as this is not necessary to understanding this book. For all
such information, we refer the reader to the comprehensive literature on the
subject.6
The reader interested in economic matters will note the absence of a
thorough presentation of the cost of living under the Ancien Regime. We have
deliberately avoided providing a wage-price index because this requires
specialised research. Wages and prices fluctuated so wildly in this period that
only the most rigorous analysis could succeed and, so far as our folklorist
approach is concerned, these questions are of secondary importance.
We have attempted briefly to outline the questions and aims of our
investigation and to define our theme. We are aware that, in spite of the
restricted range of our study, we cannot hope fully to grasp and present the
transformation to the lives and culture of the common people. These are only
snippets from the whole breadth of traditional life styles and cultural expres-
Introduction 1
sions. Nonetheless, we must attempt to project these painstakingly assembled
pieces back into a living unity, to see them in their manifold relations to other
spheres of life and culture and to consider them from different points of view.
In attempting this projection, we cannot avoid blending past and future. Nor,
indeed, have we avoided repeating ourselves in order to ensure that the
connections and implications are grasped, or to emphasise mutual
dependence. We scarcely need to emphasise that we are trying to understand
how things were by studying the spirit and life of the age, and we have chosen
to present this analysis in the form which allows the sources to speak for
themselves as often as possible. Analysis and critique of these sources is to be
found generally in the text or the notes at the end. At this point, we should
mention that the greater part of the source material could not be used.
We hope that our study reaches conclusions of general significance to the
theme 'Industrialisation and Everyday Life'. Although we have chosen a
monographical approach, we emphasise yet again the chronological, local and
mental historical relevance of the changes to the life of the common people and
their culture under the influence of the putting-out system.
The preconditions for industrialisation
Those parts of the Zurich territory to be caught up soonest in the putting-out

industry lay near to the city, in the regions around the Lake (the Zurichsee)
and in the province of Knonau. In the seventeenth century the Zurich textile
manufacture also drew the Oberland within the catchment area for cottage
industry. Raw materials from foreign lands were brought to the forest valleys
to be processed and with them came a system of production based on new
social and economic foundations. The industrialisation of the Oberland had
begun.
Before this process began, however, yarn was already being produced
locally, as part of the peasants' agricultural output. Growing flax and
especially hemp was an important item in the annual budget both for wealthy
peasants and for poor day-labourers, and was as such highly regarded. Even
the poorest families tried to get hold of a Hanfldndli (little field of hemp)
alongside their Krautgdrtli (vegetable patch). Often enough such a Hanffdckerli
(little acre of hemp) would be all the land they owned.1 In numerous parishes
the hemp pounds were part of the commonage enjoyed by those parishioners
entitled to use it.2
In rainy or winter weather, no farmhouse was without its busily spinning
wives and daughters, with their husbands and children, or an attentive lover,
preparing the fibres for them. They also tried to produce more yarn than they
needed, using the profit to offset their heavy debts. Yarn carders went from
farmhouse to cottage, buying up their wares. In places with a weekly market
(Wald 1621) the market regulations insisted on all spun fibres and yarn being
sold there. Many poor families were dependent on spinning hemp and flax not
grown and harvested by them, but taken on from neighbours and carders. The
weekly market regulations of Wald acknowledged that many poor villagers
had to earn their living by producing flax yarn;flachsinenGam der Orten vil arm
volck ernehren muss?
Linen weaving, a characteristic peasant handicraft, emerged alongside this
locally restricted trade in yarn. Both the trade and the handicraft, however,
scarcely exceeded the demands of the peasant economy and the limited
marketing opportunities open to them. Yarn was just one of a variety of
8
The preconditions for industrialisation 9
agricultural market products. Preparing and spinning hemp and flax was just
an additional harvest task and formed a usual and familiar part of the
agricultural working year. Even when people had to earn their living by
spinning flax, this source of income retained the character of a labouring task,
not intrinsically different from other farmwork. The demand for such work
was still determined by the local cultivation and field systems and depended to
a great extent on the varying quality of the regional harvests.4 The Oberland
textile industry did not grow out of the peasant economy, although, seen from
a purely technical point of view, this did prepare the ground for it. Instead, it
was the product of bourgeois and urban conditions (albeit not the guilds), and
not of agricultural and rural conditions.
We do not intend to pursue the post-Reformation history of the Zurich
textile production and the development of the Zurich putting-out industry.5
The emergence of a form of city-state mercantilism in Zurich caused many
factors to intermingle, thereby influencing one another and becoming increas-
ingly effective. Church and State, with their religious, political and economic
powers, were involved both at the local Zurich level and on a European scale.
One need only recall the Protestant refugees who brought a foreign economic
philosophy to the city along with their new skills.6 Forms of production and
trade developed, whose social and economic structure was fundamentally
different from the traditional guild trades. A system of production developed
called Verlag or putting-out system, whose structure and organisation
extended out beyond the town walls into the countryside.7 The new forms of
production and management were at permanent variance with the old order of
guilds and trades,8 which were to frame the political and economic life of the
city-state for a long time to come. The new economic structure made only
painful progress, bringing the old order into question and contributing
considerably to the collapse of the Ancien Regime.
An early industrial entrepreneurial type emerged to represent the new
orientation and organisation, who combined competence in business with his
firm, almost puritanical, religious faith to achieve a more elevated aim in life.
His business mentality and dealings were based on religious foundations and
imbued with the moral and ethical values of the age. No accounts book is
without its pious inscription, such as: L.D.S, (Laus Deo Soli) or L.D.M. (Laus
Deo Maximo) or G.g.G. (Gott geb Gluck).9 The hand of God directed the course
of manufacture and rich business profits were recognised and valued as the
blessings of God. This religious base was still strong in the eighteenth century,
although much of it had become mere form, and the Zeitgeist, together with the
rich profits from business, was moving in the direction of secularisation,
whereas the puritanical attitude to the world renounced luxury, ostentation
and a worldly seigneurial life style. The degree to which the character of
eighteenth-century Zurich was formed by her textile manufacturing families is
well known.
10 Industrialisation and everyday life
An economic history of the nature and shape of the early Zurich textile
industry would need to start by studying the putting-out system and the urban
putting-out masters who controlled it. Such an account would trace local
variants of forms of production and manufacture in the early industrial
putting-out system. It would have to explain the technical processes and
organisation, and set out the social arrangements and so on. But we are faced
with a different problem: our focus is on the countryside of Zurich, particularly
on the Oberland. It is here that we must pursue and understand
industrialisation.
When an urban and bourgeois industry spreads out from the city into the
surrounding countryside, it penetrates an unfamiliar environment and
economy which receives industrialisation on its own terms. For those involved
in the industrialisation process, it meant that the country inhabitants
experienced industrialisation not merely as passive recipients, but also by
actively shaping it. Although they were politically and economically
dependent on the town, in whose order the putting-out system was anchored,
they introduced preconditions which favoured or impeded, and sometimes
prevented, reception of industrialisation. These preconditions can only be
explained in relation to rural conditions in their regional variations. If we look
for the primary conditions enabling the Oberland and other regions of the
Zurich territory to become early industrial landscapes, we must attempt to
trace the history of the deep-seated transformation of the economy and life
style of the Oberland. Natural preconditions are muddled up with legal, social
and historical preconditions, forcing us to look at nature and mankind in
relation to one another and to understand the Oberland in the seventeenth
century as a cultural landscape.
Given our interest in folklore, let us begin by studying man. In the
'Beschreybung der Armen uff der ganzen Landschaft Zurich' ('Description of
the Poor in the Whole Countryside of Zurich') (1649, 1660, 1680, 1700) we
meet that section of the Oberland population whose lives were linked earliest
and most exclusively to the Zurich putting-out industry. The Poor Registers
owe their creation and compilation to purely superficial motives. We know of
the existence of the first people to fall into industrial dependence only through
their common poverty, which forced them to place petitions for alms. An
endless portrait gallery of poor people passes before us, 'humbly and piteously
requesting' their weekly rations, shoes and clogs, Nordling cloth and warm
winter clothes from the Alms Office. Spinning had become these poor people's
most important, if not their only, source of income, a fact deduced from a few
recurring phrases. People petitioning for alms were described in the records in
the following terms: 'helps self by spinning cotton'; 'feeds self with spinning
silk'; 'has to support self with spun work'; 'does her best by spinning cotton';
'can support self miserably by spinning'; 'busies self with spun work';
'supports self with spinning'; 'owns nothing apart from her spindle' etc.10
Putting-out work had become these alms recipients' usual and familiar
occupation, as is illustrated very clearly in a report by the minister of Illnau
(1680), in which he writes about two children of his parish, Lienhart Moos and
Barbara Pfister, who 'were still quite young folk, but not fully versed in the
usual work of spinning, because they served with farmers in their unmarried
state'. Spinning silk, wool and cotton was so taken for granted that in the Poor
Registers the word 'spinning' can be replaced quite unambiguously by
'manual work'. The minister of Bauma was able to write in 1680 that Heinrich
Ruegger's unmarried daughter, a 'forty-year-old, sickly person, cannot sup-
port herself with manual work and consequently asks for shoes and stockings'.
In the same way, the informant of Diirnten (1660) used the words Gwunn
(earnings) to mean earnings from spinning. He described Elsbeth Griiningery
as a forty-one-year-old widow, who had to stay at home, paid 12 Pfund in rent
and 'owns nothing, beyond what she, with her children, earns (gwunt) each
day'.
Greatly as poverty and hardship provide the dominant tones in the overall
picture of the early industrial landscape, it would be a mistake to look only
among the recipients of alms for those hands who reached out eagerly towards
the new sources of income. The economically better-off sections of the
population also made grateful use of the opportunity to employ their free time
after working on their farms by spinning silk, wool and cotton. We must
remember this, as we dally with the 'Description of the Poor' in the next pages.
We are looking at a phenomenon, whereby a source of employment, which
penetrated the Oberland from outside and was directed from outside, had
after a few years become indispensable to the majority of the inhabitants. It
should be made clear first on which economic foundations these persons'
existence was based. Let us start by asking a rather broad question: what sort
of work opportunities did poor villagers have in the Oberland? This should
clarify the position of the putting-out industry in relation to the work
opportunities arising out of the land itself. Which jobs were supplemented or
perhaps even replaced by spinning?
The following details about the fate of the day-labourers make us realise
how terribly little the woodlands had to offer their poorest inhabitants. Jageli
Wirth from Diirnten (1660), for instance, would go uff den Tagwen, wo er
Glegenheit findt (out day-labouring, wherever he found the opportunity),
although he had trouble walking. In wintertime he and his wife and children
were reduced to spinning. He owned his own cottage, a vegetable patch and an
orchard 'enough to winter a cow', as well as a Handfldndli and 5 Jucharten of
ploughland, but everything was burdened with heavy debts. His wife and
children managed to earn 15 Batzen a week. She and twelve-year-old Anneli
span. Fifteen-year-old Hans-Jakob span and chopped wood; while twenty-
one-year-old Hans was 'this time away doing day-labouring work with his
father'. The working year of able-bodied men would be summed up repeatedly
by the formula Geht uff den Tagwen, winterzeit muss er spinnen (he goes day-
labouring; in winter he has to spin). We do not meet many owning as much
land and property as Jageli Wirth. Fifty-five-year-old Hans Jageli Weber and
his family, from the same parish (Diirnten 1660), found shelter in his son-in-
law's home; 'He goes looking for day-labouring work; in winter he has to spin'.
Josef Caspar of Riiti (1660) was 'an impoverished day-labourer, with neither
house nor homeland, a destitute man'; his Vblkli (folks) tried to remedy their
poverty by spinning. 'Day-labourer Jakob Frey of Tagenau and Magdale
Vogler of Volketswil (1649) have a house, a meadow for one cow, one and a
half Jucharten of ploughland, but owe interest on 300 Gulden for the main
property', so that, despite their youth and strength, they were unable to feed
themselves and their seven children without resorting to charity. One of the
children, eighteen-year-old Jakob, 'herds the pigs and appears to look for a
master to serve'. The others helped their mother with her silk spinning as far as
they were able. In Fischenthal (1649) the day-labourer Heinrich Zuppinger
had his own home for 6 Gulden interest a year; his wife and two remaining
children span and could earn 16 to 20 Batzen weekly. Hans Lochmann of Egg
(1660) was also a 'reduced, poor day-labourer'; Heinrich, one of the older
children, served in the Black Forest area; twenty-one-year-old Anna and
nineteen-year-old Barbara were also 'in foreign parts, but no one knows
where'.
Meanly as farm-labouring work was paid, and obtained with the loss of so
much personal and economic freedom, the poor day-labourer was none the
less glad to get any at all. Felix Pfaffhuser, a pious and industrious person who
'works wherever he is employed' and owned nothing of his own, was unable to
support himself without help and alms, on account of his many children and
because 'nobody was giving him day-work'. When he did get work, he earned
'daily [except at harvest] only 4 Batzen and now [in wintertime] until Easter
only 3 Batzen'. His wife span silk, which enabled her to contribute 10 Batzen a
week to the family budget. The two oldest sons were in service (Wangen 1660).
Hans Ehrsam of Monchaltorf'on account of no one providing day-work' and
'rising dearness of bread' was unable to feed his household. Such complaints
about the lack of agricultural work were desperate and bitter. However ready
people were to undertake any work, 'practically none, although ready to work
just for his meals, of the poor people who go hungry in their poverty are given
work' (Bubikon 1649).
Where the opportunity arose, 'people took to the woods'. Boys often and
eleven were already chopping wood (Diibendorf 1660). Circumscribed by the
local conditions of ownership and rights of usage, the forest was capable of
providing even its poorest inhabitants with very little in the way of a
livelihood. Those who knew how tried to make ends meet by doing wicker-
work. Heini Vogel of Uster (1649) owned no property; he was forty, 'healthy in
body and can make wicker baskets'. His wife span, and twelve-year-old Hans,
ten-year-old Rudolf and eight-year-old Barbel were also kept at this work.
Twenty-two-year-old Hans Jakob lived in Diirnten (1680) 'who chops wood
and makes wicker lathes'. The son ofjageli Temperli of Diibendorf (1649),
thirteen-year-old Jorg, could not only 'read and pray well', but could also
'make wicker baskets'. Nineteen-year-old Maater of Fischenthal (1649)
'makes platters and spoons' and manages to 'earn up to 20 or 23 Batzen, when
the others carry the wood to him, which they must however buy'. His mother
span, along with thirteen-year-old Anneli, ten-and-a-half-year-old Barbell,
nine-year-old Elsbethli and six-year-old Kly-Anneli. The whole lot of them
were, however, unable to earn more than 16 to 20 Batzen a week. The children
were not sent to the somewhat distant school, because the family 'is not able to
provide them with dinner'. Many a poor family lived isolated lives deep in the
forest and burnt charcoal. Jorg Miiller of Fischenthal, for instance, 'this
summer [1649] dwelt with the children in a hut in the TosswakT; he was forty-
four and 'burnt charcoal'. His wife was forty-six, 'strong, and has helped her
husband. In rainy weather they all spin.' The four children still living with
them were 'healthy, but stark naked'.
These few sources illustrating the fate of poor village families reveal that
industrialisation did not begin by displacing any existing work opportunities.
Spinning silk, wool and cotton brought in so little that it could not compete
even with the badly paid farm-labouring jobs. We have already seen how Jorg
Maater could earn 20 to 23 Batzen a week by whittling platters and spoons,
while his mother's and four sisters' combined efforts at spinning could earn
only 16 to 20 Batzen. The Poor Registers contain countless entries comparing
spinning with other forms of employment; one person, for instance, was able
'on account of lame limbs to do no work but spinning', another was capable 'of
no work apart from spinning' (Gossau 1660). Spinning was resorted to only by
those who could not find or were no longer capable of other employment. In
spite of this, spinning had become indispensable to the greater part of the
Oberland population. Putting-out work not only contributed to the family
income, but had become an important basis of these people's existence. Even
with spinning, their standard of living remained at the lowest endurable level.
Among those receiving alms were herdsmen, school-masters, sextons and
rural craftsmen. They too depended on spinning to get by. A sexton of Kyburg
(1649) owned 'a poor cottage and a borrowed cow'. He fed himself and his four
children 'besides his small sexton's wage and the day-labouring by spinning -
but there is very little else'. Hans Baumberger of Fallanden (1680) 'keeps
himself at this time by butchering' and lives with his brother in half a house.
His wife had to help them along by spinning. The tailor Dannyler of
Weisslingen (1649) had 'his own little house and a little orchard nearby and
otherwise a Mannmad of meadow, that he may summer and winter a cow'. He
owned four Jucharten of Ruchfeld (a field of rough, i.e. bad, soil). The whole
property was burdened with debt. He had seventeen children, one of whom,
Jakob, helped his father with his tailoring, while the others were being taught
to spin.
Our survey of the work and earnings opportunities available to the poor
villagers leaves us in no doubt that demand for work far exceeded supply in the
Oberland at the onset of industrialisation. The Oberland was not capable of
feeding her poorest inhabitants. Able-bodied men and their families were
unable to make ends meet by working all year round, and part of the popu-
lation was unable to acquire even the most essential and basic necessaries of
life.11 While fluctuations in the demand for labour are an integral feature of an
agrarian economy, in normal circumstances, however, a period of full employ-
ment should generate enough earnings to cover at least part of the subsequent
period of unemployment. There was no question of this in the Oberland. Day-
labouring and servants' work was clearly in short supply and it was difficult for
the grown-up sons and daughters of smallholders, day-labourers and villeins
to find a master in their homeland. Those who were employed for the whole
summer were dismissed after the harvest in the autumn, like sixteen-year-old
Samuel of Wald (1649), who complained that he had had a master in the
summer but that now he could not find one. Hans, the fourteen-year-old son of
Barbel Miiller (1649), who earned her living in Uster by begging and
spinning, was looking for a master. Earlier in the year, he had 'driven the team
before the plough' for captain Meyer. The significance of these sorts of
complaints can only really be understood when one knows that a few decades
later, farmers in the Zurich countryside had great difficulty in finding local
farmhands and maids. They were obliged to import them from Catholic
districts and from the neighbouring areas of Swabia and Wurttemberg. In the
second half of the seventeenth century, however, migration was still in the
opposite direction and the inhabitants of the Oberland were obliged to move
away for a while to seek their livelihoods 'in the land below'. Individuals and
groups moved to the towns, to the ploughlands of the Mittelland, to Swabia, to
Wurttemberg and the Pfalz. 'Going to Swabia' was an especially popular
practice, as can be deduced from the expression 'has recourse meantime to the
land of Swabia', as applied to Jageli Werndly (Monchaltorf 1660). His wife
stayed at home and did 'her best by spinning cotton'. The coupled owned 'in
great poverty a derelict hut, full of holes, and a cow'. Jagli Triib from the same
village (Monchaltorf 1660) also spent 'most of his time away in Swabia, to seek
his living' and his wife Maria 'busies herself in their home village with the
Gspunst (spinning work). Conradt Zappert of Hinwil (1660) was 'a poor day-
labourer, works in the land of Wurttemberg. He has half a cottage and half a
village right, but he may not keep a cow.' His wife Dorothea 'subsists
wretchedly by spinning silk'.
Children were also sent abroad. Jorg Miiller of Monchaltorf (1660) had
sent 'his oldest boy to Swabia, to seek his living'. The widow Elsbeth Triib of
Monchaltorf (1660) owned 'her own cottage and the right of the village, as well
as two little fields of hemp'. She had two children; 'The little girl is with her
mother, but the boy is staying meanwhile in Swabia.' Felix Miiller of Gossau
(1660) wanted 'on account of great poverty to send two small children into
Swabia' but was prevented from so doing by his minister.
These people were driven into foreign lands by the most bitter poverty, the
extent of which is clear to all who know how much Oberland people love their
homeland. Many moved away never to return, leaving their families behind in
poverty and anxiety. Jakob Steinmann of Wangen had spent 'several years
now [1660] in Swabia serving in Pfuren', during which time he had been able
to buy a 'half cottage'. But 'last harvest time, he took up with a woman of
Niderhasli, who was working there too, and ran away with her. On account of
this, his wife had to give up the cottage, but can stay there for a year yet. She,
the abandoned and distressed Regula, is forty-two years old, spins silk.' Her
seventeen-year-old son Caspar 'serves in Ehringen in Swabia'. Barbara
(fifteen) 'spins silk'. Felix was only two years and Hans six months old.
Barbara Schankel of Monchaltorf (1660) was 'a desperately poor woman, who
knows not whether her husband, who went to Swabia a few years ago, is alive
or dead. She has part of a tiny, derelict cottage, but owns nothing besides. She
works hard at her spinning, but her earnings are poor.' Margret Erisman,
Jakob Kindemann's wife, of Griiningen (1660) had also been abandoned by
her husband. He, 'a worthless fellow, had run away from her and left her with
three children round her neck, towards whose upkeep he had not sent even one
Heller's worth home'. Of the boys, one was in service; 'the other must also find
a master at Candlemass'. Regula, Ruedeli Boiler's wife, of Griiningen (1660)
span silk. 'Her husband went away from her more than a year ago and
promised cheerfully to send something back home in the meantime.'
Those who sought their living in foreign parts could also serve in foreign
wars; single men and irresponsible fathers could take the bounty. Magdalena
Burg was the widow of Hans Meyer, a carpenter who died in Dalmatia. Her
property included 'her own cottage, cabbage patch and orchard'. She was a
diligent and good worker, but was 'heavily burdened with many children, her
Gwunn [earnings from spinning] consequently poor'. Her three eldest sons,
Hans-Jacob, Hans-Heinrich and Heinrich, were in Dalmatia; twelve-year-old
Vreneli span; ten-year-old Riideli 'goes to school and chops wood'; Anneli,
nine, also span; Elsbethli and Urschy could not as yet earn anything. Jakob
Oetelin (Russikon 1649) had twelve children; two sons were serving in the
war, and a son and daughter 'with masters'. There were many such pitiable
records of wives and widows whose husbands had 'moved to the war' (Illnau
1680); the late Jageli Winkler died in Dalmatia, leaving behind his widow,
Barbely Meyer of Russikon (1649), who owned 'a dwelling, a cow, but nothing
to slice'. Without alms she and her four children could not have survived.
When the pressure caused by the wretched living conditions in the
Oberland was relieved by emigration, it was the strongest and most energetic
family members who moved away to seek their fortunes in foreign parts. The
population they left behind was made up of poor villagers obliged by physical
weakness or family ties to endure lives of abject poverty. Truly distressing fates
are recorded in the 'Description of the Poor', with 'destitute' people vegetating
in hopeless dependence. Their very survival hung literally by a thread, those
thin threads twisted from the imported plant fibres. Had there been no Zurich
putting-out industry, their lives would have been completely unthinkable.
Bosshart of Bauma (1680), for instance, had apart from his four small
uneducated children 'nothing at all, except what he earns by spinning'. Jorg
Sporri (Bauma 1680) was along with his five uneducated children 'diligent at
the spinning work and has otherwise nothing at all, beyond what he earns
every day'. Heinrich Hess (Bauma 1680) and his seven children also had
nothing 'except what he can earn by spinning'. Hans Sann and Anna Bodmer
'have a cottage and a hemp field, but are burdened with debts and keep
themselves and their four children by spinning' (Pfaffikon 1680). Fifty-year-
old Briingger of Wysslingen (1660), 'a broken man, owns besides his cottage
and hay meadow, where he keeps a cow, also a small field of hemp, for which
he is however still much in debt'. He had four children, who 'feed themselves
by weaving and spinning, by begging too, which the wife and children engage
in a fair amount'.
Even skilled and diligent hands were at that time scarcely able to keep
themselves with spinning alone. Those whose work was impaired by sickness
or age were, however much they tried, completely incapable of surviving
without assistance from the Alms Office. Eighty-four-year-old Hans Weber of
Bauma (1680), for instance, could 'no longer support himself by spinning'.
Martha Scheller of Diibendorf (1649) was sixty-one, 'ill unto dying and
destitute. She spins cotton, but can do but little with it on account of the
aforementioned reason.'Jakob Wettstein of Fallanden (1660) was twenty-one
and 'not of healthy body, and so can earn only little by spinning cotton on the
wheel'. Anna Straub (Fallanden 1660) could also earn only a little by
spinning. Maria Russegger of Wangen (1649), 'a single person, fifty-one years
old, lives in Bailiff Waber's house, is destitute and has nothing, except what
she earns. But as she is unhealthy, short-sighted and ill, she can not earn more
than 6 Batzen a week, and without assistance would surely die of hunger.'
Barbel Stucki, 'a poor spinster' of Fischenthal (1649) was 'blind, owns nothing
apart from her spindle and what My Gracious Lords and other good people
accord her. Her illegitimate child, Elsbethli Bosshart, has been to school and is
now [at fifteen years] to be her mother's eyes: she helps with the spinning.'
Elsbeth Rugger (Durnten 1680) lived with her daughter 'in a house for 8 Pfund
[rent], so the church pays it'. She was 'very poor and can scarcely breathe, but
she spins most of the time'.
Instances of these abandoned wives' and widows' sad lot occur frequently
in the records: 'Anna Wunderli, the departed Jorg Jader's widow, is forty-one
years old, with six children still at home; three educated, three uneducated;
attempting with difficulty to keep them by spinning; having to stay at home' -
they too petitioned the Alms Office for assistance (Russikon 1968). The
mothers complained endlessly that 'on account of child care they were
constantly kept from the work [spinning]5 (Gossau 1660). One patently
obvious reason for applying to the Alms Office for assistance was when the
children, in spite of being able to 'pray and spin well', were so small that 'they
still could not earn anything with their handiwork' (viz., Bubikon 1649). We
have seen plenty of examples of the tender ages at which these children were
obliged to contribute to the family earnings.
Let us not dwell too long on these dismal portraits; these people barely
managed to survive on what their spindles and spinning wheels earned them.
For many of them, spinning did little more than legitimise their entitlement to
Poor Relief. It is worth noting as a general principle that when wages are
determined by market forces, they tend to sink to the lowest level required for
survival, so long as the workers and the labour involved cannot resist this
tendency. Because spinning did not require any specialised skills, it could not
command a set wage. The putting-out industry did not depend on a qualified
workforce; children as well as old and infirm persons were good enough for the
work. The imbalance between demand and supply of labour in the Oberland
(mentioned above) created a work vacuum which dragged wages down. On
top of this, the peasant farmers began taking on putting-out work in their free
time, thus competing with economically unviable persons, who had to spin to
survive. These people's labour was undervalued, but when one considers their
economic and political dependence,12 their pitiable situation can no longer
surprise us.
The life-saving role of the putting-out industry in the lives of people on the
margins of an agricultural community is now clear, since it was the lack of
employment possibilities among an economically dependent population
which directed the industry towards the Oberland. As soon as the Zurich
putting-out industry had acquired a certain structure and dimension, it was
able to tap this demand for work opportunities.13
We have limited ourselves until now to observations of a very general
nature about the work and wages available to the poorest inhabitants of the
Oberland at the beginning of industrialisation. As it is, we have inspected only
one side of the foundations supporting the lives of the poor villagers, ignoring
the conditions of ownership, which we will now consider.
It may have been apparent that most of the alms recipients still owned a
share of a cottage, although the numbers of those who 'have no abode of their
own' (Wetzikon 1660) and had to be taken in increased steadily between 1649
and 1700. The house was the last possession to be alienated. Although one
might not otherwise own anything greater than a 'hand's breadth' (Maur
1649), one tried to become and remain a shareholder in a house. However poor
the accommodation, however many 'accumulated debts' had to be paid,
people set their 'backs and stomachs to it' (Diibendorf 1700) and tried to retain
their share of a house for themselves and their descendants. The houses of
the poor were without exception hopelessly indebted. Widow Anna Sigg, 'a
worthy old woman of Kyburg [1649], owns half a house, which is tending to
collapse, is burdened with accumulated rents and debts, more than it is
worth'; the other half of the house belonged to Anna Schmidli, also a 'sickly
widow'. Her part was also burdened with debts. Wilpot Keller's half cottage
was '/«/' (rotten); it was all he owned (Diibendorf 1660). The day-labourer
Wanner's house was 'very small, hardly a half, derelict' (Wangen 1649).
We can only understand the pre-eminence of even the poorest people's
efforts to own a house, when we know that a house provided not just
accommodation and shelter but also political and economic rights. People's
political and social status in the village was directly linked to possession of a
house. We will see later on how the peasant economic mentality, backed up by
the urban economic order, could use the legal function of house ownership as a
weapon against the economically weaker elements who had no political rights.
This had important consequences for the industrialisation of the Oberland.
Even when a poor villager did own something, apart from his own dwelling
arid the share in the commonage pertaining to it, it was very little and even in
the best cases could only provide him with part of his livelihood. Most often
there would be a 'cabbage patch and orchard' and perhaps a 'little field of
hemp' as well. As in the case of Hans Bertschinger and Anna Hiibscher, who
has 'a tiny cottage with a cabbage patch alongside'; he did field-work; she span
with eleven-year-old Urseli and even nine-year-old Elsbethli, who could spin a
little, to help (Diibendorf 1649). Jakob Wohlgemut has a further 'three small
arable fields', but the whole family had to spin to make ends meet (Volketswil
1649). Not many of the alms recipients could keep a cow; Hans Halbherr, the
cobbler (Hinwil 1660) 'has half a cottage and half a commoner's right, along
with a hay meadow for one cow'. At his home, too, everyone was employed at
spinning. Anna Hofmann 'has her own cottage, cabbage patch, hemp field and
fodder for one cow'. But she had to pay interest on 25 Pfund yearly, as well as
her ground rent. Her ten-year-old Jacobli went to school, while seven-year-old
Jorgli span. Jagli Furrer of Wald had 'a cottage, summer feed for a cow and
half winter feed', but everything was burdened with debts. His wife and five
children, aged between seven and seventeen, span. Klein-Jagli Wyss and his
family owned 'a house with a little orchard and another piece of meadow
growing enough hay to feed a cow summer and winter, and 2 Jucharten of
ploughland'. But everything was so heavily burdened with debts 'that they
[the parents] and consequently their children [Anna, sixteen; Ursel, thirteen]
cannot extract enough from spinning and other work to pay the interest on this
property every year' (Weisslingen 1649). Other 'little properties' supported
'not even a cow' (Wald 1660). Even if there was enough fodder for the summer,
it generally ran out in the winter. Hans Brunner of Wald (1660), for instance,
'has a house and a little meadow for one cow, but no fodder for winter'. Of his
children, the older son (twenty) could 'work a little at chopping wood'. Two
children were in service, including nineteen-year-old Bethli in the Pfalz.
Clephe (ten) and Elisabethli (eight) span. The lack of sufficient fodder for the
winter was also a reason why so many were unable to make full use of their
village rights. Their more prosperous fellow villagers were keen to prevent
'anyone from summering more cattle than he can winter'.14 Many alms
recipients had 'half a commoner's right, but could keep no cow' (Hinwil 1660).
Wherever the Poor Register contains details of property in land, they are
always accompanied by the disconsolate remark 'but he is in debt over it'.
Among the villeins, day-labourers and smallholders whom we have already
met were often families who owned neither land nor house, but had to seek
shelter under other people's roofs. Hans Egli (Bauma 1680), for instance, had
'nothing of his own, but is accommodated, has nine children, several of whom
are still young and uneducated, and can earn nothing'. Hans Lahner (Riitisalt-
dorfT 1649) and his family also rented a home. He has 'nothing of his own and
little too in movable goods'. Many poor and abandoned people appear in the
records as owning 'no more than the corner' of a relative's house (Wald 1649).
As we know, the numbers of those who were accommodated with a farmer in
return for a yearly rent rose steadily between 1649 and 1700. This was a direct
consequence of the new earnings provided by the Zurich textile industry,
which alone enabled a large number of people without homes of their own to
build up a means of existence, however inadequate, and to put down roots in
their homeland. They could never have achieved this with the limited farm
and forestry work available and the small demand for unskilled labour. Nor
was there any hope that the local cultivation and field system would allow any
rise in the demand for labour, so long as the traditional use of land remained
unchanged. This did not, however, mean at all that the possibility of industrial
earnings could 'cut [people] off from their own land and soil'.15 These people
were landless before the process of industrialisation began, as we see from a
petition of 4 May 1584, by the village commune of Oberdiirnten for an
Einzugsbrief (entry charter) which stated 'that only two in Sulzbach are
endowed with some land and property, whereas all the others are day-
labourers and poor folk, who support themselves on alms'.16 We have seen
how it was only putting-out work which allowed many families to acquire the
means to pay the interest on the crippling debts on their land. Earnings from
industry did not therefore cut people off from the land, but, on the contrary,
helped them to retain even hopelessly indebted homes and properties. A
glance at the conditions of ownership of the poor shows that scarcely a family
owned a viable amount of productive land. They all had to earn their livings in
other ways. But the fact is that, even before the onset of industrialisation, all
these people depended on inadequate pockets of land. Industrialisation only
uncovered a degree of hardship and misery not previously evident, by tying
growing numbers of economically dependent and completely propertyless
people to the Oberland. How much industrialisation was responsible for the
fate of the growing numbers of landless inhabitants is another question.
Introducing these poor families in this way, one after the other, is, I fear,
monotonous, but this primitive method of exposition, based as much as
possible on the sources, was chosen to ensure that poverty and hardship do not
remain anonymous but are linked to the lives of real individuals. The few
examples selected can provide only a faint overall impression of the dark and
dreadful background against which the beginnings of the Oberland textile
industry emerged. It should further be noted that the pressure of poverty at the
onset of industrialisation was not due to failed harvests. Hunger and hardship
were not limited to certain periods, but were permanent features of the
Oberland.17 We will investigate the problems of poverty, almsgiving and
industrialisation more thoroughly from other angles further on.
With the help of the Poor Registers we have learnt about the conditions of
work and ownership of those people who were condemned to slip into
industrial dependence. We have established that the pressure of poverty was
already present in the Oberland before industrialisation began. The alms
recipient was isolated not only socially but also politically; as soon as he
accepted alms, he lost his rights as an active member of the commune.18 When
property as such was a factor determining a person's status in the rural
community, it was inevitable that the propertyless should develop a hostile
attitude towards property, towards the existing order and towards the ideas
behind it - ideas shared by the urban authorities and the villagers. A reduced
property, even just part of a house, allowed many poor people to maintain an
outward link with their homeland. But their land could not give them inner
security, since even in the best cases it could provide only part of their
subsistence. In order to keep their tiny property, perhaps only a fraction of a
dwelling, these people were forced to look for work wherever they could find it,
even when it took them 'out of the country' 19 for shorter or longer periods.
These small remnants of peasant holdings led less to permanent settlement
and much more to a desperate search for work and wages. Indeed, farm-
labouring work within the homeland had a more stable and binding effect.
Although the day-labourer did not draw a direct share in the produce of his
labour, and he did not live on or from the land which he worked, his
relationship with his peasant employer was at that time still shot through with
many personal ties. This endowed the social structure of the rural economic
unit with its organic involvement, radiating conservative and traditional
strength. But poor villagers could no longer be considered peasants, so how
could they be included in the medieval 'estate' of the producers, when not one
of them was able to support himself and his dependants without outside help.
They were marginals in a rural environment, which did not allow them
sufficient living space, thus determining their mental and spiritual attitude
towards that environment. These human conditions in the Oberland greatly
influenced the expanding putting-out industry, which sought out people with
no economic and social supports.
The preconditions for the industrialisation of the Oberland so far discussed
were only symptoms of the social and economic conditions. Our enquiry
should not stop here, but should seek to shed light on the forces which
produced these effects.
Various authors20 have pointed to the barren soil to explain the lack of
living space in the Oberland. They talk about over-population, which indus-
trialisation is supposed to have encouraged. We must treat this thesis with the
utmost distrust, because the relationship between cause and effect is perceived
far too simply and one-sidedly. The fact that in the seventeenth century a large
number of the inhabitants of the Oberland could not earn a living in their
homeland does not allow us to deduce that the Oberland was over-populated.
It must be stated once and for all that the living space in a region is not a
constant, but the product of constantly changing factors. The number of
factors also varies, as the example of the exogenous Zurich putting-out
industry shows, which affects any calculation of the living space in the
Oberland as a new and initially unmeasured factor.
The same applies to the concept of over-population, which is always only
relative. It is based on a numerical proportion, which cannot stand up on its
own, but must be related to the type of local economy and economic system.
Human society has many ways of dealing with nature's rigid laws; historical
ground rights and ways of using the soil do not only determine the extent and
fertility of the cultivable land, but they also direct the distribution of labour
along well-established paths, according to the traditional system of agri-
culture. People's capacity for work has a neutral feather-gauge built into it,
which can be stretched to over-capacity. For this reason demand for work can
never be equated with supply.
The starting position is thus briefly outlined: poverty and hardship should
not be considered in isolation. The living conditions of a population which
(without enough land and with insufficient employment opportunities) is
unable to subsist and is thrown back on public and private assistance, must be
studied in relation to the type of the economy, the economic order and the
social structure of the Oberland. In the following pages we will attempt to gain
an insight into the legal and economic bases of a peasant culture and
community, whose organic unity presents such a closely woven texture that it
is difficult to unravel the threads important to us. Analysing this diverse world,
the product of its locality and history, inevitably involves stylising it to some
extent. We will restrict ourselves to a few vital features, and we have limited
our source material to the late sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
conscious that they represent only the last phase of a long-drawn-out
development.
In the seventeenth century a process, which had already begun at the time
of the Reformation, reached its culmination. It was spurred on by the
endeavours of the villagers, helped by the urban authorities, to protect their
common property in money and unmovables against newcomers and small-
holders. No less than the preservation of a major part of their livelihood and
survival base was at stake. This process was a consequence of the collapse of
the old village order, under which possession of a dwelling and hearth within
the village boundary had sufficed to maintain a share in the commonalty.21
Everyone had owned the same right, although in fact the extent of an
individual's share was determined by the size of his property. 'So long as the
old village order, under which new homesteads could only be established
subject to particular restrictive conditions and to agreement between lord and
villagers, was still in force, this principle did little harm to the interests of the
inhabitants. But the village order gradually disintegrated. New settlers
became common and the villages expanded.'22 In order to counteract the
dissipation of the commons, the community tried to make it difficult and even
impossible to move in.
Exclusivity could not be achieved by means of a single legal document,
because the legal basis of the commune did not allow this; it could only be
achieved by indirect means and over a long time. This particular slice of rural
economic history is overshadowed by future developments at the end of the
eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries.23 In our case, the
driving forces were not enlightened, articulate and literate physiocrats with
new ideas about the use of the soil and field systems, as in the second half of the
eighteenth century, but they were villagers with the whole leaden weight of
their conservative and traditional peasant mentality behind them. Conse-
quently, the new barriers they erected to protect their property and their
political and economic status were constructed from materials which seem to
belong in a history of the agrarian Middle Ages. The village communities'
petitions (and the reasons laid out in their preambles) to the city rulers for new
entry charters24 are instructive manifestations of ancient peasant economic
thinking. When one compares these petitions and suggestions with the legal
statutes respectively ratified and drawn up by the urban authorities, one has to
acknowledge the extent to which the authorities defended and sanctioned the
villagers' intentions.25
The earliest entry charters date from the first half of the sixteenth century,
rising to a flood only at the end of the sixteenth century and slowly ebbing
away at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In these entry charters26 the
Zurich Mayors and councils acknowledged the right of the village communi-
ties concerned to demand a fixed entry fee from those who wanted to settle in
their community and become members with voting and commonage rights.
This was the first, purely financial, restriction which the community members
hoped would prevent them from being 'inflicted with a mighty and very
burdensome invasion and settlement of new inhabitants, each one with little
and inadequate money, having moved here from other places'.27 Only well-
endowed new members were welcome to the communities. The reasons for
maintaining or raising an entry fee vary only slightly in the sources: the
petitions to the rulers by the village communities were mostly based on the
grounds that 'meantime they are being overwhelmed by ever-increasing
numbers of those moving in on them and dissipating their community right,
and greatly burdening them in other ways, thereby causing great loss and
depreciation to the common lands'. 28
The size of the entry fee granted by the authorities depended on the extent
of communal property: the greater the commonalty, the more the community
could and would demand from new members.
How this admission policy (which amounted to an exclusion policy)
affected the industrialisation of the Oberland becomes clear when we compare
the common lands of the Oberland communities with those in other parts of
the canton. The village communities of the mountainous Oberland possessed
very little, if any, common land. They owned much less property than did the
more level areas of the canton.29 This last circumstance was crucial, since in
these cases it was not the absolute size of the common land, but its relative size,
which mattered. It is clear that this equation (the smaller the commonalty, the
smaller the entry fee) must have had a profound effect on the unpropertied
communities, which lay mostly in the Oberland. They were consequently
much less (indeed not at all) able than the better-off villages to protect
themselves from encroachment by poor people by charging an entry fee. The
mountain communities either never or only late and in a roundabout way
achieved a 'soft' entry charter, with the inevitable result that the quality of the
population (in economic terms) was reduced, and that the Oberland was
impoverished. Poor people were prevented from settling in the wealthy
communities, with their higher entry fees and other opportunities for limiting
immigration, and so the Oberland was necessarily colonised by the indigent.
These terms of settlement, which had such dire implications for the Oberland,
were able to wreak havoc when the putting-out industry spread into the
uplands. As we have seen, it was only when industrial earnings supplemented
public charity and the insufficient farm-labouring jobs that the poor achieved
a subsistence minimum. Nevertheless, industrialisation also had the effect of
encouraging the efforts and constant attempts by the propertied village
communities to strengthen their entry charters; the new situation created by
the industrial work opportunities strengthened these communities' tendency
towards exclusivity. The relationship between industrialisation and admis-
sion policy was an important factor for change in the life of the common
people.
When we refer to the colonisation of the Oberland, we do not mean, either
at this stage or later on, that it was swamped by a flood of poor people
(although, according to various sources, this was to some extent indeed the
case). What happened was rather that a growing number of people without
sufficient land were finding a steady livelihood in the Oberland. The legal
preconditions for a natural population increase were already present and
industrial earnings introduced the material conditions for settlement and
population growth; questions which will be tackled in the next chapters.30 At
this point we will discuss only the admission policy as a factor inhibiting the
reception of the putting-out system.
Having just outlined a theory connecting the village commonalty with the
human and material preconditions for the industrialisation of the Oberland in
a causal relationship, let us now fill in the picture with a few illustrations from
the sources.31
In February 1638 the parish of Baretswil received an entry charter from the
Zurich government. The parish was able to acquire this, although it had no
common land and was consequently 'devastatingly and increasingly invaded
by too many new inhabitants'. They hoped to be able to free themselves of this
'excessive burden' by charging an entry fee. The parish members would then
be able better to 'dwell and live alongside one another'.32
The driving force behind this Baretswil entry charter was not the village
community (because there was no commonalty) but, and this is noteworthy,
the church parish.33 The governor of Griiningen wrote to Zurich on 23
January 1638 that representatives of the parish of Baretswil had appeared and
informed him that their parish 'at that time was greatly overrun with poor
people, who move here daily, not merely from Your Worships'jurisdiction and
territory, but also from the Thurgau and other places'.34
The Kilch und Gmeindtsgnossen (parishioners and commoners) of Bubikon
drew up a petition for an entry charter in 1653, addressed to the government,
'concerning the far too numerous foreign poor moving in'. They were granted
it by the council on 23 November 1659 with this explanation: 'Since you have
until now been accorded no entry charter, although for years now, on account
of your albeit scanty commonage and church property, you have been
increasingly overwhelmed by and burdened with many poor people.'35 Pfaf-
fikon announced on 30 July 1630 that 'the many new inhabitants have been no
small reason for our having to call on Closter Rtiti for charitable contributions
to the Poor Relief.36 The Hinwil and Riiti sources are the most telling; on 2
December 1642 the governor of Griinigen sent the following letter to the town
authorities:
For some time past all kinds of unrighteous people have moved into the church parish of
Hinwil from abroad and home, and have settled down, on account of which many
expenses and burdens have been slung round the necks of the parish and upright folk of
our Worshipful Lords and masters; a whole church parish has been occasioned to limit
the inhabitants here and where possible to set up barriers; and thereby is advised
(because the villages and communities of Hinwil, Ringwil, Wernetshausen have
secured their own entry rights, but apart from these same three communes, there are all
sorts of little villages, farms and dwellings situated in the church parish, which, on
account of having no commons, have no entry fee, so the above-mentioned people go
there and move in).37
As a result, they were asking to be granted an entry charter, which would

apply to all who settled in the church parish of Hinwil, and not only to the
three village communities endowed with common lands. As a consequence, on
31 December 1642, the church parish of Hinwil received an albeit very mild
entry charter, allowing it to demand 12 Pfundfrom those moving there from the
Zurich counryside, and 24 Pfund from other members of the Confederation.
Only six months later the minister of Hinwil had to apply once again to the
Mayor and town council, because the little village and commune of Hadlikon,
a little member of the aforesaid parish, refused to acknowledge these condi-
tions. Hadlikon, the minister reported, 'is an open door into our parish for
anyone'. The church parish was not concerned about the money, but wanted
only 'to dig a ditch against ungodly dissolute people'.38 These entry charters
for church parishes apparently owed their existence to the circumstance that
the effects of this admission policy had gone far beyond what was originally
aimed at. The Riiti records speak out even more clearly; the governor of
Griiningen wrote to Zurich on 18 Febuary 1711 that
Some time ago the delegates of the church parish of Riiti duly notified me what had
taken place in the past time and year at great expense to their parish funds and at no
small cost to state property and burdening other honourable people and damaging the
woods, gardens and orchards, with all kinds of foreign tramps, unrighteous and
homeless persons who are no longer tolerated in other parishes and who have used all
kinds of false pretexts to crowd in, to such an extent that, so long as it shall continue, the
inhabitants and parishioners with their ancient rights, who are being driven out of their
homes on account of these foreigners, live in the hope that your Worships will
graciously grant them an entry charter, like other parishes, so that in future they will be
less burdened and overrun by these foreign people, so much more numerous than
them.39
His letter remained unanswered and the governor of Riiti addressed the town
council again on 1 March 1711, stressing that, among other things, great
damage had been done by the 'unrighteous folk' to 'state property and the
surrounding copyholdings' since nothing in wood or field was safe from
them.40
The sources provide clear evidence of the deteriorating quality of the
Oberland population. We know from our foregoing reflections that the
destitute people under discussion formed and were to form an army of
industrial wage labour. The causal relationship between the Oberland
parishes' entry fees and the pressure of poverty in the Oberland is obvious.
Entry fees could only be demanded from those who wanted to acquire the
voting and commonage rights of the church and village community. Let us
glance briefly at the villeins, people who enjoyed the protection of the village
community, without themselves being members of the commune.41 The
attitude of the parishioners towards this lowliest grade in the peasant social
hierarchy emerges clearly from their letters of petition for an entry charter.
The parishioners demanded of the council the right to decide themselves
whether villeins should be allowed to settle among them. The village com-
munity of Hinteregg demanded in a letter of 28 October 1654 that the
following motion be endorsed: 'First, no one without the prior knowledge and
consent of the community be allowed to accommodate foreigners in their
village community.'42 Villeins were only tolerated reluctantly, and were
considered as burdens. At times people tried to rid themselves of this class of
inhabitant; the assembly of church elders in Wetzikon decided, for instance, in
1716, that all foreign persons should be sent out of the parish by the bailiffs and
church elders and returned straightaway to their homeland.43 By the begin-
ning of the seventeenth century the custom of demanding a villein fee from
these people was already becoming established, not so much to protect the
parish but rather to limit the expenses incurred by the parishioners on the
villeins' behalf.44 In 1621, for instance, Fagswil-Ruti demanded from those
who 'stay accommodated here and have chosen to live as villeins; each one of
them is to pay 5 Pfund on entry'.45
A draft of legal articles, which the governor of Riiti enclosed with his letter
of 1 March 1711 to the Zurich town council, helps to improve our picture of the
villeins. Article two of this draft runs:
In as much as neither foreigners nor parish members should be permitted to take on
villeins, whether whole households, or a few individuals, as spinners, weavers and the
like, neither in their house nor otherwise at their table and meals, for a certain yearly,
monthly or weekly wage, unless he has first duly reported this to an honourable
assembly of church elders and requested permission and is able to show it a satisfactory
form certifying that when these people run out of money, the parish will incur no
expenses on their behalf, but their keep and care will be obtained from the place where
they are members of the parish and community: and so when he receives permission,
the father of the family is to pay for the villeins he takes on the usual villeins' fee, namely
2 Pfund yearly for a whole household and for one person 1 Pfund.*6
In our attempt to identify the form of the economy, the economic order and
the social structure of the Oberland as the preconditions and foundations of
industrialisation, we started out from the villagers' tendency towards
exclusivity, a powerful factor for change in the rural economic order in the
seventeenth century. The first barrier we learnt about was the entry fee, but we
have still to inspect the inner workings of the village communities. Following
up the other ways and means by which the select groups entitled to the
commonage tried to protect their property gives us an insight into the inner
structure of the community and also into the different social grades in the
Oberland. As with the entry fee, the restrictions interest us only in so far as
they became important for the industrialisation of the Oberland. The restric-
tions necessarily also involved changing the structure of the village com-
munity. Many factors were involved, with lasting consequences for the whole
life of the common people. Looking back, it is very difficult to link up all the
processes historically, because two essentially different processes were caught
up together: on the one hand, a change in the community's legal structure,
which resulted in individuals acquiring rights, and, on the other hand,
changes which affected the material possessions on which rights were based.
If payment of the entry fee was originally intended as the only precondition
to acquiring the voting and commonalty rights of the community and was only
to be tied to the individuals (the newcomers),47 then it equated to a personal
village right, which could be acquired through birth or by purchase. Since the
middle of the sixteenth century the village right and commonage had been
increasingly loosed from personal ties and made to depend on material
conditions. The village right was tied directly to possession of a house: 'He who
sells his house to a member of the village community shall have alienated his
village right and commonage, until he buys in somewhere else.' If he sold it to a
stranger, he had to buy himself back in again or move elsewhere.48 Even those
who lost their homes through blameless bad luck lost their political rights and
their share of the commonage:
Since notwithstanding whether one or more has to sell his house and home either on
account of outrageous fortune, it could be A failed harvest, hail, cattle dying,fireand
suchlike (God preserve us from the like), or otherwise on account of wretched
housekeeping, a community should then suffer them gladly wherever theyfinda place
and refuge in the village community. And should not expel them from the village. But
such persons should forfeit their right. And they should have no say in communal
matters and business until they buy themselves back into the community property and
inheritance, overcoming the past and paying the entry fee anew.49
It became the rule in the rural village communities pertaining to Zurich to
link the right to vote with ownership of a house. When a member of the
community lost or sold his house, he sank to the level of a villein obliged to pay
the entry fee again on acquiring a new house. In this period the policy of the
rural communities was above all economic. Losing the right to speak at a
communal meeting signified the loss of economic potency. According to
peasant economic thinking what was involved was not primarily limiting the
right to vote (this was simply a secondary effect) but much rather safeguarding
their common property, limiting the commonage. They attempted to give
commonage material form by tying it to a house. We have seen that when a
house was lost so too were the 'village usage' and the 'right in wood and field,
river and meadow'.50 It is clear from the following conditions of entry relative
to the division of a house that the house had come to represent the right of
commonage:
If in one house two or more families have their household or from one house two
dwellings are made, nevertheless the right will belong only to the house, in spite of it
being split up, and no more is to be sought after and demanded. That is, as if it were
only one household and the dwelling were still undivided and in one person's hands.51
In short, these apparently simple legal relationships were confused by the
developments which had overtaken the village community as a public legal
entity since the Reformation: the right of the village and the commonalty were
given material form at a time when the commune was acquiring new functions
over and above its communal property and purpose. It is clear that the nature
of the village community was fundamentally changed by this, affecting the
attitude of the executive organs, the members of the village community,
towards the other inhabitants. Using the private legal side of the community
as a basis, this could end in complete exclusivity, with the people in possession
of rights forming a real village aristocracy.52
Among the details concerning poor villagers' property it was mentioned
that in the seventeenth century many village communities had ended by
splitting up their houses, and the rights pertaining to them.53 The subdivision
of houses and rights widened the circle of people with voting and commonage
rights. This was accompanied by a social and political differentiation of the
inhabitants according to their share of entitlement to vote and to the
commonage, a development which they tried to impede by prohibiting the
subdivision of houses. An article drawn up by the communes of Hinteregg and
Vorderegg runs: 'and that they shall be less overrun by people and that they
shall be better assured their grass, fruit, wood and other things at home and in
the wood, so shall their houses remain undivided in one person's hands as
much as possible'.54
In some village communities they went so far as to freeze the shares of
commonage or rights,55 as with the common lands described by the commune
of Niederdiirnten in a letter of 2 December 1661. It owned 188 Jucharten of fields
and 167 Jucharten of woods 'on the upper, lower and outer Zelg (boundaries) of
the pasturage. There are twenty-one rights to this, with the price of one right in
wood and field calculated at the present time at 220 Gulden, irrespective of
whether it is sold for a higher price.' 56 Here the right was loosened from the
house and had become an independent object of sale and inheritance. This
course of development, too, provided for a division of rights.57
The question now arises as to how far these material reasons for restricting
entry were responsible for the pressure of poverty in the Oberland and how
they contributed to the industrialisation of the Oberland.
In general it can be said that common land as a form of land right resulted
in bad use of the land as soon as it was divided up into quantum shares. Use of
the land was no longer determined by personal need but by the predetermined
share. The Neftenbach minister reported in 1692, for instance, that
Hardship and poverty are widespread, there are alms recipients in thirty households;
the hardship and the number of the poor will increase week by week until harvest time.
Little or nothing can be hoped from communal property, since Hiinikon and Esch have
almost none. Neftenbach, however, has got a considerable [property], namely ground
produce of more than 30 mutt of grain, enough wood, enough meadow and also as much
rough ploughland or pasture as will allow 20 to 30 Jucharten to be sown every year, but
strangely enough nothing of this kind takes place for the good of the poor. The loss side
[in the Neftenbach Communal property] accrues much more strongly than the profit
side; during the period of my ten years' service in the parish alone, the tavern has
accumulated debts of 300 to 400 Pfund, the interest on which now has to be paid by the
commune, in spite of the fact that in this short period of only ten years, 2,000 Pfund of
admission money has been taken from new burghers. And such fine communal lands
could truly be cultivated much better; to wit, many Jucharten of pasture could be
ploughed and sown yearly, as well as many such grasslands be turned into good water-
meadows, which could also serve to solace the poor in times of hardship. But the will
and dispositions for this are lacking, and so nothing is done. 58
A variety of regulations concerning the use of the common lands heightened

these effects still further. We have seen that many poor villagers could not use
their whole or half right to the full, because they were not able to fodder a cow
over the winter. Such people were not allowed to lease 'his right to another,
who can make better use of it',59 and their shares remained unused. The
economic order thus had a direct effect on the level of food production and was
also responsible in part for the pressure of poverty. It is in this context that the
countryside prior to industrialisation must be viewed.
We have already mentioned the degree to which the propertied element,
with its farming mentality, had a vested interest in the economic order. The
oligarchical peasant and village aristocrat knew how to safeguard his econ-
omic viability and his political clout against the unpropertied. The fact that
property also carried rights put a strong weapon against them in his hand. His
dominant position was further bolstered by granting credit and other means.60
All this prepared the social background for industrialisation. It was the people
without any economic resources, without voting or commonalty rights, who
were predestined, along with their descendants, to fall into complete industrial
dependence.
We have said that the Oberland was colonised by the poor. The lack of
commonage made settlement easier. The introduction of material grounds for
admission, as outlined above, meant that the absence of commonage had a far
greater impact in the sense of facilitating settlement in the Oberland. Far fewer
impediments could be placed in the way of building new houses in villages
without any commonage. This gave rise to a truly paradoxical situation: the
obviously inhospitable mountainous parts of the Zurich territory became the
preferred areas for new settlements. While this was indeed a 'settlement
against nature', it was just as much a settlement against the laws of men. It
seemed easier to subdue nature than to break the power of the legislature.
Anyway - and this is significant - the Oberland could only become an area of
new settlement when the putting-out industry with its work opportunities
spread into the high valleys. It was only when the textile industry provided a
means of existence independent of the land that the consequences of the Zurich
economic order could fully unfold in the Oberland. Industrialisation meant
dwellings being built in lateral valleys, wooded gorges and ravines, in places
where there was ofen 'scarcely enough room to install one house and garden'.
The soil could not even begin to feed its inhabitants. H. Bernhard writes about
the high settlements of the upper Toss valley founded in the seventeenth and
particularly the eighteenth centuries: 'They are mostly dwellings which have
been established by the settlers with an almost complete disregard for the
natural conditions on the precipices, on the highest terraces and even in the
peaks region of the mountainous country.'61 New settlements of this type,
which owed their existence to the textile industry, can be described only in the
smallest degree as agricultural settlements. We will deal with them later on.
Our present enquiry is into the conditions presented by the Oberland which
determined reception of the putting-out system there. Opportunities to settle,
as derived from the legal conditions of the Zurich economic order, were factors
restricting or favouring industrialisation.
The absence of common property in the mountain parishes was not the only
reason why opportunities for settling were better in the Oberland. The
problem must be looked at in a far wider context. The form of settlement in the
Oberland, even before industrialisation, was that of hamlets and farmsteads.
At that time the Oberland economy was still geared exclusively to primary
production, which meant that the influence of the local climate and topogra-
phy on the forms of settlement was all the more compelling. A peasant farm
and dwelling had to be sited where the soil could also feed its inhabitants.
H. Bernhard's comments on the natural conditions of the upper Toss valley
also apply to much of the Oberland:
The upper Toss valley is absolutely unsuited for intensive agricultural production not
only due to its relatively harsh climate, but also in respect of its peculiar topography
and its in part inferior soil [with a Nagelfluh subsoil]. The natural conditions enable
unbroken forests to spread relatively extensively . . . consequently the naural require-
ments for dense settlement by a native farming population are lacking.62
At the end of the eighteenth century J.C. Hirzel described the Oberland in the
following words
The sixth section of our province contains the mountainous part of the Griiningen
district close to the mountainous part of the yonder district of the county of Kyburg,
which borders on the lands of Uznach, Toggenburg and Thurgau. It consists of two
mountain chains, the inner one leading from Riiti through Hinwil, Baretswil and
Wildberg, the outer one from the Scheidegg, Hornli, Sternenberg, Breitenlandenberg,
as far as the Schauberg on Eigg. Between these two mountain chains are to be found the
parishes of Wald, Fischenthal, Bauman and Turbenthal, and the wild Toss flows
through much of it, since its source lies in the highest part on the Scheidegg side on the
borders of the Uznach mounains. All this is real Alpine country. The biggest parishes
consist mostly of scattered farms, and the houses only cluster closer together around the
churches, forming small villages. Here and there the strong population increase has
caused single farms to grow into small hamlets; Sternenberg, for instance, comprises 38
localities with different names; Fischenthal comprises 111; Bauman comprises 47, and
so on. From Wald to Fischenthal the valley winds higher and higher up between both
mountain chains, and then drops further and further down to Turbenthal. It is mostly
very narrow, so that the farms lie scattered along the sides of the mountains, as in
Toggenburg and Appenzell. The mountains consist mostly of firm or brittle Nagelfluh
peaks, interspersed by gullies of friable sandstone and occasional veins of limestone.
The country is essentially sterile, as its meadows demonstrate, since they are rated in
quality far below those of the mountains of the county of Wadenswil, where the grass is
richer.63
When the natural conditions of the Oberland, its pre-industrial settlements

and cultivation systems are set in the context of our enquiry, it is clear that they
would heighten even further the consequences of the legal conditions imposed
by the Zurich economic order. As is obvious when one compares the farming
methods of the mountains with those of the flat lands.
In places where the natural conditions allowed closed village settlements
using a three-field system to develop, the peasant settlers' community and
economy were trapped in a network of legal and customary obligations. No
one was allowed to use or occupy the land as he liked. Every individual's
working methods and timetable, as well as his share of the land, were laid
down to the last detail. The exogenous putting-out industry had great
difficulty in penetrating such firmly established economic entities, so long as
they were still vital. The industry, being based on individual achievement,
obtained scant leaway in the collective organism of these economic groupings.
True three-field rotation with its open-field system relies as an economic entity
on the comprehensive and obligatory participation of the entire village
community. Since industrialisation was to destroy not only the material but
also the human basis for such an economic community, they had to defend
themselves by every means available against an uncontrolled expansion of the
industry. The open-field system and the overall legal and traditional order
provided valuable assistance in the shape of firm agricultural regulations;
until the collapse of three-field agriculture, it was forbidden to build outside
the precincts of the village (hinausbauen); where possible, it was forbidden to
build any more houses at all. Such regulations gave rise to endless disputes.64
Natural conditions and the forms of cultivation and settlement were quite
different in the Oberland. A countryside inhabited by isolated farms lacked
the economic discipline of a village. These farmers could dispose more freely of
their land, they could use it and arrange it as and when they wished. If, for
instance, the ground of the lower parts of the valleys was still being cultivated
according to the three-field system, it would be modified so as to fit in with the
natural conditions. Hamlets and farmsteads had their own field systems. The
higher settlements were given over to a system of individual land ownership
and land use (Egartenwirtschaft), described in the report by minister Schmid of
Uster report to the Naturforschende Gesellschaft (Natural Science Associa-
tion) in 1762 as follows:
Concerning the meadows of the mountain folk in Fischenthal and Sternenberg,
experience teaches that they could not remove the fences from their meadows without
incurring great damage, since they have no pasturage in common, nor do they have any
ploughland (which, when manured, can be sown with wheat in the third year) but only
meadows, and indeed a proper mountain farmer generally owns six or nine of these; one
of which he ploughs every year and in the first year he sows wheat and in the next oats
and then he lets it rest again and takes another and does likewise until each one has had
its turn. His cattle find abundant grazing throughout the whole summer on the fields
which have not been sown. However, in order to prevent the cattle from running all
over his fields, which are all close together, and trampling the grass into the ground, he
has to divide them up with fences.65
In the Oberland region of hamlets and farmsteads the peasants' use of the
soil and their farming associations were so arranged that industrialisation did
not disrupt the basis of their life, materially or humanly. Many features of the
industry fitted in with the homesteaders' way of farming. Whereas the village
farmer had to act within his farming collective and derived his security from it,
the homesteader's working group had a far freer approach to production. To a
certain extent he was an entrepreneur, with the entrepreneur's whole spiritual
attitude to economic matters. The specific and practical feature of homestead
farming - its greater independence, its ability to change and adapt - was
attuned to the emphatically individual character of the homesteader.
Although the Oberland was described by J.C. Hirzel as 'real Alpine
country', the sort of corporate Alpine farming of the central and western pre-
Alpine region of Switzerland was foreign to them. There were no collective
farming associations in the farmstead country of the Oberland, with their rigid
organisation and their manifold opportunities for limiting entry and building.
There was no effective regulation of building and letting houses, and so
agriculture and traditional ways of using the soil were able to enter into a
fruitful symbiosis with the Zurich putting-out industry. Industrialisation did
not happen at the expense of agriculture; on the contrary, large tracts of the
Oberland were urbanised by the putting-out industry in the eighteenth
century. Fallow ground was cultivated and settled. Established land was more
intensively exploited. The cattle stock was improved and so on. We will
discuss how agriculture and industrialisation in the Oberland affected one
another later on.
In this chapter we have attempted to explain the early and intensive
industrialisation of the Oberland. We have learnt about the area's natural
conditions, its social, legal and economic circumstances, and how they affected
one another, and we mentioned the driving and shaping mentality underlying
them. Only those factors immanent to the Oberland have been considered. We
do not claim to have been comprehensive and we are aware that important
points have been left untouched.66 When applying an analytical method, it is
necessary to separate matters which in reality form a whole. Our selection does
not reveal a series of causal connections, but simply a few main threads in a
tangled net of causal relations.
Our analysis, which has been carried out using the Oberland as our
example, applies only to a very limited extent to the other early industrial
regions of the Zurich territory (the industrial regions around the Lake, the
Knonau and Keller districts and the intermediate zones between upland and
lowland). In these regions the legal, economic and social conditions were
different to those of the Oberland. As well as this, the geographical and
climatic conditions were different. Each of these regions contributed its own
preconditions to the reception of the putting-out system. Similar factors do,
however, emerge albeit in sizes and shapes different again to those of the
Oberland. Similar forces obstructed or encouraged the process of industrialis-
ation. All the industrial regions were distinguished by the absence of firmly
established collective farming associations in the sense of the arable three-field
system. Their legal, economic and social order no longer formed an organic
unit, with the vitality and power to prevent industry gaining a foothold. While
the agriculture and land rights belonging to the three-field system (viz., real
restrictions on communal rights, open-field system and prohibition of build-
ing) did indeed survive in many places, these forms no longer represented fact.
They had become obsolete for a part of the population. When the existing
order was no longer secured by the economic and social conditions, the door
stood open for the putting-out industry. It was able to push its way in and
become established. This was, for instance, the case in the Knonau district and
in the intermediate zone between Oberland and Unterland.
Conditions in the industrial regions around the Lake were different again.
Their proximity to major routes, their vineyards, forms of land rights and land
use and other factors as well-established conditions here which were favour-
able to industrialisation. As in the Oberland, these regions also achieved a
fruitful symbiosis of agriculture and putting-out industry, which we cannot go
into in detail, but merely mention here. Later on, we will show how the
traditional, pre-industrial legal, economic and social order asserted itself in its
local variations. It can be seen in the different industrial regions of the Zurich
countryside, with their characteristic forms of building, settlement and
farming, and it determined directly and indirectly the lives and culture of the
industrial working population.
The upshot was that the industrial regions of the Zurich lordship were
certainly not limited just to zones of individual land use and farmstead
settlement, but also included zones with three-field systems and villages. We
stress this yet again so as to avoid misunderstandings, but with the firm
proviso that the regions in question no longer possessed true three-field
rotation systems. They were places where the collective organism of a well-
established peasant farming community had either never existed or had been
weakened.67
Let us close this chapter with a look at a map showing the distribution of the
Zurich cotton putting-out industry in the period of its first flowering at the end
of the eighteenth century. In 1787 a census was taken of all the cotton spinners
and looms in the whole of the Zurich territory. This census provides the data
for the map, compiled by Paul Klaui for the Atlas zur Geschichte des Kantons
Zurich {Atlas of the History of the Canton ofZurich),,68
The highly industrialised regions show up clearly on the map, but, contrary
to what one might expect, they do not form a circle around Zurich, the centre
of the putting-out industry. Some of the most intensively industrialised regions
lie far away from Zurich, in the lower Alpine zones of the territory, although
these peripheral regions were only drawn within the putting-out circle later
on, and presented terrible problems of transport. By studying the map we
become aware of the. strength of the legal, economic and social forces which we
have analysed and presented as the preconditions to the industrialisation of
the Oberland. These forces were strong enough to overcome the natural
obstacles and the problems of transport. The Oberland formed a hinterland of
scattered settlement areas, gulleys 'which afforded a dreadful aspect',69
unimaginably bad roads and a harsh climate. Bringing in and distributing the
raw materials and carrying away the finished goods was extremely difficult.
This was also the reason why the Oberland was only slightly involved in the
first flowering of the Zurich cottage weaving industry. The transport of the
warps and bales of cloth must have been too much trouble, since, until the
collapse of hand spinning, the mountainous parts of the Zurich territory
remained committed to this branch of the industry - spinning, that is, not
weaving.
We could illustrate our argument further by comparing two maps showing
emigration patterns, also to be found in the Atlas zur Geschichte des Kantons
Zurich.10 A reference to them must suffice. They show how in the time of the
greatest population growth (which applied especially to the Oberland) the
Oberland was able to feed its inhabitants and keep them in the country
through the putting-out industry. Very little emigration took place, whereas in
the arable regions (with very small population growth) many people were
forced to emigrate. The map of emigration between 1734 and 1744 clearly
shows that the bulk of movement was away from the arable zones. The
emigration map for 1660 shows the movement distributed fairly equally over
the whole Zurich territory. Without making too much of our interpretation of
these maps, it may be said that they illustrate the difference in the legal,
economic and social conditions between the flat and mountainous parts of the
canton. The inhabitants of the arable regions had to leave their homes, not
because there were no industrial work opportunities, but because in the arable
regions the way to industrialisation was barred from within. In the Oberland
and the other industrial regions, however, the legal, economic and social
preconditions for intensive industrialisation did exist.
We have outlined many problems in this first chapter, which we will

The preconditionsforindustrialisation 35
number of 10 50 100 500

cotton spinners . • • [•]
looms for
muslin weaving o o O
Indian weaving (cotton) • • •
The cottage industry at the end of the eighteenth century

Source: Paul Klaui and Edward Imhof, eds., Atlas zur Geschichte des Kantons
Zurich, Zurich 1951, Plate 35
investigate further as our thesis is developed. It is to be hoped that we have
answered the question as to why the Oberland, and other parts of the Zurich
territory under the Ancien Regime, turned into industrial areas, while the
other regions of the territory were hardly, if at all, affected by this profound
transformation of their environment and economy.
J.C. Hirzel formulated the sentence with which we close this chapter: 'it
seems as if the factory hands had climbed down from the mountains, and that
the closer these lie, the more factory hands there are5.71
Changes to the structure of family and
population in the industrial regions
In the last chapter we learnt about people who were ostensibly born into a
peasant community and culture, but who remained in reality cut off and
excluded from it. If we are to investigate the specifically folklorist question of
how traditional ways of life and their manifestations in the popular culture of
the Oberland changed with the advent of industrialisation, we must be fully
aware that the innovations arose only partly out of a peasant world. We will
find the purest and most clearly defined forms of a new 'industrial' possibility
of existence, with its appropriate cultural expressions, among those sectors of
the population which were never able to become rooted in an agricultural
community.1
We can formulate our question even more precisely, and thus on a more
theoretical level: in the following pages we want to find out whether and how
the basic conditions of human society were changed when the Oberland was
industrialised. The most disparate areas of human life can reveal how
industrialisation created new possibilities for existence, giving rise to new
forms of community and a new popular culture.
This sort of question gives rise to a few methodological difficulties: first of
all, our enquiry into the emergence of new ways of life needs to be treated
historically, meaning that attention must be paid to the period and the
mentality which provided the historical background. For these reasons we
have limited ourselves to the period before 1800, a time when the Oberland
relied chiefly on domestic spinning. The collapse of hand spinning and the
great transition to domestic weaving and machine spinning in the Oberland
can only be briefly scanned at the close of this work. As mentioned above, this
epoch-making upheaval belongs historically and technically to Part two of this
thesis.
However, our enquiry demands besides the historical treatment a
fundamental approach, in so far as we understand that cottage work provided
a means of existence, with a way of life peculiar to itself. Such a view requires
that we look constantly beyond the limits of our period, so as to address the
general nature of the topic. Both these aspects will have to be taken into
account in the course of our treatise, without referring to them specifically. For
37
this reason many of our primary sources extend beyond the limits of the
Ancien Regime, our period.
Our enquiry begins with the smallest and most natural human community,
the family. This immediately presents the question of how the preconditions
for getting married and starting a family changed with the advent of
industrialisation.
The works of Gotthelf have taught us that marriage vows in peasant circles
did not constitute an intimate private agreement between two lovers. In a
peasant marriage, it was the farm with its human and material assets which
mattered. Claims of an individual and personal nature had to give way to the
objective of maintaining the organic unit of the farm and preserving the fragile
equilibrium between the number of workers and consumers in a peasant
family and the size of their property. Such conditions led to peasant marriage
customs,2 in which individual family members were obliged to acquiesce.
So it became the custom [wrote J.C. Hirzel in 1792] to leave the properties together and
only to the sons, who also refrained from marriage, that the farm might always remain
capable of providing for the household . . . this also happened in the various regions of
our country [he means the canton of Zurich] in which only arable farming was
practised. Whence we observe that the fertile Wehn Valley has, with regard to its
population, only slightly increased. A farmer calculates as follows: my farm can feed no
more than one, at most two sons. The others can remain single or seek their fortune
elsewhere.3
Hirzel is here describing a system of impartible inheritance, or the right to

designate individual family members as heirs. This practice did not just affect
the Oberland, but the whole countryside of Zurich. The tendency to designate
one heir and to limit subdivision of the property was reinforced in the Zurich
territory by the development of communal rights, including those concerning
the use of common lands, in the seventeenth century. Use of the common lands
was a major part of the peasant farming economy and the aforementioned
material form of commonage rights had a direct effect on peasant inheritance.4
In the Oberland, as we have seen, this factor was not much in evidence.
Although the Oberland is a countryside of single farmsteads, strict peasant
marriage customs like those shaped by impartible inheritance must have
already been lacking before industrialisation. Such customs did indeed exist
there, but not as exclusively as in the arable regions of the Zurich countryside.
The Oberland's large share of the economically weak had a splintering effect.
A whole new situation was created by the possibility of earning a living in
the Zurich putting-out industry. For those people whose basis of existence
stretched beyond an agricultural community (and upon whom we will focus at
the present moment) a completely new set of requirements for marriage and
setting up a household were established. The industrial source of earnings
made it possible to support peasant farms on non-agricultural foundations.
This change in the peasants' existence basis also changed the conditions
Changes to the structure of family and population 39
governing inheritance. Hirzel recognised this change clearly, writing that in
the places where factory wages were available, the peasant altered his previous
'calculation' to:
'I have three or four sons, each will get some meadowland, enough for one cow at least,
some ploughland etc. This should make afinecontribution towards the family's keep,
and working their little property leaves them with enough time on their hands to
acquire the rest in factory earnings.' At the final count, people also considered it
acceptable to own just a corner of the house in which to set up a spinning wheel or loom,
and room for a garden for planting vegetables.
The author tells us of an 'upright farmer' whom he encountered in 1792, 'who
was farming only 1/8 of his deceased grandfather's farm and was living
happily and contendedly on this'.5 C. Meiners wrote in his Letters about
Switzerland that
the increased and secure earnings produced by combining factory work with working in
the fields enabled marriages to take place sooner and in greater number, thereby
increasing the subdivision and the value of the farms, as well as enlarging and
improving the houses and villages. On account of the prospects opened to the
countryman and his children by their industry, he was no longer anxious to limit the
size of his family early on. Fathers and sons had previously shied away from dividing up
their larger and accumulated holdings because they feared that individual shares
would be inadequate for feeding their owners. This fear disappeared completely after
the expansion of factories and factory workers and now the sons insist on subdividing
their fathers' inheritance, which had perhaps already been split up many times
previously, because they are convinced that even a small piece of ploughland is enough
to feed its hardworking owner, with wife and child.6
It is obvious that marriages increased in frequency and were entered into at

an earlier age in peasant circles when the putting-out industry managed to
penetrate them. J.C. Hirzel has measured this phenomenon statistically. He
chose the parish of Fischenthal as his example. According to his figures the
average number of marriages in the space of a decade changed as follows:
1641-70 42 marriages took place on average over the decades;
1750-60 165 marriages took place on average over the decade.7
At this point it must be emphasised that such marriages could no longer be
called peasant marriages, since they would never have taken place had there
been no possibility of industrial work. We have got to destroy the genre picture
so rigidly preserved in the literature of the contented farmer tilling his acre,
milking his cow and, as a sideline, engaging in a cottage industry with his
family.8 This scenario did not apply to the Oberland, and indeed would
present a wholly mistaken and false picture of the industrial landscape. The
putting-out industry was a sideline for only the very smallest section of the
Oberland farmers (and certainly not for the unpropertied outworkers), but it
was the basis and means for these peasants get to be able to married at all and
to work their portion of farm with their families. This is clearly indicated in the
synodal speech made by Salomon Schinz, minister of Fischenthal:
Never would such a crowd of people have arisen in this harsh region, had the ample
factory wages not made it easier for them to feed themselves and encouraged them to
increase, so that within half a century the population has doubled. Even the farm
owners of the middle class could not subsist without such earnings, since big debts have
been amassed on many pieces of land as a result of buying in at high prices, or by
frequently splitting up properties, which necessitates building new dwellings, or by
buying out - debts which cannot possibly be offset from the farm produce, but only
from the owner's earnings with the spinning wheel or the weaver's shuttle. Which has
led inevitably to many disasters; as earnings from cotton dwindled, the false appear-
ance of prosperity has faded from these regions. There are actually very few prosperous
farm owners in my parish, as also in Baretschweil, Bauma and Sternenberg; also only a
small number of those, who have to pay out only half the value of their farms in interest.
Anyone who has to pay only 4 Gulden interest on a little property, enough to feed a cow
through winter and summer, can still survive. But every significant accident to his
cattle or his property etc. can precipitate him into the class of the poor, and if he has a
relentless creditor, into the class of the homeless. And such people are terribly
numerous. More than 1,360 people of my parish are forced to live solely from factory
earnings and about 200 households own no movable or immovable property of any
kind, apart from their spinning wheel, loom, domestic essentials and clothes, and the
very poorest lack even these last.9
We must be aware of the social and economic effects of such changes. There
grew up out of the peasant world households which could only keep their farms
with the help of the putting-out industry. Johann Hirzel, minister of Wildberg,
also mentioned this relationship in a synodal speech. He stressed that the
owner could not pay his interest from the produce of his land, but only from
what he earned by spinning and weaving: 'The original reason for the present
condition of the mountain folk must be sought for in earlier times. First in the
unlimited credit, which the land owners were granted previously.'10 The same
phenomenon is reported by an anonymous person concerning Appenzell. In
his treatise he describes in a tersely stylised manner the subsistence basis on
which a new type of mountain farming could develop.
What has to a certain degree impeded the improvement of cultivation has for many
years been the harmful use of Vollzedeln (credit notes) on our Heymathen (farms). Anyone
was able to buy such a farm with an appropriate note of credit and the interest pay-
ments, without having two pennies of his own to rub together: a couple of cows
provided his family with their basic subsistence and his loom secured him an easy
means of earning the interest on the property and other needs.11
At this stage we require only a limited view of the phenomenon of a new

mountain peasantry, which developed around the non-agricultural putting-
out industry. We have enquired into the new requirements for founding a
peasant family which emerged with industrialisation. We have seen how the
former customary right of inheritance was undermined by the source of
industrial earnings. Marriages in peasant circles occurred more frequently
and earlier. During the course of the eighteenth century the subdivision of
farms put increased pressure on the authorities to 'loosen the belt',12 i-e. to
allow people to subdivide rights and houses and to build new dwellings, rooms
and ovens.
This will be discussed more extensively in Chapter 4, where we will learn
about the destruction of the traditional right of inheritance, the division of
farms and houses as well as the changes to the ground rights and ways of using
the soil, and also to peasant farming methods.
The changes brought a whole range of traditional ways of life into flux
again. A new attitude to marriage developed hand in hand with the altered
right of inheritance. Material considerations were no longer central to mar-
riage. The farm and property could now, with the help of industrial earnings,
be divided without loss of income. People found that their family bonds and
responsibilities were less important. A marriage could no longer threaten the
survival basis of the other family members. Marriage was no longer a contract
affecting the outcome of a community and its economy down to the last detail.
For the marriageable sons and daughters of peasants this shift allowed them
greater latitude for following their own inclinations. Drawing up a marriage
contract became a more intimate affair: it became a promise between two
persons, who hoped thereby to realise happiness for themselves as individuals.
Both courtship and marriage were individualised.
Let us now take a look at this trend in that sector of the population which
did not grow out of the secure peasant world. It consisted of those economi-
cally unviable inhabitants of the Oberland, whom we met in Chapter 1, at the
dawn of industrialisation. We stressed the significance of industrial earnings to
these people; the demand for labour in the Zurich putting-out industry had
grown steadily from the middle of the seventeenth century onwards. The bulk
of the Oberland population placed their lives in the hands of the putting-out
masters, blindly trusting in the 'mysterious play of economic laws'.13 Trusting
blindly, they married. Being used to spinning work from earliest childhood,
and in part to weaving work, they believed that this provided them with all
they needed to get married: 'Marriages were entered into recklessly, without
considering whether it would be possible to provide for wife and child, in the
firm but blind faith that the good factory earnings would go on for ever.'14
Minister Salomon Schinz described indignantly how a girl from the out-
workers' circle in Fischenbach would enter into marriage:
Brought up alongside the spinning wheel or the loom, ignorant of other domestic and
farming work; keeping wanton company deep into the night almost every day, and
when her work is done, she spends her day's earnings or a part thereof on fripperies or
brandy, indulging in every form of sensuality and making use of the most shameful
methods, even stealing the stuff given her to work, or removing wares from her parents'
house is not too shameful, and then getting married, when her circumstances force her
to it, often joined to an equally thoughtless and equally poor youth, with neither bed
nor household goods among their possessions . . . what are the consequences of such
destitute marriages, when they often owe even the few clothes they have to the
tradesman?15
We shall see later on that the outworkers' life style, so clearly condemned by
Schinz, can also be judged differently and positively. In any case, the fact
remains that in these circles, marriages could be entered into without any
material support. 'Early marriages between two persons, who bring two
spinning wheels but no bed with them, occur fairly frequently among these
people',16 wrote the minister of Wildberg. Such marriages, based on spinning
wheel and loom, are commonly referred to as 'beggars' weddings' in the
sources. A formula indicative not only of the pride and scorn of the propertied,
but which also exposes their inability to perceive and acknowledge novel
elements, as instanced by these marriages. They could not understand this
freer and looser behaviour vis-a-vis the material culture. To enter into a
marriage without enough household goods, bedclothes, for instance, to last for
the rest of one's life, was, they believed, an outrageous venture, quite out of the
question. Johannes Schulthess demanded with holy zeal that beggars' wed-
dings be straightaway prohibited by State and Church. As Canon and
Professor of Theology and member of the Council for Church and Education,
he also found biblical confirmation of this proposition: ' "He who fails to
provide for his relations, and especially those dwelling in his house", says the
Apostle, "has denied the Faith; yea, he is worse than the heathen." '17
Schulthess was definitely not alone in his condemnation. People in many
places were trying to establish a legal basis for preventing early marriages and
beggars' weddings. Johann Hirzel believed that
only by tightening up the law, by harsh punishments and limiting [the number of]
Pintenschenken (taverns), where the thoughtless inhabitants indulge without any embar-
rassment in loose behaviour and which can provide occasion for such beggars'
weddings, can this rapidly increasing evil [early marriages without household goods or
property] be averted and this source of poverty and multiple misery be stopped . . . and
how natural too is the wish and entreaty, which I here dare to express, that these early
beggars' weddings be prevented by legal means, by establishing in law a certain
minimum age and property. People's freedom would not be overly impaired by this,
and the number of illegitimate children would not be any greater as a result.18
In April 1813 the Wetzikon elders decided that 'The early marriage of poor
persons shall where possible be prevented by the minister's intervention, and
any burgeoning friendships shall be reported by the elders to the minister.'
Minister Nageli wrote resignedly and knowingly in the minutes: 'Who is going
to supervise a sieve full of fleas?'19
It is in the nature of our sources that the new practices surrounding
courtship and marriage should be condemned throughout. We are obliged to
follow up these sources, but we must try to free ourselves from the subjective
valuations they make.
We have seen how people's willingness and ability to marry increased when
the putting-out industry managed to gain a foothold in their peasant circle.
Courtship and marriage were de-materialised. Marriage contracts became far
more intimate and personal agreements when both partners built their
marriage exclusively on the putting-out industry. As long as industrial
earnings flowed smoothly, material considerations receded, allowing people
room to deploy their intellectual and spiritual potential. Our critics, aware of
their local responsibilities, took into account only the material aspect of the
beggars' weddings. Their harsh condemnation of the new marriage practices
was determined by this consideration, with particular reference tti their
experience of the years of crisis and shortage. We can take advantage of our
distance in time and our awareness of history to set the personal and human
aspect to the forefront. This not only allows the changes to their way of life to
be seen more clearly, but makes us (as opposed to the sources) judge these
trail-blazing innovations differently and more positively.
Before approaching this problem, it must be stressed that it was not
industrialisation which changed the practices and customs surrounding
marriage - life's most important rite of passage. Such an assumption would
require a wholly materialistic perception of history, one we cannot share.
Industrialisation merely brought to a large section of the rural population the
material possibility of copying new ways of life and behaviour from other
sectors of society, or of developing their own. Industrialisation enabled these
people to individualise courtship and marriage; a development which must be
viewed against the background of the trend towards individualisation in
Western Europe, which was given a decisive impulse during the late Renais-
sance and Reformation. This development included the transformation of the
erotic world of emotion, when a privileged class of city-dwellers copied and
assimilated the sophisticated forms of the courtly and aristocratic life style.
With the destruction of the unity of baroque life the whole gamut of erotic
emotions was released from its ivory tower: pietism, loaded with a new
inwardness, gave rise to a secularised and self-orientated Eros, announcing the
arrival of Werther. Bourgeois love found its outward and inward expression in
the Biedermeier style, a style we still encounter nowadays in debased and
drooling 'dream boat' form, being droned out of every radio and juke-box. It is
in the context of the development sketched above that we must see the change
to the marriage practices in the Zurich countryside, which was unleashed by
the possibility of industrial earnings. As urban fashion and the urban need for
luxury penetrated those sectors of the rural population of Zurich employed in
industry, they brought a new intellectual and spiritual attitude and its
outward manifestations with them.
The putting-out industry provided girls and boys with the material
preconditions for getting married, thereby sweeping away all the young
people's reservations and fears about getting to know and love one another.
Unrestrained by material considerations, their desire for the opposite sex
could be fulfilled. Johann Schulthess wrote that 'As soon as a young lad is
confirmed, he starts making up to one or more girls, as if the ceremony was for
this purpose.' He went on to write that the daughters, however, 'knowing that
they will otherwise never get a husband, open their bedrooms to the night
prowlers and allow them access, in the certain or uncertain hope that, should
they get pregnant, they will not be abandoned to their disgrace'. Schulthess
wrote sadly that this vignette was no 'bookworm's fantasy, ach no, but was
drawn from life'. As a young boy he had unfortunately seen many instances of
this evil with his own eyes, and over the last four decades it had become much
more prevalent and general, and anyone would be able to bear witness to his
judgement who 'has opportunity to observe this behaviour, when indulged in
openly and immodestly'. Schulthess refers to the country ministers' visitation
notices and quotes a report in them, which says 'The so-called zu Licht gehen
(going to the light) is considered a right and a freedom and not as anything
sinful. Weddings always come after pregnancy.' 20
It would be mistaken to see the Kiltgang's form of nocturnal courtship,
called z'Licht go in the Zurich countryside, as a consequence of people basing
their existence on the putting-out industry.21 This form of courtship went back
to pre-industrial times and originated from the living conditions in farmsteads
and villages. Cottage industry simply allowed this form of courtship to be
adopted by a wider section of the population. The rising number of people
wanting to get married made use of thoroughly traditional forms of courtship,
although their attitude to these forms changed,with the emergence of a new
industrial working class.
By z'Lichtgo and Lichtstubeten was meant not just social gatherings involving
unmarried girls and lads (which we will discuss later on) but also nightly
encounters between two lovers, with lads climbing into the daughters' and
maids' chambers.22 The mandate of 7 July 1658 commented that
we have uncovered a profound and widespread evil: the Lichtstubeten and Waidstubeten,
as well as the young lads' nightly encounters, slipping in and climbing up to the
daughters and maids in their bedrooms and chambers, item, in other corners too, yea
even close up to them and into their beds, should all be most strenuously forbidden with
due authority.23
But the authorities' edicts and the Church's admonitions were all ineffectual.
In spite of the prohibition, the country-dwellers clung firmly to this form of
courtship. The era of the Helvetic Republic (1798-1803) had a liberating effect
here too. The prohibitions were lifted and the authorities turned a blind eye to
nocturnal courtships.24 In a treatise About the Revision of Matrimonial Laws in the
Canton of Zurich25 J.C Nuscheler demanded that 'these wicked practices of
going to the light and the Lichtstubeten should be forbidden by means of fines or
emprisonment'.26 Niischeler's pronouncements have particular weight, given
that he was president of the matrimonial law courts for seventeen years. He
writes that
through misuse it has here and there become the custom for an engaged man to think
that as soon as he has given his fiancee a marriage writ and a pledge, he is entitled to
demand that she allow him his so-called marital rights . . . From the first Revolution
[1798] onwards, however, going to the light, which in 1786 was still prohibited by
means of a specific fine, had spread beyond all bounds, with the result that it was not
only engaged couples, wanting to get married as formerly, who went to the light, but
also those who had no intention of getting married, but only wanted to enjoy forbidden
fruits.27
J.C. Hirzel wrote that it had become the practice in the Knonau parish among
engaged couples 'to remain unmarried until they are forced to wed on account
of no longer being able to avoid pregnancy'.28
Marital vows had clearly been secularised and individualised - becoming a
secret contract between two persons. It was not the holy sacrament of the
Church but the marriage certificate or pledge which was binding.29
It was usual with such marriage practices for extra-marital pregnancies to
impose their own necessary rules: a pregnant girl was able to demand
satisfaction from her fiance {zu Ehren ziehen) and to force him to marry her on
moral grounds. For Niischeler, these enforced weddings were one of the main
reasons behind the many divorces:
More than half of the many divorces in our canton are due to the above reasons -
especially on account of the enforced marriages {zu Ehrenziehens and gezogen werden
mussens) . . . Marital fidelity is all too often seen merely as a side issue, and the enforced
marriage as the main business - in these cases the thought is often present in parents
and children: should the marriage work out happily, well and good, and may the
marriage prosper- and her honour is at least preserved; but if it does not work out well,
they can always get a divorce from the judge.
Niischeler saw these marital practices, which had been adopted and developed
by the working population, as the primary reason for the moral breakdown of
the family. 'In most cases the happiness of such heedlessly contracted
marriages does not last long, since once they are married everything appears to
them in quite a different light than previously.' 30Johann Schulthess even knew
about regional variations in marital practices and morality. The author asks
us petulantly
How is it that it is precisely in those regions where the most thoughtless marriages and
the beggars' weddings take place that year after year all forms of extra-marital
fornication, adultery, prostitution and divorce become more prevalent? That in the
areas, on the other hand, where the old practices are adhered to, only the one son
among three or more will get married, who will inherit the paternal house and property,
unless one or the other moves in with a wife somewhere, or otherwise finds a house and
a homeland along with a decent livelihood - that, say I, among such people there is the
most chastity and clean living to be found? And how is it that the population, as far back
as anyone can remember, has only grown insignificantly or has fallen in the latter areas,
but has swollen up three or fourfold since the middle of the seventeenth century in the
former regions?'31
We must break in at this point with our comments and assessments, thus
moving on to the next section.
We have already mentioned that the young persons working in industry,
unhampered by material considerations, could follow their inclination regard-
ing the opposite sex. But their freer association did not mean that they had no
ethical or moral principles. Demanding satisfaction, zu Ehren ziehen, was in
itself proof that the necessary outcome of these forms of courtship, which
contemporaries considered new, was determined by force of custom. Zu Ehren
ziehen would quite simply have been unthinkable in a peasant economy with its
harsh inheritance laws, and the statistics for extra-marital births in such areas
show that 'chastity and clean living' were not their only attributes. 32 In any
case, the moral values of the industrial working population were different and
new. They had to be different when they no longer had to take a whole series of
material and human requirements into account before getting married, and
only the personal, 'me and you' related claims of the marriage partners
counted. Industrial earnings made it possible for individuals to be released
from the inflexible order of things.33 But this freedom meant that moral
responsibility was laid on each individual; he was no longer encompassed by
an economic association and its particular human and material order, which
obliged each member to conform to its ethical and customary norms of
behaviour. It is not surprising that people broke out and went astray when
they had the freedom to indulge the most elementary and human desires. Nor
should we be surprised or even annoyed by contemporaries' damning reports
condemning the immoral behaviour of the outworker population, since they
came from a social circle where this new situation did not apply.
It is from this point of view that we should look at the other matters for
complaint listed by Johann Schulthess and which have been raised by many
other critics: 'extra-marital fornication, adultery, prostitution and divorce'.34
Nuscheler and the others were mistaken in their belief that 'the divorces would
at least be reduced by half by forbidding the zu Licht gehen.35 Going to the light
was only the traditional cover, which could certainly be prohibited, behind
which lay a reality stronger than the force of the law: a new function of
marriage. People no longer got married (or refrained from marriage) for the
sake of the farm, as in peasant circles, but because they saw marriage as a
means of fulfilling their hopes of individual happiness. Marriages were now
the result of pairing off. This applied especially to those illegitimate 'marria-
ges' which were only given public sanction in church when honour had to be
maintained by the zu Ehren ziehen. The result of these new values, along with
the removal of material considerations in courtship and marriage, was that
marriage itself became more fragile. Seen in positive terms, people's demands
on marriage and married life together became, in human terms, more varied
and intimate. This did not, however, mean that marriage became in itself
capable of satisfying these demands. Which explains the many divorces
among workers in the putting-out industry and their corollaries: extra-marital
fornication, adultery and prostitution. The danger of destroying a marriage
was all the more acute the less a marriage was maintained by material bonds,
the less it was anchored in a unit of production.
We shall not follow up these particular problems here, since they belong to
an aspect of life which we shall examine further on. This section simply asks
the question of how the preconditions for getting married and starting a family
were changed by industrialisation. An attempt will be made to provide a broad
outline of the general situation. This involves recognising the reciprocal
relationship between marriage and industrialisation. The new intellectual and
spiritual attitude of the outworker population towards marriage affected
industrialisation in its turn. The rise in people's willingness to get married and
the rise in the number of weddings drove industrialisation onwards.
Both academic and popular books on the subject have widely publicised the
view that family cohesion was weakened as a direct consequence of industrial-
isation. We shall investigate this problem, with its important social implica-
tions, in the following sections.
Let us begin with a surprising observation: that the outward conditions of
industrial existence did not have to result in the family unit being weakened.
This fact has an important bearing on the problem of causality.
We must start by referring back to the findings in Chapter 1. We have seen
how the putting-out industry was able to set foot in and spread out in every
region of the Zurich Canton which did not have any effective means of
restricting immigration, and which possessed no (or insufficient) laws against
subdividing houses and setting up new ones. We have pointed out that these
conditions led to the Oberland becoming an industrial landscape, and how a
growing number of economically weaker, landless persons were able to
establish themselves and make a living in the country. Further, in the peasant
regions of the Zurich territory, many unmarried sons and daughters were
obliged to seek their livelihoods by serving in foreign parts and outside their
area. If we had maps showing in what density servants, farmhands and maids
were recruited in each region over comparable periods, they would illustrate
these conditions clearly.36
Let us now pick up again where we left off in the foregoing section; we will
take a look at the marriages contracted with the help of the industrial basis of
existence. Let us begin with the outward preconditions: Where did the newly
married couple find a lodging?
We have heard how it became the norm in the industrial regions of the
canton of Zurich for families with several sons and daughters to divide
amongst themselves the property, house and parish right. This consequence of
industrial employment did not loosen the patterns of residence at all. On the
contrary, it kept the family together, at least in residential terms, a qualifi-
cation we must emphasise. The family unit grew larger and could extend over
several households, since the grown-up children were no longer obliged to
remain single or to set up their own household somewhere else. In the
Oberland, where there were fewer large farms and properties and the little
cottages were soon incapable of being divided up any more, a particular form
of communal existence developed which is still clearly reflected in the
settlement pattern of the countryside. It involved living in rows of attached
cottages, known as Flarz houses, which we will discuss in greater depth in
Chapter 4. They were typical of peasant homes in areas of cottage industry,
and their numbers increased during the eighteenth century with the advance
of industrialisation. These rows of houses were characteristic and should be
viewed against the background of the organisational and formal family and
kinship structure of their inhabitants. Let us take the question of the formal
structure first. The increased number of families was expressed formally by the
changes to the settlement pattern of the countryside. The rows of Flarz houses
multiplied; single farmsteads grew into hamlets; hamlets developed into
villages. C. Meiners wrote that
as the number of marriages and people increased, the number of houses and the size of
the villages and hamlets naturally increased at the same rate. Where only a generation
ago there had been one, or a few haphazard and scattered, dwellings, there can now be
seen imposing villages, and little scruffy villages have grown into extensive and urban
settlements. Even the bare and chilly mountain slopes, which are otherwise visited only
by herdsmen, and the eroded patches at the edge of cleared woods are being covered,
increasingly as times goes by, with the new dwellings of fortunate people.37
If we follow the development of such hamlets using population registers,

these sources provide us with a picture (albeit rough and in parts unclear) of
the formal cohesion of family and kinship. Families employed in industry and
living in common became more visible as their numbers expanded. In 1634 the
inhabitants of the Heferen (Wald parish) consisted of Hans Egli with his wife
Barbel, Jagli Hess with his wife Aneli and Christen Hess with his wife Aneli
and his two-year-old daughter Aneli.38 By 1739 the parish roll of Wald
provided the following picture of the residential pattern in the Heferen.
Minister Heinrich Rahn's register gives their names as follows:
1. Hans Krauer's, deceased, widow, Anna Kunz (born 1666). Child:

Heinrich 1693.
2. Hermann Ulrich Krauer 1699, Barbara Kindlimann 1707. Children:
Hans Jakob 1731, Dorothea 1733, Regula 1738.
3. Johanes Krauer 1710, Barbara Schnyder 1709. Children: Susanna
1734, Hans 1736, Elsbeth 1738.
4. Jakob Krauer's, deceased, children, Emma Margaretha 1728,
Susanna 1732.
5. Heinrich Rordorfer's, deceased, widow, Regula 1673. Children: Hans
1703, Maria 1708, Susanna 1711,Johann 1716.
6. Jakob Hess's, deceased, widow, Lisenbetha Kindlimann 1677. Chil-
dren: Margaretha 1707, Hans Jakob 1713, Maria 1715, Hans
Heinrich 1719.
7. Rudolf Hess's, deceased, widow, Anna Brunner 1680. Children: Max
1708, Elsbetha 1714, Barbara 1719, Anna Maria 1723.
8. Hans Conrad Hess's, deceased, widow, Elsbeth Krauer 1654. Child:
Rudolf Hess 1704.
9. Domestica Hans Brandli's, deceased, child, Anna, 1697.
10. Hans Egli 1682, Barbara Homberger 1700. Children: Susanna 1711,
Elsbetha 1716, Hans Jakob 1723, Anna Dorothea 1730, Hans 1733,
Hans Rudolf 1736.
11. Hans Jacob Egli fil. 1703. Catharina Hourgger 1713. Child:
Margaretha 1733.
12. Caspar Latsch 1680, Dorothea Egli 1685. Children: Regula 1736,
Elsbetha 1737.
13. Caspar Hess 1682, Maria Krauer 1692. Children: Barbara 1718,
Hans Jacob 1723, Elisabetha 1726, Maria 1730.39
We can see how the three households (two Hess, one Egli) of seven persons
living together in the hamlet Heferen had over a century grown into thirteen
households of fifty-three persons. The original Egli and Hess households had
now increased two and fourfold, comprising eleven and eighteen persons
respectively. The Krauer family had settled in Heferen with four households
and fourteen persons. We also find two Krauer daughters married into the
Hess family. Dorothea Egli had married Caspar Latsch and they too were still
living in the hamlet.
In the hamlet Aathal in 1634 there were also three households of fourteen
persons altogether. Two Strehler families and the households of Uli Reymann
and Anna Eglin, with their children: Hans (twelve), Barbeli (eleven), Anneli
(ten), Heinrich (three), Uli (two) and Elsbeth (one).40 A century later (1739)
we discover six or seven households there with thirty-four (thirty-eight)
members. The Strehler family was no longer living in the hamlet, nor were any
married daughters. The Reymann family on the other hand had remained in
Aathal and had branched out. A few details of the structure of this kinship
group can be found in the sources:
1. Heinrich Reymann's, deceased, children, Rudolf? Margartha?

2. Hans Bernhard fil. 1668, Maria Pfenninger? Child: Verena 1718.
3. Heinrich Reymann 1687, Verena Schroff 1691. Children: Heinrich
1715, Elsbetha 1718, Hans Jacob 1724, Hans Heinrich 1726. Hans
Reymann frat. 1691, Barbara Oberholzer 1690.
4. Jacob Reymann 1694, Offra Hammerli 1695. Children: Margaretha
1726, Hans Erhardt 1739.
5. Hans Bernhard Reymann's, deceased, child, Barbara? Hans Rey-
mann 1685, Esther Sperger, 1678. Children (of first marriage): Anna
1686, Maria 1692, Dorothea 1696, Hans Jacob 1698.
6. Heinrich Reymann fil. 1669, Susanna Hotz 1695. Children:
Margaretha? Rudolph? This particular family is described as 'not in
the parish' - whether temporarily or permanently we do not know.41
Alongside all these Reymann households there were in 1739 only the Hiisser
household consisting of two families (nine persons) and one further family
with six children.
Both these examples from the Wald parish illustrate the structure of
population and its growth in two hamlets around 1740. They represent many
similar cases, and apply to the whole of the Oberland. Industrial earnings
obviously extended the living space in the hamlets and single farmsteads and
indirectly also broadened their subsistence base, since the cash earned by
spinning and weaving could be spent on acquiring new fields and on clearing
new tracts of woodland.42
This brings us to the problem of the formal structure of the family. Both our
examples show how the introduction of the putting-out industry into the
Oberland countryside of single farmsteads and hamlets enabled extended
families and whole kinship groups to live together in a community; not under
one roof but in a small isolated settlement area. Individual households could
also grow into their own extended families. In Hinderburg (parish of
Baretswil) in 1723 there lived eight households with forty-nine members of the
Sporri family in 1723. Hans Jacob Sporri's household consisted of the
following persons:43
Hans Jacob Sporri, sixty-six years; Anna, his wife, sixty-five years
their first son, Hans Jakob Sporri, thirty-nine years; Anna, his wife,
thirty-eight years;
their child: Hans Jakob, six years
their second son, Marx Sporri, thirty-six years; Anna, his wife,
thirty-five years;
their children: Anna, twelve years, Barbara, ten years, Conradt,
three years
their third son, Heinrich Sporri, thirty years; Regula, his wife
their fourth son, Hans Sporri, twenty-eight years; Anna, his wife,
thirty-six years.
We have been guided so far by the general question: where could a newly
married couple find to live? The question as to how the conditions of
settlement in the Oberland gave rise to a specific pattern of industrial
settlement will be discussed in Chapter 4.
In the villages the conditions were different. Here the parishioners could
make it difficult to build and divide up houses, and even entirely forbid it.
They could also forbid stoves and ovens and chimneys from being installed,
and so prevent building.44 This situation produced not only peculiar forms of
communal living, but also equally peculiar subdivisions of houses. As Johann
Conrad Niischeler wrote in 1786, 'this results in the unpleasant consequence
that in most villages in almost every house there are two or three rooms, and in
each room, three to four households'.45 J.C. Hirzel writes: 'One often sees
three to four households squeezed together in one chamber, related in the
second, third or often even remoter degree.'46 We will discuss these residential
patterns and their social effects later on. To come back to our original
question, we can already establish that from the point of view of residential
patterns industrialisation had not broken up familial co-residence, even in the
villages. But, needless to say, these residential patterns, imposed by the
economic imperatives of peasant life, and sanctioned by the authorities, were
designed to destroy the structure of the family from within. There could have
been no question of an intimate family life, when several families were living
together in one room. Such a shortage of living space must have made the
parents dread the birth of every new child. The children were brought up to
move away and live and work elsewhere. Pre-industrial conditions of a legal,
social and economic nature affected and influenced in various ways the
cohesion of the families employed in industry.
Childbirth brings us to another aspect of formal family structure, to the
problem of demographic growth. We begin with the rise in population, a
phenomenon which the economists of the nineteenth century were not the first
to attempt to grasp and explain. Already in the eighteenth century concerned
men, aware of their responsibilities, were writing treatises about it. They were
generally aware that the staggering increase in the birth rate was a direct
consequence of industrialisation. We have already heard Salomon Schinz's
opinion, that industrial earnings had 'straightaway planted'47 hordes of
people in the mountains. Johann Schulthess spoke of a 'torrent of people' and
quoted a deceased pastor as saying: 'these people came with the cotton, and
will have to leave with it'.48 A rich farmer and village official put it, while
talking to Uli Bragger in 1793, even more strongly: 'The cotton louts, like a
rotten dungheap, have given birth to and raised all that rabble, that creeping,
strutting pack of beggars.'49 Behind all these descriptions lay the same
awareness that the putting-out industry had altered the conditions of existence
in the Zurich countryside. J.C. Hirzel tried to analyse these changes using
statistical and scientific methods. On several occasions he compared the
industrialised domain of Wadenswil with the predominantly agrarian domain
of Regensberg. According to the register of cotton spinners and weavers (1787)
there were 1,965 outworkers in Wadenswil and 176 in Regensberg, forty-four
of whom had only turned to this work during the last two years. This meant
that 1/4 of the inhabitants of Wadenswil and 1/20 in Regensberg were
employed in manufacturing. Hirzel drew up a chart of the population growth
in both these domains, which he attributed to 'unhappy Waser'. Hirzel
interpreted these figures as follows:
Year Wadenswil Regensberg
1469 31 599
1529 1,526 2,890
1588 3,060 3,360
1610 4,039 4,290
1634 2,829 2,840
1671 4,421 4,064
1678 4,730 4,090
1700 3,997 4,280
1748 5,931 3,609
1762 6,474 5,031
1771 7,675 4,057
1773 7,415 3,949
One can see that around the middle of the seventeenth century Regensberg had more
people than Wadenschwil, but that since then and especially since the beginning of this
century, during which time cotton factories have grown very numerous and have
mostly fallen into the hands of the clothiers, one discovers an astonishing rise in the
population of Wadenschwil, which proves beyond doubt that the factories encourage
population growth.50
Gerold Meyer of Knonau wrote in 1837 that the industry called in an

'artificial population'. He also compared two regions, in the first of which
industry was generally dominant, in the second of which farming was almost
the only activity. We have included his figures since they concern the
Oberland.51
District ofHinwil
1634 1836
Bartentschweil 484 3,462

Bubikon 262 1,583
Fischenthal 466 2,814
Gossau 859 3,118
Griiningen 674 1,583
Ruti 139 1,112
Wald 570 3,895
Wetzikon 887 3,664
District ofBulach
1634 1836
Bassersdorf 742 1,792

Bulach 1,779 3,400
Dietlikon 215 704
Eglisau 998 1,608
Embrach 1,100 2.012
Glattfelden 593 1,098
Kloten 1,082 2,068
Lufingen 148 262
Rafz 412 1,337
Rorbas 688 1,424
Wallisellen 149 553
Wyl 1,056 1,803
An article entitled 'From the Early Industrial History of Wald'52 provides

us with a detailed history of how the population of this parish developed.
Between 1634 and 1792 the population grew by almost five and a half. H.
Krebser writes that 'These figures are the more impressive when we learn that
the population of the city of Zurich grew from 9,122 to only 10,579 during the
hundred years between 1671 and 1769.' The parish of Fischenthal numbered
3,400 souls in 1817; twice as many inhabitants as in 1949.
These numbers and comparisons are astonishing. The enlargement of the
living space through the putting-out industry can be perceived when we
compare the population density in individual districts in 1836, using Gerold
Meyer's figures.53
Inhabitants
District per square mile
Zurich 9,620
Hinwil 9,120
Bulach 5,030
Regensberg 5,015
They show that the remote region of Hinwil was almost as densely populated
as the fertile regions ofBulach and Regensberg.
This is where we asked ourselves about the formal structure of the family
and its organisational and emotional cohesion. The fact that the birth rate and
the population increased did not mean that marriages had become more
fertile. We have quoted J.C. Hirzel's statistics for the parish of Fischenthal
relating to the phenomenon of the increased frequency of marriage; 'according
to these [statistics] the population has more than doubled within a hundred
years. Marriages have increased by a factor of four and baptisms from 51 to
131, a ratio of 10:24.' The overall result was, however, that marriages had
become less fertile, which Hirzel found so surprising that he did not believe it
and assumed his sums were faulty: 'It could be, however, that previously not
all marriages were registered. Maybe only those celebrated in the village
church.'54 In fact one would expect a different result, according to C. Meiners'
simple reckoning, which has already been quoted: 'On account of the
prospects opened to the countryman and his children by their industry [he
means cottage industry], he was not anxious to limit the size of his family early
on.'55 But if one digs deeper into the living conditions of the putting-out
industry, it is no longer suprising that the fertility of marriages declined. This
many-faceted problem has to be explained by a new approach to birth and the
child itself. We are dealing here with an intellectual and spiritual attitude, and
especially with the basis of everyday Christian beliefs. The industrial popula-
tion cannot be viewed as a whole here, without distorting the picture. We must
undertake to make distinctions.
In places where the population engaged in industry was still able to retain a
bit of farmland, or - as was especially the case in the Oberland - acquire new
lands, they enjoyed different conditions to those experienced by the landless
cottagers. It is remarkable how ownership of land, even in cottage industry
circles, helped keep the family members together. The practice of Rast-giv'mg,
which will be discussed in the next section, could not assume the same
importance among propertied families as among the landless families
employed in cottage industry. In places where industrial earnings had given
rise to a mountain peasantry, a child would be obliged to contribute to the
family budget. He would not be able to avoid his duty of earning the rent for
the property by spinning and weaving. We have become conscious of how
much this customary obligation determined the fate of daughters in particular,
from the stories told us by an old silk weaver.56 She tells how her family
counted on her earning power as a matter of course. 'Just wait until your
daughters are big', the neighbours told their father, 'then you will be able to
put by some money.' They handed the money over quite as a matter of course
and it was used for their own little home or for that of their brothers. The
narrator's sister wove at home until she was forty and handed all her earnings
over. In such a family-orientated economic unit, the bonds between parents
and children would be very strong, due to material considerations, and no
limits would be set on the fertility of the marriage. People wanted children,
especially daughters. Our narrator's neighbour had seven daughters.
Material considerations represented only one aspect and must be linked to
others, bringing us to the heart of our folklorist enquiry, which attempts to
understand ways of life and conditions of existence by looking at the triangle of
I, you and object, that is, the way individuals relate with one another and with
the material world. We will analyse these connections elsewhere.
While one might expect that the fertility of propertied marriages would at
least remain constant, this did not apply to the landless cottager marriages.
Children were rather unwelcome in circles employed in the putting-out
industry, in spite of being able to earn their own keep at a very early age. Their
parents were not unhappy when they moved away from home and were taken
in by strangers. However harsh and 'inhuman' the parents' attitude may seem
to us, they were not too unhappy either when their children died. When Uli
Bragger recovered from a dangerous illness, his father said to him: 'God has
heard your entreaties . . . but I want you to know that I did not think like you,
Uli, and I would have considered myself and you happy if you had departed
hence/ 57 Johann Schulthess wrote:
This is why so many parents did not just think it, but wished out loud and openly for
their children's death. One would hear - and I witnessed this myself- a poor woman
railing at Heaven, when the child of a well-off neighbour died, saying I am not so
happy. If one of my children were to fall off the bench, I would more likely have two of
them get up off the ground again, rather than him break his neck. And another woman,
a poor person walking along the street with the minister, holding hands with a jolly
child just recovered from smallpox, says brazenly before both of them: 'If only he had
died from the pox!'.58
This attitude to child bearing and children was determined on the one hand by
the straightforward reason that a baby kept his mother away from working at
the cottage industry. Time meant money to her. If the child grew up, it would
step into the customary Rast relationship. A further reason was the unimagin-
able shortage of accommodation. The rapid growth in population together
with the local laws against building created living conditions in which every
increase to the household was an unbearable burden. We will learn even more
about these living conditions.
The attitude of the outworkers to birth and children cannot be explained
only in terms of living or material conditions. Undoubtedly the changes
involved, which penetrated large areas of the life of the common people, have
to be understood in relation to the changes to the organisational and emotional
structure of the family. We recognise that our attempt to differentiate between
propertied and landless families can give rise to false conclusions. Owning
property is on the one hand a question of birth, but on the other the symptom
of an intellectual and spiritual attitude. The putting-out industry and the work
it offered brought both the possibility of acquiring land and the other
possibility of discovering self-awareness and satisfaction by developing greater
needs.59
Consequently, we must examine the structure of the family from inside, and
will attempt to do this by taking Rast-giving as our example, paying particular
attention to family cohesion.
Rast means in this context no more than a task, performed over a specific
period.60 Stutz uses the term in this sense when he says of a spinner:
Der Segen war gross by ihrer Arbeit.
Der Rast hat ihr kein Mol versait.
The blessing of her work was great.
She did not fall short of the Rast even once.61
The purely technical meaning of this term was given a broader sense in the
industrial regions around Zurich. Parents or providers would assign a daily or
weekly task - the Rast - t o their children, which they had to complete in return
for their keep. The children were not obliged to do any work in excess of the
Rast and they could keep their excess earnings. The term Rast expanded to
mean not just the task but also the money the task was worth, which gave rise
of the expressions Rastgeben (/tart-giving), Rastnehmen {Rast-takmg) and Rast-
machen (Rast-making).
This introductory definition is generalised and stylised. We are aware that
the whole question of this practice in the putting-out industry cannot be
isolated from the work and the work practices which appeared with cottage
industry. This aspect will be discussed further on.
The brief genesis of Rast-giving and Rast-taking already demonstrates how
the practice (which has often been fiercely condemned) had its roots in the
living conditions of the putting-out industry. One might be inclined to hold
industrialisation responsible for the manifold and indubitably catastrophic
consequences of this practice, and thereby to assess its influence on the life of
the common people as completely negative. But this was not the case. While
industrial earnings had provided the opportunity to develop this practice, by
creating the material preconditions for it, other causal connections must be
held responsible for this development. When Jakob Stutz describes it as a
thoroughly good and beneficial custom, which in no way needs to loosen the
bonds between parents and children, this is evidence enough that industrial
earnings provided both positive and negative opportunities for change. Stutz's
story List and Salome tells a black-and-white tale of two weaving girls. Lazy,
work-shy Lise goes to the bad, but poor, virtuous Salome achieves riches and
respect. Salome's mother, Stutz writes, made her daughter's work easy and
enjoyable, and gave her only reasonable Rast tasks to do. Anything this
virtuous girl was able to earn on top of this was carefully put away in her
savings box. When naughty Lise came to her and tried to lead her astray she
would reply good-naturedly that she did not have the time to go to the Stubeten
(gatherings in people's houses) since she had to keep on weaving so as not to
neglect her weekly Rast.62
We have begun by presenting the 'ruinous Rast-giving'63 in a positive light
on purpose, and will now follow up the development and consequences of this
practice. It has already been stressed that Rast was not practised among
families which were still firmly established on their own land. Their children
would contribute their earnings to the family concern as a matter of course,
since maintaining the property took precedence over individual happiness.
The sister of the woman mentioned above, who stayed at home until she was
forty, did not have any savings of her own.
But as soon as this mental and spiritual attitude to peasant property and
land altered, Rast-giving had to develop; and the danger of such developments
inevitably grew acuter as the countryside became increasingly industrialised.
The question of causality cannot be wholly solved but remains dependent on
the existing conditions. Johann Conrad Nuscheler quotes a very instructive
example. His question about the origin of the unused and neglected farmland
generally received an answer of the following kind:
My wife and I are growing old. So we are not able to work as much as before. We also
have three children, two of whom pay us a Rast of 30 Batzen every week. Only one of our
daughters still helps us with the work. We only do as much work as we can and need to
do and we live from what the other children give us. It would be difficult for us to find
day-labourers and workers or to employ a farmhand and a maid, since their pay and
keep would be too expensive. We can, thanks be to God, do very well on what the
children give us.64
This example demonstrates how the practice had developed within one
generation. It was not just the children who had lost interest in the farm, but
their parents' resignation shows us that their pride in their own farm was
destroyed. This source informs us about the inner cohesion of the family; the
daughter who was still working with her parents felt most strongly bound to
them and to the farm. The other children were involved in a pure Rast
relationship, which meant paying their contribution of 30 Batzen and not
having to do any other work. They had become boarders in their own family. If
within one generation the changes had been able to take hold to such an extent
in this family, which was after all still partly engaged in farming, we should not
be surprised at the forms taken by the practice of giving Rast among those
people who had owned no land for generations. A hundred years had passed
since the 'Description of the Poor in the Whole Countryside' and the growing
number of such landless persons had found sustenance and living space in the
Oberland. Let us recall how it became the custom in those circles to marry
young and without possessions. These people had never learnt what it meant
to dedicate one's life to working on one's own farm and to derive one's self-
confidence and assertiveness from ownership of land. If they were lucky, they
grew up in their own share of a house, otherwise in rented accommodation.
The began earning their own living when very young, at five or six years old. In
these circumstances it is not surprising that forms of Rast-giving developed,
against which the authorities had to intervene. In these circles it became usual
not just for the children to pay their parents a weekly Rast 'thereby believing
that they had purchased their complete independence',65 but even these
extremely loose family ties could be cut and the children would move out and
earn their keep with strangers. Johann Hirzel used the term Rastgeben in this
extreme sense alone:
As people's fear of the All-Knowing diminished so did the children's duty towards their
parents remain unfulfilled. This led to Rast-giving, whereby the children leave the
parental house and earn their keep in other parishes, preferably in distant places, in
order to be able to keep for themselves what they earned over and above the weekly pay
for their board, and to pay many dues to frivolity, thoughtlessness and loose morals,
and so to escape entirely all supervision, especially from the obedience due to their
parents.66
The mandate of 25 March 1779 provides us with more information about Rast
relationships.
The Mayor and council of the town of Zurich must hear and agree with deep-felt regret
that the practice of giving Rast to children in the countryside has over the last few years
increased out of all proportion, leading to the collapse of the discipline and order which
are indispensable to social and domestic existence, and could easily deteriorate into a
dangerous evil. Consequently all children in the countryside are absolutely forbidden
from being given Rast until they have grown old enough to be allowed to leave school,
according to the school ordinance instituted shortly beforehand;67 since these chil-
drens' sorely needed instruction has been neglected on account of giving them Rast too
early on, and since people's attention is directed simply and solely at earning money.
From the time when children are allowed to leave school until the time when they
are permitted to partake of the Lord's Supper, they are to be allowed to give Rast, on
condition that they remain in their parish and do not give Rast without the knowledge of
their parents, the minister and the parish elders, and that they should be told by every
form of official remonstrance to give their Rast to their parents and to be directed by the
minister's most pressing reminders to obey their parents willingly and to live a
Christian and upright life at all times. But should a child of that age want to move away
from his parents for justifiable reasons, he should be allowed to give Rast to honest
decent people in his parish, but only with the consent of his parents, his minister etc.
. . ., and to have the observance of the duties he owes his parents most forcibly instilled
in him. In every case the children are bound to attend religious instruction and
coaching assiduously and nobody is to keep them away from it. Thirdly and finally
those children who have already been admitted to the Lord's Supper, should, in case
the manner of their employment requires that they go outside their parish, be allowed
to do so; but beforehand they should report to the minister of their parish and may only
move away with the consent of their parents and the parish elders, armed with a
certificate of good conduct and a letter of recommendation to the minister of the other
parish for their necessary care and supervision.68
Contemporaries all view the consequences of Rast-giving in the same way:

the 'natural relationship between parents and their children' was 'destroyed,
or to a great extent impaired'.69 In many places Rast was preventing children
from being educated properly.70 T h e bond between parents and children was
loose everywhere in the country.' 71 T h e sacred duties towards the parents
were being neglected.'72 'How could children be brought up properly by
parents who themselves had only just left childhood behind them, who were
not used to any discipline on account of the unholy Rastgeben and had
themselves not learnt to accord their parents any respect?'.73 A pastoral letter
of 1777 admonished:
the so-called Rastgeben is to be banned from your households. You make your children
independent of you and you remove the duty which is incumbent on you, whereby
God's law requires that a child should stand by his parents, when you come to an
agreement that the child should pay you a certain sum for his keep, and keep the rest of
his earnings for himself. You can see already how such Rast children turn against their
parents and how reluctant the parents become to give them any orders so as not to have
to hear their answer: I have my own work to do. Let holding everything in common
remain the cement of your households.74
The social consequences of Rast-giving were obvious: although building
regulations and lack of freedom of movement might hold families in the
putting-out industry together physically, the cohesion of such families was
weakened from within. One is tempted to assign all the blame for the abuses to
industrialisation, since the material possibility of loosening the family bonds
only came with the new work opportunities. But one must remember where
these sections of the population had to seek their livelihood before industrialis-
ation. The father might be in Swabia, earning his own and his family's keep,
and his daughter might be in service in Zurich, his oldest son might be fighting
in Dalmatia and his mother spinning along with the rest of the family in
Fischental, so one really could not talk of an organisational and formal family
cohesion. This was the fate of poor peasant families: day-labourers, cottagers
and villeins. What about the propertied? The younger children, who would
not inherit, either renounced starting families of their own and stayed on the
farm as hands and maids, or they were forced to move away and seek their
fortunes elsewhere. The critics of the eighteenth and twentieth centuries forgot
these conditions of pre-industrial peasant life only too easily, because the fates
of those affected were mostly played out off-stage in distant parts. They judged
the social consequences of industrialisation only negatively and they sang the
praises of the peaceful life of the country. They did not want to take into
account the many people who were able to settle in their own homeland only as
a result of industrialisation. This does not mean we want to trivialise or contest
the social consequences of the Rastgeben practice, but simply to try to
distinguish the sunny and the shady sides of industrialisation clearly.
In our attempt to grasp the changes to ways of life under the influence of the
putting-out industry, we began by looking at the family. The putting-out
system with its employment possibilities tied countless people to their home-
land, who were previously forced to seek their livings among strangers and out
of the country. For countless people the putting-out system provided the
material conditions which allowed them to get married and to found their own
households. This led to the de-materialisation of marriage and the traditional
peasant inheritance customs were changed. The way was open for individuals
to choose their own life partners. Industrial regions were distinguished by a
higher rate of marriage and a strong natural population growth. These are the
visible signs of altered human behaviour and altered inter-personal relations.
The structure and internal cohesion of the family also changed. Families were
obliged by lack of freedom of movement, along with legal and economic
restrictions, to go on living together, and the population growth led to an
expansion of co-residing groups. The material preconditions which had
chained the members of peasant kin groups together in a common destiny no
longer applied, however. This led to the emergence of the nuclear family. The
more a family could rely on its farm alongside cottage industry, the stronger
were the bonds holding the family together. Landless outworker families, who
did not experience this type of material compulsion, fell apart earlier, as was
manifested in the traditional practice of Rastgeben and the early marriages
(beggars' weddings).
All these changes to the structure of society and population went hand in
hand with a new attitude by the population engaged in industry towards life
and society. We will tackle this line of enquiry in the next chapter.
Life and society of the population engaged in
industry
The remarkable population increase which occurred in the eighteenth century

in the industrial regions of the Zurich territory had unavoidable consequences
for the life of all the common people. This demographic surge was felt in all
spheres of everyday life and society. The movement had some of the frenzied
power of a natural phenomenon. We have heard the voices of those who were
horrified by this phenomenon and it is understandable that such voices
became more frequent in times of hardship and crises. But in many places
there also arose, alongside the horror, concern and the desire to understand
the origins of the population growth, to identify its manifold effects and by so
doing also to accept its trail-blazing innovations. Johann Conrad Niischeler
summed up this patriarchal awareness of responsibility in a chapter-heading
in his Beobachtungen eines redlichen Schweizers {Observations of an Honest Swiss)
(1786): 'The population increase, which it is imperative to know and learn
about beforehand'.1
There was no shortage of minds capable of recognising the extent to which
industrialisation built up pressure within the closed sphere of a legal and
economic order, within the rigid constraints of the social structure and the
dogmatic stranglehold of the ecclesiastical authorities' moral legislation; but
the Helvetic Revolution (1798) had to occur before the pressure could be
released. J.C. Hirzel spoke in 1792 of 'the belt which the authorites were
obliged to loosen'.2 In the event, to extend Hirzel's metaphor, the citizens/
subjects had long ago grown out of the clothes offered them by the authorities.
The following example is intended to introduce us to this chapter's line of
enquiry.
The records of the parish supervisory boards in the industrial regions are
full of complaints and arguments about the sittings in church, called kitchen-
orter. When people entered a church, their primary concern was not to
meditate and concentrate on the word of God but to concentrate their forces in
the struggle for the disputed church bench. The record of Wald reports on 7
March 1756 the complaint 'that those in the Mettlen and from Unterbach,
who claim to sit in what is called the Heusser seat push each other a lot and
create a great disturbance in the church'. The Church elders from those places
61
were directed to stop the people creating this disturbance and to denounce
those 'who push so insistently'.3
The connection between these disputes over church sittings and our
enquiry is obvious when we know that the right to the sittings in a church was
linked to house ownership.4 The disruptions to church services were a direct
result of the conditions of existence arising from the movement of populations
which accompanied the process of industrialisation. Hamlets, farmsteads and
villages, like the settlements of Mettlen and Unterbach in our example, were
growing bigger. This development inevitably gave rise to disputes about
entitlement to church sittings, which impaired church services and religious
life as a whole.
Irrelevant as this example may seem at first glance, it does in fact relate to
the question addressed in this chapter. If we want to understand the life and
society of the industrial landscape of the Oberland, we can no longer perceive
the changes simply as a consequence of industrialisation. Our task is rather to
observe the conditions of existence as they emerge from the tension between
industrialisation and the prevailing order.
We are not able to convey the whole picture, but have selected a range of
examples from the most varied spheres of everyday life in order to demonstrate
how the basic conditions of human life and society change.
Let us begin with the most immediate necessity, food, which is 'tradition-
ally considered to serve not just as provision for our bodily needs but also as the
mainstay of our whole being'.5 By considering and assessing food we are taking
a fundamentally important aspect into account. The putting-out industry was
built up on a money economy. Those people who had fallen into industrial
dependence saw their lives bound to this rationally organised economic and
wage system. They procured most of their daily needs by means of a non-
agricultural foreign medium. This medium, money, once introduced into the
original framework of their lives and subsistence economy, flowed more and
more strongly into the Oberland with the growth of industrialisation, and
changed the traditional diet. In Chapter 1 we saw how the possibility of living
in the Oberland was extended from outside by the industrial work opportuni-
ties, and in Chapter 2 we saw how a population grew up with the putting-out
industry which could no longer possibly be fed off the land.6 The less the
Oberland was able to supply its inhabitants with the food they needed, the
more they were obliged and able to alter their local eating habits.
The subject of diet is significant when we come to differentiate between the
property-owning and the landless members of the population engaged in
industry. We have learnt about mountain peasants who were able to cover
their farms' rents and running costs with the help of industrial earnings. Such
families would derive most of their nourishment from a couple of cows
(according to Memories of the Fatherland) and their looms enabled them to earn
their rent and other needs with ease.7 Such a symbiosis between smallholdings
Life and society of the population engaged in industry 63
and cottage industry scarcely altered the traditional diet, in so far as cottage
industry did not entail a transformation of land use and of farming methods. 8
People's food requirements were generally met from their own farm produce,
and depended on the seasonal harvest and slaughtering times in the agri-
cultural year. Milk and flour soups, oatmeal gruel and dried fruit formed the
basic diet along with the few vegetables, turnips, peas, beans and cabbage.
Bread was not an everyday staple for the Oberland peasants. Meat was a
rarity, and most mountain peasants only tasted it when an animal had to be
slaughtered. Potatoes will be discussed later on. We find more precise details
about peasant menus in the more level regions of the canton: the peasants of
Lufingen near Embrach ate barley soup, milk, dried or raw pears for breakfast,
pease pudding and a few vegetables at midday and evening. Most of them had
to buy meat and wine, which is why these were feast-day foods. Minister J.C.
Sulzer noticed that the peasants of Seuzach 'eat peas, barley soup and
vegetables all week'.9 Without being able to go thoroughly into the feeding
habits of previous centuries, these meagre menus remind us that we have not
yet reached the well-fed era of minimum wages and calorie counting. World
trade and its exchange of goods only emerged in the nineteenth century.
Starvation years were a normal feature of life and no one expected to be able to
eat their fill.10 One could sum up the whole diet of those days under the words
'gruel and broth' (Mus und Brei).n
These feeding habits applied to those members of the population engaged
in industry who derived outer and inner support from farming their own
land. 12 They represented a way of life which persisted in this form into the
twentieth century. The latter-day industrialist Jakob Oberholzer came from a
family which derived its livelihood in As-Hubli from domestic weaving and
farming. Jakob tells us himself how he. carried his wares to Winterthur every
week in the 1840s, taking just some dried fruit to eat on the way. 13 The
following life-like vignette is taken from the life of Elisabeth Hess (nee
Brandli): 14
Besides the cloth trade my parents and grandparents also ran a small farm. We owned a
cow, a goat and a pig. We had our own milk, butter, potatoes and fruit for the
household. Our food was simple . . . Each year a pig would be slaughtered and its meat
salted down for the winter, which then gave us something nice to eat every Sunday. All
year round we had to buy meat from farmers who had to kill off their cattle. That always
provided a little variety in what we ate. We also sowed wheat, oats and barley, which
we had ground for us. In wintertime we baked bread and good cakes every month. This
work was always done by my grandfather . . . At New Year he would bring us children
loaves, as well as men and women and all sorts of shapes made out of short pastry.
Senator Heinrich Hess 15 has said that when he was young 'throughout the
year meat appeared only very seldom on the table, during the fair and at
Christmas . . .'
. . . in those days [c. 1890] sugar, chocolate and jam still belonged to the realm of
luxuries. Bread, flour, maize, potatoes, turnips, cabbages and fruit, both dried and
fresh, were the foods which appeared on every table. Meat and sausage turned up only
seldom, not even every Sunday. There were even families who could not afford meat at
any time of the year, although the prices were low.16
The outward self-sufficiency of a farm in which outwork and agriculture
complemented one another reflected its inner structure. Tenacious and
traditionalist forces were inherent in it. An anonymous author wrote in 1811
that
it is a fact generally observed and which certainly also applies to their canton that the
land owner, principally the actual farmer, who is concerned with nothing other than
working his land, remains far more loyal to his father's way of life in his habits and
morals, both under similar as well as under far betterfinancialcircumstances, than he
who is almost exclusively employed in urban and especially in manufacturing trades.17
And yet we have seen how other needs infiltrated even the mountain peasants'
households along with industrial earnings: 'A series of pretentious needs',18 as
the anonymous author called them elsewhere. The more people were being
severed from the land with their lives 'hanging only by threads of cotton, which
they spin or weave',19 the more freedom they acquired to choose the food they
wanted. They no longer belonged to the class of primary producers. Money
interposed itself between their work and their daily nourishment. Their menu
was no longer dictated by their own harvest produce. Food had to be bought,
thus providing the freedom to select foodstuffs both from within and without
their economic sphere. The way was open to satisfying 'pretentious' needs. It
seems important at this point to stress how much the freedom of the population
engaged in industry to determine their diet as they wanted affected the local
peasant economy. When the majority of the population within a rural
economic area becomes consumers, these consumers' demands determine the
type and quality of agricultural produce, leading to the commercialisation of
agriculture.
By comparing a few statistics, one can get an idea of how many Oberland
inhabitants owned no land or property, apart from a vegetable patch, and
lived entirely on their factory earnings. The list of factory workers in the
Griiningen district in 1789 contains the following comment: 'According to the
unanimous reports of the officials it can be estimated that at least a quarter of
the 8,992 spinners are employed in farm work during the summer.'20 Minister
Schinz informs us that in 1918, 1,360 of the 3,400 inhabitants of the parish of
Fischenthal 'lived exclusively on their factory earnings, and around 200
households' owned no immovable property of their own.21 A century earlier
(1702) this parish had numbered 957 inhabitants; of whom '657 persons have
grown fruit, and 300 persons have grown no fruit'.22
Contemporary reports and complaints confirm that the range of food in
factory worker circles had changed and extended beyond the staple foods,
gruel and broth. J.C. Hirzel reported that 'coffee is almost generally drunk for
breakfast, particularly among the factory workers',23 'Coffee and meat are
very common, especially among the class of factory workers.'24 T h e morals of
these people [meaning the inhabitants of the Oberland] have much deterio-
rated as a result of the good factory earnings: large sums go on imported wine
and brandy, and coffee is also a very common drink now.' All these needs had
become so prevalent that the writer doubted whether the supply could meet
the demand any more: 'a circumstance which casts a doubt on factory
earnings, on account of the increased population they lead to, is the lack of an
easy supply of the goods we need. These are in fact many; bread, butter, meat,
timber and logs for burning, all the linen and woollen cloth required for
clothes, and the stimulants which have become necessities: tobacco, tea,
coffee, sugar.'25 C. Meiners makes a connection between the factory workers'
diet and their work: 'since the factory workers are employed at lighter work
and spend their lives sitting down, it is natural that they cannot enjoy the
rough and partly indigestible food eaten by the countryman, whose work is
harder and done in the open air'. The writer, however, perceived that this
explanation was not good enough and pointed to the urban influence to which
the putting-out workers were exposed:
Most factory workers are not satisfied with nourishing and digestible, though cheap
and simple, meals: but they yearn for the tasty foods of the towns, with which they have
opportunity to become familiar. Coffee with the richest cream is drunk every day by all
the factory workers, who eat meat every day as well, and indeed often the most tender
and expensive meat available too. It can happen fairly often that factory workers living
away will send someone to town to fetch veal at times when it is in most short supply
and most expensive.26
Meiners' account illustrates our earlier statement that the diet of manufactur-
ing people was no longer bound exclusively to local and regional harvest
produce. Meat, white bread, cakes, coffee, sugar, wine, brandy, etc., enlarged
the traditional diet. They did not just enlarge it, they also replaced it, since the
new necessities were not just seen as extras and treats: 'in the mountainous
part, where field work has been exchanged for spinning and weaving work,
harmful coffee and even more harmful brandy' serve as food, wrote minister
Holzhalb in 1788.27 The factory population's diet during times of unemploy-
ment is a measure of how much they had grown accustomed to these new needs
and how unable they were to return to gruel and broth. Minister Escher in
Weisslingen wrote in 1792 that their food consisted solely of potatoes and root
coffee over a long period.28 'Many of the poor people do not cook anything for a
few days at a time, but they keep going on bread and wine, or bread and fire
water.'29 'In good times', Johann Schulthess wrote, 'freshly baked white
bread, cakes and whatever else they took a fancy to' made up the factory
workers' diet, but in bad times 'their meals consisted of potatoes, which they
stuffed themselves on, their drink was coffee or chicory-water, which unsettles
the stomach, and brandy, which unsettles the nerves'.30
The aspects considered so far are not enough for understanding the factory
workers' altered dietary habits. Let us tackle Meiners' point about the
technical aspect of the work again. The monotonous work of spinning or
weaving aroused to a considerable degree the desire to interrupt the monotony
of the work with little gastronomic treats. The outworker's appetite was not
stimulated by any physical exercise, which was why his boring work made him
all the keener on tasty titbits. In 7x 7 Years, Jakob Stutz describes how he and
his sisters would long for the taste of food and dainties even while they were
spinning: 'and all at once we would turn choosy, saying we wanted to eat bread
(Brodle) too, like the people in the Spinnstuben normally used to do, since we
were not peasants any more, but we belonged to the class of poor people'. A
newly baked, two-pound loaf of white bread would turn up, and, enlivened by
this gastronomic treat, they would continue their work cheerfully.31
The outworkers' notorious Leckerhaftigkeit32 (sweet tooth) is understand-
able. Their working day was different to that of the agricultural workers, and
they could also arrange their meal times to suit the rhythm of the work. This
had broader implications. In an outworker family the woman's sphere was not
primarily that of kitchen and stove, but of spinning wheel or loom. Her time
was money and cooking had to be done quickly. What was more, the daughters
of outworker families, especially in places where the practice of Rast-giving was
well established, did not learn cooking or household skills any more.33 We will
have more to say about this later on.
The potato made much the deepest and most lasting impact on the
traditional menu. It is revealing that this new tuber was first planted in the
industrial regions. Peasants engaged in industrial work were not only the first
to change to clover cultivation, and to using manure to intensify yields, but
they also planted potatoes earlier and more intensively than anyone else, at a
time when 'in other places the peasants viewed this new fruit with extreme
suspicion'.34 J.C. Hirzel writes that
necessity had taught them long ago to consider how to make the most advantageous use
of their property. As, for instance, when the numbers of factory workers increased, so
too was potato-planting, this insufficiently recognised and honoured Gift of Providence
for the prevention of starvation, first generally introduced in the parishes of Wald and
Fischenthal.35
The Oberland was vitally affected by its inhabitants' change of diet, and it
is so significant for us because it highlights the causal connections between the
process of industrialisation and the existing order. Under the Ancien Regime
ministers were paid by means of tithes. Only primary produce was taxed, and
non-agricultural cottage industry was not affected, so the Oberlanders tried to
avoid paying tithes by turning more and more of their land over to potatoes.
Their traditional field system being one of individual land use made it possible
for them to change over like this, since it was not tied to the compulsory crop
rotation of the three-field system.36 More precise information about the parish
of Wald has been provided by Heinrich Krebser's research; in 1751 the
minister of Wald, Johann Ludwig Meier complained that during his prede-
cessor's ministry
not only has a large part of the pasture and ploughland and cleared ground been laid to
grass and the owners make use of it without paying tithes, but also a large quantity of
potatoes have been increasingly planted, partly in tithe-paying meadows, which have
been dug over, and partly in pasture and ploughland, without paying the tithes on
them.
When the peasants of Wald had to account for themselves to the authorities in
1753-4 they claimed that in their parish for the last fifty years and more,
potatoes had been planted and that no minister had ever demanded his tithe
on them. Potatoes were not mentioned in the old tithe documents. It was
finally agreed that potatoes could be grown in vegetable gardens without tithes
being paid on the produce.37
Convincing as the legal and economic considerations may be in explaining
the introduction of the potato into the Oberland, other aspects must be taken
into account as well. Economic attitudes changed in line with the growth of
cottage industry. The peasant acquired something of the nature of the putting-
out industry when he placed his own farm on the non-agricultural basis of
industrial earnings. He underwent an intellectual upheaval: the rigid fetters of
tradition, which bound him to the working and farming methods of his father
and grandfather were sprung and the way was open to introducing new
methods and crops. This new rural and cottage industrial economic thinking
was manifest in a rationalisation and intensification of farming methods,
primarily in a shift to labour-saving potatoes and pastoral farming.38 Potatoes
and milk products thus became the Oberland mountain farmers' favourite
food. They often ate potatoes three times a day, and an Oberland saying runs:
'Am Morge sur, z'Imbig i der Mondur und z'Nacht geschwellt und angestellt'
('In the morning sour, at lunch in their skins and at night boiled and
dressed').39 Potatoes formed an important basis of the diet not only of land
owners but also of the landless outworkers. Many families were given small
allotments by the land owners, on which they could grow potatoes for the
winter.40 In years of starvation and hardship they were grateful for this new
crop. J.C. Hirzel writes:
In the starvation years [of 1770 and 1771] people began planting potatoes frequently,
but once bread had become cheaper, their enthusiasm began to wane. Factory workers
prefer bread, coffee and meat to potatoes and prefer to run theriskof starving to death
in periods of unemployment to putting something aside against leaner times by their
thrift during the good times.41
To explain the introduction of the potato we have listed the wish to avoid
paying tithes, the ability of the Oberland small farm economy and the
readiness of the outworker peasants to change. But how and why did the
potato become a common food? J.C. Hirzel has provided the decisive answer:
1770 and 1771 were years of starvation and crises which allowed the potato to
become generally accepted, if somewhat slowly. As later on with maize, the
potato was introduced throughout the population during times of need. The
significance of industrialisation in this process is striking. It unleashed the
strong demographic growth by making it possible for people with little or no
landed property to settle down. These people were most severely affected by
the years of hardship and the crises of 1770-1 (and at the turn of the century),
and it is only when set against this gloomy background that J.C. Hirzel's
words can be fully understood: potatoes became a 'gift of Providence' for the
industrial population.
Hirzel's remarks about the lack of thrift among the industrial population
lead us to a whole series of problems, which include the question of diet, but
also point to clothes, the need for luxuries and especially the outward
trappings of life.
In the last chapter we saw how people in outworker circles got married
without any possessions or land, trusting blindly to 'their old friend cotton'.42
The same trust determined the way these people organised their lives.
Whenever factory people are mentioned in contemporary accounts, there are
complaints about their spendthrift ways. G. Meiners wrote: 'It is true that the
largest or at any rate a large proportion of the factory workers spend
everything they have earned in the week, and so when their former earnings
are stopped for only a few weeks, this necessarily leads to oppressive
poverty.'43 The rule became 'living from day to day, hand to mouth', 44 and
'that for every one who has raised himself up there are twenty who live from
one day to the next like the birds of the air/and at every brief work stoppage
they are reduced to begging, scarcity, destitution or oppression by hard-
hearted speculators'.45 Salomon Schinz provides an even more telling and
general characterisation: 'Indeed there is very little to be said in favour of the
actual factory workers. They seem to be very much alike in all the regions of
our part of the world. Thoughtless frivolity, never thinking of the future, but
spending their abundant daily earnings on riotous living was natural to this
depraved class of person.'46
How are we to understand the new attitude to life adopted by the
outworkers, and how are we to explain the fact that large sections of the
country population tied their lives unthinkingly and carelessly to the cotton
industry, described by Uli Bragger as 'like a bird on the bough, like showers in
April'.47
We have seen how the outworkers met their essential needs out of their
intermittent wages. The agricultural year and the necessity to build up
reserves no longer applied to them. They were no longer obliged to calculate
and save up for the months and seasons ahead. Outworker households got
used to an artificial rhythm and only had to cope with short time intervals.
They adjusted their standard of living according to their chancy and variable
incomes, since they, unlike the peasant farmers, required no economic
safeguards. Failed or faulty crops did not affect them directly. They believed
they held the threads of their fate in their own hands, although the fluctuations
in wages, market saturation and escalating prices should have taught them
better. They absorbed these shocks as if they were natural disasters, being
incapable of seeing through the 'mysterious play of economic laws' and
incapable too of recognising how shaky were the foundations on which their
existence rested. The bitter experiences of the collapse of the domestic
spinning industry lay ahead. They could not understand the trade and
customs policies of foreign rulers. But when a neighbouring farmer's harvest
was destroyed by frost and hail, the outworkers reckoned that their livelihood
was secure. Johann Hirzel provides us with an instance of their beliefs in this
regard: spinners and weavers were of the opinion that they were not like
farmers, who 'received their bread from the hand of the Lord'. This meant that
their own 'feeling of dependence on God was weaker'.48 Jakob Stutz's
grandfather taught him his attitude to life and security, which is characteristic
of the attitude of the common people in wider circles: 'One should enjoy it
when one has it, and when it is no longer there, one can still praise almighty
God'.49 In so far as the outworker was able to envisage putting his life on a
secure basis, he was nourished by sources different to the farmers'. The non-
agricultural basis of existence entailed taking a new attitude towards the
material and intellectual things of life.
The factory population's new attitude to life was documented outwardly by
their clothes. Traditional clothes performed various functions over and above
keeping out the cold. They expressed the class and professional status of the
wearer and distinguished between sexes, ages and civil status. By considering
the function of clothes, one can reach conclusions about their wearer's way of
life.50
Traditional clothes had to change along with the new ways of working and
living of the factory population. The outworkers' demands on their everyday
and working clothes differed from the peasants'. Spinners were no longer
exposed to wind and rain and the changing seasons, but were able to do their
work in the shelter of their cottages or out in the open, enjoying the sun's
warmth or the cool shade. Their work did not wear out their clothes, allowing
them to use better and finer cloth for everyday wear. There was plenty of
reason for so doing, since spinning work was done in company.51 People
dressed and adorned themselves with care, mindful of their surroundings.
A further outward factor determined the clothes of the factory workers.
Whereas the countryman was still able to provide his most essential clothing
requirements from his own farm, the majority of outworkers was forced to buy
every little item. Our remarks concerning the self-sufficiency of the peasant
class in the matter of food also applied to their clothes. But even if a propertied
outworker could still call a hemp or flax field his own, his putting-out work
obliged him to calculate whether it was worthwhile for him to spend time on
turning his harvested crops into his own yarn, cloth and clothes. Minister
Brennwald of Maschwanden reported in 1797 that 'Many outworkers are so
enamoured of their work,-on account of the daily shillings which they can earn
with i t . . . that many of them even allow their own hemp to be processed by
other spinners and instead remain seated at their cotton wheel'.52 All sorts of
external circumstances were proposed as reasons for the factory population's
new way of dressing, but they do little to explain it. Of far greater importance
to us is the inner attitude to traditional clothes of country people employed in
industry.
Under the Ancien Regime the State directly controlled the traditional
manner of dressing by means of regulations about morals and clothes. The
State Church of the seventeenth century, with its strict dogma and its rigid
puritanical spirit, determined - in alliance with the lay authorities - the
outward appearance of their country subjects. Official rejection of the world as
a vale of tears, through which one must walk to reach eternal life, was to be
expressed by a plain appearance. Every form of luxury was to be avoided as
bodily temptation. This strict spirit of renunciation of the world reached its
high point in the seventeenth century. It is well known how enduring its mark
on the traditional attitude of the population of town and country has been.53
Alongside the ecclesiastical and religious connotations of the regulations
about morals and clothes, which reflected the Zeitgeist,54 we may distinguish a
further and notorious intention, a survival from the high and late Middle Ages,
to determine clothing according to social standing. The two functions are
intertwined: while the prohibitions were indeed directed against luxury as
such, they contained the elements of social differentiation. The Sabbath and
Moral mandates for town and country of 1650, for instance, stipulate (regard-
ing ostentation) that every country-dweller should 'make sure he has a decent,
suitable dress according to the custom of each village and styled in a manner
appropriate to each person's standing'.55 While town burghers were allowed
only a limited individual range of choice in their clothing, the country-dwellers
were restricted even more by the government regulations. Johann Kaspar
Escher, governor of Kyburg (1717-23) wrote:
the two big Penance Ordinances (Buss-Mandate) issued in August 1722, the first for
the town and burghers, the other for the country and countryfolk, draw in the Article
about haughty dressing (Kleider-Hoffart) a clear distinction between burghers and
peasants, forbidding the latter very many things, which are permitted the burghers;
strangely enough the women of the countryfolk are obliged to wear a truly ridiculous
dress.56
Countryfolk were supposed to be distinguished from townfolk by their out-
ward appearance.
Legal requirements of this kind were reinforced by the traditional demands
of the local community. 'Nobody pretends to be a gentleman or ever to become
one', wrote minister Burkhart about the peasants of Lufingen. 'Nobody can
acquire or assume any outward privileges over the others, without being
ridiculed by the whole village.'57 Of Otelfingen he recorded that
anyone who did not know the place would think I was pulling his leg if I were to tell
him: There is a place in my gracious masters' region where the poisonous snake of
luxury is unknown, although nearly everyone living there is rich, as rich indeed as those
who own more than a ton of gold . . . The richest among them goes about like the
poorest in his baggy trousers and rough twill coat, which they make themselves.58
These few remarks illustrate how important was the function of clothes in
determining the status of the members of the community and for deducing an
individual's sense of status and community and his attitude to life in general,
from his manner and way of dressing. Having just looked at examples from the
local peasant communities the question now arises: how did the factory
population react to traditional ways of dressing?
The sources speak out clearly. The country-dwellers employed in industry
attempted to distance themselves from their peasant environment by the way
they dressed. The anonymous author of Contemporary Remarks about the Swiss
Cotton Manufacture points out that
their income from their abundant earnings gave rise among many of them to
expenditure unsuited to their means and which in many respects overstepped them.
The food and clothes of those who lived from hand to mouth were more expensive than
those of the propertied country people . . . The females vied against each other in
exaggerated and unseemly adornment. Whereas the female inhabitants of the Berne
canton, whose wealth was far more solidly established, remained faithful to their lovely
andflatteringcountry costumes, in the manufacturing cantons of eastern Switzerland a
way of dressing was introduced which was as unsuitable to the country as it was
tasteless, and which bore the marks of decadence. Can this approximation to urban
clothing, life style and morals really be desirable?59
As an 'old, experienced countryman' said to a 'young peasant lad': 'But it is,
unfortunately, only too true that in some places there are simply too many
people who prefer spinning, weaving and knitting to working in the fields',
because 'they earn a fair bit of money every week in the good times and since,
as they say, they want to enjoy themselves, they buy themselves lovely though
useless clothes and often marry early'.60 Meiners pointed out that 'sadly the
factory worker's sweet tooth emerges almost at the same time as his vanity and
desire for admiration. He spends on expensive clothes and fashionable
adornments money which could be spent on the meadows, fields and gardens,
or put aside against hard times.'61 The factory population was given over to 'a
state of frivolity',62 wrote Johann Hirzel, and minister Schweizer, like so many
others, denounced their Kleiderpracht (splendid clothes).63 For the industrial
regions around the lakes, which (as we will see) played a decisive role in the
transmission of urban luxury and cultural goods into the Oberland, we have
Salomon von Orelli's account:
This peasant arrogance [peasant is used here in the sense of country subject as opposed
to town burgher] had evil consequences; it aroused almost irresistibly the country
peoples' desires . . . Very few of them were acute enough to invest the bulk of their
earnings [from industry] either in ground rents or in capital assets . . ., the majority
spent their earnings on pretty clothes and squandered the rest. On Monday morning
there often would not be a shilling left of the money paid to the worker on Saturday; the
whole lot having been cheerfully and fecklessly spent on the Sunday. Why should they
save it? After all they were sure they would have plenty of money again by the following
Saturday. It gradually got to the point where a young weaver-girl would not consider it
an extravagance to have bought herself from her earnings: a bed, a chest, a pretty
colourful dress for Sunday and a black dress for Communion days [these were
considered essential adjuncts for any girl who wanted to find a husband]. Once she had
secured these principal objects, she was free to indulge her vanity by buying more
pretty dresses or to squander her earnings in other ways. Very few would reproach her
for not putting a penny aside, since she would always find a husband and her daily
earnings counted as dividend bearing capital, and indeed could have become that if she
had only wanted it. In these weaver-girls' chests could be found dresses of all colours
and materials, gilt necklaces and pendants as big as horse brasses etc., in which they
paraded on Sundays and holidays. On the other hand, they spent very little on linen;
two shirts and two pairs of stockings were all they felt they needed in that line; whether
whole or full of holes was of no account; after all no one would dare to lift their skirts in
church or on the streets. And they were not bothered about cleanliness; they just
wanted to be dressed up and in their own way, they were very much so.64
Jolly good, that's what I like to hear', riposted the rich Dorlikon farmer
when Uli Bragger complained about the poor progress of his cotton business,
'If only that Donnerslumpenzeug [damned trash; he meant cotton yarn] was
completely mucked up and nobody would buy it any more. By thunder, the
country has been ruined ever since the Donnersbauel [damned cotton] has come
into the country; it has been full of arrogant beggers, weavers and spinners.'65
Minister Schmidlin of Wetzikon wrote on 13 December 1764: 'this year I did
my very best to rid the church of Vanity with her silver, often gilt and golden,
earrings and necklaces'.66
We are aware, when assessing the clergy's and gentry's condemnation of all
needs for finery and ostentation, and the class consciousness of the town
burghers, and the puritanical spirit of the age, that we should take their
historical and contemporary eschatalogical experience into account as well.
'The 1760s were extraordinarily fruitful years both for wheat and for [fruit]
trees and vines', wrote minister Schmidlin, 'and, on account of a good demand
for cotton products, earnings were generally good, one might almost say bad,
given that luxury, especially in these regions, has increased so much that
morality has suffered great harm as a result. So one should not be surprised
that God subsequently attenuated the mis-used surplus with shortage in the
years 1770 and 1771.'67 Salomon Schinz reports how his Fischenthal par-
ishioners experienced the starvation year of 1817: 'the conviction seemed
gradually to gain the upper hand in our region that this time of hardship had
been sent by God as a scourge to improve mankind. People were frequently
heard to say: let us remember this time if God lets us enjoy better days again.
Many acknowledged that their foolish extravagance had increased the poverty
and misery.' He hoped 'that people might restrict their luxury in dress not just
because of the shortage but in the future too by thinking things over wisely'.68
While Cousin Anneli was watching a comet she said: 'Yes, yes, ungodly
arrogance, damned frills, petticoats and lovely broad ribbons; they have all
brought on this sign in the sky and all the unhappiness in the world, and
because the children do not have to learn the questions [of catechism] as they
had to formerly. Is it not going to happen as in the days of Noah?'69
Let us free ourselves of the time-bound value judgements of these accounts
and attempt to portray these changes in neutral terms. The country people
employed in industry were obviously eager to copy town fashions and to do as
the gentry did. Urban life styles became their models. Consequently, as
industrialisation spread over the Zurich countryside, a new class grew up
which was no longer supported by the former sense of community, and which
proclaimed this fact, consciously or sub-consciously, by wearing new sorts of
clothes. This formula does not, however, do justice to the historical facts. We
have stressed that a significant proportion of the factory population was
neither born into nor brought up among the existing communities (whether
professional and social, or local and political). These people, who fell most
exclusively into industrial dependency, lived on the margins of peasant life and
society. So we come much closer to historical truth when we recognise the
mental changes manifested in the new fashions in clothes not as the loss of an
ancient sense of community, but much rather as the product of a new
awareness of community. We should certainly not view the factory popula-
tion's splendid clothes merely as an attempt to ape city ways; a desire to show
off and throw money around. Behind all this 'state of frivolity' lay the longing
for culture of a class of country-dwellers, conscious that they represented a new
and original element. By dressing differently, they attempted to give formal
expression to their sense of community, or, in more general terms, to the
experience of being distinct from their agricultural environment. Everybody,
and indeed every community, constantly needs to be able to assert themselves.
The peasant did so by owning land and cattle, by his community right and his
economic power. We read of farmers whose wealth amounted to 40,000-
60,000 Gulden, but 'as regards clothes and hard work could not be dis-
tinguished from the middle-ranking members of the village community,
except of course in that many of the lesser ones depended on them in various
aspects3.70 The unpropertied outworker knew nothing of this sort of self-
confidence. He sought to assert himself by dressing up and preening, by
ostentation and good living. The rattling coins which he earned by his work
enabled him to distance himself from the farmers by his conspicuous consump-
tion. But he could only do this when his position was strong enough to allow
him to flout powerful convention. Even then he would be subjected to the
mockery of the propertied. Jakob Stutz records how the rich daughters of the
mill went to church in homespun and home-woven clothes 'and if some little
beggar girl, with scarcely a whole shirt to her name, appeared in silk and satin
and came to sit near them, many would be the fingers pointed at her, much to
her shame'. 71 When they were earning good money, the outworkers vied with
one another in their enthusiasm to appear in all their finery and to show their
peasant environment that they had now become something different to and
finer than it.
Given that the factory workers were inclined, in their search for new and
suitable forms, to adopt urban clothes and manners, this demonstrates the
receptive and imitative nature of popular forms of cultural expression. In any
case, the reception of these forms did not occur by chance or arbitrarily. The
outworkers had to enjoy an inner relationship with urban life forms to be able to
adopt them as forms reflecting their class and community consciousness. The
country people employed in industry were bound to urban life by their work,
not only outwardly but also inwardly. The Letter to a Burger of Canton A. about the
Requirements of the Age and the Fatherland mentions this important circumstance:
it seems to me, that people who have been removed from life in the open air while still
children and locked up all day in a nasty hovel or workshop, apart from a few moments
outside, compelled year in and year out to sedentary labour dedicated more to luxury
than the necessities of life, must finally lose their feeling for what is simple and natural
and be dominated by their tendency towards arrogance, glitter, decadence and
frivolity. When several generations have been spent in this physically weakening life
style, dedicated to the need for luxury, it is almost inevitable that it finally also casts the
character in a weak, frivolous and decadent mould.72
These observations enable us to set our question of the altered diet and the
altered clothes of the factory workers in a wider context. Clearly, the living
standards of broad population groups had changed,73 a change which had
occurred unobtrusively and unpredictably. Far-sighted spirits of the second
half of the eighteenth century had recognised how people's raised expectations
from life had changed the fundamental assumptions underlying civic and
social existence. The question 'What is luxury?' had become the burning issue
of the age.74 People were experiencing the Janus face of the putting-out
industry.
In Chapter 1 we pointed to the fact that the Zurich textile industry rested on
the emergence of a putter-out class which combined economic efficiency with
firm, almost puritanical orthodoxy in the pursuit of a better life. In Chapter 5
we will see that the Protestant work ethic played a decisive part in the
development of the Zurich textile industry. But in the eighteenth century a
completely paradoxical situation began to emerge; the spirit of Protestantism
and Puritanism, the driving force behind the process of industrialisation, stood
in the way of industrialisation with its laws regulating finery and morals:
Prachts- undSittengesetze. The Aufmunterungsgesellschaft (Society for Encouraging
(Discussion)) in Basle set its prize-winning question for 1779 as follows: 'To
what extent is it appropriate to set limits to the ostentation of the burghers in a
small Free State, whose prosperity is founded on commerce?' It is easy to read
in these words the awareness that industrialisation had placed Church and
State with their moral laws before a new situation. Two essays among all the
replies submitted were awarded first prize; the first was by Professor Leonhard
Meister and the other by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi.75
The reciprocal relationship between industrialisation and the life of the
common people emerges clearly when we follow the discussion about luxury in
the Basle Aufmunterungsgesellschaft. Both Meister and Pestalozzi and an
anonymous prize-winner found themselves caught up in a truly tragic conflict,
in that they experienced the discrepancy between idea and reality. They
acknowledged that trade, manufacture and industry had become the 'founda-
tion pillars of the new Free State': The Free State of Geneva rests mostly on
the points of watch-hands; Venice, on playing cards; the Netherlands, on
spices and tea-leaves; several Swiss cantons, on packs of silk and cotton.'76
Nationalgeist (national character) correspondingly emerged as these founding
pillars of the State grew in strength, one which could no longer be that of the
shepherds and farmers:
The influence of ostentation on the direction of the national character towards

industrious zeal and on the supply of trained hands necessary for maintaining the local
industry - is very important - a people that has to seek its living in industry - must have
a thousandfold experience of the vagaries of taste, of the circumstances, knowledge and
foolishness of the purchasers - must be prepared for all sorts of changes in the
manufacture of one and the same thing— must be alert to thousands of tiny savings, and
maintainfirmand precise order in the tiniest details of the manufacture - scrupulous
attention to cleanliness and the pleasing appearance of the wares - all this must be a
many-faceted and generally trained force in the national character of a people who seek
their living in trade.77
The mental change described here by Pestalozzi did not only apply to the
urban putting-out masters and craftsmen, but it applied just as much (with a
few adjustments) to the countryfolk employed in industry. While the putting-
out masters and merchants experienced the 'vagaries of taste' as active
participants, the existence of the outworkers depended no less heavily on the
whim of fashion, on market demand for coarser orfineryarn, on the thinner or
thicker weft and warp required on their cloth. While the short-lived fashions
required of the putting-out masters mental agility and the ability to adapt
quickly, the outworkers also had to possess these skills.78 Their involvement in
the production of wares gave rise to an attitude (Pestalozzi's Nationalgeist)
which - to employ folklorist terminology - was opposed to the traditional
continuity of their previous existence. This neutral attitude was manifested in
a new way of life, in refined and increased demands on life, in hitherto
unheard-of needs. Leonard Meister's awareness that 'the fewer needs, the less
toil and trouble, and the less inequality, and so more freedom' was of no use to
him. He had to acknowledge that 'the more people's needs become refined and
multiplied, the more their skill and strength develop'. He recognised that 'skill
and industriousness is the father of luxury'.79 The interplay between manufac-
ture and the intellectual forces behind the changing needs is further illumin-
ated by Pestalozzi:
the son of a locksmith, who engraves garlands on gilt metal, can easily teach himself
how to paint garlands on silk and move on from that to artist's work - and the
seamstresses' daughter, whose attention to taste and neatness enables her to learn any
skill with ease - thus does ostentation direct and form the people of the whole nation -
which, with its various social classes, thereby earns its living - in the very good taste,
the very intellectual attitude, the very adaptability, attention and skill, which make up
the inner strength of all refined manufacture.80
One cannot acquire a wine taster's discernment without also acquiring a need
for drinks other than water. The 'presumptuous requirements', which became
'necessities',81 were a consequence of the new forms of employment. These
needs, however, influenced manufacturing and industrial ability in their turn,
'in that the presumptuous needs became necessary, so too the diligent skill and
inventiveness applied to manufacturing had to be doubled'. 82
Pestalozzi has added to the reciprocal relationship between luxury and
industry analysed by Meister a further relevant and yet new and supplemen-
tary connection 'and so ostentation made marketing the manufactured prod-
ucts of the industry easier - since the more refined people became - the more
their skill, diligence and adaptability became ^characteristics integral to the
national character - the more perfect and enticing their manufactured goods
necessarily became, thus ensuring a constant demand for them'.83
What the far-sighted thinkers of the eighteenth century here recognised in
its beginnings we experience today to a far greater degree: industry and
economy, and with them the whole of civic and social existence, rely on the
constantly changing needs of consumers. Prosperity can only endure as long as
the 'dance around the standard of living' continues. Needs allow new
industrial products to appear, but industrial products give rise to an even
greater extent to new needs. A gigantic propaganda machine has been created
to arouse these needs, which 'forces' people to buy with the help of the latest
psychological insights. We are not here concerned with the business and
economic aspects. We are interested in the human being as consumer and
producer, and in his institutions - the State and society. Our brief glance at the
present age allows us to recognise how clearly Meister and Pestalozzi had
grasped this trail-blazing development. It is a process of tremendous signifi-
cance, according to which man no longer leads, but is led and misled. It is a
process, according to which man, with all his intellectual, spiritual and
psychic needs, becomes an object. With him, all the human and organisational
institutions (family, society, State), and life in general, also become the objects
of economic systems. This development is commonly known by the blanket
phrase 'the advance of civilisation'.
In order to avoid misunderstandings, it is perhaps necessary to mention at
this point that man, society and State are the objects of economic production,
manufacturing and marketing systems, in so far as managers and businessmen
take the former's peculiarities into account and try to adapt these peculiarities
in their own economic interest. This does not imply that we subscribe to
historical materialism. We do not view the production, manufacturing and
economic system as primary driving elements. Man with his mental and
spiritual attitude is still the arbiter of his historical and cultural existence, even
when he finds himself, as here, in a situation where he is treated partly as an
object.
Let us return to the eighteenth century and pursue the discussion about
luxury in the Aufmunterungs-Gesellschaft, thus enabling us to understand
how in this century, which is often considered by historians as a rigid and dead
period, the Zurich town and country inhabitants' attitude to life changed so
much that the content and form of the institutions of Church and State were
questioned. Just as people change their way of life when they establish their
whole existence on a new non-agricultural base, so too the structure of society
and State is changed when it rests on 'the points of watch-hands . . . on packs
of silk and cotton'.
A nation that earns its living by agriculture and by dealing in coarse local produce - a
nation, among which one finds many noble characters living simple lives in accordance
with our old customs on their own property - a nation that has not yet been seduced
beyond the bounds of moderation and restraint by the lengthy enjoyment of refined
manufactured products, such a nation is in a quite different situation to a commercial
state, in which the pursuit of ah injurious industry has turned a thousand seductive
pleasures into essential necessities through the power of habit and custom, and where
the feeling for simplicity and innocence has been altogether removed from the range of
domestic duties.84
The new attitude to luxury is an instructive illustration of how industrialis-

ation had changed social conditions. People could no longer treat the new
needs (for luxury and ostentation) with hostility, because they had become
factors upholding the State. The people who acknowledged this fact found it
all the harder to do so, being conscious of their responsibilities and quite
incapable of approving the 'emancipation of the flesh'. They were only too
aware of the 'Demon of luxury'85 and dedicated pages to depicting the
'decadence of ostentation' as a 'principal source of the great ruin of the
nation' 86 - despite all this, these educators of the people were then obliged to
recognise that luxury was necessary and consequently good:
and so as ostentation formed the national character of the population for the needs of
our national industry, it also preserved the fatherland and increased the number of
hands needed by it as the tools of its manufacturing zeal- since it causes the population
of the State to increase naturally, in relation to the sum of the earnings it casts at the
people.87
Even the anonymous prize-winner had to admit the utility of ostentation,
'which is not in itself harmful, neither to the person who engages in it, nor to
the rest of society', for the good of the people. It would be
highly unwise to forbid such ostentation, which has become a rich source of livelihood
for many hard-working men and women burghers; it would be nothing other than cold-
bloodedly to drive one's fellow citizens into shameful poverty and even to rage in a truly
imprudent manner against one's own blood; since so easily could it happen in our Free
State that the descendants of those who have participated in the present legislation,
would be happy if in their needy condition, they were able to seek their livelihood in
those very sources which their forefathers had so recklessly stopped.88
This drastic representation illustrates what we described at the beginning of
the discussion about luxury as a tragic conflict, in which the Church and the
authorities were caught up. The laws regulating ostentation, and the intellec-
tual attitude of the Church and the authorities upholding them, no longer had
any value since they involved 'raging against one's own blood'. Michael Bosch
described this inner conflict in a speech to the 'Reformed and Moral Society' of
Toggenburg:
And - the over-all earnings, which the (in this sense serviceable) cotton manufacture
has brought to our country, bring in an enormous profit every year, but the immoral use
which our nation makes of this advantage plunges many a patriot into embarrassment,
as to whether he should desire its progress or rather its diminution, with regard to the
best outcome and happiness for our fatherland.89
How did our three prize-winners solve the conflict between idea and reality,
and what can we deduce from it for the purpose of our enquiry?
It is just as difficult 'to eradicate the abuses of wealth and all the monstrous
forms of luxury', Meister acknowledges, as it is to 'kill every snake head on a
Hydra'. 90
That which their fathers, with their simple ways, found agreeable, pleasant and
refreshing is being supplanted by the needs and ways of a more refined age - and it is
impossible, in a small commercial state, to set limits on its principal money-earning
inhabitants and, against the surge of general fashion, the similar wealth in the whole of
Europe, to accept those pleasures of life which are lawful and proper to their station.91
Any discussion about 'limiting ostentation', according to Pestalozzi, must take
into account 'that once the base of ostentation firmly established since human
memory by the wealthier inhabitants has been woven into the needs, into the
source of earnings and the professions, of the common inhabitants - one may
not noticeably limit this firmly established base without committing an
injustice against the common man'. 92 All three prize-winners employ these
sorts of arguments (including the one about the function of luxury in a
commercial State mentioned above) to denounce unanimously the existing
laws against finery and ostentation.93 But when it came to asking what should
replace them we detect a certain amount of unmistakable embarrassment.
Meister believed that luxury ought to 'be governed on the one side by skill and
hard work, on the other by taste and wisdom, and so may it distribute blessings
over families and the state'.94 Pestalozzi formulated it in similar unspecific and
platonic terms: 'and is it not clearly true, at least where indulgence in
ostentation is concerned, that real help is to be hoped for only from the re-
establishment of the wiser spirit of our constitution, earnestly concerned for
the general and pure blessing of the home?'.95
Their embarrassment about suggesting concrete alternatives was derived
on the one hand from the dilemma mentioned above, and on the other hand
from the ambiguity of the existing legislation about ostentation. These laws
had been devised to counter luxury not only in the meaning of the Reforma-
tion, but also with the purpose of limiting it according to a person's social
station. Were these laws to be removed, then the limits set by the authorities,
which had regulated the outward appearance of the different social stations,
would collapse with them. Could the 'earnestly concerned spirit of our
constitution', could 'wisdom and taste' really preserve the traditional clothing
of each social station? The anonymous writer's solution was to allow the
different stations to regulate ostentation themselves:
A truly wise and paternal government divides the whole body of citizens into as many
classes as required by the different stations, trades and degrees of wealth. Each class of
citizens would then decide, through its own leadership, its own laws about ostentation,
since no class can dictate to another in this matter. These ordinances on ostentation
would then be examined by a special state commission, and afterwards, if found to be
beneficial, to be authorised by the government.96
His suggestion that the classes should protect themselves is enlightening
because it shows how much the process of industrialisation had destroyed the
social order both inwardly and outwardly. The writer was no longer able to
employ the term 'Stand' (station) and had to replace it with 'biirgerliche
Classe' (civic classes). These classes were distinguished according to three
criteria, according 'to the different stations, trades and degrees of wealth'.
However much our anonymous author wanted to divide the classes along
traditional lines of thought, this was now unrealistic, since a dynamic and non-
static element had been introduced along with money and wealth. If we look at
the author's definition of luxury, it becomes clear how much the emphasis has
shifted: luxury means 'the sort of ostentation engaged in by a person either
from a desire forfineryor from acquiring airs above his station and means'.97
Whether knowingly or unknowingly his formula 'station and means' couples
the old way of thinking with the burning new issue. Money has become a factor
which determines class, as Meister expressed it: 'the more commercial a state
becomes, the more wealth is valued, and the less nobility'.98 We are standing
at the beginning of a complete shift of emphasis, which can be exaggeratedly
formulated as follows: if previously a man's station determined his degree of
luxury, now his degree of luxury determines his station."
We have used this contemporary discussion about luxury to try to place the
food and dress of the industrially employed country people in a wider context.
In his work about The Swiss Farmer in the Age of Early Capitalism, C.G. Schmidt
demonstrates that in the eighteenth century even peasant thought was
infiltrated by this spirit of the age. 100 The raised expectations of the factory
population also made themselves felt in other spheres of life.101 The discussion
about luxury reveals that people's heightened needs were accompanied by an
emergent desire for culture, a desire which we should see among the rural
outworkers as well. We should not be misled in this by any of the complaints
and admonishments by the ministers and other commentators: the outworker
proclaimed by means of his new life style that he was open to the intellectual
and cultural currents of the age. That he was on the receiving end of many of
these currents was in accordance with his traditional way of behaviour.
The importance of the carriers and the clothiers as transmitters of urban
luxury and cultural goods was paramount. These country inhabitants who
had grown rich in the cotton manufacture had their own specific problems. As
subjects they lacked the political and economic rights of the town burghers,
but their profession and their possessions gave them many opportunities for
participating in the intellectual and cultural life of the town. They tried to
conceal their hybrid status by means of large town-style houses, showy
expenditure, education and fine manners. They became the countryside's
most important transmitters of urban life style. Salomon von Orelli charac-
terised this section of the population with a trace of the town burgher's
supercilious pride in his caste as follows (he is thinking in particular of the
clothiers of Wadenswil):
The manufacturers distinguished themselves blatantly from the peasants, both in their
work and in their manner of life, by their weekly, often daily traffic with the town,
bringing urban fashions and habits, preferably the least tasteful of these, back to their
villages; they went about dressed in the fashion of the town. Since only few of them
actually grew their own food, their table was also spread differently to the peasants'
tables. Their favourite food was fresh meat and they learnt to like and prepare tasty
dishes in the town's taverns, which they frequented. Distinguished from the peasants
by their town-burgher clothes and life style, they considered themselves truly more
distinguished than them, in spite of being themselves not very much respected by them
on account of this; since they, imitating the town gentlemen and strolling up and down
with a bamboo cane, no less, in their hands, were nicknamed Stekenherren (stick
gentlemen)102 and Langpfeifler (long pipers) due to their using English pipes, by the
peasants. When elegant folk in the towns laid their sticks aside, considering them props
suitable only for helpless old men, the manufacturers also put their clean bamboos
away in their coffers. When bowler hats became the fashion in town, the manufacturers
adopted them too, and had to put up with their neighbours' nickname of Rundhutler
(round hatters), castinggrober Baurenflegel (rough peasant louts) at them in return. The
show-offs among them also used words in a distinctive way; they happily appropriated
French words which they picked up somehow in town, and then frequently introduced
into general currency in sadly mutilated form.103
This is not yet the moment to investigate the clothiers as the representatives
and transmitters of cultural and intellectual goods and to correct Salomon von
Orelli's class-bound assessment. Salomon Schinz bears witness to their
important role as go-betweens, a source which also provides us with a clue
about the distance, in terms of culture, fashion and luxury, between the lake
regions and the Oberland: 'Only a few of the manufacturers themselves
amassed significant wealth for themselves from their frequently abundant
profits. Their pleasure lay in giving themselves airs and living well at home
and on their business journeys. In this and in their fine clothes transplanted
from the lake, their workers imitated them faithfully.'104
The clothiers and their role as go-betweens serve to move our theme on
from discussing life to discussing communal life - to the social life of the
country people employed in industry. The two themes are connected organi-
cally, since food, clothes and life style have to be viewed in the theatre of life. By
which we mean not only the local and geographical space, but also the living
space bound to patterns of the economy and of settlement, to which all human
interaction is tied. Under the Ancien Regime the town and country
inhabitants were divided from one another not just by the town walls; besides
the various regulations about settlement there were also differences of station,
and of politics and wealth, all of which stamped the rural living space and area
of settlement. Thus the separate legislation ruling the countryside also
determined its reception of urban life styles and the social life of those country
people who worked in industry.
We introduce this section with some general reflections which relate mostly
to technical aspects connected with the organisation of manufacturing work.
Spinning and weaving work, being by its nature non-agricultural, means
that the celebrations and customs of the agricultural working year end by
losing their meaning and importance for the industrially employed popula-
tion. This affects in particular those circles owning no property or land. The
agricultural working year is determined by the rhythm of nature. When nature
sleeps, the farmer's work also ceases for a while, and it is only as nature stirs
again that the countryman tills the fields, and his heavy tasks commence. The
agricultural working year is introduced by the spring festivals; once all the
provisions have been stored it ends with the harvest celebrations. We saw in
Chapter 1 how much the fates of the unpropertied poor villagers were bound
before industrialisation to the rhythm of this agricultural year of work and
feasts. As farm-labourers, they did not only participate in the farmers' feasts
and joys, but they also endured all the hardships of winter, when there was no
work to do. The farmers' seasons of work and of feasting, with their respective
dominant interests, were the same as the poor day-labourers'.
However, once the poor villagers' lives 'hung only from threads of cotton,
which they spin or weave',105 the farming year lost its interest and importance
for them. The monotonous work of spinning or weaving, independent of the
changing seasons of the year, meant that their year was no longer split up into
specific parts. When people's dominant interests and rhythm of work alter, the
traditional rural calendar of feasts also loses its significance. So they looked for
new opportunities for interrupting their dreary everyday lives with eating,
drinking, dancing and card games in company. It was the monotony and
tedium of cottage industry which brought on the need for periodic relaxation
and conviviality. The outward pretext for this inward need was furnished by
the industrial system of payment, which occurred periodically after comple-
tion of a specific work load.
This first technical aspect of the work gives rise to a second, which must be
taken into account as we consider and assess the outworkers' social life. Since
industrialisation meant that many of the Oberland inhabitants no longer took
part in agricultural work, the places and opportunities for meeting up,
whether at work or on feast days, also changed. For instance, people no longer
joined in the high-spirited procession of hay-makers, reapers and grape-
pickers, whose progress to and from work was always associated with a spirit of
holiday gaiety.106 Industrialisation turned the spinning shops and places into
the centres of everyday social life - gatherings which knew no fixed seasons.
This non-agricultural work also altered neighbourly relations. People had less
need of their neighbours' material and human assistance (the weavers more
often than the spinners), and consequently far greater need of their company
and conversation during the monotonous work process. Neighbourly ties
became freer, loosed from material ties, but more intimate on a human and
social level.
For the third technical aspect of the work, we must take another look at the
system of payment in the putting-out industry. What has been said about the
money economy and its influence on traditional clothing and diet also applies
to social life. Food and clothes are after all important elements of social life.
Salomon von Orelli wrote about the lake parishes:
The transformation of the houses and clothes was also closely bound up with a change
in people's life style. For a while during the lifetime of thefirstearners everything to do
with the daily household arrangements remained much as it had been previously, but
when friends, relatives and neighbours came to visit, it was no longer good enough to
give them a glass of wine or a slice of ham, with which the people in the country cottages
wearing peasant dress would have felt richly entertained; the table had to groan under
the weight of baked, boiled and roasted foods. People honoured their guests by treating
them like ravenous gobblers.107
The change to their feeding habits must, as we see, be associated with their
social life; life and community formed an organic whole. We will discuss the
commercialised meeting places (taverns, grocers' shops) which emerged as
people thought increasingly in terms of the money economy.
These remarks are somewhat previous, but their fundamental significance
will be revealed. In their general and theoretical form, however, they are
misleading, because they set the new non-agricultural elements in the out-
workers' community far too much in the foreground. We must avoid doing
this, since many customs and practices, which contemporary critics have
blamed on the industrial population, belonged to the realm of peasant
tradition. The outworkers still adhered not only to the new but also to the
thoroughly old forms of community. We emphasised in the last chapter how
the form of courtship known as Kiltgang was in no sense a usage (or abusage)
engaged in exclusively in cottage industry circles. Industrial earnings merely
provided a further section of the population with the material preconditions
which allowed them to express their willingness to get married in this
customary way. By basing their existence on the putting-out industry, the
circle of participants was broadened, putting new life into the ancient practice,
whose form and content adjusted to the altered circumstances. We can take
these comments even further: the traditional practices engaged in by un-
married peasants contain social forms, which were predestined to be taken
over by country people employed in industry. This applies in particular to the
gatherings of unmarried boys and girls in the Lichtstubeten (lighted rooms).
The Lichtstubeten undoubtedly go back to pre-industrial times, and the
institution was strongly underpinned by youth culture. The minister of Egg
complained in his visitation report of 1675 of'the oftentimes forbidden and
frequently abolished Lichtstubeten and Scheidweggen, and the nightly misdoings
which they give rise to: unbridled night-time wantonness and tumult by the
young lads'.108 The minister of Wyla wrote in 1699 that
the prohibited Lichtstubeten in suspected houses, or where there is no proper father of the
household, cannot be prevented in several places, although they are the cause of the
ruin of the young people, and lead to all sorts of pretentious talk inciting them to
shameful deeds, and many secret sins are committed; but it is a sad shortcoming that
the church elders report very little of this.109
Two worlds meet in this complaint: on the one hand the minister as a town
burgher and representative of the ecclesiastical authorities' moral order, on
the other hand the church elders, who had in their youth themselves taken part
in the Lichtstubeten and who knew that the community of the unmarried would
never allow their traditional rights to be discontinued. Also, anyone ill-advised
enough to put a halt to their pre-marital practices ran the risk of having his
land and property damaged.110 Those ministers, church elders and their ilk
who pursued their official duty and reported wrongdoers were subjected to a
punitive raid by the youths.
The Innkeeper of Dorlikon had his windows smashed in [1688] because he would not
allow card playing. In Otelfingen [1701] nobody dares to oppose excursions to Baden
on Sundays any more, for fear of the Night Boys' revenge. Indeed, the treasurer was
badly caught, who was suspected of having reported the young people, on account of
which his fence of 225 posts was torn down, 15 of them broken, and 8 cords of wood
thrown off a wall onto the ground.
This whole complex of peasant customs and the circle practising them, the
community of the unmarried, was supremly important to the rural com-
munity, with its own legal and customary moral order. The question now
arises as to how these traditional forms of community were changed by the
progress of industrialisation. How did the unmarried outworkers respond to
this practice?
Hedwig Strehler has kept closely to the sources in her description of the
Lichtstubeten as part of the community life of the younger generation. It leads us
to ask how this traditional form of peasant conviviality was suited to the
outworkers' manner of working and living. The greatest ruin of the young folk
who rove around at night time are the prohibited Licht- or Kunkelstubeten. By
this is not meant so much the rooms where people gathered together on
account of their spinning work in order to save a bit of light, but all the various
nightly gatherings, which are arranged for the sake of all kinds of exuberance'
(visitation reports of the Zurich Lake Chapter 1697). 'In the evening, when
the sun is setting, the cattle returning from the field home to the stall, and the
birds in the wood are falling silent, man alone in his foolishness acts against
nature and the general order' (Winterthur Chapter 1696). 'The young
unmarried fellows rush around the lanes emitting horrible yells and yodels,
whistling and shouting' (Regensberg Chapter 1703). 'They meet up in the
Lichtstubeten, after sending their parents out of the house, after which they spoil
and gobble up everything' (Glattfelden 1692). The minister of Egg and Oetwil
(1685) has the most complaints about the Lichtstubeten, which are held by the
unbridled youth in 'two places in his parish and daughter parish in Stafa this
winter: the first at Follikon, by a good fifty-two persons, the other in
Carmutzlen, and this last on the night of the earthtremor, when this miserable
company, notwithstanding being reminded by this sign of God's anger, still
stayed together until ten o'clock'.111
Hedwig Strehler's source references reveal how much of her information
came from exclusively agricultural regions. Even before industrialisation,
hemp and flax spinning must have provided an excuse for taking part in
Lichtstubeten. Indeed, the fact that gatherings of this kind were also called
Kunkelstubeten (distaff rooms) is suggestive: this expression could scarcely have
been first coined when people started spinning for the putting-out industry. It
is now clear that the traditional rural institution of Lichtstubeten represented a
form of social life, which also suited unmarried cottagers' way of working. It
almost seemed as if the institution had been created for the working practices
of the cottagers. The unmarried outworkers, both boys and girls, would bring
their spinning wheels or spindles along and so combine work with pleasure in
the company of their friends.
One might now be tempted to say that the Licht- and Kunkelstubeten became
Spinnstuben (spinning parlours) with the advent of industrialisation. But this
was not the case. Lichtstubeten should not be compared with spinning parlours.
The participants in the Lichtstubeten formed a closed circle of friends. Only
confirmed and unmarried persons, who had been accepted into young people's
circles, were allowed to take part in them. In 1775 the governor of Griiningen
prohibited on pain of a 25 Pfund fine 'the displeasing recruitment of young
people, as soon as they have gone up to Communion for the first time, to the
ranks of the night rovers, which is common in a few places5.112
The Lichtstubeten differed from the usual spinning parlours, not only because
of the way their members were recruited but also by their adherence to specific
meeting days. As with the Kiltgang, for instance, which could take place only
on specific weekdays (Tuesdays, Thursday, but particularly Saturday and
Sunday), and the other days were avoided,113 so too the Lichtstubeten were
traditionally only held on these days.
However, most of the pranks, unruliness, mischievous and shameful deeds were
committed by the young people in the two nights of Saturday and Sunday . . . Then
there is no end to their ramping and raging. Soon there will be no wicked business
which will not have been started in the nights before or after Sunday, so that in total
these are the nights when the most sins are committed [Regensberg Chapter 1704].114
Besides the Licht nights there were also the traditional feast days of the
ecclesiastical year, which were celebrated with Lichtstubeten by the young
people. In 7x7 Years, Jakob Stutz describes the Shrove Tuesday practices
during his youth in Hittnau. In the evening, he tells us, a Lichtstubete would be
held in someone's house, and everyone would have to pay an entrance fee of
a shilling. Stutz recalled the 'immoral games' which took place there with
horror.115
Given their function as meeting places for unmarried young, the Licht-
stubeten were certainly no schools for virtue in the sense of the ecclesiastical
authorities' moral order. All the games and diversions at such gatherings,
where future marriage partners met one another, were shot through with
erotic significance. We have heard that people's willingness to get married
increased with industrialisation. The population employed in industry made
use of the ancient form of courtship of the Kiltgang, which by its very nature
required some sort of control by the young people's circles. The need for
'Lichtstubeten and other similar wanton gatherings at day and night time'
grew with the expansion of the putting-out industry. No material ties and
no parental prohibition (especially where Rastgeben was customary) kept
the young unmarried outworkers away from such undertakings. So the
Lichtstubeten, like the z3Licht go, were given a new lease of life by the possibility
of living off the putting-out industry, and the young people's groups still
retained their function as 'representatives of the social and festive life of the
community' under the living conditions of cottage industry.116 The practice of
being forced to do the honourable thing, zu Ehren ziehen^ is a measure of the
young people's ability to enforce moraljustice.117 Unfortunately we possess no
clues as to whether the industrialisation of the Zurich countryside led the
unmarried outworkers to form separate groups of their own. This may well
have been the case, since the putting-out workers with their earnings disposed
of different means and ways of arranging their meetings and undertakings.
The function of the Lichtstubeten as marriage bureaux meant that some form of
differentiation must have been applied when selecting the participants,
although the division between peasant and cottage industry groups could not
have been clear cut.
We will not be mistaken in supposing that many contemporary critics, who
condemned the morals and habits of the country people working in industry,
muddled the Lichtstubeten up with the spinning parlours. This meant that
industrialisation was blamed for things for which it cannot be held respon-
sible, since the town burgher's social station and his education often prevented
him from seeing conditions in the countryside clearly. We will investigate the
spinning parlours later on, as the theatres of a specifically cottage industrial
social life. We want first to shed a little light on the country people's traditional
diversions, since they formed the raw material of country sociability and fun
even after industrialisation, and cottage workers as well as countrymen took
part in them. Whenever we hear of such diversions, we come across youth
culture elements. The Sabbath and Moral Ordinancesfor the Countryside of 1650, for
instance, sums them up for us under the rubric
all kinds of other mischief, perversion and depravity collected together: and so we find,
as formerly, the bold finery and fripperies of Shrove Tuesday nights and such like,
including pancake night {Kuchli holen): Shrove Tuesday and Slaughtering Sunday
carnivals; the shameless New Year, including the frequent singing in the round {das
Ring singen) which takes place from time to time, mostly during summer, in the streets;
rope skipping, which spreads out into our countryside, again, particularly on Sundays.
Night-time wanderings and mischief in the lanes by young folk, lads and daughters: the
Lichtstubeten and other similar wanton gatherings day and night, including the Weid-
stubeten; running and turmoil on Ascension Day on the Kolbenhof and Hiitli mountain;
unnecessary summons to go to Baden on Christmas Eve.118
The wood, garden, meadow and shrub Stubeten gave rise again and again to
complaints. 'On Sundays, large crowds of young people run to the woods, the
barns, the meadows and the common land to dance and jump about there.
Then they go on to eat and drink excessively and to engage in other
immoderate things.' 119 'Boys with long war-tresses' come along 'dressed in all
sorts of silk ribbons, feathers and coloured neckerchiefs . . . but the girls'
bodices are much too small, showing too much bosom, and their skirts are so
scandalously short they scarcely reach down to their knees.'120 It is a custom
with them that 'on Sundays whole troupes of them move into other parishes, to
visit the Sunday school indeed, but also getting involved in all sorts of mischief
along the lanes and in the woods'.121
The law against dancing on Sundays was lifted after the Helvetic Revolu-
tion (1798), and when the marriage courts were established again in 1803
dancing was tacitly tolerated. It was only in 1815 that 'the truly ruinous
dancing on Sunday is restricted to eight Sundays in the year'.122 The young
people were at the centre of every form of diversion and festivity and their
enthusiasm gave rise to complaints by the authorities. They came together at
weddings 'including those who were not invited' and spent 'the whole night
until the morning light in rioting, yelling and shouting'.123 It was also
rumoured 'that in various places on wedding nights the bride and bridegroom
are serenaded by the young people with unpleasant and wanton songs'.124
Complaints about cards and dice games were no less vociferous, as well as
those about playing bowls on Sunday.125 The records of the parish supervisory
board for Wald of 30 June 1754 report
that the young boys, minors, play bowls for shillings and sixpences and often fester at it,
and will not be dissuaded from i t . . . because they tend to go on well into Whit Monday
and end in blows for everything gets very out of hand, in future they are not to play for
longer than till Whit Sunday and be made to observe good order and silence.126
On Sunday 24 April 1760 Heinrich Hess killed fourteen-year-old Caspar

Latsch, 'by throwing a fatal bowl at him', for which he was, 'with the
authorities' consent', placed on 1 June 1760 beneath the pulpit and preached
to about Joshua XX verses 1, 2, 3 and thereafter given a talking to in front of
the honourable church elders.127
The rural inhabitants' party mood tended to brim over especially during
local market days, which were visited from far and wide, on days of solemn
church celebrations and review days. The minister of Wald remarked in his
minutes of the parish supervisory board for 22 August 1752 that he had
received a letter from governor Stokar of Griiningen, in which he complained
about the poor summonses by the parish elders, particularly on Kilbi (Fair)
Sunday and on the Review day. 'All elders have to admit that on Kilbi Sunday
and at the Review things went badly, with drunkenness, blows, violence,
shouts, shooting, calling the hours and drumming.'128
This selection from the colourful sequence of country diversions shows us
that the arm of the ecclesiastical authorities' moral laws was too weak to curb
the vital strength of the young folks, which, as the upholders of the festive and
social life of the community, disrupted their order. The bands of young people
regulated community life according to their own morals and habits. Their
enthusiasm could not be contained by prohibitions. They were constantly
meeting up in secret Schlupf- Spiel- und Trinkwinkeln (hide-outs for playing cards
and drinking). Johann Kaspar Escher, governor of Kyburg (1717-23)
acknowledged that the authorities' order with its puritanical strictness was
itself responsible for these secret goings-on:
On account of the authorities' Buss-Mandat (Peace Ordinance) our country people have
been forbidden all forms of public recreation, although shameful things seldom occur in
public gatherings, and the Societas Civilis et Ejus harmonia is thereby more upheld than
harmed. But since this is not understood, and public dancing, bowling and fairs and
other such diversions have been completely forbidden to the young people, they seek
after secret pleasures, and sit in hidey-holes to play and to engage in all sorts of
wantoness in chambers, thickets and the like.129
In the sections about diet, clothes and luxury we learnt about the growth of
the cottage workers' needs. This trend was reflected in social intercourse as
well: The poorer the lower classes are, the more desirous they are to earn more
money and live well. . . They avoid hard forms of work, and while they used to
work gladly on their farms both before and after work, this time is now
dedicated to idleness and good living.'130 More and more Winkelwirtschaften
(unlicensed pubs) emerged as earnings from the putting-out industry
increased. 'The abundant earnings have rendered a large part of these people
debauched and gluttonous, given over to frivolity and licentiousness. Dives,
taverns and pubs are open day and night in order to restore their low spirits
and keep them good humoured.'131 There were also bath rooms heated by the
bread ovens called Brodstubli which were eagerly patronised by the outworkers
and gave constant 'rise to all sorts of indecent and grievous things'.132
The discussion about luxury revealed that the ecclesiastical authorities'
traditional repudiation of ostentation by the common people was no longer
shared by a circle of citizens conscious of their responsibility. This may also be
observed in their evaluation of country pleasures, an instructive example of
this being The Sensible Village Minister by Johann Heinrich Heidegger, a Reading
Book for Country Clergy and Farmers}33 Heidegger's type of sensible village
minister did not try to repress the country people's diversions with zealous
puritanical severity. 'I wish very much to live among merry people' he says to
the school-master. He is not pleased about the way a few of the villagers leave
at the end of the Sunday service to drink in the neighbouring villages' wine
bars, and to spend their money on wine and games, often getting involved in
quarrels and fights. So he says to the school-master, that the minister wants to
make his people merry. - But I think that it is also happiness to meet the many
difficulties of life with joyful courage, which sweetens many bitter hours.' The
next day, the minister called the carpenter to his house 'and he set up two
oaken posts with iron hooks, then four finished trestles and as many smooth-
planed planks fifteen feet long, and bought two sets of skittles. The following
Sunday he astonished his parish with this bowling pleasure court.' The school-
master hung the pitching device in the rings and set up the game of bowls.
'Come along, dear children!' called the shepherd of souls 'have a right merry
time here'. Now the playing and pitching begins, and bowls are tossed by all
who want to. And so it went on every Sunday and the young lads got used to no
longer going out of the village to drink wine. However, the sensible village
minister went a step further and introduced 'village celebrations at certain
days of the year', and allowed a Tambourin to come in from a neighbouring
village, who played merry dances with his pipe and drum. All the folk were
merry at these 'public enjoyments', but, since the minister was present, they
were never 'wanton or rude'. On rainy days the minister let them all into the
schoolroom. 'People generally sing psalms or religious songs from Zollikofer's
collection; then the minister reads out a newspaper and explains it to the
people, he also reads things to them out of books, which are useful for
housekeeping or for the countryman.'
This theory of Johann Heinrich Heidegger's concerning the happiness of
the common people134 is of a local nature, but may be considered as a
manifestation of a general European intellectual current. We are
not discussing here how far Heidegger's picture of the sensible village
minister is programmatic, or whether it is derived from real examples.135
It is the mental historical phenomenon as such which interests us:
the intellectual foundations of the existing moral order were shattered
even before the Helvetic Revolution blew up the statutes in force from
outside.
It would now be appropriate to continue our theme by placing alongside
the traditional forms of rural sociability, to which the industrialised regions of
the Zurich countryside still adhered and which they expanded still further
with their money economy, other, new forms of social life which were breaking
into the community. But this is not possible. We have to break off the threads
and first learn about other elements of social life in the country. Unfortunately,
we cannot avoid breaking the thread of continuity in our attempt to present the
whole life of a section of the population which based its existence on spinning
wheel and weaving loom.
The outworkers' work places must be briefly examined, in so far as they
were important to the social life of the community. Spinning work should
obviously be distinguished from weaving work; until the beginning of the
nineteenth century the Oberland outworkers were mostly employed at spin-
ning work. The mountainous part of the Griiningen and Kyburg districts was
described by J.C. Hirzel:
Besides these different branches of agriculture, for many years now the large earnings
in the factories have predominated, so that in these mountains everything is teeming
with cotton spinners, and when one has laboriously climbed a steep mountain, one
oftenfindsoneself next to houses with ten to twenty cotton wheels in full movement
standing outside them, being worked by a cheeky populace.136
Hirzel was here describing the spinning area in a hamlet typical of the
scattered Oberland settlements. All the inhabitants of the hamlet who were
employed in spinning work would gather together in a sociable working group,
which would be joined even by those neighbours who lived far away.
Depending on the time of year and the weather they would meet up in the
usual and familiar places, whether in the shelter of a cottage, or on a warm and
sunny hillside, or in the cool shade of a wood. Their common putting-out work
created social centres for their everyday life together. It was not just the people
living in hamlets and on farms who enjoyed working together; these sorts of
spinning places also existed in the villages. Just as people in those days had
spinning parlours for the winter' wrote Jakob Stutz of Hittnau 'so there were
also spinning places in the open for the summer. In our little village there were
two, one at the back side and one at the front, and both near a stream.'137 Two
places for spinning were typical of village life with all its quarrels. These
spinning parlours and places became, alongside the taverns, the little grocers'
shops and other vital services, the most important centres of life in the
community. It was not only the spinners who met up at these places but
peddlars, peep-show men, itinerant actors, pilgrims, messengers and travel-
lers all preferred to rest in such entertaining and pleasant places.138 Children
would tumble all over them or eavesdrop on their elders' conversation. Little
Jakob Stutz was attracted 'strongly to the spinning places just as he was to the
spinning parlours'. His works provide us with the most telling portrayals of life
and work in the spinning parlours and places. The tone was set by the female
element, and so it was quite natural that 'mostly village tales were told and
every household was picked over in every possible way'. People complained
about the times, grumbled against the authorities and criticised the passers-
by. Spinning parlours and places were really story-telling circles, in which the
treasury of traditional tales in all its forms was exhibited and absorbed. Sagas,
fairy-tales, ballads, farces, jokes and scandals, etc., were told over and over
again. Stutz provides enough examples of this in his autobiographical work
and in his Gemdlde aus dem Volksleben (Pictures from the Life of the Common
People)}39 Johann Schulthess said of the outworkers that 'their thoughtless
gossip and the like has become so sweet and dear to them that any better
course soon becomes unbearable to them for lack of it'.140
As well as gossip and story-telling, songs were frequently sung.
Even now I hear those loud songs of the psalms, religious and worldly songs, which
were intoned on beautiful summer evenings, when the spinner-girls were still spinning
by moonlight and the boys and girls of the little village would gather around them and,
picking a leaf from the nearby peartree and holding it to their lips, would entice sweet
tones from it and so join in the singing. O, how I loved to listen and how happy I felt to
be there!
wrote Jakob Stutz about his youth. They sang Schbnster Abendstem (Most Beautiful
Evening Star); Wie nach einer Wasserquelle, ein Hirsch schreiet mit Begier (Just as a Deer
Cries out in his Longingfor a Source of Water); Anne li, wo bist gester gsi (Anneli, Where
Were You Yesterday?); 0 Strassburg, o Strassburg; Lustig will ihjung noh bi (I Want to
be Merry, Young I still Am)) Es stoht ein Hus i der Este {There Stands a House in the
Este), etc. They would sing through the whole repertoire of songs during their
busy spinning, both merry and sad ones, but mostly religious songs and
psalms.141 We will return briefly to the repertoire of songs available to them.
To this traditional treasury of stories and songs, the ghost stories, the
chivalrous idylls, folk songs and psalms was added the young spinner-folk's
reserves of fun. The mood and atmosphere of the Lichtstubeten must have
emerged fairly frequently in the spinning parlours as well, when the company
there allowed it. Stutz does not conceal this aspect 'I have now told about the
better part of the spinning parlours, but must also say that religious and decent
worldly songs were not the only songs sung there and lovely stories were not
the only ones told there. Oh, there were at times some coarse songs sung and
coarse things told.'142 The psalms were replaced by jokes and games of forfeits
and all sorts of tomfoolery.
Know too, that once one of the spinners secretly span a trip-rope across the threshold,
and then stood in the doorway, waiting for the other companions. As they came up with
their spinning wheels, he called out to them from far off'Hurry up and come in; there's
a New Yearfiddlerin the parlour; we're going to dance tonight, whatever the weather.
Run, run!' That made the girls and boys step to it; everyone wanted to get there first.
Three of them then tripped over into the room with their spinning wheels with such a
dreadful crash that the people inside were so startled they nearly fainted.143
The spinning places served, particularly on Review days, as outdoor parties
for the unmarried young. 'The spinning places were most lively on Review
days, when the soldiers came home again. O, how the young and old spinner-
girls laughed when they heard the soldiers from afar, yelling, singing and
shooting.' There was an 'incessant rustling and titivating' among the girls
until they turned up. As they arrived, the soldiers leaped in between the
spinning wheels, and 'embraced the girls, sitting down with them on their
chairs and engaging in all sorts of tomfoolery, while other comrades shot their
bolts in every nook and cranny'.144
We have been able to provide a rapid portrait of the spinning parlours and
places by following Jakob Stutz's vivid description, but we must remember
that he is talking about a village in which domestic weaving had already made
inroads. Many of the male outworkers were obliged as weavers to stay at
home, working on their own at their looms and not taking part in the merry
company of the spinners. Consequently, the female sex ruled the village
spinning places even more strongly than was the case with the spinning places
in the mountain hamlets and farms. The extent to which food, clothes and
luxury not only provided important and ever-relevant matter for talk in the
spinning communities, but also became elements contributing to the cohesion
of the community, has been stressed elsewhere.
The spinners' custom of getting together in groups in order to alleviate the
monotony of their work with entertainment, conversation, singing and joking,
gave rise to endless complaints. Whenever the darker side of industrialisation
was mentioned, the outworkers' working groups would be referred to in harsh
terms. 'Where people of both sexes are always together in the warmth of the
parlours and in summer in the shade to perform work which demands very
little of their heads or their hearts,' they pass the time in talk 'which generally
turns on good living, lewdness, betrayal and theft', and whoever 'reveals the
smuttiest fancies thinks himself and others a hero.' 145 It cannot be denied that
the conversation and entertainment in these spinning groups could sink to a
rather uninspiring level and could be loaded with erotic tension, in so far as the
members of a particular group allowed it to. In such cases the spinning
parlours were scarcely distinguishable from the Lichstubeten. However, this
immoral and erotic tone was not the rule, but was restricted to specific groups
and associated with particular days and times of the day. We must also
remember that the farming year also provided places and opportunities at
which 'coarse songs were sung and coarse things spoken and done'. So it is
revealing that the unedifying stories which little Jakob Stutz listened to in the
spinning parlours were played out within the context of peasant life and work:
there were really colourful stories about the life of the reapers at harvest time, when the
young men and girls moved out into the countryside. Once night fell, everyone, women
and men folk, had to lie down together up on the hay-stack. But little enough sleeping
was done. Yea, the whole night was spent in to-ing and fro-ing like at fair time.146
The complaint that these cottage industry working groups were damaging
the morals and manners of children carried greater weight:
they are the easier seduced, in that the factory work makes so little demand on their
spiritual or physical strength that it is considered by the common people to be idleness,
and such children are mostly raised in large social groups, in weaving parlours or
printing shops, or in spinning places, where the more wanton members easily mislead
the others with their words and example. Unfortunately, the under-age children of poor
parents may also be found in such gatherings, who have to assume the burdens of
adulthood early on, and acquire the taste for such things which get more and more out
of control and ruin their dispositions, since they miss out on school lessons and are
removed from their parents' supervision and care. This evil is spreading wherever the
Rast system is introduced.147
The possibility should not be dismissed that the stages of human life, which
had until then been clearly demarcated by a variety of practices, were made
more indeterminate by cottage industry. The common and uniform work
could be done as well by a five-year-old child as by his father, mother and
grandmother, and this removed the natural divisions between people of
different ages and civil status, each performing their appropriate tasks. The
children most strongly affected were those whose work meant they grew up too
quickly in a world to which they were not yet supposed to belong. As we have
seen, manifestations of the youth culture could not always be banned from the
spinning parlours, and so the children learnt various things about the lives and
longings of the unmarried, before they had received the Sacrament. The
narrow closed circle of the unmarried was loosened and expanded by
industrial work and industrial earnings.
Our portrayal of the social and community life of the outworkers has so far
been somewhat stylised. The reality was more complicated. The different
ways of life in the villages, hamlets and scattered farmsteads ought to be
described individually, and we will try to make up for some of this in the next
chapter. One decisive factor in the life of the community, with all the customs
and practices this involved, was the form of the houses and settlements, from
which conservative forces emanated.
The spinning parlours and places lead us to the traditional culture and
mental attitude of the outworkers. Our task would now be to learn about the
institutions which transmitted this culture to the rural inhabitants under the
Ancien Regime, thus influencing their intellectual attitude: the churches and
schools of the Zurich countryside. Given the framework of our study, it is not
possible for us to dwell on this further, and we are obliged to refer the reader to
the abundant literature on the subject, full of source materials.148 The
question we want to ask is how the outworkers reacted to the Church and the
authorities' institutions: to what extent was the mental attitude of the country
people employed in industry altered by the advance of industrialisation? To
what extent did they free themselves from their intellectual straitjacket, forced
on them up till then by Church and school, and arrive on their own or with the
help of enlightened popular educators at a new culture, at an intellectual
attitude, which was distinguished from that of their peasant neighbours?
The quarrels about the sittings in church have shown us how the rigid
institutions of the country's churches directly affected religious life in the
parish. The conservative church organisation was no longer able to withstand
the pressure of population in the industrial regions, especially in the Oberland,
with its scattered settlements where, by the eighteenth century, the distribu-
tion of churches no longer reflected the conditions there at all. Farms and
hamlets had grown so much that they were often bigger than the village in
which the church stood. Other churches were indeed built, but the organisa-
tion of the parish did not adapt to the altered conditions. The old arrangement
whereby villages, hamlets and farmsteads were assigned to one parish church
remained standing. Conrad Niischeler remarked on these conditions in
1786:
Atfirst,since there were only a few churches, all the villages which did have their own
church had the neighbouring villages with no church of their own, as well as all the
surrounding hamlets and farmsteads, directed and ordered to attend theirs. Since that
time many churches have been built; so nowadays one sees whole villages obliged to
travel one or one and a half hours to go to church, although other churches lie far closer
to them, yea they often have even to walk past churches only half as far away. The result
is that people only seldom go to church, nor can they send their children to Sunday
school.149
The inability of the church parishes to adapt alienated the countryfolk
employed in industry. In spite of being obliged to attend church services by the
authorities, they did so irregularly.150 The admission policy of the church
parishes was not designed to strengthen their community ties from within,
since the material restrictions of this admission policy were directed expressly
against the unpropertied outworkers.151
Besides these outward circumstances determining the attitude of the
industrially employed country population towards church and authorities,
there were also inner circumstances. The outworkers' relationship with God
the 'Creator and Preserver of all things' differed from that of their peasant
environment. Under the terms of popular piety, the peasant struck a bargain
with God: 'I go to church for you and you preserve my harvest from hail'152 -
but this did not apply to the outworkers. The factory workers, 'among whom
the feeling of dependence on God was weaker',153 were less afraid of the
avenging God of the Old Testament than were the peasants.
Among those classes who eat their bread in the sweat of their brow onefindsthe most
feeling for religion, simplicity, loyalty and probity. The feeling of their dependence on
God, who makes the seed and the crops prosper, makes them more serious,firmerin
character, and at the same time brings them closer to their Creator and Preserver of all
things.154
Church-going was an important aspect of popular peasant piety; 'their
traditional outward and purposeful interpretation of everything concerning
church services as offerings to God'155 did not suffer under the dual function of
the Zurich State Church under the Ancien Regime. It did little harm to the
peasants' religiosity when the authorities' ordinances were not only read out
from the pulpit, but the church was also used for 'the usual selling and
auctioning of pigs, old cows and other meat, not to mention snails, oil-presses,
bath rooms, blood-letting and shooting days and any other ridiculous and
unpleasant matters'.156
The outworker, with his new basis of existence, who saw his former
relationship with God questioned, was forcibly more critical about traditional
church-going. His relationship with God and Church was de-materialised.
The formalistic State Church offered him no respite from his doubts, and
instead herrigiddogma provided him with many opportunities for criticism. If
the outworker did not simply turn away in dull indifference from everything to
do with church religion, he relapsed into a melancholy search for a personal,
living God independently of church religion. His work afforded him the time
for considering religious questions and doubts, and he would discuss these
matters with like-minded associates during their working day together.
Religious discussions and arguments were among the usual subjects of
conversation in the Oberland spinning parlours and places.157 The life style of
the Oberland Separatists provided a constant source of comparison for people
searching for a new form of religious life. Indeed, all sorts of different religious
sects fell on fertile ground in the industrial countryside of the Oberland and
flourished. People's understanding of religion, as Johann Hirzel acknow-
ledged, tended towards mysticism, to the disadvantage of true religion,
particularly in the remoter regions and through association with Separatists
and fanatical women. A mysticism which merged with the general belief in
ghosts and superstition in a weird hodgepodge.158 The religious boundaries of
the Oberland contributed their bit towards ensuring that people's under-
standing about everything to do with orthodox religion remained weak and
critical.
Although the Oberland outworkers' search for religious inspiration often
found refuge in beliefs which did not form part of the Church's teaching, their
religious and intellectual attitude was nonetheless broadly stamped with the
spirit of the Zurich State Church. The country-dweller received all his
knowledge and education from the hand of the Church. The schools were
subordinate to the Church and the school-master was the minister's 'loyal
servant and assistant'.159 The Protestant desire to assist the faithful in reading
Holy Writ provided the chief motive underlying school instruction. Everyone
had to give proof of his ability to read before he was confirmed. Heinrich
Escher, minister of Pfaffikon, provides a description of the country schools
under the Ancien Regime in his synodal speech of 1774:
One cannot imagine anything more dismal than the way the country schools generally
look. - Imagine a heap of little, coarse and ill-bred children who assemble every day in
what is generally a sad and gloomy room, in order to spend a few hours howling and
shrieking. They torture themselves and are tortured in an attempt to learn a few letters,
and then to put them together and read them out. Amidst many threats and blows they
achieve the ability to read something, recite a few psalms and prayers, with neither
understanding nor insight; by the tenth or eleventh year, or even sooner, they leave the
school, their minds and hearts still quite unformed, and in most villages, they are then
left without any further instruction, apart from what they enjoy in the public catechism
classes, which most of them have little desire to attend, because whenever they see the
teacher take up his Zeugnuss-buch, they remember the threats and blows they had
received when learning from these books in school. It will come as no surprise to anyone
that such a youth gives rise to a people who are ignorant in respect of religious
instruction and in other respects ill-bred.160
The educational material of the country schools of Zurich in the eighteenth

century consisted almost exclusively of religious books. The most generally
used were the ABC-Tdfelein, the Namenbuchlein, the Fragstucklein, the big
Lehrmeister, the Book of Psalms and the New Testament. Towards the end of
the eighteenth century new teaching aids became available, such as Grundlicher
Unterricht zum Singen der Psalmen, Chordlen und Liedern. Zum Gebrauch der Lehrenden
und Lernenden in den Schulen {Thorough Instruction in Singing Psalms, Hymns and
Songs. For use by Teachers and Pupils in Schools) (Zurich 1774): Anweisung der lieben
Jugend in den Schulen zu einem christlich-sittlichen, auch dusserlich wohl anstdndigen und
hqflichen Betragen (Directions to the Beloved Youth in the Schools in Christian and Moral,
as well as Outwardly Upright and Polite Behaviour) (Zurich 1774); Christliche Lieder
der vaterl'dndischen Jugend besonders aufder Landschaft, gewidmet von Caspar Lavater
(Christian Songs for the Youth of the Fatherland, particularly in the Countryside,
Dedicated by Caspar Lavater) (Zurich 1774); Biblische Geschichte zum Gebrauch der
Landschulen (Bible Storiesfor Use in the Country Schools) (Zurich 1 ll\)\Neyliche und
kurzweilige Historienfur Kinder (Novel and Exciting Histories for Children) (Zurich
1774); Sittenlehrende Erzdhlungenfur die Land-Schulen (Stories with a Moral Lessonfor
Country Schools) (Zurich 1777), etc.
The teaching aids of the Zurich country schools, which tell us so much
about cultural history, and which formed the country-dwellers' intellectual
and religious awareness and education, have up till now hardly been used as
source material.161 They formed the depository of traditional knowledge and
belief, and people took them for the literal truth, as they did Revelation.
Religion was threatened, war, inflation and pestilence were looming, the
Oberlanders warned each other, when the old teaching aids were replaced in
1811 and the Namenbiichlein and the Catechism were cleansed of old
grammatical and printing mistakes.162
Besides these sacrosanct teaching aids, the Oberlanders derived their
spiritual nourishment above all from the Erbauungsbucher (books of edification).
'A household is seldom to be found,' Heinrich Escher wrote (1774) 'at least in
those regions of the country which are known to me, in which there will not be
found, apart from the Bible or the New Testament, a few books for special
instruction and special edification, but particularly such books as are not best
designed to encourage healthy understanding and true godliness.'163 The
treasury of psalms, of religious and secular songs, as well as the manifold forms
of current oral tradition with its relevance to its surroundings, all served to
round off the country-dwellers' traditional education.164
With regard to the social aspects of community life it was necessary, as with
people's intellectual attitudes and their traditional education, to refer to forms
faithful to tradition. These remained important until far into the nineteenth
century as the sub-structure underlying the trail-blazing innovations. It was
not just their belief in tradition and community which tied the rural subjects to
a life bound up with traditional practices, but Church and State also impeded
the advance of progress with the leaden weight of their laws. Nonetheless, the
decisive turning point in the life of the common people and in popular culture
in the Zurich countryside, one which determined the way matters have turned
out nowadays, must be looked for in the eighteenth century. Our piecemeal
picture of life and society requires filling in here. There are two interwoven
processes which started to emerge in the eighteenth century: the traditional
mentality broke away from the guardianship of the Christian Church and
attempted to come of age by aspiring to a secularised education focussing on
the things of this world. Hand in hand with this process, life in the rural
communities managed to free itself from the traditional compulsion exercised
by the local community with its comprehensive functions, and it split up into
groups with specialised aims and interests, with new forms of community and
community ties. While this process only germinated in the eighteenth century,
it achieved its full flowering in the nineteenth century: the century of popular
education and national unification. We will attempt to show just how closely
these changes in traditional life were connected with industrialisation in the
following pages.
Various disconnected threads in the narrative must now be resumed. We
recognised the emergence of a desire for culture in the outworkers' need for
luxury. The altered material needs of the country people employed in industry
were supported by a corresponding mental attitude. The outworker's manner
of life proclaimed his open attitude to intellectual and cultural trends. His
material needs were accompanied by intellectual needs.
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi saw the altered intellectual and material
culture in the industrial regions of the Zurich countryside clearly:
For ages the Zurich burgher's education was far ahead of the countryman's, who soon
found that in every clergyman educated in this town there dwelt a man, to whom
innocence would cling like a child to his father. But these circumstances are no longer
present and we should not close our eyes to the fact that the level of culture in the factory
regions has brought the countryman in many ways closer to the burgher and even to the
pastor. And nor should we conceal the fact that knowledge and culture are steadily
dwindling in the towns: they have chained themselves to wealth in every branch of life
as a result of the refinement of luxury . . . Wealth, Enlightenment, luxury and vanity
have so changed conditions in the factory regions, that the educational institutions and
legal dispositions, and the restrictions on trades, with which the old pastor-folk used to
keep these regions quiet, are now absolutely inadequate for the present-day needs of
this country . . . we can no longer live in the simplicity of this country's old makeshift
manner of government.165
The process of which Pestalozzi is speaking had advanced furthest in the
industrialised lakeside parishes. Their position near to the city, their involve-
ment in transport activities and the presence of old-established vineyards
favoured their development. We want briefly to pursue these changes, not only
because the new intellectual attitude and way of life appeared most strongly
here, but also because the ground has been prepared for us quite exceptionally
well by Diethelm Fretz in his work Die Entstehung der Lesegesellschaft W'ddenswil
{The Rise of the W'ddenswil Reading Society).
Two groups, distinguished from one another by their education and social
station, must be named as transmitters of the new popular culture. The first
was made up of an enlightened circle of town clergymen and burghers who
wanted to make available to the countryman the fruits of knowledge born on a
rationale and intellectual stream of thought in the Ascetische or the
Oconomische Gesellschaft (Ascetic and Economic Societies). In its insights
and efforts, this group was far ahead of the established order. In many respects
it pointed the way for the second transmitter group, which we have already
met. It was the rising social class of the clothiers, of whom Pestalozzi says that
their respectability (Ehrenfestigkeit), their culture, industry and their economic
and manufacturing strength surpassed those of the ordinary artisan burghers
in the town.166 While the enlightened town burghers saw their efforts as part of
a mission to bring culture to the people, this was not the case with the clothiers.
The latter were concerned with the questions arising from their involvement in
the putting-out industry and which they tried to solve within the framework of
community life in their villages.167 Out of the old local communities there
developed new social and educational circles; a progression which we will
follow by taking the Wadenswil Reading Society as our example. The
development of this educational institution may be seen as typical, though the
educational institute as such is in many ways unique.
The first moves towards improving the education of the rural inhabitants
beyond the level of the parish schools came about following the authorities'
recommendation that group singing be introduced. Since the middle of the
seventeenth century, the authorities had recommended 'night schools' to the
country pastors 'and they were established all over the country by the end of
the eighteenth century'.168 They took place after school, between seven and
nine in the evening, when school boys and girls and both single and married
music lovers practised singing psalms (mostly on Saturdays and Sundays). It
is obvious that the youth bands used these night schools for their own
purposes, and, in spite of the school-masters' and church elders' vigilance,
ordinari allerhand Inkonvenzien169 (usually every form of disturbance) occurred.
These Singing Schools could become 'the spores of modern work in the sphere
of mental culture',170 as long as the preconditions and requirements necessary
for such a development were present. The example of the Wadenswil Singing
School illustrates such a process in great detail. 'About forty years ago'
(c. 1750), wrote Salomon von Orelli, 'the young people of both sexes would
gather together in Wadenschwyl to practice singing psalms'.171 In this
Singschule, as it was called, people started off by singing from the usual
collection of psalms and songs in Bachofen, Schmidlin, etc. But it would not
stop there; 'In those big parishes it was easy to find someone who could
accompany their simple vocal music with the 'cello or the violin . . . In order to
gain entry to the Singing School, and because they were attracted by the
novelty, many young people learnt the music, who would otherwise never have
thought of so doing.'
The Singing Schools were given a further impetus, but in quite a different
direction, when they were joined by the Feldmusikanten (military bands).
In order to be able to practise in something other than marches, the Feldmusikanten were
brought into the Singing School . . . They made good progress; the psalms and holy
songs now became too easy and they asked in the towns about the sort of music popular
there; they managed to get some and tried it out until they got it right. At which point
the humble name of 'Singing School' was scorned and its members accorded them-
selves the respectable title of'Music Society', and when they heard that the townsfolk
did not go to the 'Music Society' but to the concert, then the gentlemen and womenfolk
of Wadenschwyl went to the concert every Sunday evening, to which they very politely
invited the governors or other town worthies who might be visiting the place.
The first phase of development was over: the old Singing School had
become a Music Society, taking its example from the town and keeping in step
with the times. The former representatives of social life, the young people,
were no longer the only participants in this process. The demands made on the
members had become much too specialised for that. A new class of member,
with refined aspirations, took over the leadership and determined the level of
entertainment (we will get to know them later on).
A major milestone in the history of the Wadenswil Music Society, which
grew out of the old Singing School, was the inauguration of their newly built
church in 1767. The Wadenswil music-making circle was unable to find
anything in the canon of contemporary music whose contents provided an
adequate reflection of their 'unique undertaking and their self-conscious,
exaggerated sense of celebration'.172 So they set about creating their own
celebration cantata. Johann Jakob Nageli, the parish curate, wrote the book,
and it was set to music by an unknown composer.173 The composer arranged
for the following instruments: two oboes, two trumpets, two violins, two violas,
one bassoon, one contra-bass and two French horns. They were not satisfied
with that, but borrowed 'an organ, a piano and many other instruments
besides' from a town Music Society. They also brought in supplementary
musicians from outside. The celebration was a great success. Guests from
Zurich, Winterthur, Schaffhausen, etc., took part in it. On the Monday after
the inauguration ceremony (24 August 1767) the celebration cantata had to
be repeated. New performances were planned, but were prevented from the
Zurich end, demanding the return of their instruments. Fretz interpreted the
obstruction of these culturally first-rate concerts as
the indication of the Sovereign's concern to prevent each and every town practice from
being transmitted ready-made to the countryside, because it had not grown up
genetically from the natural needs of land and people, but as a ferment, and was much
more likely to give rise only to unhealthy feverish mental states, instead of providing
true recreation.'74
However, as we saw, the Wadenswil Music Society and its celebration cantata
did grow up 'genetically from the natural needs of land and people'. But not all
the town burghers were able or willing to admit this. They did not acknow-
ledge the intellectual maturity of the rural population.
The inauguration celebrations of the Wadenswil church must have
stimulated its neighbouring lakeside parishes. A Music Society was formed in
Stafa, without any claim to having ever been a Singing School, as Salomon von
Orelli reports. Their concerts were attended by town visitors as well. Salomon
von Orelli reported on their activities that
the Music Society in Stafa aroused even greater respect than that of Wadenschwyl on
account of its outside audience. It preened itself somewhat about this, but in a short
time it also achieved the advantage of greater skill than the former and turned more to
foreign compositions. I still remember, at the beginning of the seventies on the occasion
of an inspection by the Highways Commission, how they were invited to an Opera
Seria, which however was not given in honour of the committee members, but for a
couple of young persons who were travelling abroad; a big barn was turned into a
theatre and the serious opera acquired by various means the features of an opera buffa,
but the music was performed pretty well, the experts said, and the musicians copied the
bravado and affectations of the travelling virtuosos in a masterly manner.175
The celebration cantata for the inauguration of the Wadenswil church and
the prevention of further performances by town intrigues shed a different light
on the intellectual and cultural situation of the Zurich subjects. It was patently
obvious that the urge for * new-fangled modes of expression in life and
culture' 176 was growing stronger. The town was the centre from which they all
radiated, but the urban forms could not simply be taken over; the country was
far too dominated by the urban authorities and the country inhabitant was
divided from the town burgher by too many restrictions of a social, economic
and political nature. Nevertheless - industrialisation was driving the process
on. Obviously the rural inhabitants tried to master their agonising intellectual
immaturity. They bestirred themselves to set up social and educational
institutions from within their own community, in order to share in the spirit of
the age through them. We must recognise that this development was spurred
on by real desires. Mental and cultural needs grew out of the altered basic
conditions of rural life and community. Urban forms of life and society not
only could, but had to furnish their examples because the industrially
employed population was connected to them both inwardly and outwardly. It
is important to understand these problems within the context in which the
industrialised regions of the Zurich countryside found themselves: the urge
towards intellectual maturity, towards new forms of education and social life
more appropriate to their living conditions, involved the rural inhabitants in a
search for new forms of community and new community bonds. New wine
requires new skins. The authorities limited themselves to issuing dispen-
sations and prohibitions. It was only the 'popular educators and benefactors'
(enlightened town burghers) who assisted the country subjects in their efforts
with advice and actions.
In this situation we are all the more concerned with the driving forces,
which grew up within the rural population itself. Diethelm Fretz has given
these forces names and individualities. They were those persons
who, as mediators between the town textile master, the traders in raw products and
finished fabrics, and the manufacturing countryside, directed the new local manufac-
ture in every respect and led a whole train of persons behind them, whose services
assisted the busy clothiers and carriers and their clients as they came and went. They
made up the circle of innkeepers, messengers, grocers, bakers, milkmen, etc. . . . The
clothiers and their circle, the clan of the Fabrikanten with all their new-fangled ways,
which bound them from behind to the textile workers, and from in front to the town, the
only market for textiles, incorporated the strengths which were chiefly instrumental in
determining the new Wadenswil's form of existence.177
We have already heard Pestalozzi's assessment of the rising social class of the
clothiers. He recognised their awkward position and promoted 'purposeful
male and female educational institutions, in accordance with the wealth and
industry of the country', since it was beyond doubt that 'the manufacturer
requires a different school to that of the beggar child, who weaves for him'.
'Moral Societies' should also be founded, to cater for the many aspirations of
the Zurich subjects. 178
The clothiers, carriers, provisioners, etc.,
both in regard to the acquisition and also to the application of the school learning
permitted them, did not belong to the common run of the village population . . . Unlike
the majority of the village population they disposed of a means of obtaining information
and transmitting thoughts which was applied in the first place to imparting pro-
fessional instructions, but which otherwise rendered these people generally adept at
picking up and evaluating ideas from their reading.179
The normal education of a town burgher was barred to the clothiers and there
were no educational institutions in the country (apart from the parish
schools). So they had no option but to broaden their horizons and satisfy their
thirst for knowledge through self-education. In 1769, Jakob Breitinger (a
professor at the Carolinum) was already surprised and displeased to find 'that
in some parishes along the Zurich Lake people are to be found busily learning
French', which was, in his opinion, only 'so as to be able to read Voltaire and
similar writings'. 180
The clothiers' hunger for education and books cannot be explained merely
in terms of their particular educational situation. The passion for reading was
an eighteenth-century phenomenon, which resulted in book shops, lending
libraries and reading circles being established. In Zurich, Heinrich Kochli
was the first to found a reading library in 1740. 181 The increased need to read
gripped the countryside, where industrialisation was creating the necessary
intellectual and material preconditions for it. The clothiers, who were used to
reading, were the first to be gripped by the intellectual fashion of the age. They
got hold of the reading material either directly through the town lending
libraries and reading circles or indirectly through the mediation of town
burghers based in the villages. They discussed their newly won knowledge
eagerly in the evening societies. The Wadenswil Fabrikanten turned the tavern
'Krone' into the centre of their social life. This inn provided the setting for a
conversation and discussion circle.
Evening gatherings of this nature must be seen as the countryside's
educational institutions. They arose at the same time as the music societies,
which were carried on the same wave of longing for culture. The circles
overlapped, and were responsible for all cultural aspirations in the parish,
including theatrical productions. Salomon von Orelli wrote: 'the fine arts and
the Enlightenment were already so widespread in Wadenswil that the young
people themselves acted out comedies on a stage set up for the purpose'.182 The
actual initiator of these performances was Kaspar Billeter, who subsequently
became famous through the Stafa rising. Proudly he stresses in his autobiogra-
phy that 'in Wadenswil, I repeatedly introduced theatrical entertainments
into country celebrations, and days given over to general enjoyment, instead of
the smutty, tasteless and thoughtless pleasures of the carnival'.183 This
attitude to the old practices of the unmarried young people is typical of the
Krone circle and the Music Society, with their passion for education and their
new ways of celebrating. The 'smutty carnival pleasures' no longer matched
their educational level and ideal and had to be replaced by plays of cultural
value, like those in the town festivals. In spite of all this, the new wealth of
culture was still tied to the old feast days and so became anchored in ancient
custom.
Neither the conversation circle nor the Music Society constituted a firm
organisation with fixed statutes. They bore all the features of a local society
with far-reaching, albeit not all-embracing, functions. Nevertheless the spirit
upholding them was new and no longer committed to the old festive traditions
of the community. New forms of community and new community bonds were
about to emerge. The Music Society, which grew out of the old Singing School,
and the conversation circle in the tavern at the Krone were the seeds of the
present-day Club.
The decisive step was the foundation of a local Reading Society. When we
follow the birth and existence of the Wadenswil Reading Society, we see that
something fundamentally new was taking place in the social life of the local
community. This is not to dismiss the fact that the Wadenswil Reading Society
developed according to its own laws nor to stretch our interpretation of this
example too far. When a rural Club is formed, its shape is always determined
by local forces of an economic, social and intellectual nature. But in spite of
this restriction, we must clearly recognise the overall features in the emergence
of the Wadenswil Reading Society. From the conditions in Wadenswil one
may deduce fundamentally important information about the new form of rural
community life, the Club. The formation of the Wadenswil Reading Society is
not a freakish manifestation but basically connected with the altered condi-
tions of existence in the industrialised regions of the Zurich countryside.
The first minutes of the society, headed 'Projected Plan for Setting up a
Reading Society in Wadenswil' record the thoughts which motivated the
founders of the association:
Everyone is aware that there are so many friends of reading to be found among us and
that their number increases all the time; also the usefulness of reading books is
becoming more and more evident to unprejudiced minds. This consideration led a few
good friends to think that if it were possible to set up a society of book lovers, one would
be able to satisfy one's passion for reading, desire for knowledge, inclination towards
these noble pleasures, call it what you will, cheaply, or maybe even more cheaply, than
when one reads from the lending libraries of Zurich, and one would enjoy the further
advantage of getting the books straight from the presses, since one either does not get
them at all from the lending library, or only after a long delay.184
This introduction constitutes a splendid document about the educational

situation in which the clothiers, carriers and outworkers found themselves. It
shows how the Reading Society was founded in response to a real need for
education, and how much the clothiers emulated a secularised educational
ideal, eager for new and the very newest reading material. Heinrich Zschok-
ke's motto: 'Education for the people is freedom for the people' (Volksbildung ist
Volksbefreiung), which the workers' associations and the educational societies of
the nineteenth century took up and carried on with ardent fervour, is hinted at
in these first minutes of the Wadenswil Reading Society, even though the
words were formulated by a different intellectual and spiritual mood, and
belonged to different mental and historical circumstances.
An important motive for founding the Society (according to the minutes)
was the desire to be able to choose and procure one's reading matter oneself,
independently of the town lending libraries. Diethelm Fretz's comprehensive
book list provides information about the selection. Since every member had
the statutory right to place orders for buying books, works such as Ludwig
Kaiser's Arnold von Winkelried oder die Schlacht bei Sempach {Arnold von Winkelried or
the Battle of Sempach), Friedrich Knuppel's Bildung, Erziehung, Volkswohlseyn,
Patriotismus (Culture, Education, the Common Weal, Patriotism), were procured
alongside another category of book such as Friedrich mit der gebissenen Wange
(Friedrich with the Bitten Cheek) or Taschenbuch fur lustige Leute (Pocket Book for
Merry People). The female element in society made itself felt by its choice of
specifically ladies' magazines, such as the Leipzig Frauenzimmer-Almanack zum
Nuzen und Vergnugen (Women's Almanack for Use and Pleasure), or Die Einsiedlerin
aus den Alpen (The Hermit Girl of the Alps), as well as the monthly Amalien's
Erholungs-Stunden. Deutschland's Tochtern geweiht (Amalia's Hours of Recreation.
Dedicated to the Daughters of Germany). Another tendency within the Society
chose political reading matter: Der Nachtbote aus Frankreich (The Night Messenger
from France), Leben und Schandtaten des Herzogs von Orleans (The Life and Misdeeds of
the Due d'Orleans) were procured, for instance, and francophile literature was
also circulated.185 Revolutionary ideas fell on fertile soil among the clothiers'
educational circles.186
Alongside these intellectual and cultural motives leading to the constitution
of the Reading Society (and which were also expressed individually in the
selection of the books), the founders were also, according to the minutes, led by
clear economic considerations. A Reading Society would allow one to 'satisfy
. . . one's passion for reading and desire for knowledge more cheaply'. This
argument demonstrates the spirit of economy with which the clothiers,
schooled in their manufacturing business, were imbued. Extracts from the
statutes of the Reading Society will show what an important factor the money
economy was in this joint enterprise, and how a money-economy mentality
can result in new community ties. The story of how these statutes arose is
interesting in itself. The initiators and authors of the 'projected plan'
established thirteen 'laws' as the basis of their Society. The constitutional
session took place on 10 October 1790. All eighteen members (among whom a
widow and five unmarried daughters) approved the thirteen laws and added
four additional articles to them. These statutes, while fine in theory, had to be
amended as soon as they were put into practice. Already on 7 April 1791 a
further three 'new laws were made' (according to the minutes). This gave rise
to opposition. 'In order to avoid eventual reproaches and recriminations in the
Society' (according to the minutes), a committee was elected with powers of
arbitration. Solutions were drafted. The Society statutes were rewritten in
1792 on the Feast of St Berchtold, ending with the revealing sentence: 'and
finally the laws recorded above shall remain absolutely as they are for at least a
year and nothing in them be changed, nor new laws made'. When the allotted
period expired on St Berchtold's day in 1793, four more articles were
immediately brought into being.
This brief but eventful summary of the history of the statutes demonstrates
fairly substantially how rational and artificial the new forms of community
and the new community ties were. While the Reading Society certainly grew
organically out of the old local community, it was no longer anchored in it.
Community life was no longer based on customary and familiar neighbour-
hood relations and community ties. People wanted another sort of social
assurance. The members who paid to take part in an organisation fixed in the
statute book wanted to know that their rights and duties were precisely defined
down to the last detail. They were passionate practitioners of a formalism
characteristic of the new emergent community relations. Anyone familiar with
the life of nineteenth-century associations knows how greatly the statutes were
valued and knows too that arguments about the statutes often formed the only
vital aspect of the associations.
Some of the details of the legal arrangements for the Wadenswil Reading
Society will illustrate how purposefully and rationally both form and content
of the new Society were conceived and how material the Society bonds were,
or, rather, could be.187 The history of the statutes as well as the statutes
themselves document the new concept which came into being along with the
Wadenswil Reading Society. The members formed an exclusive society, whose
statutes reveal that a money-economy mentality with a clear rational purpose
had replaced the traditional sense of community rooted in custom.188 One
might argue here that a legal arrangement always appears rational and
artificial and its living reality only becomes apparent when put into practice
and applied. This circumstance must certainly be taken into account where
the Wadenswil Reading Society is concerned. Social life within the Society was
governed by personal ties between individual members independent of all
statutory prescriptions. Yet the arguments about the statutes show that in this
society feelings of community and personal ties, and so on, no longer offered
any security, and that it was only the written laws which guaranteed that the
new community functioned properly. One might be tempted at this point to
say that the Wadenswil Reading Society, as manifested in its organisation and
activity, should not be viewed as something fundamentally new in village
community life. Form and content develop out of the Society's purpose (the
independent purchase of reading matter). So the materialistic community
bonds were a consequence of the capital investment necessary for carrying out
the appointed task. In short, the purpose of the Reading Society could be said
to be a unique phenomenon, which did not reflect an altered life of the common
people.
These objections are invalidated by the example of Maschwanden. In 1797
Pastor Brennwald wrote about his parish community as follows:189
In my village the menfolk especially seem to be rather more cultivated than the author
found them to be in his parish of Cappel [meaning Meyer, who had addressed the
assembly prior to Brennwald]. Not only do several newspapers come into the village,
but consequently other books are also read, especially historical ones. Fasi's Geographic,
Stumpf s Chronik, Bluntschli's Memorabilia Tigurina are not at all unknown here. If
anyone has such a book, he is happy to share it, or else it is read out in company. AbeVs
Death, which came here fortuitously, has done the rounds through quite a few houses. —
Clever guys too- and some who love to discuss all matters rather too eagerly can be met
here.
In Maschwanden, then, people's desire for reading matter and culture was
still embedded in the old neighbourhood relations. It was not restricted, as in
the Wadenswil Reading Society, to an exclusive circle of members, and they
did not have any rules. The local community in Maschwanden was so vital
that they were able to solve their reading and education problem within its
framework. Nor indeed was it the object of the association to establish new
forms of community and new community ties. They developed out of the
altered conditions of existence and the altered life style which were not as
widespread in Maschwanden as in Wadenswil. Pastor Brennwald writes very
instructively about this:
Where luxury in clothes is concerned, I have never seen so little as I have among the
female sex in this region . . . The women preserve their mothers' and grandmothers'
clothes carefully and they all wear the same clothes. The reason for this is that they
seldom go out of their region, and never go to Zurich or in any other town, and it seldom
occurs to any of their daughters to become a town maid, which is in any case of great
benefit to their morals. Most of the women in our region have never seen Zurich in all
their born days, unless it be on their wedding day. When, as seldom happens, someone
is brought here from the lake of Zurich or elsewhere by marriage and brings her fine
clothes, her long skirts etc. with her, she is mocked at, and if she is rich, called a Schleike
(a troublemaker), but if she is poor, a Haatsche (a wanton)! Even more remarkable is the
men's extravagance in clothing. Many of them are cotton merchants, horse and cattle
merchants, pig merchants, or dealers in fruit, cider or brandy . . . I have here various
men whom one would take for real gentlemen, but whose wives and mothers still go
around in the age-old national costume.
We realise from this description of obligatory village custom why Masch-

wanden did not need a reading and educational institution; the local village
community with its comprehensive functions was still intact. We see too, how
the need to read, together with an urban, gentlemanly life style, was brought
into the village by the clothiers and their hangers-on.
The urban form of Society, the Club, only developed when the conditions of
existence in the industrialised countryside had produced a class of population
which felt that its social requirements were no longer fulfilled by the old local
community, and believed that the urban forms of association, with their joint
enterprises, were better suited to their circumstances. We have tried to follow
this development of village community life by taking the Wadenswil Reading
Society as our example. It was far in advance of those of the Oberland
industrial countryside.190 But, despite their backwardness, the same process
was also at work in these regions. For instance, following a musical perform-
ance to celebrate the Reformation in 1819, Music Societies were formed in
Wald and Laupen in 1823, which Hiibli and Hittenberg also joined in 1827. In
the year 1827 the 'Rule of a Singing Society for Friends of Singing, both
Children and Adults of Both Sexes, for the Better Use and Application of their
Hours of Recreation, and especially as a Means of Encouraging Morality in
the School District of Laupen' was established. The foreword to the statutes of
this Society reads:
In earlier times, around fifty years ago [c. 1770-80], the singing in our region is
supposed to have been raised to an exceptional level. Regular gatherings were held to
practice the singing. Anyone who could attended them. Besides the usual night schools,
where the Lobwasser Psalms were sung in choir, other practice sessions for contrapun-
tal songs accompanied by instruments were set up.191
We see how the development in Wald resembled that in Wadenswil down to
the last detail: the night school branched out into a more demanding singing
circle, which drew in instrumental music. A particularly festive occasion (the
celebration of the Reformation in 1819), requiring a larger organisation,
provided the necessary stimulus for the foundation of singing societies along
the lines of a Club. The local community was no longer able to satisfy the
heightened demands made on its social life; rather its tasks were taken over by
specialised organisations. Comprehensive functions were foreign to it. Any-
thing which did not fall within its domain would be taken over by a new
association, founded for this purpose. So the Club mentality gave birth to more
and more new societies. Village life lost its centre and was compartmentalised
into a varied Club life. In 1875, fifty years after the foundation of the singing
societies of Wald and Laupen, we read in the Volksblatt vom Bachtel {People's
Paper of Bachtel) the following notice about the society-orientated life in the
Wald Parish:
In the midst of all occasions and festivities of this and that nature, it might indeed be not
uninteresting to see for once a list of the different Clubs and Societies which contribute
their due part to them. There are no less than thirty-one of them, namely: three male
choirs, two mixed choirs, two Women's Clubs, two Reading Societies, two military
shooting Clubs, three Music Societies, one Rescue Corps, one women's choir, a Society
for the improvement of stock breeding, a Society for every Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday and Sunday, and a Club for workers, alms, dramatics, industry, Grutli, for
church singing, supporting the military, acrobatics, for the people and for the
protection of animals.192
The collapse of village life becomes clearly visible in this gallery of

associations (nowadays the number of Clubs listed by Heinrich Krebser
would be five times greater still). Like the village, the individual villager's
social life involved him in a variety of Clubs 'Anyone in the manufacturing
villages [of the Oberland] who does not belong to at least a dozen Clubs is
considered shy', wrote Peterhans-Bianzano pointedly.193
We have tried to use the example of the conditions in Wadenswil to show
how the old framework of agrarian forms of sociability and community were
burst asunder by the effect of the putting-out industry. The heightened
demands on life and social life, accompanied by a correspondingly intellectual
attitude, and driven by a corresponding urge to acquire culture and education,
no longer found the necessary space to unfold in the old local community; in
other words the old local community could no longer satisfy these demands.
The Club with its particular purpose stepped into its place and brought new
forms of society and community bonds. That the life of the common people had
altered is manifested by the founding of the Societies.
It has already been mentioned that the example of Wadenswil acquired
general significance, although we are aware that it is in the nature of the Club
to owe its existence and individuality to the many local peculiarities. We will
deal with the founding and life of the Clubs in the Oberland more thoroughly
in the planned second part of this enquiry. The appearance of the Club in its
finished state, regarding both legal formalities and content, belongs to the
nineteenth century, with its particular historical and intellectual circum-
stances. But its seeds and first stirrings developed, as we have seen, from the
situation in the later eighteenth century. The driving and shaping forces were
the altered basic conditions of human life and community.
We mentioned at the beginning of the last section that the new forms of
community and community ties developed hand in hand with a secularised
educational ideal which concentrated on the things of this world. The example
of the Wadenswil Society has shown us with exceptional clarity how both
processes merged. Everywhere in the industrialised regions of the Zurich
countryside there was a lively move towards intellectual maturity, announcing
the century of the education and enlightenment of the common people. It was
the fate of these educational efforts that revolutionary philosophy (French
books and newspapers) found its way to them.194 In the Wadenswil Reading
Society this led to an inner crisis and to rifts. For instance, a revolutionary song
of the Reading Society on the Pfaffikon Lake went as follows:195
Die sind verbannt, die mit Verleumders Ranken,
Der Menschen Recht, Freiheit und Gleichheit kranken,
Wer nicht furs allgemeine Beste spricht,
Taugt zu uns nicht.
They are banned, who with slanderers' wiles
Insult the people's rights, freedom and equality,
He who does not speak out for the best for all
Does not deserve to be among us.
The philosophy of the French Revolution was shot through with patriotic
ideas and with the canons of the old tradition of freedom.196 The clothiers and
their circle held this banner aloft. They did not find their adherents among the
farmers and in agricultural regions, but among the outworkers and in the
industrial regions. Annemarie Cluster's dissertation makes this quite clear in
her chapter on 'Revolutionary and Loyal Sentiments towards the Authorities
among the Common People'. Apart from the lakeside parishes, where most of
the leaders lived, the district of Knonau belonged 'to the troubled regions'.
The district of Griiningen and the mountainous part of the Kyburg district
counted 'among the most revolutionary parts of the country5 - all markedly
industrial regions.197
The revolutionary traits in the character of the outworkers and clothiers
cannot surprise us. We have seen how, through their work, they participated
more consciously in the events of the age and had a more critical attitude to the
institutions of Church and State. They felt the anguish of their intellectual,
economical and political tutelage more strongly than did the traditional
farmers, holding firmly to their long-established ways. When, as in the
industrial territory of Zurich, these character traits of the outworkers com-
bined with the temperament of the northern Alps shepherd folk, the result was
tension and revolution. This is to merely hint at the importance of the
contribution of the industrially employed population in preparing the way for
the great upheaval at the end of the eighteenth century. We must refrain from
going into this more closely, since this would require a separate presentation of
the historical and intellectual preconditions (in the local Zurich and the
European context) in order to do justice to the changes in the political, social
and economic structure, which led to the great revolution.
We have attempted in this chapter to understand and present the life and
society of the early industrial countryside. Let us briefly recapitulate, in order

to remind ourselves of the connections once again: we have learnt about the
changes to diet and clothing, as well as the generally heightened needs and the
raised standard of living. The significance of this new life style for people's
sense of self-confidence and self-awareness has been extrapolated: the new life
style contributed to the ability of the industrially employed population to
disengage itself from its rural environment and to experience itself as an
independent entity. This gave rise to a specifically outworker mentality, which
Richard Weiss characterised in the following words:
Here, in this border zone between the Alps and the Lowlands, there arose from the
fusion between small farmers and early industrial workers a type of person which has
been eternalised in literature by Ulrich Bragger's self-portrait The Poor Man from the
Toggenburg: 'A worker-farmer, although close to nature, but not peasant-like, not dull
and securely tied to his own land, but mentally agile and agitated by the changing
events of life and by the fluctuations between times of prosperity, with his carefree
enjoyment of life, and times of crises, with the most bitter poverty; living in constant
uncertainty, which drives one man inwards, brooding on sectarian matters, in poetic
fantasising or in dumb resignation, but allows another to break out in political revolt or
in successful business enterprises and sometimes in moral depravity.'198
The creation and existence of this type of mentality will be looked at from
various points of view in the following chapter.
The outworker life style has led us to the new assessment of luxury and the
standard of living under the influence of the putting-out industry. We moved
from here to social life, attention being paid first to its traditional forms. We
saw that the industrially employed population was still thoroughly committed
to these traditional forms of sociability, which had grown out of a rural and
farming world, with the appropriate bonds of society. In any case new
elements were already appearing among the outworkers. On the one hand
putting-out work brought new rhythms, opportunities and theatres for social
life; on the other hand the basis of existence in the putting-out industry offered
other possibilities for shaping social life.
The intellectual attitude behind these traditional forms of community life
and sociability has been sketched in a few strokes. We showed how the
traditional education of a rural and farming world was trapped in the fetters of
tutelage by the ecclesiastical authorities. However, the traditional forms of
social life with their appropriate community bonds were shattered by the
influence of the putting-out industry, at the same time as were the fetters of an
intellectual tutelage by Church and State. We tried to demonstrate this in the
last section.
All this scarcely adds up to living unity. We are aware that only fragments
can be retrieved from the many-coloured weft of life. To extend this metaphor:
we are further aware that Ziesen (thin patches) and Nester (tangles) have
winkled their way into our fabric. We will try to repair them in the following
pages.
We will close this chapter with the verse inscribed on the house of an
Appenzell outworker, who thus acknowledged that his existence was based on
the putting-out industry. His house motto also leads on to the next chapter,
which concentrates on the home. 199
Dann ein Mode chum der andern wicht
Das zeigt dass unser Gmuet is licht,
Und wankelbar in alle Schand
Vil Niierung in allem Land.
Then one fashion to another changes
Which shows that our hearts are fickle
And irresolute in all shame
There is much innovation in the whole country.
4 4> The impact of industrialisation on the house
and the rural economy
The changes to settlement and housing and to the rural economy under the
influence of domestic work in the putting-out industry have endowed the
picture of the Oberland cultural territory with its characteristic traits, which it
has retained until today. The problems we want to deal with separately in this
chapter have already been outlined above many times and in very different
connections. It can only be a matter of a piecemeal presentation of the complex
material, most of which has still to be researched locally. We must limit
ourselves to recording a few dominant traits, which necessarily involves a
degree of stylisation,1 beginning with a few remarks of a fundamental and
general nature, to remind ourselves about matters discussed earlier on.
Let us begin by remembering that industrialisation and the possibilities for
existing created by it should not be held solely responsible for the type of
changes and the way they occurred. They simply present one component, the
other being assembled from those forces which we identified in Chapter 1 as
factors impeding industrialisation. They are the traditional forms of land right
and land use, which were preserved by the restrictions of a rigid economic
order and were upheld by the traditionalistic spirit of an ancient peasant
economic mentality.
In a purely agricultural enterprise the house (and the outbuildings) and the
land belonging to it (including the actual use of the land) are mutually
dependent. The number of people who live and work on the farm is also
included in this dependency relationship. Economic order, inheritance rights,
customs and practices together form defences which safeguard this
equilibrium. We have seen that in the arable zones of the Zurich Unterland the
defences were strong enough to prevent the putting-out industry from getting
through and gaining a foothold there. But the cottage industry and putting-out
work spread through the regions around the Lake, in the Knonau district and
in the Oberland, with several different consequences for the traditional ways of
settlement, building, living and for peasant agriculture. It is important to
mention here that the consequences varied from region to region, because the
local legal, economic and traditional defences all varied.
Generally speaking, it can be stated that industrialisation released the
111
home from its dependence on the land. In the first instance this meant that
more people were able to live in such houses and dwellings as already existed,
which affected both traditional ways of living and the ground-plans of houses
and dwellings. In the second instance new settlements could be founded with
the help of industrial earnings, which were partly or wholly independent of
nature, that is, of land use. There was a strong need in the industrial regions of
the Zurich countryside both for new settlements and for filling in and
extending existing houses and dwellings, resulting from the rise in people's
willingness to marry, from natural population growth, changes to the struc-
ture of the family and to family cohesion - in short, from the emergence of the
life style and community life we have learnt to associate with the industrial
regions.
Even in places where the economic order permitted new settlement, the old
settlements would be filled in and extended first. However, on methodological
grounds, we want to concentrate first solely on the construction of new
dwelling places. So we will not as yet consider changes to the lay-out of existing
dwellings or changes to the inner subdivisions of existing houses (which would
be more consequential in historical terms), but concentrate on the new
settlements.
The need to found new homes was opposed by the limitations imposed by
the economic order in its local and regional variations. Two legal instruments
in particular served to impede and prevent new settlements and any sort of
building at all. The first was the prohibition of Hinausbauen, building outside
the precincts of the village.2 The second legal instrument was the material
restriction on villagers' rights to the commonalty and to membership in the
village community, both of which were tied to the house. We learn about both
legal instruments in a report to the Economic Commission of 1808 about
Embrach, which says
On account of the right and laws of the village community no citizen may build outside
the village, partly on account of the wood, partly for safeguarding the properties, plants
and fruits, that none may bring anything home surreptitiously. Neither may anyone
build another house in the village, unless he demolishes an old house already belonging
to him, so that the number of citizens does not increase too strongly and result in a
shortage of timber and firewood, because there is no private wood there and they all
have to chop their own from the common wood.3
This example shows us how these prohibitions derived their sense and
effectiveness from the ground rights and the use of land in a three-field system
(with common lands and open-field farming, etc.). The greater the importance
of these two legal instruments for the survival of a rural community, the more
that community would ensure they were maintained and the more rigorously
they were applied. We will see further on how this led to characteristic forms of
living and building in certain industrial regions. We will also see how the
The house and the rural economy 113
prohibitions could not only be by-passed but also removed as a result of the
pressure of the industrial population.
In the Oberland the preconditions for prohibiting building outside the
village and for imposing a material restriction on village rights were mainly
lacking.4 In the 1808 report quoted above we read, for instance, that 'On the
mountain at Turbenthal nearly everyone has a house of his own on his land
and there is no communal right preventing building outside the village on
one's own property in this region.'5
Consequently the need to found new settlements could be implemented
fully in these regions. In the event a wave of new settlements ran parallel to the
development of cottage industry, representing an important stage in opening
up the Oberland. We may call it the cottage industry phase of an inner
colonisation of the Oberland, and can follow its progress with the help of Hans
Bernhard's research into the economic and settlement geography of the Toss
valley.
In 1634 there were 260 settlements in the Toss valley (villages, hamlets and
farmsteads). In the period between 1634 and 1800, 219 new independent
places of residence were added to that number.6 The upper Toss valley took by
far the larger share of this new settlement. There were, for instance, ninety new
places in the parish of Fischental, thirty-six in Sternenberg and thirty-nine in
Bauma, whereas there was not a single new settlement in the parishes of Seen,
Toss and Veltheim, and only one in each of the parishes of Neftenbach,
Pfungen, Dattlikon, Rorbas and Freienstein.7 When we compare the number
of new settlements in relation to their altitude (see table), a clear picture
emerges.8 These figures are fairly conclusive: the bulk of cottage industry
settlement was limited mainly to the hilly and mountainous zones. Previously
uninhabited and thinly settled regions could be opened up due to the putting-
out industry and its earning possibilities. The new dwellings depended less, or
indeed not at all, on the nature of the countryside. Of primary importance to
Altitude New Settlements

(m. above sea level) (between 1634 and 1800)
300- 400 1
400- 500 6
500- 600 10
600- 700 39
700- 800 77
800- 900 47
900-1,000 19
1,000-1,100 6
1,100-1,200 4
the survival of these dwelling places were the earnings from putting-out work
(spinning) whereas agricultural produce, in so far as any farming was done,
was of only secondary importance. The ground did duty by offering space for
building dwellings. The settler was looking for living space in the most
restricted meaning of the word, i.e. the possibility of settling down, and he did
not demand of the land that it feed him as well.9 The new settlements were
founded mostly in the side valleys of the Toss valley.
Here the settler has wormed his way up to the highest sections of the valleys, and into
the gullies of the Nagelfluh mountains, where there is often scarcely enough space
available for laying out a dwelling and a small vegetable garden. The steep escarp-
ments, covered with nothing but timber, prevent agriculture and there is no valley soil
capable of being ploughed.
The mountain settlements were 'founded by the settlers, with almost complete
disregard for the natural conditions, on cliffs, on the highest terraces and even
in the peaks region of the Nagelfluh mountain territory'. 10
Bernhard's work contains a map (Appendix 6), which shows the changes in
the settlement pattern between 1634 and 1800. Bernhard's results for the Toss
valley apply to the whole of the Oberland. The secondary, typical cottage
industrial phase of an inner colonisation is identified by its characteristic form
of settlement (single farms, which can expand into hamlets); by their settle-
ment locations (side valleys, slopes and heights); and by the characteristic
forms of housing (which will be discussed later on). The extent to which the
wave of settlement was due to putting-out work for cottage industry is
demonstrated not only by its rise and expansion, but also by its demise; such
dwelling places were laid waste in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The
cottage industrial settlement in the Toss valley shared the fate of cottage
industry, which was unleashed by a new phase in the opening up of the
Oberland: that of factory industry, with its particular settlement forms and
locations and types of housing. The factory industry phase stamped the
cultural territory of the Oberland with yet another set of features.
At this stage, we shall refer to the people behind this cottage industry phase
of settlement only by mentioning a correlation between the population growth
and industrialisation. It will lead us on to enquire about alterations to existing
houses. We have taken three parishes from the upper Toss valley and three
parishes in the arable country (with a few vineyards) of the lower Toss valley
and compared them.
Between 1634 and 1771 the population growth was as shown in the first
table.11 In the second table we have contrasted the number of people employed
in weaving and in spinning in the year 1787.12 The comparison shows the
industrialised parishes clearly in the lead. Concerning the comparatively thin
population in the agricultural regions Johann Caspar Hirzel asked whether
the Plague had snatched all the people away - supplying the answer himself:
No. of inhabitants
1634 1771
Upper parishes
1. Fischental 466 1,789
2. Sternenberg 152 805
3. Bauma 453 2,487
Lower parishes
l.Wulflingen 709 940
2. Neftenbach 748 1,095
3. Pfungen 243 324
No. of No. of
weavers spinners
Upper parishes
1. Fischental 5 1,522
2. Sternenberg 3 488
3. Bauma 73 1,229
Lower parishes
l.Wulflingen 81
2. Neftenbach 33
3. Pfungen 18
Yes, one of the fiercest plagues, but one which creeps in surreptitiously . . . since these
people live only from their farms and are always concerned lest they be reduced to
poverty and destitution should the number of mouths increase. For this reason a father
will allow only the oldest son to marry, and the others go into military service, or stay at
home as servants and die unmarried. In this way they prevent increase which means
that the slightest onset of disease, or the occasional infertile marriage, lead to the region
being depopulated.13
We have already studied this problem.

The heightened need for living space in the industrialised regions is
adequately documented by these figures. It was evidenced not only by the new
settlements but also by the enlargements made to existing dwellings. Farm-
steads grew into hamlets and hamlets expanded in size and population to
become as big as villages. It is difficult to grasp and present this process
because the necessary local research has yet to be done. With the help of land
registers, farm inventories and other archival material one should be able to
establish the number of newly built houses in individual villages. In any case,
the population growth in individual settlements provides us with some
indications. In the parish of Bauma, for instance, there was only one place of
residence in 1634 with more than fifty inhabitants. By 1800, however, there
were fourteen places of over fifty inhabitants. Thirty-four people lived in the
hamlet of Muhlebach (parish of Fischental) in 1634; by 1771 there were one
hundred and twelve. The population of Esch (parish of Fischental) changed
from two in 1634 to forty in 1771. Bauma grew in this period from eighteen
inhabitants to one hundred and forty-one, and so on.14 The valley settlements
were the first to show a large growth in the population, since there was
generally not enough room for such development in the mountain and lateral
valley settlements. There were, however, exceptions: the farms of Hin-
terstrahlegg and Vorderstrahlegg (1045m. above sea level) housed twenty-
seven inhabitants between them in 1634. In 1771 they had grown into a fine
hamlet with eighty-two inhabitants.
What has been said about the new settlements also applies to the enlarged
dwelling places. This process occurred independently of the way the land was
farmed, being based in most cases only on earnings from putting-out work.
The process of enlarging dwelling places shaped the cultural territory of the
Oberland as effectively as did the new settlements. It was this building and
settlement activity which created the preconditions for the subsequent factory
industry, which found in these enlarged hamlets and villages the settled
population it required in order to provide a sufficient pool of labour for its
factories. However, many of the places which had expanded dramatically
during the cottage industry period and whose geographical location was not
suitable for introducing a factory industry were condemned with the demise of
cottage industry to lose their inhabitants and to die. The three examples
shown in the table from the parish of Sternehberg illustrate this process.15
No. of inhabitants
1634 1670 1721 1771 1850 1870 1888
Buchwald 3 6 15 26 16 10'
Matt 13 27 29 56 59 47 29
Tiefenmoos — 4 10 28 60 33 21
The new settlements and enlargements to existing dwelling places arising from
cottage industry were accompanied in the Oberland by new forms of housing
typical to cottage industry. The outworker made new demands on his house,
whereas the old demands made by farming lost their significance. With
industrial earnings he and his family acquired economic self-sufficiency. The
material ties to his family group (in terms of the living space and economic
area) were loosened and no longer possessed the fateful significance they held
under farming conditions. He thereby acquired the possibility of founding his
own household. We saw in Chapter 2 how the organisational structure of the
outworker family encouraged it to split up into separate units, each with its
own area and property. Tied up with this process were the changes to
inheritance law, also mentioned above. Starting from these formal and
organisational motives, cottage industry communities were moving in the
direction of single family homes. This developed into the form of house typical
to cottage industry, the Fldder or Flarz houses.
The Flarz house in the Oberland region of hamlet and farmstead settle-
ments must be distinguished from that of the village settlements, where the
lack of space and the economic restrictions led to particular forms of their own.
The Oberland Flarz consists (generally) of a row of attached houses often with
room only for a kitchen, living room and bedroom. These chain-like
agglomerations of dwellings, with their flat T'dtsch roofs, appear to have grown
organically, in the sense of a primitive subdivision of cells. In fact this
comparison is more than just a metaphor: the Oberland Flarz is a clan house.
The organic growth of the Flarz chains represents the growth and subdivision
of the kinship group. Just as the farming family group split up with the advent
of cottage industry into economically self-sufficient and spiritually isolated
units, so too did the communal peasant household break up into separate
single family cottages. Studying the land registers shows that the inhabitants
of a Flarz chain were originally closely related to one another. The parents'
house would be joined by the houses of their children and grandchildren . Old
houses were often torn down and two attached houses built in their place, to
which new single and double houses could then be added. This development
was accompanied by dividing up the farmland, changing the way the land was
used, splitting up the farm buildings or by giving the existing farm building a
new function. The farmland would often be worked by no more than one
household, the rest contenting themselves with a cottage garden, a goat and
other small animals.
The Oberland Flarz developed from outworker family relationships and
conditions of inheritance. Their form of housing was appropriate to their
economic and family circumstances. The Flarz form provided the outworker
with a separate dwelling, a single family house which was legally his, and,
most importantly for his political status, a rooting point, a bond with his
homeland. This is why he clung to this property 'with back and stomach',
however indebted he might be. In the Oberland region of hamlets and
farmsteads, however, it was not the restrictions on the number of people
entitled to village rights which was responsible for the chain-shaped construc-
tions. It was the conditions of land ownership, economic and financial
considerations, the assistance and company of neighbours during putting-out
work, and other factors, such as facilitating the transport and distribution of
the raw materials and finished goods through the road-less woodlands, which
contributed to the development of the chain-shaped Flarz houses in the
Oberland. The Flarz forms in the villages may also have served as examples for
the farmsteads region. The lack of freedom of movement under the Ancien
Regime contributed towards forcing the outworker kinship groups to build
and live within a narrow area. The extended family did not, however, form a
working and consuming unit. In this, as with its family structure, it was com-
pletely unlike a peasant extended family (as for instance in the arable regions
of south-east Europe or in the mezzadria regions of Italy). Earnings from the
putting-out industry allowed the property to be split up. This meant that the
extended family as a working and consuming unit was broken up into individual
and economically self-sufficient households, which were now only loosely tied to
one another. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the crises and poverty
of the period caused some of the links in the chains oi Flarz houses to fall into
outsiders' hands. The increased freedom of movement after 1789 hastened this
process, and the communal housing of kinship groups disintegrated.
Apart from the Flarz house, a further type of house grew up alongside the
putting-out industry. Unlike the Flarz house, it remained more strongly
associated with farming. It was the preferred form of house in the new
settlements in the mountain sites and lateral valleys. The dwelling consisted of
kitchen, living room (with a row of windows for the cottage industry, as with
the Flarz houses) and one or two bedrooms. The barn and byre were built
cross-wise onto the house. They were generally timber constructions. The roof
was pitched steeply and covered with shingles. This type of house originated
from different economic and social conditions to those of the Flarz houses. The
economic precondition was a symbiosis between putting-out work and agri-
culture. It was the outward order and the inner dynamism of the Oberland
small farm economy which enabled this symbiosis to take place, which was
mostly connected with a shift to grasslands and stock farming. This sort of
farming was adapted to a dual economic base. The social conditions had to
match these economic preconditions.
There was no room here for the extended family. The limited farmland on
which the family members depended along with their industrial earnings
could not support any sharing or subdivision. The form of house and the
farmstead tended to compel its inmates to continue living under peasant
conditions, although cottage industry obliged them to adopt new forms. The
dual economic base involved a particular intellectual and spiritual mentality:
industrial employment gave rise to an entrepreneurial spirit (as well as the
material resources for farm improvements and alterations). Both the farm-
stead and the peasant economic mentality preserved the traditional way of life
and the structure of the family (self-sufficient farming, inheritance rights,
etc.).
A report which appeared in the Volksblatt vom Bachtel in 1944 contains
information about this sort of cottage industry smallholding. Our informant,
who was born in 1876, wrote that
It was in the year 1848 when my parents moved from Fagswil-Riiti to Obereggwald . . .
Many a one of the younger generation will tell themselves that there aren't any houses
at all on the Aberegg. But stop; just there, where today the two byres are standing, there
stood then houses with barns built against them . . . A small living room, kitchen and
two bedrooms had to suffice for the six of us. The stove which heated the living room
was unique. It was a clay oven and whenever it was heated, it did not just give out
warmth, but also spread the unique clay smell around . . . The nearest neighbouring
house was the Rutschwende. A chimney had never been built in this house. The smoke
just seeped through the whole house. This was also still the case in a dwelling, called the
Cloister, in Raad. - Many young people probably don't know either that earlier on
there were also two houses in Hessen; Vorderhessen and Hinterhessen. But they too
were demolished, just like the ones in Oberegg and Rutschwende. The meagre yields
which the smaller and remoter homes produced made it impossible to consider
building such houses again . . . In my mind's eye I can still see the women walking back
from the spring with a copper pot full of water on their heads. In the living room, there
was generally a corner with two benches and a table. Instead of a sofa most places had a
'stove bench'. There were a few more stools around the table. The rest of the space
would then be filled with two or three hand looms.16
In the eighteenth century these places were mostly still spinning and not yet
weaving. Any extension or partition of these cottage industry smallholdings
would depend on the size of the inhabitants' property, their earnings from
cottage industry and their social standing in the parish.
The most developed form of this type of house (and of the dual economic
base it rested on) was to be found in an industrial region outside the Zurich
territory. This was the Reformed part of the Appenzell country, where in
the eighteenth century a fruitful partnership between agriculture (mainly
grazing) and cottage industry was achieved. Both forms of production had
attained a high level of specialisation and the travellers' accounts ring with
praises for the prosperity of this region, manifested by the many new houses.
Ebel wrote:
There is something special about the appearance of this village [Gais] and one sees at
once that here live neither simple cowherds and peasants, nor burghers and artisans.
These former herdsmen owe their prosperity to the industry, which has spread widely
over the whole of Reformed Appenzell. . . Their industriousness is extraordinary and
for the last three hundred years it has so increased their wealth that . . . almost the
whole village now consists of beautiful new houses, real palaces of wood compared with
the huts of most of the inhabitants of Innerrhoden.17
The form of this typical Appenzell cottage industry house is similar to the
Zurich type of house described above. Like them, the byre and barn stood
cross-wise against the house, the windows were set in a row, the roof was
pitched steeply and covered with nailed shingles. Often the whole house would
be covered with shingles, which were then developed as a wall decoration.
These houses also had a loom shop, where fine yarn would be woven into cloth.
From the technical point of view the Appenzell textile industry was superior to
that of Zurich (at least partly). The Appenzell house was a richly decorated
building, witnessing to the prosperity and taste of its inhabitants. Industrial-
ised Toggenburg enjoyed the same sort of economy and form of buildings. The
blooming industrial regions of Appenzell and Toggenburg had a strong
influence on the neighbouring Oberland of Zurich, given that it possessed
similar geographical and economic (sometimes also legal) preconditions. 'The
new houses in Fischenthal imitate the Toggenburg manner of building',
reported J. C. Hirzel.18 They even copied their loom shops as well as their
refined weaving technique. However, only a few farmhouses in the Zurich
Oberland were as richly decorated and as fine as those of Appenzell and
Toggenburg, since this required adequate farmland, which was mostly lacking
in wooded country.19 We will discuss the correlation between cottage industry
and the rural economy further on.
Leaving the hamlets and farmsteads of the Oberland, let us now take a look
at the villages of the industrial regions. This form of settlement also produced a
Flarz house, whose development was unmistakably influenced by parish rights
and the economic order. We have already mentioned that the restrictions on
rights were loosened under the pressure of population in the industrialised
regions. The number of rights was doubled by decision of the village com-
munity (as in Hinwil and Wetzikon), or else divided into half, third or quarter
rights. Such measures created the legal preconditions for building desperately
needed dwellings. This was the decisive criterion and not the attempts to allow
more families a share in the commonage and in the parish rights and duties. As
we know, village rights were tied to the houses, so subdividing them meant
that new houses could be added to the old ones. This gave rise to the Flarz
house form, whereby two, three, four or more houses were joined together,
according to the number of shares in a village right. Legally, such houses
counted as only one house and the individual parts as a half, a third or a
quarter of that house. Lack of space in the villages often made it difficult to line
the part-houses up gable-end to gable-end. This led to agglomerations of part-
houses, crowded in at right angles as well as in rows, producing all sorts of
subdivisions, additions and rebuilding. The extensions could include the farm
buildings as well. The barns and byres could be assimilated into the Flarz
construction and turned into dwellings and part-houses. There is, for example,
a five-part Flarz in Unterhittnau; in 1750 Johannes Boiler bought two
farmhouses, apparently built against one another, on the site where the Flarz
later stood. Each farmhouse possessed a full village right. Between 1750 and
1789 four part-houses were created in this building. A shed was turned ino a
part-house, and an old building knocked down and replaced by a double
house. When the inheritance was divided in 1789 between Johannes Boiler's
four sons, each one got a part-house and half a village right. One son
(Heinrich) had already died. His three sons (Johannes Boiler's grandchildren)
assumed his inheritance, divided the house and the half right again and added
a further dwelling between the lower barn and the byre.20
This example is typical of the villages in the border zone between the
Oberland and the Unterland. The old arable economic order with its
restrictions on settlement and building still existed, although the putting-out
industry had gained a foothold in these zones. This economic order directly
affected building and consequently the new form of house. Therefore, these
Flarz forms have to be designated as rights-possessing houses. This example
also shed light on the situation of the owners of such houses in this construction
period. As in the Oberland, families employed in industry were seeking a
separate space for themselves and a share of the property. Individual families
were chained together by their village right which was tied to their house. This
gave rise to communal housing within the family group, whereby the
individual parts of the family lived separately in part-houses. Their share of
the right ensured that they were rooted in the village community, and
consequently in their homeland. Such a family group would be kept together
in one place less through inner need than through outward compulsion. Each
family was economically separate and engaged in its particular form of
livelihood. Property and usage were subdivided down to the last detail.
Heinrich Boiler (Johannes Boiler's grandson) had, for instance, been given the
right by his brothers Johannes and Jakob to stack pinelogs and timber in front
of their farmhouses. The part-families could extend and shape their houses
according to each one's economic success in industry and agriculture (if they
still did any). The various parts of the Flarz houses thus acquired idiosyncratic
features.
The economic order had even greater influence on the construction and
form of the houses in places where parish rights were not bound to the house
but to the Ranch (hearth; literally smoke). The chimney, stove or oven carried
the rights, which meant that in many villages, houses could be built so long as
they had no chimney, oven or stove.21 This practice of making smoke carry
rights and duties went back to medieval conditions of tenure. In the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries people resorted to these ancient legal forms in
order to protect the common woods and to prevent the village community from
being overrun with strangers. This prohibition too was by-passed under the
pressure of population and the housing shortage. People built Flarz houses so
designed that the smoke from their individual stoves would issue from a
communal chimney. If there was no chimney, it would collect in a communal
attic shared by all the cottages. People also got around the regulations by
building a communal kitchen to be shared by several separate part-houses. It
is clear that these building restrictions and the ways of circumventing them
resulted in strange forms of building, types of houses and subdivisions of the
living rooms, which must in many respects have affected the inhabitants' lives
and life together. One example must suffice, of a house in Opfikon:
This was originally divided equally into three. But the kitchen, just like the entrance
hall, ran through the whole house, and no part was partitioned off from another. The
three living rooms were represented by three stoves in the kitchen. Each part of the
kitchen had its own staircase leading upstairs, and even today there are ho walls
dividing the three sleeping quarters from one another.22
The village right and economic order became extremely irksome straitjack-
ets in those villages where the rights were not tied to the smoke but to the stove
and the living room. This regulation was particularly prevalent (in its local
variations) in the parishes of the Knonau district. The village community of
Knonau issued a petition on 8 February 1683 demanding, for instance, that
half rights should not be divided up any further and that 'a half right should
have no more than one oven and one living room'.23 The Einzug (the entry fee
payable on becoming a member of the commune with commonage and voting
rights) was relatively small in these villages and so such regulations must have
resulted in very unhealthy living conditions in the industrial regions, with
their strong natural population growth. The sources describe conditions
which are scarcely imaginable today.
One often sees three to four households, related in the second or third or even more
distant degrees, squeezed together in one living room. The discomfort they experience
leads to many grievances, which often give rise to dangerous in-fighting, and since
young and old often sleep together in one room, the opportunity for dangerous
outbreaks of precocious lust is present.
The 'general custom' in the Knonau district 'of living in the unmarried state
until forced into marriage through their inability to avoid pregnancy any
longer' is attributed by the author to these living conditions.24 J. C. Niischeler
describes these truly pitiable conditions even more tellingly. We quote him
rather extensively because we will deal with the cottage industrial living
conditions at greater length further on.
This [the prohibition on building by limiting the number of ovens, stoves or living
rooms] produces the unpleasant consequence that in most villages nearly every house
has two or three living rooms with three to four households in each of them. In the other
houses four married couples are to be found living in one room, and a very small one at
that. Imagine a house with only two living rooms next to one another, with only one
stove or griddle to cook on, and then consider whether it would really be possible to give
way in a friendly manner to one another all the time etc. . . . Although I did
straightaway find these people to be much more tolerant than I ever thought I would
find them. Now imagine further a fairly small living room, its stove close to the door,
with four orfivewindows opposite, and two little folding tables in both corners. There
are two more little tables set against the wall opposite the windows, so that each
married couple has their own. Then add a further two or three children for each
married couple, as I have seen with my own eyes. What a racket, what a noise must
ensue!
His account continues with a description of domestic life in this sort of living
room. The various households could not eat together at the same time, but
they had to have their meals in shifts. Each time grace was said, it would be
disrupted by profane talk by the non-participating households, etc. Niischeler
admits
It grieves me, it must be said openly, that on these occasions I saw many people debase
themselves lower than animals and that I saw some people in these families who longed
desperately to be able to live for once in their lives on their own in a corner, however
small, with their children, so as to be able to perform their duty adequately as parents
and Christians. It must be understood that a cottage with two living rooms cannot have
eight bedrooms. So two or more married couples with all their children must sleep in
one bedroom. How they are able to carry out their marital obligations in the presence of
these, I simply do not know.25
Driven by such need, individual parishes were obliged to grant 'quarter
ovens'. These provided the legal preconditions for building new dwellings.
The example of Maschwanden illustrates the controversies within the
parishes. On 11 November 1787 governor Holzhalb reported to Zurich that
four parishioners had come to him and complained about their restricted
living conditions. The villagers had asked the governor urgently to allow them
to erect quarter ovens. Their lack of space would be alleviated by this 'good
deed' since new 'living rooms' could then be built. This would then produce
'less argument and grievance' and they would be freed from 'many
inconveniences'. But the bailiff argued against errecting quarter ovens by
saying that such a permission could only be granted if the entry fee was levied
at the same time.26
The quarter ovens originally entitled their owners to build new living space
only. We cannot overlook the fact that the four part-ovens had to be connected,
or at least share a common chimney stack. This stipulation necessarily led
once more to Flarz houses being built. But even this restriction had to be
dropped in individual parishes. The events leading up to this are vividly
illustrated in the quarrel over a building site in Mettmenstetten-Dachelsen. A
writ of 4 July 1788 complained about two members of the village community
who were in possession of only a quarter of a parish right and who intended to
errect a new house on their land. The writ added that only the possessor of a
whole or a half right was allowed to build a new house, and that the possessor
of a quarter right was only entitled to add new buildings to an old house. Even
this right was 'a special favour'. The writ appealed against granting permis-
sion to build. But the two villagers managed to establish that they could not
add any more buildings to their house because their neighbours would not
concede them any land for building. Consequently they asked for permission
to build, since it was, 'on account of their two numerous households, extremely
inconvenient and for many moral reasons very oppressive to live for long time
in a room owned in common with another numerous household'. These
afflictions secured the two villagers' permission
that each of them may build a new house separate from the old dwelling, but with the
clear and express condition that not more than one living room with a quarter oven six
Schuhe (feet) long, four Schuhe wide on the outside and three on the inside, shall be
erected within, and that they, like all other owners of a quarter right who in future may
wish to build new dwellings will be forbidden by the highest authorities from erecting
more than one living room with an oven of the prescribed shape in it, and that the acting
Overseers of the village community should be given the duty of carefully checking all
these new dwelling houses throughout the year, to see whether the high authorities'
instructions have been carried out precisely and dutifully.
A little later on this alteration to the parish right was written into the draft for a
new entry charter.27
We pointed out at the beginning that two completely different components
were at work in these changes to settlement, building and home life: to wit,
industrialisation and the ancient economic and parish order of the
countryside. Light has hitherto been shed almost exclusively on the latter. We
started out in those regions which had no or insufficient legal grounds for
acquiring influence over new settlement and building. We then moved on to
study the different possibilities for limiting building. There are so many
variations of these old rural regulations and their changes in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries that we have been able to list only a few of them. Our
last example (Mettmenstetten-Dachelsen) demonstrated with exemplary
clarity how the ancient rural regulations could affect building and living down
to the last detail (the size of the oven). It further illustrated how these
regulations could be softened by cottage industry. Our methodical approach is
justified by the way it has revealed the inter-dependence of the forms of
settlement, building and home life. We know that the process of industrialis-
ation was also caught up in this dependence.
We have until now only discussed the influence of industrialisation in so far
as the process of industrialisation with its economic and social repercussions
awoke the need for new space for living and settlement. A closer look at the
influence of industrialisation shows man as the upholder of industrialisation at
the centre of our investigation. Having come via'settlement and building to his
home life, let us now retrace our steps and begin with the outworker's life and
his need for a home.
The outworker's demands on his dwelling, especially on his living room,
were different to the farmer's. The nature of his work heightened the
importance of the actual living room, whereas the significance of the agri-
cultural outbuildings was either lost or altered. The weaver was tied all year
round to his work place in his house, whereas the spinner could perform his
task in the open, depending on the weather, but he too spent a large proportion
of his working time in his house. They both needed room for their tools and for
carrying out their work undisturbed. This meant that the outworker's need for
living space was greater and more urgent than the farmer's. The purely
technical side of putting-out work thus contributed to the shortage of living
space. The fact that before 1800 weaving was carried out almost exclusively in
villages (whereas people in the Oberland hamlets and farmsteads took on
spinning) was closely associated with the organisation of the putting-out
system and to technical problems of transport. This circumstance led to an
even greater lack of space in villages which were already crowded due to the
restrictions on building. Unlike in the Appenzell and Toggenburg industrial
regions, weaving in the Zurich countryside was done far less in cellars specifi-
cally built for weaving than in living rooms. It was only towards the end of the
century when there was a greater demand for fine muslins, which required a
damp woof, that weaving cellars were built into new and old houses. This
feature of the Zurich textile industry served to reduce the available space even
further. Two or three looms often stood side by side in the same living room.
Lack of space was a problem not only in the villages but also in the hamlets
and farmsteads, which were not subject to building restrictions. Poverty and
crushing debts prevented new dwellings from being built. People retrenched
as much as their circumstances permitted. In many places, the living room
was divided up. But all this changed with the first flowering of the textile
industry. The good earnings encouraged many people to undertake the risk of
building a new house with the help of a mortgage 'since the interest on the
borrowed capital was soon earned'.28 Far too many trusted to the false glitter
of those golden years. Their houses and properties were almost without
exception loaded with debts.
When their living rooms were turned into workshops and people were
forced to spend more of their lives in them, the need for housing increased.
People tried to work in a clean, attractive and pleasant environment. They
built more and more smoke-free kitchens, they panelled their living rooms and
bedrooms and attached great importance to installing stoves with effective
flues; windows were enlarged and, where necessary, the eaves were shortened
to allow more light to enter the working area. Alterations like these were in line
with the technical requirements of the work. But the weaver's or spinner's
involvement with fine cloth did not only demand tidiness, light and cleanliness
from him, it also developed in him an aesthetic feeling for improving his
environment. The cultural life of cottage industry was thus the product of the
interaction between the technical demands of their work and the outworkers'
way of life and life style. We have already met the need for ornament, finery
and luxury among the industrial population, a need which they also
experienced with regard to their houses and homes; everything from the
building materials to the interior decoration is evidence of a creative urge
directed at ostentation. C. Meiners commented about this in 1788, writing
that
all the villages and hamlets which have many factory workers living in them are
distinguished from the rest by the newness, the beauty and the solidity of their houses.
Instead of living like their fathersor grandfathers in dirty wooden, straw-thatched huts,
the manufacturing peasants live in stone houses, covered with tiles. Diligent and thrifty
workers vie for honour in the beauty, cleanliness and brightness of their dwellings, and
in the extension and perfect cultivation of their patch of land.29
The need for decoration and ostentation in cottage industrial circles must be
seen in a thoroughly positive light and its significance in terms of popular
culture and the life of the common people recognised. Contemporary
commentators, fired by puritanical zeal, generally condemned it as a
'tendency towards finery and luxury'. Here too (as with fashion in clothes) the
urban life style set the standard. J. Ebel wrote that the parish of Fischental was
'made up of scattered dwellings along all the mountain slopes . . . and from
time to time one sees houses, whose outward appearance and inner furnishings
are completely urban'. 30 The rural clothiers, who had attained money and
influence, were important transmitters of the new, urban life style. Since
many of these manufacturers had grown from being well-off to being rich people . . .
many more larger and more expensive houses were built than previously; when the
industry first started, they aimed only at comfort and more room, because that was
what they lacked, but now the chief aim of these new buildings is eye-catching
splendour, following which previously unknown and expensive household goods were
also procured.31
Another source tells us about the clothiers; 'The wealthy and their children
built beautiful palaces and furnished them in the most expensive manner, so
that they challenged the primacy of the richest houses in the capital.'32 This
was how the refined life style and the pretentious, intimate home requirements
of the Rococo age penetrated beyond the society of town burghers into the
countryside, to the clothiers and from them seeped down to the outworker
circles. This life style was especially prevalent among those economically
viable households and families which combined factory earnings with agri-
culture, stock farming or vineyards. Possession of hard cash enabled the
outworker to equip his home with new furniture, and the growth in people's
willingness to marry and in the number of youthful weddings necessarily led to
the purchase of new household equipment. This could no longer be inherited
all of a piece, as in the peasant family group, but was divided up and had to be
made up with new pieces.
These are, to be sure, the bright sides of cottage industry life, and they are
offset by its dark sides, which were also derived from the work itself. The
contractual and quantitative production and payment system of putting-out
work could easily result in household matters being neglected. 'The poverty or
avarice of the workers or their families often puts earning money above
everything else. The cleanliness of the households, the orderliness of their lives
. . . suffers mightily from this.' 33 Light and shade are mingled in this report by
the minister of Mannedorf:
People do say that this occupation [domestic weaving], has on the one hand a beneficial
influence on the cultural life of those who engage in it: the fine material, the lovely
colours, the pretty patterns, the cleanliness with which the stuffhas to be handled, have
a softening effect on their dispositions and are averse to roughness. It is true that the
weaver-women's feeling for taste and fashion is often markedly developed . . . But
where cleanliness in other matters unrelated to this work is concerned, it is only to be
found there where a mother's tidying hand rules the house, while the daughters are
employed at the loom, but were one to take a look there where a young wife dedicates or
has to dedicate herself to this work, without any household help, the picture changes at
once. Whereas her loom is scrubbed and cleaned, as required by the work, in the
kitchen the crockery is not washed, in the bedroom the beds remain unmade until they
have to be used again . . . and so on through the hundred details, which together make
up a household.34
There is no way that one can talk about a Wohnkultur in those overcrowded
dwellings which Nuscheler's report describes for us. Even the most necessary
household goods were in the way. Nevertheless, there is evidence here too of a
tendency towards a greater desire to raise the standard of domestic life.
Where building is concerned, it must be mentioned that the cottage worker
with his earnings had a greater choice of building materials than the peasant,
whose efforts towards self-sufficiency obliged him to use local materials. He
could replace old local materials such as shingles and straw with tiles, and the
use of stones for building spread from the lake districts to the Oberland too.
The use of non-local materials was also a consequence of the increased
building activity resulting from industrialisation. The industrial regions soon
ran out of timber for building (this applied less to the Oberland). In many
parishes the subdivision of parish rights had resulted in over-exploitation of
the forests. This meant that the members of a parish were no longer willing to
allow every holder of a part-right the timber for building a new part-house. So
wood-saving timber-frame constructions, filled in with stone or mud and
wattles, became the favourite building method. Less valuable timber, such as
the rapid-growth pine woods, could be used for the little row houses of the Flarz
type. Timber was further devalued as a building material when building with
stone became the fashion and was regarded more highly. The town burghers'
baroque houses made their influence felt.
Let us end this chapter with a brief survey of the reciprocal relationship
between cottage industry and agriculture. This brings us back to the problem
of the form of economy and settlement. We have already studied elsewhere
the mental and spiritual, as well as the economic and legal, preconditions
necessary for a fruitful symbiosis between agriculture and cottage industry.
Wherever we have encountered synchronised relations between agriculture
and cottage industry we have found a rational and intensive use of the soil, and
economic farming methods. In any case, agriculture had to adjust to the new
conditions and the possibility of adjusting had to be present. The earnings
from cottage industry were directly associated with this sort of agricultural
changeover. Having cash in hand meant that better stock could be acquired,
improvements introduced, and that straw, manure, clover and sanfoin seed
could be purchased. The outhouses could be enlarged to allow more cattle to
be stalled. Meadows could be drained and orchards laid out, and qualitative
improvements were implemented in other areas. In the Philosophical Tradesman
Johann Caspar Hirzel compares the industrial earnings of the Zurich out-
worker with a magnet, which 'draws everything to itself from the furthest
regions', in order to improve and to intensify his farm. The author makes a
farmer's daughter and outworker reply to his question whether she and her
companions owed their property to the 'cotton manufacture' by saying 'What
else? Without this [cotton manufacture] we would be working for a pittance.
But, praise be to God, our earnings are good and we can cultivate our land
with honour.'35
The tendency was towards changing over to a labour-saving form of land
use: 'In the manufacturing parishes many arable fields are turned over to
pasture, or else grain harvests are replaced with clover harvests, because these
involve less expense, trouble and loss of time than working corn fields does.'36
C. Meiners, who established this, wrote extensively about the efforts to
improve and intensify agriculture with the help of industrial earnings.37 J. C.
Hirzel, who described the agriculture of the Oberland, sings its praises: 'Here
one sees the greatest factory earnings united with constantly expanding
agriculture and clearance of hitherto unexploited lands, evidence for which is
found in the many houses one encounters in this region.'38 The minister of
Schonenberg acknowledged in 1857 that silk weaving was 'very beneficial' to
his parish.
This is already shown in relation to agriculture, whereby earnings acquired through
weaving have made it possible for significant numbers of farms to be improved,
whereas without these earnings many places cannot spend so much on their landed
assets; many small farms have experienced yields greater than those of bigger farms in
the past, as a result of the improvements. These improvements could, however, only
have been undertaken when the necessary means were acquired by weaving.39
At this point, it is important to mention the causal relationship. These
farming improvements cannot be seen simply as a result of industrialisation,
even though they could only be carried out with the help of industrial earnings
(and were spurred on by the cottage work). They were to a far greater extent
the product of the reciprocal relationship between industrialisation and the
traditional order. We have seen that putting-out work was able to gain a
foothold in the Zurich countryside in places where the economic and commu-
nal order allowed it to (or was unable to prevent it) - that is, in regions
possessing the legal preconditions for altering their farming methods. This
was, for instance, the case in regions around the Lake, as well as in those parts
of the Griiningen district and the county of Kyburg, where a system of
individual land use (Egartenwirtschaft) was practised. The alterations men-
tioned earlier could be carried out there, where people were allowed to build
houses on outlying land. There was no open-field system to oppose new ways
of using the soil; old farming land could be put to better use and new land could
be cleared. In the arable regions farmed according to the three-field rotation
system, attempts to alter and intensify farming methods and produce came up
against a rigid order. Open-field farming, building prohibitions and commu-
nal grazing on fallow land and stubble - in short, a whole series of regulations
prevented the introduction of stall-fed cattle, intensive fertilisation of
meadows and fields, improving meadowland and planting orchards, and so
on. As a result, the regions with strict three-field rotation and open-field
systems, despite the fertility of their soil, ended up producing less than those
industrial regions whose system of agriculture allowed farms to be changed
over and a free hand in the use of the soil. J.C. Hirzel, to whom these
connections were obvious, drew a detailed comparison, backed up by stat-
istics, between the counties of Wadenswil and Regensberg. The result was
'that in Wadenschweil, the seat of the strongest factory workers, the state of
agriculture is at least as perfect as in those regions of the country with such
special advantages that the inhabitants devote themselves entirely to agri-
culture and, compared with these, it feeds four times as many inhabitants'. 40
Hirzel has listed a few of the important preconditions which favoured
agriculture in the industrialised regions:41
1. Where houses are scattered.
2. Where there is still plenty of land left over for clearing.
3. Where one is in contact with regions, which provide the necessary
cash for improving the properties.
4. Where stock farming provides the chief form of income from the
properties.
5. Where sufficient materials for fuel and building are present or easily
procured.
Basing himself on HirzePs research and filling it in with his own observations,
C. Meiners sums up: 'Without opposition, then, the factory work in most of the
regions of the Zurich territory has promoted not only population growth but
also the embellishment and enlargement of the villages, the improvement of
the stock and the land, and in many places has changed the harsh, stony land
into the most fertile, easy and rich soil.'42 It was possible for a healthy and
adaptable agriculture to develop hand in hand with industrialisation (especi-
ally around the town and in the lakeside districts) making intensive use of the
soil along the lines of market gardening.
The situation was, however, quite different in the industrial regions which
still clung firmly to an old agrarian economic order, although this order no
longer reflected the social and economic conditions (otherwise cottage
industry would never have been able to infiltrate it). The zones of contact and
conflict were where cottage work and agriculture were as yet unable to reach a
compromise and symbiosis. This affected above all the Knonau district and
the more level, arable regions of the Griiningen district, where we encounter
the constant complaint that agriculture was being neglected in favour of
putting-out work. We have already emphasised that the reasons for neglecting
the arable land are to a great extent to be sought for in the rigid communal
order. It was difficult to combine putting-out work with farming in regions
where the open-field system determined all field work down to the last detail
and set compulsory dates for ploughing, sowing, harvesting and hay-making
for everyone. It was difficult to make alterations and adjustments within this
rigid framework. This meant that people 'preferred to work sitting down to
wearisome work in the fields'. The prohibitions on building were very closely
bound up with this economic order. They contributed towards the decline in
these places of agriculture in connection with cottage industry. J.C. Hirzel
recognised that the industry was disadvantageous to agriculture in places
'where the houses stand close by one another and form whole villages' and
'where limits to the houses according to the number of rights rule'. 43 The
subdivision of parish rights did not help. On the contrary, splitting up the land
and distributing the outhouses made running the farm even less economically
viable, as long as people were unable to change over to a labour-saving and
intensive use of the land. Many households were no longer able to make full
use of their share of a right in the commonage. There is no doubt that the rich
farmers were responsible for these conditions, with their economic mentality
and their village and parish policies. In many places they thwarted all
attempts to divide up the common lands and to remove the unwieldy open-
field system. J.C. Hirzel informs us that this gave rise to an 'aversion to
agriculture' among the cottagers and day-labourers, and the farms were
'managed more and more negligently'.44 Strong forces were at play, which
wanted to remove the straitjacket of the traditional economic and parish order
and which strove to have the common lands divided up. The population
engaged in industry played a trail-blazing role here, but the opposition was
great and only a few common lands were divided up before the Helvetic
Revolution took place. The purely agrarian regions where cottage industry
had scarcely infiltrated shook off their three-field economy very late. In many
places it was only world trade and the ensuing fall in prices which managed to
crack the system. Specialised and intensive farming belonged to the future.
The cottage industry must be seen as the forerunner of such a specialised and
intensive agriculture.
The gamut of physiocratic ideas was absorbed very early on by the
population engaged in industry, and their factory earnings also helped
towards putting them into action. The cottage industry transformed the
traditional rural economic and living space, thereby rendering traditional
institutions of a legal and economic nature obsolete.
So it was not only cottage industrial settlement, building and life styles
which changed the face of the Zurich cultural landscape. Agriculture too, as it
developed in connection with cottage industry, changed the fields and com-
mon land and reshaped the countryside. The travel accounts of the age witness
eloquently to this. Our aim in this chapter has been to grasp the changes
brought about by the interrelation between industry and the existing order- in
other words, to expose at least a few threads of this densely woven fabric.
«9> Work in the putting-out industry and its
effect on the life of the common people
In the previous chapters we attempted to identify and interpret the changes to

the life of the common people and to popular culture under the influence of the
putting-out industry. In this chapter we tackle the question of how the nature
of work in the putting-out industry can be related to these changes.
We must begin by setting a limit: many aspects of fundamental importance
to the nature of work in the putting-out industry will not be discussed in this
part of our investigation. They are reserved for Part two, where they will be set
against and compared to factory work. What is more, we have not provided
technical descriptions of the work processes and have included only as much
information about the organisation and structure of the Zurich putting-out
industry as is required for our line of enquiry.
Let us begin with a fundamental precondition for work in the putting-out
industry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - the Protestant work
ethic.
In the 'Description of the Poor in the Whole Countryside of Zurich'
('Beschreybung der Armen uff der ganzen Landschaft Zurich'), 1 each pet-
itioner's entitlement to alms was vouched for with this endlessly recurring
phrase 'Can indeed pray and spin' (Kann wohl batten und spinnen) - a formula
which summarises the ecclesiastical authorities' ethos of a righteous life.
Max Weber has demonstrated the connections between the spirit of
Protestantism and Puritanism and the capitalist economic system. In the same
way, the rise and development of the Zurich putting-out industry cannot be
understood without reference to these religious historical and sociological
aspects, quite apart from the influence of Protestant religious refugees on
the manufacturing life of Zurich. It was not only among the Calvinist
entrepreneurial types, but among the Zurich putting-out masters too (Protes-
tants cast in Zwingli's mould), that was combined 'a virtuoso capitalist
business sense with the most intensive forms of a piety which penetrated and
regulated the whole life of these same people and groups of people'.2 Research
into economic history will establish how the development of the Zurich
putting-out industry can be linked with Zwingli's teaching and its dogmatic
hardening and interpretation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The
131
testimonials by leading Zurich putting-out masters would provide particu-
larly important source material, by showing how religious thinking was
intimately interrelated with the economic mentality. Folklore is concerned
with the popular reception of the old Protestant spirit and its manifestation in
the life of the common people and in popular culture.
In his Auslegung und Begrundung der Schlussreden oder Artikel (Exegesis and
Reasoning on the Final Address or Article) of 14 July 1523 Zwingli elevated work
to a clear moral precept. This made him a co-founder of a Protestant work
ethic:
Secondly, it follows that all who punish people for not keeping holidays, do wrong (I
mean this only concerning those holidays which are celebrated merely in idleness); for
the Christian person is also master over the holiday. Yea, it would be far better, if on
most holidays, after hearing God's word and celebrating the Last Supper, people went
back to their work. . . Keeping a holiday in our present manner by eating and drinking,
card playing and useless gossiping is, when seen in the clear light of day, more sinful
than godly. Then I read nowhere that idleness is a Divine Service. I know well that it
would be more pleasing to God if on Sunday, after having accomplished the Divine
Service correctly, one were to mow, cut, make hay or carry out other necessary work,
instead of giving way to slovenly idleness. For the man who has Faith is greater than the
Sabbath.3
It is not difficult to recognise how the spirit of the Zurich 'Sabbath and Moral
Mandates' was based on these interpretations of Zwingli's, although a later
church ordinance pays strict attention to ensuring that no work be done on
Sunday. The Protestant work ethic developed as an integral part of the
Protestant conduct of life. This was dominated by a deeply serious moral and
religious attitude. The Protestant work ethic distinguished itself by 'driving a
person to work, not only when he is hungry, but making him obey an inner
compulsion, which harnesses his strength far more effectively than can mere
outward necessity'.4 The ethnic was by and large defined negatively by the
concept of the sinfulness of idleness; idleness being a 'very harmful thing',
which keeps a person away 'from his orderly work and profession'. 5
Collecting all the source material in the sermons, ordinances and above all
in the teaching material for the country schools, documenting the authorities'
concern that their subjects led moral lives, and the trouble they took to
cultivate a Protestant work ethic would in itself constitute a thesis. The word
'cultivate' is no exaggeration. Popular attitudes to such an important area of
human life, as work undoubtedly represents, can only be changed over a
lengthy process. The work ethic had first to be implanted in the breast of the
common people: 'Christianity and desire for work, implant them early in your
breast!'6 Games and idleness were sins for children too. From their earliest
years they were 'kept diligently at work' and 'bred to spin', 7 for 'Idleness is the
root of all vice.' 8 The attitude of early capitalism to child labour can only be
understood and assessed from the point of view of Church and religion. When
the Stutz family sat at their hand work through the long nights, the oldest
Work in the putting-out industry 133
sisters warping, and Jakob spinning with his younger siblings, their mother
would gladly tell them about her childhood days,
how they had to spin till they were nearly dead and yet got no crust of bread in their
mouths all week . . . She would then go on to draw further comparisons, about how our
life set against her childhood days was heaven-like. We have food, clothes and a bed,
which thousands would gladly have as well, and so we should be glad and pray and
work willingly. He who prays not is not blessed, and an idle person is the devil's
headrest. But we should not think that we will get to heaven on roses, no, the way there
is rough and narrow and overgrown with thorns.9
Thus were the puritanical rules of life implanted, straight from his mother's
lips, in little Jakobli as he sat at his spinning wheel. These rules also culminate
in the formula 'work and pray'. The extent to which the opinion that idle folk
were the devil's headrest had been received into the country people's tradi-
tional way of thinking is illustrated by another of Jakob Stutz's stories. He
describes the life and troubles of the Hittnau spinning work place and reports
the following incident:
I remember a joke, which was carried out here once by a Sternenberg chappie. He was
little old Heiri Wirth, who dealt in toys, screws, ladles and such-like, and who had just
come down from the mountains with his heavy pack and wanted to rest a little in this
place. A woman, at that time a wealthy farmer's wife, used to sit among the spinners
almost every day, idle and resting her head on her hands. Heiri knew that this woman
simply did not like working and, being a diligent man, he was all the more annoyed by
this idle woman . . . He looked benevolently at the diligent spinners and praised them,
while collecting a handful of little twigs and shavings on the ground and casting
dispraising looks at the idle woman; then he handed her the twigs with a stone with a
scornful smile, saying 'Look, woman, there you have something to play with. Knock up
a little house!' This elicited such ringing laughter that the woman rushed home and did
not let herself be seen idling in the spinning work place again for a while.10
Work belonged to the Christian way of life, to righteousness, and among

country people engaged in industry it became a customary obligation which
no one could avoid. A shabby spinner, who visited the tavern almost every
day, is reported to have spoken of himself as follows in the Hittnau spinning
work place: 'He had undertaken not to be thrifty and work any longer, since he
only had to hand his earnings over to the damned Stecklimannen [i.e. the
clothiers]. No, on his oath, he would be thrifty no more.' But he was corrected
sharply: 'And I tell you, you must be thrifty and labour; the authorities can
force you to.'11
Such examples show how the old Protestant spirit of work was embedded in
the common people's consciousness. This is a mental historical process of
outstanding importance. It affected the life of the common people not only in
the economic sector, but it also determined its whole shape and feel. It is
undoubtedly one of the most enduring processes. Even after the old Protestant
conduct of life was weakened by the advance of industrialisation, by new ways
of life and a new feeling about life which threatened the foundations of
everyday Christian beliefs, the spirit of work still made itself felt. That such a
secularised form of the Protestant work ethic was possible is attributable not
least to Protestant teaching itself. The reception by the common people of this
largely untraditional teaching entailed the acute danger of a secularised work
ethic actually becoming a substitute religion. Let us cite only one reference
showing how work and the secularised work ethic retained an element of
religious dedication. The Grutli-kalender for 1925 contains a quotation from
Robert Seidel's text: Arbeitsschule, Arbeitsprinzip und Arbeitsmethode (School of
Work, Principle of Work and Method of Work, 2nd edition, 1885). This quotation,
entitled 'Work', reads like a psalm, a song of praise or a prayer:
Work! with which Thou straightenest the crooked, comfort the sorrowing, lead those
who have strayed onto the path of virtue; Work! Thou solace of the weak, salvation of
the poor and joy of the strong; Work! Thou salve for the fallen, staff for the stumblers
and tonic for the good; Work! Thou reflection of the Highest Power, Thou who raiseth
us to the likeness of God, Work! to which Thou hast raised all mankind and hast led it
out of Barbarity - Thou wilt apply thy powerful strength for training and education
even to the malleable material of the growing generation, and a lovelier and better
youth will blossom through Thee, to its own joy and blessing and that of the world.12
The intensive popular reception of the Protestant work ethic and its
endurance is one of the most astounding phenomena of the modern age.
'Working as a result of an inner compulsion' can certainly not be attributed to
the mental and spiritual attitude of time-less and primitive man and is surely
no general human characteristic (being active, yes, but not 'working in the
sweat of your brow'). This is sufficiently evidenced by the attitude of past and
present cultures towards work. The Protestant work ethic was as unnatural as
possible. That it could nonetheless become popular can be attributed to the
values which it created. We know these values: Zurich owed its industry,
'Foster-mother to our country', as it was called in a report of 1833,13 to its
Protestant and puritanical spirit of work. Max Weber was not alone in
recognising this link. Already 150 years before him, Councillor Schmidt wrote
in his New History of the Germans the following surprising sentence, coming as it
did from an eighteenth-century Catholic: 'In one area, however, the morals of
the Protestants, especially in Germany, have taken a turn, which one would
never have guessed at initially; to wit, in the appearance of a certain thrift,
sobriety and industriousness, which can almost be viewed as something
different in their character.'14 J.C. Hirzel, who took up this quotation in his
speech, unfolded an imaginary view before his audience, illustrating how these
'morals of the Protestants' manifested themselves in the life of the common
people and in popular culture. He advised them to climb a mountain, from
which both Catholic and Protestant regions could be viewed, as for instance
from the Rossweid or the Vogelinsegg. From up there one could see 'the great
difference between the countries of the Reformed and the Catholics'. In the
Protestant regions
one finds all sorts of signs of activity, diligence, and reflection; the country is richer in
people and more lively; the farms are better worked; the houses are uniformly more
solidly and tastefully built, if one disregards the few monasteries and dwellings of
families who have risen through military service. On the Vogelins-Egg in Appenzell
Ausser Rhoden one has a viewing point similar to the one I described on the Rossweid.
On the one side one can see into the Thurgau, on the western shore of the Bodensee,
whose population and agricultural methods are similar to those of the Zurich Lake
region. On the other side is the Appenzell Alpine region, which is not by nature better
than the region of the canton of Schwyz along the Biber. But here everything is alive,
the whole area is divided up by fences into smaller or larger plots of land, mostly,
however, of moderate size, with a well-built house standing on each plot; and every year
one discovers new houses on newly cleared land, right up to the mountain peaks. A
great difference springs to the eye when one leaves Appenzell Ausser Rhoden and
enters the Inner Rhoden, or leaves Uznerland for Toggenburg, or leaves the Mark for
Glarnerland. But just as we notice this difference writ small within the Swiss
Confederation, so too is it obvious when we direct our gaze onto the larger economies of
Europe, England, Holland and the Protestant states of Germany, which are models of
the most perfect culture, both of diligence and skill in trade and manufacture. In France
too industry blooms nowhere more splendidly than among the Huguenots, who still
run most of the factories. And in the sea ports of the other Catholic states trade is in the
hands of Protestants, whereby the Principle we have adopted is confirmed the more, in
that the free use of an enlightened common sense, hard work, thrift and good morals
increase both wealth and population.15
Hirzel's description could be countered with the argument that the author's
judgement was not objective, that as a Protestant he was engaging in a polemic
against people of different faiths. But this was not the case. Hirzel quotes the
'Commentary' to a New Year greetings from Kollin the Catholic magistrate of
Zug, printed in a New Year Gift to the Youth of Zug in 1785 and 1786. Kollin
wrote:
See how happy hardworking inhabitants make a country. If you want to see a living
picture, you have only to cast a glance on neighbouring states. Whence their happiness,
their wealth and their power? Go into their nurseries and see how the tiniest children
are already made to do some work, any sort of work, simply to prevent them from
acquiring a tendency to idleness. Go into their schools, go into their art and work
rooms! Go into their places of trade! See how busy they are, how diligent, how
indefatigably willing to work! Now whence do their riches, their status and power
come? When all are diligent worker-bees, must not the hive be rich in honey?'16
It is obvious to us as well as J. C. Hirzel that magistrate Kollin was thinking
about the industrial regions of the Zurich countryside. The open-minded
Catholic took the Protestant work ethic as his model. It was Kollin who
included these two verses, which we have already quoted, in his New Year
greetings: 'Christianity and love of work, implant them early in your breast!'
We must end these few remarks of a general nature with a backwards
glance; they appear to contradict the foregoing chapter in which we saw that in
the industrial regions of the Zurich countryside, the 'common sense and thrift'
of a Protestant conduct of life had to give way to heightened demands on life.
J.C. Hirzel himself acknowledged that there * where factory earnings have for
many years been highest' there was also found the most 'inclination to finery
and extravagance in food and drink'.17 How can this contradiction be solved?
We must recall the connections we established in our discussion about
luxury: the Puritan and Protestant spirit formed the driving force behind
industrialisation. But as industrialisation advanced the old spirit of Protestan-
tism had to change, because the new industrial conditions of existence gave
rise to new needs among the population. The expansion and development of
the industry depended on these increased needs. The strict laws governing
ostentation and morals - manifestations of a Puritan spirit - restricted
industrialisation. This gave rise to a similar paradoxical situation as that seen
in our discussion about luxury, but viewed from a different angle: Protestant
religious teaching aroused the spirit of work, but the results of this work
destroyed the dogma which created it, and changed the feeling about life from
which it all started.
These introductory thoughts of a general nature bring us to the questions
discussed in this chapter.18 The folklorist approach puts man and his attitude
to work and working at the centre of our enquiry. What did the industrial
system of production with its economic rationalisation mean in terms of the life
of the outworker? Industrial labour forced a majority of people into similar
employment. Once they had slipped into industrial dependence, these people
were at the mercy of the industrial system of production. Every sales stoppage,
every fashion change, every new method of work directly affected their lives,
but by and large they put up with this passively. Even when these people were
familiar with weaving and spinning from working on their peasant holdings,
working for the putting-out industry demanded a completely new approach to
work. The outworker's attitude to life was moulded by this, and although its
emergence was too involved to allow us to gain a true insight into it, we will try
to sketch its rough outlines in the following pages. Arnold Niederer has
perceived the whole extent of the problem:
Rationally and purposefully organised work has, ever since the manufacturing period,
developed increasingly into work in general. Countless people, bound by their origins
mainly to spheres of life determined by tradition, have been turned by means of this
necessary and unavoidable development into useful components of the rational,
mechanised and modern economic apparatus. They have thereby undergone a change
in their mental make-up, the significance of which can scarcely be exaggerated.19
Let us first cast a glance at the old-style peasant economy (where cottage
industry had not yet managed to set foot), thereby allowing us to evaluate, in
an indirect and clearly negative manner, the new industrial methods of work
and attitude to work. In the ancient peasant economy both processes and
methods of work were handed down and established by tradition and
depended to a great extent on natural factors.20 The peasantry was directed
not by its own rational and purposeful deliberations, but by the example of its
fathers and forefathers alone.21 The peasant clung doggedly to his ancient
customs. In the eighteenth century, the economists of urban Zurich learnt
about the peasant's mentality and his faith in tradition. 'His prejudices
opposed everything lying beyond the ken of his antiquated way of thinking and
by obstinacy, inflexibility and reluctant behaviour he often rendered the best
arrangements powerless and useless', as Inspector von Birch reported in 1787.
The peasant countered the efforts at economic reform with the argument: 'You
are right, but I will stick to what I know and have often done before.'22 Just as
the old peasant methods of work and attitude to work were not determined by
rational and purposeful thought, so too was the peasant's economic thinking
devoid of economic rationalism. There was little or no space in the circle of
peasant life and economy for competition, individual effort and social
advancement, especially not where three-field farming with its open-field
system determined the methods of work and the use of the soil down to the last
detail. The parishioner cared more about his dignity, power and status as a
farmer than about the economic viability of his farm.23 'There are such
[farmers] who would forfeit an inheritance of some hundred Gulden, rather
than apologise or produce even one kind of respectful gesture', reported
minister Irminger of Henggart in 1783.24 It is clear that the putting-out
industry was able to secure only limited influence where this attitude to work
and this economic mentality were prevalent. Both the material and the mental
preconditions worked against it: the demand for work was satisfied and the
old-fashioned farmers were not aware of the concept of rational and purposeful
work for the sake of gain. Nor did the religious concept of work, which forced
people to work that they might not be idle, have much chance of being realised
in the ancient peasant economy and way of farming.
This characterisation of the peasant way of thinking applies mainly to the
arable farmers on the level zones of the Zurich countryside, which were
characterised by their three-field farming system. The scattered settlements of
the Oberland, marked by the predominance of individual property and land
use, required an individual economic mentality and attitude to work, which
came much closer to the economic rationalism of the putting-out industry. In
Chapters 1 and 4 we searched extensively for the social, economic and legal
factors responsible for this. The material and mental preconditions for
purposeful and rational work in the service of the putting-out industry were
incomparably better in the Oberland farmlands than in the arable farmlands
of the Unterland.
Let us cast a further glance at those classes of the population whose lives
were bound earliest and most exclusively to the putting-out industry. We
learnt about them in the 'Description of the Poor in the Whole Countryside of
Zurich'. They were the smallholders, the day-labourers, and charcoal-
burners, the whittlers of scoops, the basket-weavers, the widows and orphans,
the unmarried daughters and the elderly, in short the whole army of people
who subsisted painfully on the margins of the peasant community. These
people were predestined by their mental and material conditions to become
wage-labourers in the service of the Zurich putting-out industry. Working for
the sake of gain was taken for granted. They were familiar with the rational
equation: here the work, there the wage. They were aware that their labour
was their only economic asset. As day-labourers and seasonal workers they
were used to doing temporary work and to not receiving any share in the
produce of their labour. Their relationship with work was consequently
characterised by the absence of bonds and involvement. The land they
worked, whether their own or another's, gave them no security, but forced
many of them into a life of wandering. Before industrialisation there was no
question of these classes of the population having enough work. We have
learnt about the work vacuum. The Protestant motto for a righteous life 'pray
and work' must have echoed mockingly for the poor countrymen of that age: it
is easy to preach about praying, but where in their homeland could they find
work and bread? It was only the exogenous putting-out industry which gave
them the chance of earning a living in their own country and they reached out
eagerly towards the industrial sources of earnings, and built themselves a new
existence in their homeland with them.
Now, regarding the popular reception of the Protestant work ethic, we must
consider that a new work ethic could only be received into popular conscious-
ness and remain there uncontested when there was an adequate supply of
work. The work supply had, furthermore, to be by nature appropriate to the
work ethic. We must further remember how the economic mentality of the
propertied sector drove the economically weaker sector into industrial
dependence. This has been extensively discussed in an earlier chapter. J.C.
Hirzel describes how the rich peasants of the Greifen Lake region oppressed
the smallholders and did not want to share out the common land. He added:
'This oppression aroused in the smallholders inertia, stupidity and
recalcitrance towards agriculture, which was in consequence practised
increasingly less effectively in these regions and the opportunity provided for a
harmful preference for spinning to be indulged.'25
These sketchy observations have cast indirect light on work in the putting-
out industry and on the outworkers' attitude to their employment. Let us now
take a look at these specific topics.
Both spinning and weaving were parts of a process of production whose
organisation and management rested in the hands of the urban putting-out
masters. Under the Ancien Regime the social and political status of the
outworker, as a subject, meant that he could not be more than a tiny cog in the
production machine. The raw material of his work was grown in countries
whose names he hardly knew, and a proportion of the finished goods was also
sent out to distant nations. What did the outworker know about the cotton
harvest in Cyprus or Macedonia? How was he able to explain why the raw
material ran out and why sales suddenly stagnated? And then what of'the
spirit of fashion, which lays down the law to the tradesman so fitfully and
capriciously'? A Zurich putting-out master of the eighteenth century com-
pared it 'with the Wind, which no man knows whence it cometh and whither it
goeth'.26 All these factors eluded the outworker's understanding to a great
extent, although they had an immediate effect on his work. The spinner was
given a specific quantity of wool by the carrier or the clothiers, which he turned
into more or less fine yarn via several processes. He received an appropriate
wage for this. The carrier would bring the yarn to town to the manufacturer
from whom he got the raw material or else he could hand the spun yarn
straight over to be woven and would deliver only thefinishedrough cloth to the
town manufacturer. The uniform spinning work dragged on monotonously. It
fitted in with none of the holidays or seasons, and the amount of work done was
assessed in purely quantitative, rational and contractual terms, measured by
mass, in Pfund or Schneller.21 That was how people calculated their daily and
weekly earnings; they made a level-headed and quantitative estimate of the
matter in hand and set themselves a certain amount of work, the Rast. The only
thing that mattered was the amount achieved. In Jakob Stutz's Gem'dlde aus dem
Volksleben {Pictures from the Life of the Common People) the following song is sung
by children as they spin:
There was once a pious little spinner

She spun every day eight Schneller in number
Eight Schneller in number, like silk so fine,
They shone like silver and jewels.
She had the prayerbook always on her lap
And prayed by her spinning wheel without a break.
The blessing of her work was great.
She did not fall short of the Rast even once.28
The Rast and the Schneller, purely quantitative and contractual ways of
measuring work, are called the blessings of work in the song. We cannot
measure how far Stutz as a domestic spinner and weaver was aware of this
purposeful and contractual attitude to work. After this song, Stutz makes the
grandmother urge the children on with their work:
So spin, children, spin and take care!

Now make your wheels hum, now!
Drawing the threads out long as the bobbin,
And do not make me any lumps in it.
Now we earn a Batzen for each Schneller,
But who knows how long this will go on.
So spin, children, spin and take care!
When you have fulfilled the Rast, the rest belongs to you.
And so you will earn a Schilling for yourselves.
So spin, children, spin as much as you can,
Spend your time and hours together wherever you can.
You are still young. Oh, were I still like you.
How my spindle would hum day and night!
Their grandmother introduces her materialistic exhortation to work, with
its references to Schneller, Rast, Batzen, Schilling, money, time and hours with the
following explanation:
Yes, truly children, if you spin so well,
And make the yarn sofineand clean
And pray early and late, so will you come at last
Into Heaven, in Heaven above.
This example illustrates how the religious concept of work had fused with
the outworker's rational and purposeful attitude to work. With spinning (and
partly so with weaving) the work ethic had to degenerate into worship of
quantitative achievement, because cottage work provided countryfolk
engaged in industry with few opportunities to excel qualitatively in their work.
There were indeed different qualities of yarn.29 Skilful daughters distinguished
themselves by spinning Brief or L'dthli yarn. This was a fine yarn spun by hand
onto the spindle, and far better paid than the rougher spinning-wheel yarn. So
a degree of choice was possible with spinning. Goethe noticed this in a Zurich
spinning community and wrote about it:
This employment [spinning Brief yarn], which is pursued only by steady and
thoughtful persons, gives the spinner a gentler appearance than working on the wheel
does; the latter suits a tall, slimfigurebest, thus making a calm and tender form appear
to great advantage. I noticed several such different characters engaged in different
work in one room and ended up not knowing whether to devote my attention to the
work or to the workers.
Goethe's report mentions a fine instance of the pride the spinners took in the
quantity they produced. One of the girls working at a spinning wheel bet
Goethe that she could spin between 8,000 and 9,000 ells a day at her wheel. At
this a quiet and shy Brief"yarn spinner spoke up and assured him that she could
spin 120 Schneller a pound (wheel-spun yarn produced only 20 to 30 Schneller a
pound). This spinner had just filled a Schneller and 'was able to demonstrate
how the practised spinner's employment was invested with innocent self-
esteem'.30 In spite of the possibility of choice, hand spinning was governed just
as much by the principle of quantity as was spinning with the wheel. With Brief
yarn, too, pay was reckoned according to the number of Schneller. The actual
product aroused far less satisfaction than did the pay it amounted to. The joy
of creation was mainly a joy of making money. Reckoning in Schneller, Schilling
or time characterises the attitude of the countryfolk employed in industry to
their putting-out work.31
Such an attitude to work gave rise to various consequences. People began
competing with one another over the daily number of Schneller stipulated. Time
is money - this frenzy began to take effect. The whole course of the day was
arranged accordingly. The housekeeping could only be done when the Rast
work was finished. The smallest children, who could not yet earn money, were
packed off to school so that they 'were taken out from under their mothers'
feet'.32 Older daughters were initiated into almost none of'the most essential
household concerns'.33 There were many women workers, as minister Jakob
Oeri reported in 1784 about Wil, who 'were not capable even of darning some
worn-out clothes or of washing'.34 The minister of Mannedorf wrote in 1857
about the silk hand-loom weavers 'What's more, this uninterrupted employ-
ment at the loom is linked to another disadvantage, which only becomes
apparent when the weaver-girl wants to set up her own household: she knows
nothing about cooking, nothing about darning, she is unused to keeping the
rooms clean, in short, she can't do anything except earn money at her loom.'33
Miss Hermine Kunz (Hiltisberg, parish of Wald, born 1878) tells about her
grandmother:
Grandmother had done nothing all her life except spin. She did nothing about the
housekeeping. We children found it very funny whenever she helped with the washing,
when she had finished a cloth. She always wove white silk, wide, she was very precise;
her daily Rast was 9 ells. She started at five on the dot and worked until nine in the
evening. After about three weeks, she would havefinisheda cloth for which she would
get around 30-2 Franks.36
Conditions were similar for the new generation of outworkers. They were
incapable of any other work and in times of no work, they were able only with
difficulty to opt for physically exhausting field and day-labouring work.
'Unwilling and at the same time unable to do unfamiliar work, many could be
used for almost nothing, especially not for fairly strenuous physical work.'37
'Too little accustomed to endurance and exertion, mostly knowing only one
factory work, grown up in parlours or loom shops, many had neither strength
nor skill left for farmwork, especially when they had to tackle hard labour;
many were also too indolent to learn new work [when sales stagnated and
production stopped].' 38 Pestalozzi also described this phenomenon. His words
ring with concern and horror: 'The mechanics of a miserable factory knack
appeared to thousands and thousands of people to be enough to ensure the
happiness of their children and their country forever.'30
The industrial system of production was undoubtedly responsible for this
situation, which allotted rational and purposeful work to an army of wage
workers, who were trained and recruited for this work alone. Thus was
achieved the process whereby 'people are divided up into sub-functions,
characteristic of many modern production processes'. Economic rationalism is
unable to take much account of people's physiological and psychological
natures when these do not serve its purposes. As a logical consequence of this
principle, 'human individualities and eccentricities, seen from the point of
view of production, [were stamped] as mere sources of error.'40 People who
had slipped into industrial dependence had to adapt, thereby decisively
influencing their lives and communities. We are poised in front of the central
question of our folklorist enquiry: how did the industrial method of working,
the principle of quantitative production and, in overall terms, the structure
and organisation of the Zurich putting-out industry affect the character and
life of the common people?
Let us start with a detail which reveals the connections. The outworkers
'have a bad reputation on account of their untrustworthiness at work'.41
Wherever cottage industry is discussed, such complaints are to be found.
Outworkers had many opportunities to make some unlawful profits: the
workers embezzled the raw material, yarn or cloth, they sold or pawned the
delivered wares, they padded out their quota by some sort of cheating, and so
on. Jakob Stutz tells us about his parents' experiences in the clothiers business:
When my mother was acting as a carrier for the spinners and weavers, who came along
almost every hour, she experienced not just a lot of trouble but also much anger and
irritation. Very few of them were satisfied with their wages and most of them were
cheats and thieves. The Schnellerwere either moistened so as to weigh more, or else they
were not the right length and breadth. There were just a few Separatists, who in the true
sense of the word worked faithfully and honestly and did not pinch even a Heller's worth
from what was entrusted them.42
These abuses were so deeply entrenched that none of the measures taken by
the authorities had any effect. It was pointed out in the minutes of 24
September 1716 'that, regardless of all chastisement, untrustworthiness is
constantly increasing and will soon be beyond endurance'. 43 The Factory
Ordinance of 16 August 1717 stated
And because in the past various forms of untrustworthiness have been practised by the
workers, so, seventhly, shall it be incumbent on the manufacturers [in order to put a
halt to such criminal undertakings] to make the names and surnames of workers who
can be satisfactorily convicted known to other manufacturers through a person
specially appointed to this end. It shall then be forbidden to employ such untrust-
worthy workers.44
In spite of all decrees and prohibitions Johann Schulthess felt that

the extent to which each place is corrupted depends on how long it has been penetrated
by factory work. I have only to think of a village well known to me since my childhood,
where only sixty years ago a few dozen of its inhabitants had to stand in front of the
church door holding strands of wool as a penance for stealing, to calculate how far their
descendants will have progressed in the evil, about which the deceased Antistes Wirz
has given evidence in this hall, that in his time it had already become so common that
whole villages were infected with it, and it had struck root so deeply that they no longer
considered it a sin, but in their hearts even blessed themselves!45
Fifty years later the minister of Mannedorf announced similar conditions in
the silk hand-loom trade and explained why these abuses were not disappear-
ing from cottage industry:
A very bad moral evil accompanying silk weaving is disloyalty to the employer, the
more so that the workers do not consider it to be disloyalty and refer to it among
themselves under the technical term of humbugging. On the whole manufacturers do
not set great store by this, knowing how much can be embezzled on average and setting
their pay accordingly; for their part the workers also know that the manufacturers make
up for their loss through lower pay and they make up for it by humbugging.46
A 'Report on a Few Industrial Conditions in the Canton of Zurich' (31 May
1833) pointed out that 'a special reason for encouraging the introduction of
mechanical weaving is the widespread system of cheating which has
penetrated our hand-loom industry'.47
It is clearly apparent from these witnesses that the outworkers' customary
cheating and stealing had developed out of the system of production and pay in
the putting-out industry and must be understood as being really a form of self-
help. It was obvious that this deceitful behaviour, sanctified by custom,
formed the character of the common people. Of course it was only a detail, but
when we look more closely at the question as to how this evil practice arose, we
see how it grew up out of the organisation and structure of the putting-out
industry. We recognise further that the same features of the system of
production which led to customary stealing and cheating were to have far
weightier consequences for the way of life in the cottage industry, although
these were not immediately obvious. We can gather from the minister of
Mannedorf s account what a great latitude existed or could exist in the cottage
industry system of payment. These conditions were deeply rooted in the
nature of the textile industry. There was a market demand for all sorts of yarn
and cloth. Fashions changed in rapid succession and with them the market-
able articles. Further, this branch of manufacture, which depended on world
trade very early on, was extremely sensitive to crises. This applied as much to
the supply of the raw materials as to the sale of the finished goods. Given these
facts, it was difficult to find a stable rate of pay, valid over a long period, within
the system of production of the putting-out industry. This applied especially to
the period before the Helvetic Revolution and its particular political, social
and economic conditions. Under the Ancien Regime the putting-out industry
encompassed people with completely different political and economic rights.
The clothiers were to a great extent able to determine the spinners' and
weavers' wages, but as subjects they were bound through their profession to
the urban putting-out masters. They secured commissions from them at a
specific manufacturing price, and were obliged to procure the raw material in
the city and to deliver the finished goods there too.48 The clothier was only a
variant of the country undertaker in the production system of the putting-out
industry. Yarn carriers, cloth carriers, loom menders and others, with a
greater or lesser degree of independence, completed the picture. It is easy to
appreciate that the human and social structure of the production system of the
putting-out industry under the Ancien Regime possessed very little ability to
bolster itself against fluctuations in demand and supply. The army of wage
workers suffered most from these. The putting-out master tried to offset his manu-
facturing risks onto the clothiers and carriers, who, not being economically
self-sufficient, passed them on to the outworkers. This economic mentality was
obvious, as was the attitude of the outworkers, who tried to keep out of harm's
way by lawful and unlawful means. Their weapon was embezzlement. They
were forced to use this weapon all the more because pressure on wages was not
the only thing they were powerless to oppose. Their earnings were also
reduced by bad raw materials, incorrect bills, insufficient equipment and
similar injustices. It could even happen that a weaver would be punished for
his honesty by the carrier; if he returned superfluous yarn, he would have the
pay for his piece of cloth reduced. Given this practice, he would require the
honesty of a Separatist not to substract the superfluous yarn.49
The conditions under the Ancien Regime described above have been
impressively documented in the factory mandates and decrees. The town
authorities were constantly trying to achieve set rates of pay and to protect the
outworkers from unjust exploitation. In 1662 a specific institution was
founded, the Commercial Directorium (Kaufmannisches Direktorium), to
supervise and manage the factories. A Commission for the Protection of the
Workers was called into being in 1717: it met every week and anyone could
complain to it about injustices they had suffered.50 However, the wording of
the mandate provides sufficient evidence of how ineffective the authorities'
decrees were in practice. We have chosen a few examples from the compilation
of'Zurich Factory Legislation'.51 They provide a lively picture of conditions in
the putting-out industry. For instance, on 3 July 1675 the council ratified a pay
arrangement set up by the Commercial Directorium for the 'Silk combers, silk
spinners and silk winders'. The Directorium justified its regulations as follows:
'To prevent the unfair and unChristian start of various of those tradesmen,
who some time ago sorely oppressed the poor working people by reducing their
little wages.'52 We read in the introduction to the Factory Ordinance drawn up
by the authorities on 16 August 1717 that, for instance, 'Further, because in
some of these factories their wage has not been fixed but in others their pay is
not proportionate to their work' the council finds it necessary to establish firm
regulations. The rates of pay in the different Fabriken, that is, in the different
branches of the textile industry, 'must be fixed'. Let us pick out a few places.
With spinning in the 'woollen factories', it must be 'left to each manufacturer
to act conscientiously in fixing fair wages, because it would not be expedient to
set a particular wage on account of the constant changes. The opinion was that
the manufacturer, before handing the wares over to the spinner, should
indicate the price he has stipulated they be spun for.' A specific minimum
wage was established. Regarding the cotton spinners, it was also acknow-
ledged that 'In respect of the differing quality of the cotton the wages cannot be
assessed so precisely, but the following order should be obediently observed
and obeyed' (then follow the rates of pay). 53
These examples show how uncontrollable was the system of pay in the
putting-out industry and the extent to which the outworkers were delivered
into the power of the manufacturers. They could indeed call for checks by the
authorities, but who could force the manufacturer to deliver further work to
those outworkers who complained to the Commission about him? In regions
near the town, the spinner or weaver might be able to find another employer
easily, but this was not the case in the remote valleys of the Oberland. And how
easy it was for an accused person to take his revenge. The cotton weavers'
wageS, for instance, were accompanied by the following stipulation: 'It is
understood with all these weavers' wages that, just as with the silk factories,
the manufacturer shall procure the equipment for the worker and also keep it
in good condition.' This loan system enabled the manufacturer to keep a tight
rein on a mutinous weaver; he would give him faulty equipment or he would
fail to sent the loom-mender along for the necessary repairs, and the weaver
would suffer a considerable drop in his wages.
The factory mandates also illustrate how the clothiers and carriers were
responsible for these conditions. The decree of 1717 went as follows:54
Secondly, because we have been aware for some time that remarkable irregularities,
which are very disadvantageous to the poor workers, have occurred on behalf of the
carriers, so it is our earnest desire and opinion, in order to prevent all forms of abuse,
that as many carriers as possible be dismissed and that no carrier be appointed closer
than three or four hours' distance from the town.
Following this a scale of pay was established according to the carriers' hours of
travel, which probably proved difficult to enforce in practice. The carriers
were also referred to again:
What is more, the ministers should keep diligent watch on the doings of the carriers.
These last should bring the name of the spinner on a paper sheet or leaf along with each
little package of yarn. The manufacturer would then write the amount paid each
spinner on it, and enter the spinner's name in his note-book at the same time.
Many carriers and clothiers tried to pay their outworkers in less valuable
tokens, instead of ready money. If they were also bakers or grocers, they would
force payment in kind on them as well. In an attempt to regulate this abuse, the
Factory Ordinance of 1717 stipulated: 'the carriers should also not be bakers
or grocers, but they should pay their workforce their due wages in ready,
undepreciated and current money, but not in goods or foodstuffs'.
The carriers' and the clothiers' large responsibility for these fluctuating and
uncertain conditions of pay is adequately illustrated in these sources. We are
aware of how much the countryfolk employed in industry were dependent on
these links in the chain of production. A methodical approach makes it clear
that the human and technical structure of the putting-out system cannot be
considered in isolation, but must constantly be set alongside the political,
social and economic conditions of the age. This applies not only to Zurich in
general, but also more specifically to the different industrial regions of Zurich.
Local forces and influences often proved so strong that they shaped the human
and technical structure of the industry according to their individual features.

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi wrote:
Historically it is true that Zurich manufactured muslins twenty or so years before
Appenzell. But as a result of the freedom of trade, the Appenzellers overtook Zurich
in the art of its manufacture and likewise in its income by twenty years. This too is
true: the common workers in this region have not been reduced by the manufacture
to the same degree of poverty as the spinners and weavers of the Zurich area have
been.55
District captain Beyel reported in 1787
that the cotton manufacture proceeded satisfactorily so long as the merchants in the
town held the business wholly in their hands, but ever since they appointed these
clothiers and their like and allowed the manufacture to pass through them and bought
cloth from them, everything fell into confusion. When the merchants, for instance, got
enough commissions they pressed their clothiers for the wares, and they then raised the
weaving and spinning pay above average and when the commissions did not come in
for a while, then the price they paid the clothiers fell again and so would the wages. As a
result the trade was rendered uncertain and irregular and had a very harmful influence
both in the town and in the countryside, both on the moral and on the economic
condition of its inhabitants. There were strong divisions in this trade, with the burghers
mostly becoming merchants and the manufacturing side coming into the hands of the
country people.56
Beyel's formulas and values are of his age. Let us recall the attitude of the
countryfolk employed in industry to marriage and the family, to the land, to
their food and clothes, to luxury, to social life, etc. Let us further recall the
outworker's lack of thrift. All these attributes now appear in a much clearer
light. We see that the outworker's life was tied to an economic system
incapable of providing him with any security. It was conceived along rational
and expedient lines and had to obey the laws which had determined its
existence. The outworker, who had built up his life wholly or partially on an
industrial basis, had to submit to these laws. And submit he did. His attitude
to work concentrated necessarily on gain. He met his daily needs through the
'medium of money, which is indifferent to quality' 57 and so was obliged to
think in terms of a money economy. In short, his life and social life adapted to
the new conditions, and the outworker's thought processes were subjected to
the influence of economic rationalism. But - and this is now decisive - the
outworker adapted as a traditional person to his new basis of existence.
Whatever it was that led him to work in the putting-out industry (it could be
any one of an infinite number of reasons), he was still caught up in the common
people's belief in tradition. The connection with the previous chapters is
thereby established, in which the altered forms of life were considered from the
point of view of work in the putting-out industry.
One would now be justified in asking whether this does not contradict all
our previous statements, in which we stressed the more open and dynamic
mental attitude of the country population employed in industry, and tried to
demonstrate its manifestation in popular culture. It would in any case be a
contradiction, were one to muddle up belief in tradition with traditional
property. The traditional property, both of a material and spiritual kind,
pertaining to the outworkers had undoubtedly changed and was distinguish-
able in many ways from that of the peasants. The outworkers' traditional
property had, by its very nature, to be appropriate to an industrial basis of
existence, that is to say, stamped with the money economy and the whole
dynamism of this economic system. But the common people retained their
faith in tradition. This phenomenon58 is most clearly shown in the attitude of
the outworkers to their basis of existence: all the fluctuations in pay, all the
stagnations in sales and all the elements of uncertainty in the putting-out
industry were unable to shatter their trust in the 'mechanics of a miserable
factory knack'. While the outworker no longer said: my father and grandfather
did not manure their meadows and 'yet they were no fools but sensible people.
How should I improve on what they did?',59 he did, however, cling with equal
stubbornness to factual experience: my parents or neighbours also span or
wove, they too owned no land and saved just as little as I do. They had fat and
lean years just as we do, but the putting-out industry always fed them.
However rational the outworker's attitude to his work might be, however
much he had learnt about flexibility with regard to his work, his attitude to his
'dynamic and technical existence' remained irrational and traditional.60 The
mountain peasant took avalanches and landslides in his stride as the normal
occurrences of a lifetime and the arable farmer reckoned with damage from
hail and frost. Stagnations in sales and fluctuations in wages were part of the
outworker's life. The difference between them was only that the outworker's
existence was not based on the soil, but on earning ready money. Natural
phenomena did not directly threaten the outworker's basis of existence.
Instead he was at the mercy of the elements of uncertainty in the industrial
system of production, and money as a medium reacts sensitively. To him,
these elements of uncertainty were just as irrational and obscure as hailstorms
were to the peasants.61 It was just as hard to convince the peasants of the utility
of taking out insurance for their cattle or against hail as it was to explain the
sense of a savings or medical care scheme to outworkers and factory hands.
When Jakob Stutz was admiring a rich clothier's new house in Weisslingen
with his mother, he discovered his first Strohlableiter (lightning conductor).
'Look!', said his mother, 'the gentleman has had these rods stuck on his house
so that the lightning will not strike there. But that is called tempting God and it
is a great sin.'62 Was there any reason why the outworker would not employ
similar arguments based on popular belief to bolster his reluctance to save?
We must now relate this brief and fragmentary commentary to our enquiry.
How did the nature of his industrial basis of existence affect the outworker,
born as he was into a sphere of life determined by tradition?
The outworker bound himself with his basis of existence to a new
dynamism. Because he clung to this with his traditional mentality, it was able
to become the basis of a compulsory norm. This led to a new relation to life, to a
new attitude to life. T h e outworker's attitude towards his human and material
environment is illustrated by an account by a pastor of Gniningen:
In our parish the dominant employment is silk weaving, whereas cotton weaving
employs only a very small number, perhaps a twentieth of the weavers. The experience
of a sequence of years has shown that these earnings are not in themselves enough to
provide a family with a secure livelihood, or to produce even some kind of firm
prosperity. Where such prosperity begins to blossom, it already has its main roots in a
well-managed farm and a well-established household. It is apparent that the usual
earnings are quite inadequate for establishing an outer or inner basis, because they are
too liable to all the various fluctuations which destroy not only the outer appointments
and manners of life, but even the characters of the workers, so long as they lack another
means of support. The fluctuations affect them ever more lastingly and deeply, because
they often result in the worker being overloaded with work, and then having to be idle
again. He becomes the slave of his work, instead of its master . . . So while these
earnings are a very welcome supplementary economic support for individuals and
whole households who already have an outward (and especially an inner) form of
support - and the employers will always prefer to employ these workers, as being the
most reliable - whereas all the other workers, who are not seeking to establish their
prosperity on a lasting basis, but only to enjoy it, driven from one desire to another,
gradually sink into poverty and destitution, finally to become charges on the parish as
soon as work and earnings cease.63
As described in this account, people's basis of existence was founded on the

putting-out industry. Cottage industrial earnirtgs fluctuated so greatly that
they could not guarantee any constant standard of living. Families with no
farm .to provide a reserve or to cushion them felt the full force of the
fluctuations in earnings. Their outward standard of living and their inner
attitude to life was subjected to these dynamics. Because the outworker, as a
traditional person, permeated these unsteady and fluctuating conditions of
existence with his wholly irrational, traditionalist mentality, he imbued them
with a customary solidity and sanction. This gave rise to an appropriate
attitude to life. The putting-out industry, with its own laws and dynamics, led
the outworkers into a new world. They had to find their inner balance, as well
as assert and establish themselves in a technical and dynamic world; always a
lengthy process. They were not supported by their ancient peasant traditions
and inheritance, they needed a new material culture and an attitude to life
more suited to their basis of existence. We learnt about the industrial ways of
life in the previous chapters. Now the nature of work in the putting-out
industry sheds some light on the life of the countryfolk employed in industry.
We have consciously avoided the term 'proletarianisation' in our charac-
terisation of the cottage industrial attitude to life, since it can scarcely be used
in an academic sense any more, having been over-mortgaged with political
and other meanings. Even when we use the term 'proletarianisation' without
any emphasis, that is, understanding it as a form of mental and spiritual
behaviour, a relation to life, the danger of misrepresentation would still be
present. But it is important to recognise among the outworkers of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the forms of existence and the attitude
to life outlined above. It was then that these first came into being, and not just
with the advent of the machine age or of Liberalism.
The bonds of the old peasant communities did not apply to the industrial
basis of existence any more (in so far as the outworker had ever been rooted in a
peasant sphere of life). But there was no danger that the outworker would not
achieve new communal bonds, because as a traditional person he possessed a
strong need for community. Once we have recognised this, our line of enquiry
in this chapter produces the following question: how do the outworkers
achieve an awareness of their own community from their employment and
their work?
The peasantry and its work experienced, following the new awareness of
nature, a considerable rise in esteem and transfiguration. This intellectual
fashion was a purely urban phenomenon and was limited only to a select
circle.64 The non-peasant countryfolk employed in industry did not share this
high regard for peasant life at all. 'Agriculture, these props of morality and of a
solid prosperity, began to be despised by the ignorant and uneducated mass of
common people.'65 Jakob Stutz tells us about the sale of his parental farm:
That autumn the aforesaid auction really did take place, and more than half the farm
was sold and even very cheaply, because, as far as I remember, manufacture was doing
well. Therefore people preferred sitting at their looms to sweating in the fields. Many
said that they would not accept the biggest farm as a gift, or, should it come to them
floating on the stream, they would just let it pass by and would certainly not pull it to
the bank. Now an average Galli [short for calico, a coarse cotton cloth] weaver was able
to earn a weekly 5-6 Gulden, while sitting in the dry and living well, whereas the farmer
had to work in wind and rain and not get anything from it. Thus did they esteem the
peasantry in those days of rich earnings, whom the factory people considered with
scorn and mockery.66
In the Pictures from the Life of the Common People61 the young spinner-girl Babel
says to farmer Hans:
There can no better person be than me.
When it is cold, I sit in the warm room,
When the sun shines, I am in the cool shade:
When it is raining I am sitting dry under the roof.
Look you, if I could certainly have
The richest farmer, I surely would not take him.
Not satisfied with this, she tells the other outworkers: 'Let's sing a song for
Hans'. Babel and the other spinners sing:
When the farmers go to the plough
We can spare our shoes:
We are all right!
When the farmers mow and sweat
We can sit in the shade:
We are all right!
When the farmers painfully stoop,
We go about with upright backs;
We are all right!
When the farmers get up early,
We can turn over in bed;
We are all right!
It is clear from the industrialised countryfolk's attitude to the peasantry that
they enjoyed a high degree of self-awareness. Wherever this self-awareness
declared itself, it fed on the same nourishment. They mocked the peasant on
account of his harsh toil, subject to unkind nature, and they proudly rattled the
coins in their pockets, earned through manufacturing. Clearly, the outwork-
ers' self-awareness was determined essentially by their work, a form of
employment where the pay meant everything to them and the work itself but
little. They were proud that they did not have to earn their bread in the sweat
of their brows. 'They laugh at the peasants and their sweat, since they know
how to feed themselves more comfortably', came a report from Mettmenstet-
ten in 17S9.68 The pastor of Wildberg wrote the following about the Oberland
outworkers:
Spinning and weaving are the preferred means of livelihood of these mountainfolk. One
may frequently find parents, grandparents and grandchildren together in a room at the
spinning wheel and loom; sometimes in the warm sun, sometimes in the cool shade, as it
pleases them, grown sons and daughters gather together, swinging their spinning
wheels in mischievous fun, either arrogantly mocking the peasants who bear the
burden and heat of the day, or looking down on them with pity.69
This sort of teasing about professions and social position are evidence not only
of a self-awareness, but they also constitute a 'negative expression of the
communal spirit'.70 Their scorn and mockery helped the outworkers to
experience themselves as something separate and better. They did not
consider that the farmer laughs in times of no earnings, when the harvest has
been brought in and the barn has been filled.
This type of self- and community awareness on the part of the outworkers
grew with the expansion of the putting-out industry. We will scarcely be
mistaken in assuming that they attained their decisive development in the first
flowering of the Zurich textile industry during and after the Seven Years War.
In 'this period, which they call the Golden Age',71 we are told in a diary kept by
a Toggenburg inhabitant that 'every lad earned 2 to 3 Florin a week and spent
about a third of this pay on food; and even the smallest children . . . earned 15
Kreuzer a day'.72 It is clear that these periods of rich earnings gave a powerful
boost to the outworkers' self-esteem. The suddenly swollen flow of money
made it possible for them to document their profitable profession worthily.
They distanced themselves from the peasantry by means of new cultural and
material goods, appropriate to their basis of existence and their feeling about
life. But the peasants, who had no share in the golden blessings of those years,
underwent a mental and spiritual crisis. The peasants' awareness of their
social standing was swamped by the flood of industrial earnings and many a
one said to himself in these periods of prosperity 'Mir bured jetzt bim
Webstuehl zue' (T'm going to farm with the loom now'). 73
In spite of all this, the outworkers' pride and self-esteem were granted no
stability; they too fluctuated. How quickly the fat years gave way to lean, how
quickly potatoes replaced expensive veal and Sunday finery had to be traded
in for flour! The peasant's pride was more stable. He owned house and land, he
was rooted in economic strength and even years of poor harvest could not
break him. Likewise the peasant community was far more strongly based on
material ties, on pasture and common rights. The outworkers' communal
bonds lacked this material stay; they fluctuated somewhat. While sharing the
same employment did bind them together, this employment in turn also set
them against one another. In periods of stagnation, every fellow worker was
obliged to view his mates as competitors, stealing his bread from him. For this
reason, crises were likely to forge a common destiny for the outworkers, while
simultaneously developing a negative community awareness. We will return
to these questions in the next chapter.
Although the outworkers, by mocking the peasantry, felt themselves to be
something special, their awareness of their profession and social standing
should not be exaggerated. We know how fluid was the transition from
peasantry to putting-out industrial workforce. We should not assume that a
'class consciousness' existed (in the sense of a 'class conflict' of the nineteenth
century). Such ways of thinking were as foreign as possible to the outworkers.
Anyone who knows the history of the Swiss worker movement, knows that the
impulse to form a 'class conscious' political federation came neither from the
outworkers nor from the factory workers; nor were they even affected by its
first stirrings. The artisans were the driving force behind the 'social question'.
The International Association of Workers was able to lean in part on the
intellectual foundation laid by the pioneers of a Swiss worker movement, and
to impregnate and bolster it with its new ideas. These ideas were never able to
establish a foothold in the old domestic and manufacturing industries of
Zurich. Every union leader in the textile industry knows on how stony a soil his
efforts at agitation will fall in the Oberland. 74 The outworkers under the
Ancien Regime were subject to the town authorities, just as the peasants were.
The scorn they felt for them arose from their delight in a booming trade. It was
dissipated in sociable working groups, in circles of like-minded persons and
constituted no more than the usual local and professional teasing. The feeling
of being different, which was manifested in this scorn, scarcely extended
beyond the narrowest local sphere of life. The strands of cotton which the
outworkers span or wove bound them together (within the limits of their
mental horizons) and separated them from the peasantry. But they did not
possess that inner unity, which could be described by the modern term
'solidarity'. Not even the disturbances over the introduction of machine
spinning nor the Uster burning (when power looms were introduced) covered
that term. These movements were carried and driven by a quite different
intellectual and spiritual mood of the common people.
The outworkers were bound together by strands of cotton, but the technical
processing of these strands divided them again. Briefyarn spinners were proud
of their fine yarn, which was more desirable and expensive than the wheel
yarn. The muslin weaver felt he was better than the weaver who just had rough
wares lying on his loom. The multi-colour and fine weavers looked down on
the Galli weaver, as did the silk weavers. Salomeli regarded his work with
pleasure, but Lise's is 'ungodly cloth, nothing but overshot, undershot, lumps,
broken threads, holes, in short, slattern's cloth'.75 A spinner or weaver who
had delivered fine work for years would be sadly grieved when forced by his
'stupid sight' to resort to rough work.76 While all this serves to emphasise the
distinctions and differences between the branches of work in the putting-out
industry, the binding elements inherent to this division of labour must also be
mentioned. A family of outworkers could form its own production group, in
which every member of the family, according to age and ability, took part. Old
men and tiny children prepared and spooled the wool. The grandmother and
the somewhat bigger children span. The reports of the Ascetic Society stated:
'if the children are not tall enough to sit at their work, they they must do it
standing up' 77 - 'one sees six-year-old children standing at the cotton wheels
and spinning'.78 Young daughters, boys, fathers and mothers wove. Thus were
the rooms filled with workers and their implements. Since the work was
divided rationally between the various processes, everyone could watch them
right up to when the rough cloth was made. We met such a working group with
the Stutz family. Before Uli Bragger became a yarn dealer, he span and learnt
how to weave. He described this period: 'In my own little house I set up a
loom, taught myself how to weave and gradually taught it to my brothers, so
that finally they could all earn their bread by it. The sisters for their part well
understood how to spin Lbthli yarn.'79 By means of this division of labour
children grew organically into the monotonous working method. It is no
dramatic exaggeration to say that the outworker child learnt the rhythm of his
work in the cradle: his cradle stood near the loom and was tied to it by a string,
allowing the weaver to rock her child quiet while treadling the loom.80 Physical
and mental work were quite separate in outwork. Jakob Stutz, for instance,
composed his poems while he wove.81 It is well known that the spinners and
weavers were 'inclined to reflection and speculation'.82 However, this
schizophrenia was allayed by the practice of working in a social group, in
which the monotonous mechanisms of the domestic work were forgotten in
singing, joking and erotic games.83
As we mentioned at the start, work in the cottage industry must be contrasted

with work in factories. The comparison between domestic and factory work
will be drawn in Part two of our enquiry, the foundations for which, in so far as
they concern domestic work, have been laid in this chapter.
People's attitude to work, their work techniques and community, and their
spatial environment, have a direct effect on the life of the common people and
on popular culture. Included in this are the human and material ties which
were forged with the advent of industrial labour. These ties helped to ensure
industrial existence and gave the new conditions of life an anchorage bound up
in community and tradition. New norms of behaviour grew out of these ties,
since they were distinguished from the traditional and mainly rural ties and
safeguards.
The human and material bonds to which the outworker's life was linked as
soon as he built his existence on processing cotton, were true bonds in a
folklorist sense, since they were borne by community and tradition. This is
shown nowhere more sharply than in times of crisis: the times of crisis reveal
that the outworker was fettered to his basis of existence by his mental
adherence to community and tradition. This may read like a paradox, but a
customary way of safeguarding existence can also grow on a foundation which
guarantees no security, but only fluctuating insecurity. We will pursue these
problems in the following chapter.
In this chapter we started off with the Protestant work ethic. The oppor-
tunities for earning one's living in the putting-out industry provided the
preconditions for a popular reception of the Protestant work ethic. But this
new work ethic could only be implanted in the people's breasts when the
putting-out industry provided the work. The subsequent fate of this work ethic
based on religion was determined when it combined with the opportunities for
work and gain in the putting-out industry. Once the Protestant work ethic had
eloped with early industrial wage labour, the fundamentals of religion were
destroyed, religious motives were secularised and moral values were given
material content. In this and the previous chapter we mentioned how this led
to the construction of new norms and forms of life. In the next chapter we will
attempt to see the connections and to lay the emphasis from another point of
view. Work ethic and industrial wage labour must be understood in the light of
a new assessment of poverty, one influenced by the particular historical period
and mentality, determining on the one hand the 'social and political climate' of
early industrial living conditions, and on the other hand the outworkers'
traditional mental attitude to their basis of existence.
6 • The outworkers' attitude to poverty and
crises
In this chapter we will attempt to darken the picture we have drawn of the
outworkers' living conditions. The method employed up to now has obliged us
to deduce the changes to their forms of life from how the life of the common
people appeared during times of prosperity. This was dictated by our line of
enquiry and method of research, since the times of prosperity provided the
outworkers with not just the material, but also the spiritual preconditions, the
zest for life, which enabled them to set themselves apart from their former,
mainly peasant, environment in an independent life style. At the same time,
periods of higher prices, of crisis, work stoppages and terrible poverty were no
less effective in forming the outworkers' conditions of existence. When we
attempt in the following pages tofillin our picture with these gloomy tones, we
will get little help from an 'objective' observation of the prevailing conditions.
For instance, we neither can nor want to calculate the 'standard of living' by
relating wage rates to the 'cost of living index'. This does not appear to be a
useful exercise in a folklorist enquiry, because such methods pay too little
attention to chronological and mental historical aspects. We must try to
understand the economic and social conditions of the industrialised popula-
tion from the spirit of the age and we may not judge them with our modern
socio-political values.1 This may seem an obvious proviso. It is, however,
difficult to put into effect, because we are scarcely aware of how accustomed we
are to thinking in different categories, precisely in the social and socio-political
sphere. It is as if we were using a different system of measurement. For this
reason it is appropriate to begin by examining the question of how the Ancien
Regime responded to poverty, crises, price rises and lack of earnings. With its
institutions and the spirit which supported and directed them, did it have a
'social' policy in today's meaning of the word?
Let us start with a few remarks about Poor Relief: After the Reformation the
care of the poor became a moral obligation of the State's since the secularisa-
tion of the monasteries and religious foundations had robbed the needy of their
most important charitable institutions. The appropriated church properties
were used to open a fund for the poor and to create a state Alms Office. The
internal organisation and operations of this and other institutions do not
154
The outworkers' attitude to poverty and crises 155
concern us here.2 But in any case, the state institutions were not sufficient to
meet the need. It was for this reason that already by the seventeenth century
the rural church parishes (along with the communes) were ordered to
participate in the Poor Relief by distributing produce at harvest time and the
resources of the Poor Fund. Subsequently the care of the poor devolved
increasingly on to the Church and communes.
Of far greater importance for our enquiry is the spirit which maintained
these institutions and which directed Protestant Zurich's policy towards the
poor under the Ancien Regime. C.G. Schmidt saw this clearly: 'Protestant
religious instruction gradually evolved principles for the care of the poor,
which differed considerably from the charity of the Middle Ages'.3 The weekly
bread dole, one of the most important forms of state relief for the needy,
demonstrates the attitude of the ecclesiastical and lay authorities towards
poverty and almsgiving; bread was distributed to the poor countryfolk entitled
to draw Relief every Sunday or Tuesday after the morning service in the
presence of the whole parish. Each person was summoned by name and had to
accept his ration in person by the baptismal font. He was not allowed to send
someone els«, unless he was ill. The recipients were reminded during distribu-
tion of the dole that they had lost their active rights as citizens by joining the
Poor of the Parish. Since 'by all this we want [to ensure] that none of those
belonging to town and country, who receive the usual alms, should not be
summoned to the commune assembly, therein to vote, but shall be excluded
from it'.4 This shows us that poverty, which had been raised to new and
powerful heights in the late Middle Ages, was now no longer the crowning
virtue. People had forgotten that Christ himself came to us in poverty. Receipt
of alms, and with it the right to exist, was only granted to those who earned it
by righteous deeds. Only those who prayed and worked, or who at least
wanted to work, were entitled to the bread dole, to shoes, woollen cloth or alms
in money. It was incumbent on the pastors and those in authority - church
elders, bailiffs, etc. - to distinguish the work-shy poor from those willing to
work. The Alms Ordinance instructed them to keep idle people at work,
earning their bit of bread honestly, by exhorting and punishing them. It is easy
to see that the ecclesiastical and lay authorities' attitude to poverty was very
closely associated with the development of a Protestant work ethic. The
spiritual roots were the same as those we have already met in the concept of the
religious basis of work (working so as not to fall into sinful idleness). This
religious basis devalued poverty. On the other hand, in an age when the
doctrine of dual predestination had been pronounced dogma (1665), wealth,
business ability and success were seen as the outward signs of membership of
God's elect, when wealth was coupled with old Protestant piety.
A similar devaluation applied to begging, whose features emerge much
more sharply here. It is known how Holy Writ transformed the beggar
prototype into 'a focal point of religious and social life, in which all the rays of
charitable love are gathered'.5 In the baroque age, within the Jesuits' spiritual
sphere, the beggar was wonderfully transfigured by the legend of St Alexius,
which won deep-seated popular support. The attitude of the ecclesiastical and
lay authorities in the Protestant states was quite different (partly too in
Catholic areas where begging had become an abuse). Mandates 'against the
shameless and open street begging' were constantly renewed during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1590 Samuel Hochholzer, 'Burgher
and servant of the word of God in Zurich' compiled a 'kurzen und einfalten
Bericht vonn dem unverschamten BatteP (brief and simple account of the
shameless beggary) in which he compared beggars with a 'raging forest
stream, which covers and obstructs the good fields with rubbish and renders
them infertile'. He asserts 'that begging is the root of all ungodliness and that
one should remove this evil with power and severity, providing the poor
householders instead with the necessary sustenance, that they may never be
forcibly driven to beg'. 6 People tried to control the evil by means of harsh
prohibitions and police measures. Beggars were threatened with corporal
punishment, with hard labour and the stocks, and people even wanted them
taken away to serve in foreign armies or the Venetian galleys. The parishes
were to carry out beggar hunts at their own expense and to set up village
watches, 'that thereby our land is freed of all useless beggar kind and that each
and everyone may enjoy the blessing of the Most High in better peace and
security'.7 (These beggar hunts took place in Catholic areas too.)
They employed every available means tof uproot the popular belief that
giving alms to beggars could cancel out one's sins. This was no true alms-
giving, they explained to the people, but only fake holiness. They refused to
accept almsgiving as a part of good works. Every one who 'threw something
out to the beggars' was to be punished with a 'compulsory fine' of 20 Pfund.8
They also tried wholly to 'cross out' giving shelter to beggars. In order to
justify such police measures against the poor, they not only referred to the Old
and New Testaments and the Church Fathers, but also called on the 'wise
heathen Plato'. Furthermore, 'Chrysostom, an old church teacher' said: 'We
do not support lazy and idle people but we exhort them to work'; and the 'wise
man Syrach' has written: 'My child, have no truck with begging: it is better to
die than to beg.' People substantiated their regulations about alms with
remarkable feats of exegesis, as the following quotation shows:
Then first spoke Almighty God himself to his old Jewish people in the fifth book of
Moses, Chapter 15: that no poor man shall be among you; by which should not be
understood the righteous worthy poor, but such poor as engage in open street begging
and relapse into idleness, and that such people should not be among us; and although it
has been mentioned by kind-hearted natures that beggars were also found and
recorded in the time of Christ, it should nonetheless be known that in those days the
Jewish police and government was no longer in the best shape but had deteriorated,
and consequently no order could be maintained in anything, including the charitable
The outworkers9 attitude to poverty and crises 157
All this merely hints at the religious basis to the state Poor Relief. The new
attitude towards poverty (and so towards begging and almsgiving) gave rise to
moral and ethical values which formed the social outlook of the age and were
responsible for the 'social' policy of the Ancien Regime. By dividing the poor
into those entitled and those not entitled to receive alms, the Church and State
denied a section of their indigent population the right to exist, and they
absolved themselves of responsibility for them. Entitlement to Relief was made
to depend on willingness to work. Work was 'the first condition, under which
the grown person is entitled to live and all beggars deserved to be punished for
their own improvement, since 'every other kind of charity towards them is a
moral, religious and political crime'.10 Poverty and work were very closely
linked. The Protestant work ethic, allied with the attitude of the ecclesiastical
and lay authorities towards poverty, resulted in a human type which seemed to
have been specifically created to support the process of industrialisation - a
creature who used to be called homo oeconomicus on account of his attitude to life
and work.11 It is scarcely necessary to refer these questions to Max Weber's
and R.H. Tawney's seminal works, which expose the global significance of
these connections.12 Both writers maintain that the religious attitude cannot
be considered as a catalyst which transforms other material, without itself
being transformed. The religious attitude itself is influenced far more by the
'entirety of social and especially economic cultural conditions'. Both writers
also expressly refuse 'to substitute a one-sided materialistic interpretation of
culture and history with an equally one-sided spiritualistic and causal
interpretation'.13
Let us briefly indicate the direction in which the problems lie: poverty
became a moral and educational factor, since it helped to guide people away
from sinful idleness towards work. On top of this came the attitude of the
ecclesiastical and lay authorities, manifest in countless mandates about
morals: good earnings increased arrogance, luxury, gluttony, gambling and
dancing. People were enticed away from the path of temperance and piety.
This ethic supplemented those economic ideas and theories which saw poverty
and the spectre of famine as essential goads driving men to work. They stood
for the point of view that people only work so long as they are obliged to meet
their essential needs. For this reason wages must be kept to a subsistence
minimum.14 In 1816, for instance, David Biirkli wrote in the Zurcher
Freitagszeitung (Friday Newspaper) with axiomatic self-assurance, simply men-
tioning it in passing, that 'the mother of industrious work is necessity'.15 Thus
did the interests of the ecclesiastical and lay authorities and the commercial
and economic interests of the age converge.
The Ancien Regime did not want to support the idle poor; but neither was it
able adequately to support those willing to work and to protect them from
poverty. Willingness to work only guaranteed people's entitlement to Relief.
Thus was barred the way to a social policy which could have set up preventive
measures to avert poverty. The Ancien Regime's social policy adhered to the
policy of Poor Relief, whether positively, with charitable institutions, or
negatively, with police measures against the poor. Poor Relief was pursued all
the more firmly because poverty was considered an unavoidable condition:
'Poverty is an infirmity inseparable from the present imperfection of all human
institutions and especially of civic society.'16
The Ancien Regime provided the outworker with no safeguards against
crises, work stoppages and price rises. It undertook no measures to guarantee
those willing to work a subsistence in times of need. The few attempts by the
authorities to ensure the outworkers a minimum wage remained completely
ineffective in practice. The State did, at any rate, allow foodstuffs to be
released during price rises and crises and ordered provincial governors to
release a bit of land for indigent, landless outworkers to cultivate. Emergency
employment was also permitted by the government, for instance in 1771, but
only in a very limited way. In the same way, after the terrible experiences of
1771, the parishes were directed to lay in grain supplies, but even this directive
met with scant success.17 It was above all by means of prohibitions and threats
that they tried to overcome indigence. The beggars' weddings were prevented,
brandy bars were watched, and they made endless attempts at extirpating the
evil of begging. This also applied to the second half of the eighteenth century,
when the ideas of the Enlightenment were being increasingly adopted by the
leading circles of town citizens. People were now really concerned about
poverty and sought for ways and means of mitigating it. The problem was
discussed in the various societies, essays competitions were introduced and
official enquiries were set up. Ideas about natural law entered the discussion
about re-structuring their Poor Relief policy, involving a new approach to the
problem of the right to existence.18 These philanthropists sought with paternal
concern for a new way of providing for the poor. But even their efforts were
firmly embedded in the Poor Relief policy. Suggestions were made about
building poor houses and orphanages. Parishes were urged to summon
meetings at which the starving children of poor parents were to be distributed
among the propertied parishioners, that they might be 'cared for and kept,
snatched from beggardom, clothed, schooled and accustomed to work and to a
moral manner of living'. People pointed to the parish of Wald, where at one
such meeting 'of sixty children, who were so presented, not one was left
behind'. Commissions were 'set up specially to regulate lack pf earnings'.19
Opportunities for giving unemployed outworkers new employment or for
redeploying them in agricultural work were sought for.
The first attempts at a social policy appeared, although the mental
foundations for this sort of thing developed only slowly. Traditional percep-
tions and moral concepts kept on obstructing any insight into the social and
economic situation of the population engaged in industry. In 1857 the minister
of Baretswil could still write, for instance, that 'the sources of impoverishment'
are to be sought in pleasure-seeking, slovenliness and in the disproportion
between the number of taverns and the means of the populace. Subsequently
he had to admit that 'the constant fall in the value of money is often markedly
disproportionate to earnings'. Food, clothes, house rent and other needs of life
had risen by a third, but not wages, 'which was very soon felt among people of
the lower stations, who have to work just to feed themselves'.20 People often
came perilously close to the self-righteous attitude of: 'help yourself, and God
will help you', which helped morally to underpin the unrestrained com-
petitiveness of early capitalism. Minister Hottinger, for instance, who des-
cribed the misery and hardship of the Oberland population in 1817 most
movingly, called on the outworkers (albeit with paternal solicitude): 'You
have seen the workings of Divine guidance. Through the schools of hardship
and scarcity it leads you to true salvation. Your destiny lies in your hands, and,
as you yourselves prepare it, so will it be . . . But you must learn to do without
and to exert yourselves.'21 Such texts document the moral climate, in which
the judgements about poverty, crises and need were made.
'Patriots' conscious of their responsibility followed the development of the
industry in the second half of the eighteenth century with concern. By 1787
around a third of the whole population of the state of Zurich was involved in
cotton manufacture.22 The majority of these people had no security against
crises. People were aware that cotton, the 'foster-mother' of the State, had
become indispensable. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi warns urgently that 'we
simply cannot calculate the inevitable consequences were 20,000 spinners and
weavers to be without work in our country for only fourteen days'.23 The
putting-out industry's sensitivity to crises became more and more apparent.
People recognised how little the course of development could be anticipated
and predetermined. The repercussions of market stagnation and lack of
earnings widened steadily as industrialisation advanced. C. Meiners sum-
marised these patriots' fears: 'The life of a third of our subjects, they say, is
anyway uncertain, and dependent on various chances, which can neither be
controlled nor avoided, since it is simultaneously in the hands of fickle fashion,
or of envious and lucky competitors, or of autocratic monarchs.'24 Such fears
were only too justified. We will provide figures later on showing how large was
the percentage of the rural population which sank into hopeless poverty and
hardship in times of price rises and crises.
Despite these terrible experiences and urgent warnings the authorities
lacked the power and ability, and often enough the insight and will as well, to
take effective preventive measures. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi spoke harsh
words about the mental attitudes and the state of the institutions under the
administration of the Ancien Regime.25 In so far as the urban economic order
represented the interests of the town burghers, it prevented the rural popula-
tion from achieving any independent safeguards, created out of the social and
economic conditions in the countryside, against failed harvests, crises and
price rises. The rural subjects found that their hands were, to a great extent,
tied. This applied not just to the outworkers, the clothiers, the carriers, the
loom menders and others, not just to the people employed in the putting-out
industry, but the rural craftsmen and farmers were also restricted in what they
could or might do by countless regulations and prohibitions. In 1795, for
instance, Salomon Graaf of Rystal (parish of Elgg), who could find no work
and tried to support his family by selling dried fruit, had to pay the governor of
Kyburg a fine of 6 Pfund and the plaintifT6 Pfund as well. It was stressed at the
time that the guilty man had not been fined a greater sum, because he was
poor. Adam Grob of Attikon, who had twice sold dried fruit in the Thurgau,
had to pay, for instance, the considerable sum of 75 Pfund. Heinrich Miiller
was fined 3 Pfundjust for 'tendering forbidden sale of straw in Schaffhausen'.26
Many such examples can be cited. They show how the country population was
deprived of the possibility of self-help in the sense of safeguarding themselves
against crises. Its wings were broken. But these examples also reveal the
authorities' attitude which underlay these regulations and fines. This attitude
is important for our folklorist enquiry because it directly determined the
behaviour of the rural population in times of need and in years of good
earnings. If the authorities were incapable of adopting measures along the
lines of a social policy, such as preventive measures against lack of earnings,
unemployment, price rises and fluctuating wages, they were also incapable of
transmitting to the rural population engaged in industry their ideals and
principles about how it should ensure its survival and behave when confronted
with vicissitudes. The government's intellectual and institutional foundations
had not been created with that purpose in mind.
We scarcely need to expound any further on how little security the
production system of the putting-out industry was able to offer the outworkers
at that time. They felt the effects of every fall in prices and every sales stoppage
quickly and harshly. They were wholly subject not only to the fluctuations of
the textile manufacture, but the rises in the price of food in years of poor
harvests also affected their wages' purchasing power. In such times their
wages would not rise, and might even drop. The urban putting-out masters
were not wholly responsible for this; far more so were the rural carriers and
clothiers, as already discussed in the previous chapter. In 1723, for instance, a
'Bericht der Herren Geistlichen, was fur Ursachen der Armuth seven'
('Report by the Gentlemen Clergy about the Origins of Poverty') complained
that 'In manufactures where bad wages prevail, the carriers strangely never
hand over what is due to the people.' The carriers were admonished on this
account to pay the outworkers 'a decent wage' and to allot contracts for work
impartially.27 We must be aware that the outworkers were at the mercy of the
clothiers and the carriers, who often used their power to influence village
policy. In their desire to make a profit they did not abstain from arbitrary and
harsh oppression. The outworkers lived isolated lives and enjoyed no effective
protection by the authorities. We will approach this question again from
another angle later on.
The object of these preliminary remarks has been to introduce us to the
ecclesiastical and lay authorities' attitude towards poverty, begging, crises
and price rises. The religious interpretation of poverty coupled with the
Protestant work ethic, the ethical and moral values which were upheld by the
puritanical spirit of renunciation of the world, and the economic conditions
which developed out of an economic mentality moulded by city-state mercan-
tilism, all these stood in the way of a social policy in the present sense of the
term. This we must remember.
Yet many places in the eighteenth century realised that, with the develop-
ment of industry and the growth of the population engaged in industry, the
urban authorities were faced with a completely new situation, and that the
prevailing arrangements could no longer meet the new social and economic
conditions. However, a long period was needed before this new spirit was able
to take these altered conditions into account, until new social and political
ideas penetrated civic and economic life and were incorporated into institu-
tions as well. It took even longer for these ideas to be received into popular
thinking and to become duly effective in the life of the common people. A
development which will have to be followed up in Part two of this
investigation.
Having just roughly outlined the preconditions for a specifically folklorist
enquiry, we should now ask how the country population responded to the
ecclesiastical and lay authorities' policy for the poor. How did the
industrialised population live through price rises, crises and lack of earnings?
How did it react to poverty and distress and to the vicissitudes of industrial
existence?
The ecclesiastical and lay authorities' attitude to poverty, begging and alms
had to be implanted in the hearts of the population alongside the Protestant
work ethic. The religious interpretation of poverty, outlined above, was
modified and recast by its reception among the common people, who imbued it
with their own feelings and experiences. The influence of the State Church on
its rural subjects should not be underestimated. As we know, the mandates
about begging and alms were read out from the pulpit.The schools made use
only of religious teaching materials and taught religion almost exclusively.
The articles of faith (in question and answer form) were hammered unceas-
ingly into the school children. The minister supervised lessons and teaching,
examined the teachers, the pupils and their households. In spite of the might of
the State Church and the authority enjoyed within the parish by its represen-
tative the minister (he had to be a town burgher), popular piety obeyed its own
laws, because it drew its strength from a different set of destinies and
experiences - as was the case with the religious interpretation of poverty. The
plague of beggars could grow out of all proportion, but the common folk
resisted the ecclesiastical and lay authorities' attitude to almsgiving. The
traditional popular belief in the power of almsgiving to cancel sin was much
too strong for people to be stopped from donating their mite to suppliants.
They gave without asking whether the recipient was also entitled to it,
'fancying that almsgiving is a right willed by God, and so handing it out
through the window'.28 Take, for instance, the minister of Gossau who
complained bitterly about how badly his flock had received the regulation
about begging and almsgiving:
Stubbornly resorting to all sorts of reasons over and against all protests and exhor-
tations, saying . . .; people had different opinions, people were worried about falling
into sin, and not a few of them, and not the lowliest either, have the foolish notion that it
is because begging has been forbidden that the harvest has turned out so badly and that
one disaster follows another. It is incredible how much authoritative words and
thoughts are disputed and rejected, in consequence of which many clergymen . . . are
looked down on by many and hated.29
The flock had their own ideas about poverty as well, in which the comparison
between the camel and the eye of a needle played its part. Jakob Stutz records
cousin Anneli's joy in her poverty
for shefirmlybelieved that no rich person would enter Heaven, since Holy Writ had
said so clearly. 'Listen', she said once, 'I want to tell you in a song how much the Lord
God prefers poor people to rich people. Oh, my parents, your sainted grandparents,
and all of us sang this song many thousand times as we span and each time the tears
rolled down my cheeks.'30
What was the range of destinies and experiences available to the population
engaged in industry? How are we to calculate the extent of their deprivation?
What were the origins of their poverty?
It must be recalled that in the days before world trade the danger of famine
was always latent. Even partially failed harvests were enough to throw the
affected regions into a state of emergency. Opportunities to import from
neighbouring regions were limited. Local economies were very susceptible and
prices reacted sensitively and suddenly. In January 1770, for instance, a loaf of
bread cost 5 Schilling 8 Heller, and it rose to 12 Schilling 6 Heller in January 1771,
reaching 15 Schilling in April 1771 and dropping again to 6 Schilling in August
1772. Price rises and famines like these were part of the normal experiences of a
lifetime, like natural catastrophes or epidemics, and they were remembered as
admonishments and warnings. People should not ask themselves, wrote
minister Schmidlin of Wetzikon, 'why God subsequently [after good years]
thins the misapplied surplus in anno 1770 and 1771 with shortages'.31 It
became apparent that their daily bread came from the hand of the Lord: the
official price of bread was announced from the pulpit after morning service.
During the years of rising prices the people would acknowledge this portentous
message with humble resignation. In the starvation year 1817, when the prices
were read out in the church of Wetzikon on 6 June, the choir leader, school-
master Jenta of Ettenhausen, struck up a song by Schmidlin Ich sterbe nun {I Die
Now) and the parishioners sang it through to the end with tears in their eyes.32
The spectre of famine was constantly knocking at the door, but poverty and
distress cannot be explained by failed harvests and starvation years; they
should be seen 'not so much as absolute causes, but as catalysts'.33
The parish clergy provided endless warnings about the growing poverty in
their parishes in their reports and at synods. Appalling and endless too was the
army of anaemic persons who passed their lives in the most terrible poverty.
But where were the roots of this poverty to be sought, when hungry years and
failed harvests were only direct occasions for, but not the origin of, poverty.
The clergy were constantly preoccupied with this question of the origin of
poverty, but their social and mental ties frequently prevented them from
perceiving the social and economic structure of the countryside. They pointed
with moral disapproval at luxury, indulgence in food and drink, at gambling
and frequenting public houses, at the irresponsible early marriages and at the
absence of savings in years of high earnings. The dean of the Wetzikon
Chapter, for instance, named three reasons for poverty with lapidary brevity:
'Sauffen, Spillen, Hoffart' (boozing, gambling, luxury).34 Minister Burkli
reported the poverty in his Maur parish and was
concerned that it may get much worse, because all fear of God is disappearing . . .
partaking in the Sacrament amazingly bad, the Poor of the Parish with the exception of
a few will attend no weekly sermons, most of them have not a streak of work in them,
they are all drunken: their caps off their heads, beds under their bodies, looms and
implements and other things stashed away, sold, house and holding in disarray and,
intending to turn begging in town and countryside, yea, even robbing and stealing, etc.,
into a trade.35
J o h a n n Hottinger puts the following admission in the mouths of the

Oberland outworkers when writing for the New Year newspaper of the Zurich
Hulfsgesellschaft (Help Association) of 1817:
We have previously experienced times of surplus and of rich, excessive earnings, but we
were not worthy of this blessing from Heaven. We squandered the money won so
quickly and easily on finery, loose living, gambling and wantonness. In our arrogance
we looked down on the stout-hearted farmer, who went on winning his bread from the
soil in the sweat of his brow, and on whose mercy we are now thrown once more. We
brought up our children badly and did not send them to school, simply that they might
be able to help us make money early on, which, had we been thrifty and orderly, we
would have had more than enough of. We are fickle, lazy and unskilled through our
own fault. When our previous livelihood began to falter, we could easily have started
gradually earning our keep in another manner, if we had not thoughtlessly lived from
day to day, if we had been satisfied with less profit, if we had not found shameful
begging and idleness easier.36
We are sufficiently familiar with the parish clergy's attitude to the out-
workers' manner of living, and with all their reproaches. They are not simply
to be dismissed, but must be assessed and referred to differently. The question
of the origin of poverty is above all a question of where the poor came from.
The number of those needing protection can be anticipated: widows and
orphans, the sick and the invalid, the infirm and the elderly. As we know from
the 'Description of the Poor in the Whole Countryside of Zurich', they all tried
to manage by doing outwork, but they could not survive without charity. This
also applied to the eighteenth century, when the putting-out industry
expanded and developed. The wretched wages it paid did not allow for any
mishap. If a provider died, or earnings dropped through sickness, the case was
desperate. For instance, in 1715 the widow Frey of Wetzikon was promised a
subsidy 'to improve her wage' and twelve other persons obtained support for
the same reason.37
But it was not only those in need of protection; even able-bodied people had
difficulty making ends meet and were forced to apply for Relief. We have seen
how periodic emigration helped to assuage poverty before the advent of
intensive industrialisation. Industrial labour offered these people, living on
the margins of the agricultural community (day-labourers, smallholders,
villeins, etc.), the chance of earning their livings in their homeland. They
developed into a core population which based its existence on outwork alone,
without any significant property at all. They managed to get by in good years.
But as soon as price rises occurred following bad harvestsx or the supply of
work dried up, they fell into trouble. They were totally helpless before both
price rises and work stoppages. These people lived literally from hand to
mouth. Industrial earnings did not adjust to price rises. As we have seen, they
even tended to sink in such times. Here is just one example: we have cited the
rising price of bread in the years 1770-1 (from 5 Schilling to 15 Schilling).
During this period, the spinners' and weavers' wages dropped and it was only
in 1772 that they returned to their 1769 levels.38 We should not underestimate
that section of the population which had on account of its origins no farm to fall
back on. In 1696, half a century before the full flowering of the Zurich textile
industry, the minister of Zell reported:
In my whole parish, which extends to more than 700 souls, only two households have
means . . . the rest have to get by with the greatest difficulty and are loaded down with
debts. The common people support themselves as well as possible by spinning wool,
but they complain bitterly about their bad pay; that they no longer get the old pay as
previously.39
In the same year (1696) out of seventy-seven households in Briitten, thirty-
three were on the parish and twenty-one were close to so being. But there was
no question of failed harvests in that period and there were only a few poor
harvests.40 Minister Kochlin of Briitten describes how in winter the hungry
people searched the fields and meadows for anything edible. Now it was June
they could concentrate more on the outwork 'since the days are longer and one
does not need to heat [one's house] any more, or to search the fields and
meadows for so many plants to eat'.41 These pictures of misery continued
into the eighteenth century. The 'Reflexionen der Herren Pflegeren des
Almosenamtes iiber die Armuth auf der Landschaft' ('Reflections of the
Gentlemen Administrators of the Alms Office about the Poverty in the
Countryside') of 12 April 1723 report that everywhere people were complain-
ing 'about the sadly ever increasing poverty of our people, despite the
prosperous times and surplus in food and drink and the flourishing Camerarii
and commerce, as a rich and strange Divine blessing'.42
We mentioned earlier that the numbers of landless outworkers increased
considerably with the advance of industrialisation. This social group was
characterised by a strong and natural rise in population. All the reports refer to
the great willingness to marry in these circles and to the early marriages
(beggars' weddings).
The core population of landless outworkers increased (again following the
advance of industrialisation and most especially in times of crisis) with the
emergence of another social group. This was the growing number of people
who, because of their origins, had some sort of farm to fall back on, but,
tempted by cash (and more besides) had divested themselves of this security.
They divided their holdings, properties and village rights. While some of them
retained enough land to provide at least some of their food requirements,
others, however, divested themselves entirely of their ancestral lands and were
content with just a vegetable patch. Even this was often neglected when the
industry was at its peak. As we know, this subdivision of farms and lands must
be viewed as a form of shared inheritance typical to cottage industry. If the
subdivision was accompanied by a more intensive use of the soil, the portions
of land could still provide an effective safeguard against crises, especially if
their owners adhered to subsistence farming and to a peasant economic
thinking, and if the property was not too much in debt. But such conditions
were not prevalent everywhere. Many families bound themselves for better
and for worse to the fate of the putting-out industry. In times of price rises and
work stoppages they then ran into trouble.
The authorities were aware of this source of poverty. The 'Report by the
Gentlemen Clergy about the Origins of Poverty' of 12 April 1723 mentioned
that 'the subdivision of the farms is very harmful'.43 The government instruc-
ted the regional and district governors 'not to permit this sort of division of
farms and properties easily or without special reason, but to keep the
households together as much as possible'.44
We have briefly introduced the people who, on account of their origins,
were most liable to sink into distress and misery. They were the families
without land, or which had become landless. They based their existence on the
putting-out industry and, with their irrational and traditional way of thinking,
they trusted to this insecure base. The authorities were helpless before this
phenomenon. It had the uncontrollable force of a natural disaster. More and
more people allowed cotton yarn to become the thread by which hung their
fates. Remember Salomon Schinz's judgement, that the cottage industry had
'as it were planted' these people, and that industrial earnings were 'totally
indispensable'. 'Even the property owners or the middle class could not subsist
without this sort of income' because they 'would find it impossible to pay the
interest on their debts from the income from their farm, but solely . . . by their
spinning wheels or looms.'45 Their existence either lacked or had lost its
agricultural basis, and relied instead on earnings from the putting-out
industry.
The conditions produced by this development were bound to turn
catastrophic in bad years when prices rose or when work or earnings were
scant. Let us provide a few statistics showing how many rural inhabitants, able
to support themselves in good years, sank into hopeless indigence in years of
high prices and in times of crisis. Hans Morf has calculated for the year 1771,
when prices rose, that 42,234 rural inhabitants were stripped of all resources,
and this number does not include those drawing Relief. The entire rural
population amounted at that time to c. 140,000 souls (according to Morfit was
137,267 and according to Waser, 143,355).46 Nearly a third of the rural
population was thus driven by the increased cost of living into the arms of
hunger and poverty. It should be remembered that this rise in the cost of living
was preceded by a period rich in earnings. The period from 1757 to 1765 was
commonly known as the golden years. In the Oberland the poverty was much
greater. In Bubikon, for instance, 310 persons out of 560 were in need.
Fischenthal numbered 1,000 inhabitants, of whom 686 were without means.
Sternenberg and Wildberg had to count more than half their inhabitants
among the needy. In Wyla 431 persons out of 715 were without means, and so
on.47 In 1790, a year of increased prices, the number of those requiring
assistance amounted to 19.69% of the population, according to Bertha
Keller's reckoning.48 The Economic Commission's lists provide the following
figures:49
Total number
Parish Souls present of needy
Baretschwil 2,709 1,417

Bauma 3,039 813
Fischenthal 2,476 860
Monchaltorf 858 433
Sternenberg 1,248 339
Turbenthal 1,892 819
Wildberg 763 310
Wyla 837 426
The outworkers' attitude to poverty and crises 16 7
These proportions are horrifying, but the bare figures cannot reveal the full
extent of the distress, suffering and hopelessness of these anaemic people. We
are dealing with a process known as pauperism in the nineteenth century. It
has already been mentioned that periods of prosperity spurred on its develop-
ment. They enticed people into earlier marriages, into splitting up their
property, to building new dwellings and houses, and so on. People accepted
credit without hesitation,50 and allowed debts to accumulate, and then in
times of crisis were unable to pay the interest. The strong circulation of money
favoured credit transactions and drove the price of land up: 'Money is often
offered to people to enable them to buy expensive properties, and they become
heavily indebted, often having nothing of their own to pay with.'51 A large
proportion of the outworkers found themselves in this situation of permanent
debt. It was not just the prevailing housing shortage but also the parish laws
tying commonage rights to the house which were responsible for credit being
taken out rashly and irresponsibly for extending, altering or rebuilding
existing houses. The short payment periods made it more difficult to liquidate
debts. Added to this was the outworkers' mental and spiritual approach to
their basis of existence, which will be discussed later on.
The outworkers had other habits too, acquired in prosperous times, which
did them harm when earnings fell. For instance, an outworker might give up
an allotment, which he could have retained at a low rent, or often even for
nothing. In times of shortage, then, he would have nothing. He would be
forced to buy his most basic necessities at a high price. He would not be able to
recover what he had lost: 'These people, raised and constantly living in
spinning parlours lack the will, the strength and the skill to enable them to
cultivate these allotments.'52 Further, as people became accustomed to new
needs, they forgot their former simple recipes. When poverty and hunger
came, people no longer knew how to prepare simple but satisfying meals from
cheap ingredients. The members of the Economic Society attempted with
paternal concern to instruct the outworkers in the method of preparing cheap
nourishing stews in years of famine.
We do not need to cite further examples. It is clear that the outworkers'
form and style of life, which was expressed in new habits, needs and forms of
behaviour, had a catastrophic effect in times of crisis and heightened despair.
However, this is a very superficial way of looking at things and does not do
justice to the prevailing conditions. We must start from the outworker's
attitude to his existence, to his basis of existence and to life in general.
We mentioned earlier that the outworker bound himself to his industrial
earnings with an irrational mental and spiritual attitude. He was indeed used
to no longer reckoning, as his peasant neighbours did, by the seasons and
harvests, but only by his weekly or fortnightly wages. He met most of his needs
through the medium of money. He grew accustomed to this without, how-
ever, understanding in any rational way that the fluctuating and uncertain
conditions of the early industrial putting-out system demanded new safe-
guards, fundamentally different to those of peasant life. The outworker relied
blindly on the actual state of the industry and adjusted his way of life to his
actual earnings. He paid for his keep out of his wages or used them to pay the
rent on his little property. He believed that his life was thereby assured and he
did not want anything more. Anything he earned over and above his keep he
spent on his new needs, or he might prefer not to work at all. The sources speak
out clearly.53 This behaviour was part of the outworker's way of coming to
terms with his new form of existence. He derived his self-esteem in good years
from this manner of living. In times of increased prices and work stoppages,
however, his self-esteem collapsed. The outworker realised that his work could
barely save him from death by starvation, even if he increased his output to
breaking point. He no longer mocked the peasants now, but looked longingly
at their simple and hard existence. Jakob Stutz wrote about the year of
starvation 1817 as follows: 'In those days one heard very little mockery about
the peasantry; yea, all the weavers and silk spinners would gladly have been
peasants. They were well off, they were safe.'54 But as soon as the emergency
was over, the outworker would return to his former life style, and his mood
would lift again.55
The outworkers' basis of existence obliged them to experience life in terms
of earnings or wages, and not in terms of property, as the peasants did. The
question now arises as to why the population engaged in industry did not
safeguard their basis of existence against the ups and downs of life in an
appropriate form? Why did they oscillate between (relative) excess and
starvation, starvation and excess, without finding any middle ground? Why
were drastic mood changes inherent to the outworkers' emotional life? The
parish clergy was constantly urging the outworkers to save in good years, so
that they would have something to fall back on in times of price rises and crisis.
But even the most urgent appeals and the most bitter experiences remained
ineffectual. It was a very long time before the outworkers (and later the factory
workers) invested in rational savings and insurance schemes. It took a long
time for ideas about savings and insurance to be received into the popular
mentality. Nowadays they are firmly anchored in popular thinking. Present-
day life of the common people is characterised by innumerable state, company
and private insurance institutions. This is a mental historical process, which
must be taken into account by folklorists, because it leads to new relationships
and ways of behaving and replaces old ties, both mental and religious, as well
as human and social ties.
As far as the outworker under the Ancien Regime was concerned, the
preconditions for such a willingness to save and to take out insurance were
absent, and they would remain absent until far into the nineteenth century. It
should be recalled that the great movements of the nineteenth century to
provide insurance, mutual associations and social assistance were supported
The outworkers} attitude to poverty and crises 169
and driven on by artisan circles, a class which looked back on an old and varied
insurance tradition and brought with it both the mental and the social
preconditions for accepting the new system. But the putting-out system of
early capitalism had no tradition of insurance. It was neither able to offer the
outworkers security nor did its human and organisational structure include
arrangements which could have provided the outworkers with models of how
to safeguard their existence. The authorities did not possess any such
institutions either. They merely tried to work in this direction by means of
countless prohibitions, which were scarcely suited to implanting the will to
save in the population engaged in industry. It was only with the onset of a
factory industry that responsible entrepreneurs introduced obligatory banks,
sickness and accident funds, and funds against old age and death, etc. Socially
conscious parish clergy did not tire of recommending these institutions over
and over again. We will pursue this development in Part two, when the
artisans' and workers' self-help organisations will also be discussed.
This, however, serves to illuminate only one side of the matter. We must ask
ourselves which mental and religious preconditions as well as those of a human
and social kind the population engaged in industry brought with it in order to
safeguard itself against the vicissitudes of life with new institutions appropri-
ate to their basis of existence.
The perception of industrial life was still taking place through traditional
mental images, in which the social 'station' was perceived as part of the Divine
order. The outworker felt that the vicissitudes of his insecure existence
constituted a fate willed and determined by God. Just as he understood times
of prosperity as the blessings of God, so too he experienced crises as the Lord's
warning and punishments.56 Just as he rejected the lightning conductor as an
ungodly invention, so too he rejected rational arguments in favour of savings
and insurance, and accepted need, poverty, hunger and deprivation with dull
resignation, the more so because social and economic inequality were things
willed by God.
The popular reception of an insurance philosophy undoubtedly involved a
parallel loss of traditional religiosity, as well as an emancipation from
traditional mental images and a secularising process. The traditional view of
life was not frivolous, but was upheld by a profound trust in God, who feeds
everyone.57 This did not involve only the outworker. It is well known how
difficult it is to persuade farmers to understand the sense of taking out
insurance for their cattle or against the weather. However, the outworkers'
situation was quite different to that of the farmers. The old peasant local
community, with its functions encompassing all aspects of life, enjoyed
safeguards centuries old (common lands, neighbourhood assistance, all kinds
of farming regulations). All these safeguards grew up out of a rural economy
and a peasant economic mentality. Rural life is maintained and bolstered by
such arrangements. But conditions were quite different for the outworker. He
had grown up in the same local peasant community, although he had never
enjoyed a secure place on account of his origins, and would never qualify as a
full member. When he bound his life to the putting-out industry, the
traditional peasant security arrangements lost their value and in part their
meaning for him. The old local community with its legal and customary
institutions was no longer adequate for the numerically important class of
landless outworkers. These people threatened to burst the rural safeguards
and so it is not surprising that the farmers tried to shut themselves off from the
population engaged in industry. It took a long time, however, for the
outworkers to stop thinking along the old lines and to stop looking for security
in the old ties, and to create or adopt different institutions, better suited to their
basis of existence. The intellectual and institutional preconditions had first to
be created from above and from below.
One might well suppose that there were also thrifty and economical
outworker families who tried to keep a farm going as their main support and
who even achieved modest prosperity.58 These were, however, people who
were both spiritually and materially rooted in their land, and who remained
peasants in their behaviour. We will see this more clearly when we examine the
outworkers' behaviour in times of price rises and crises, and ask what forms of
life emerged from the experiences of such times; what sorts of customary ways
of behaviour developed; and how they were manifested in the life and culture
of the common people.
The various social groups engaged in cottage industry did not experience
the crises and times of poverty in the same way. The families farming
smallholdings as well as working for the putting-out industry possessed the
most material and spiritual security, allowing them to avoid pauperisation.
They did not react as sensitively to the years of price rises because they were
able to meet their needs in a traditional and in part still subsistent way, which
preserved them from the worst. The work stoppages were far more damaging
to them, because the interest on their mortgaged farms could only be paid with
industrial earnings. At such times the receiver's hammer hung over them
menacingly. The district law court of Wald, for instance, reported on 19 April
1799:
This week alone the law court has dealt with thirteen cases, among which appeared
many people who had more than enough to live on in better times, but are now driven
with wife and children out of house and home. There is already a pile of new distraints,
reminders and summonses here, so that when the legal process starts up again there is
another crowd of bankrupts. In our district now all the best men are in the service of the
Fatherland, two and three out of every house. Often the old father has.to work the little
property . . . How can they now help themselves? How are they to bring in the money?
. . . We have decided in God's name to stop the reminders this week, until we have
asked you! The public prosecutor is asked to stop the horrible legal business for a while
at least.59
It was characteristic of these smallholder and cottage industry circles that
they preferred to suffer the worst 'rather than decide on the painful step of
reporting to the parish alms officers for Relief.60 They owned, alongside their
little smallholding, at most a share in the right to use the commons and had the
right to vote in the village community matters. They were rooted in their
community, which gave them the self-confidence and spiritual strength to hold
out. As soon as they went on the Parish and drew Relief they lost their active
right as citizens, with the ensuing social and economic consequences. Johann
Hirzel wrote as follows about the landowning outworkers: 'They are too proud
to beg, or to request assistance, they sigh in silence over their misfortune and
the Father knows their need, who can see into hidden things.'61 They are
generally referred to in the sources as 'silent poor' because of their behaviour.
The 'silent poor' were to be found not only among the landowning
outworkers. Many landless people behaved in the same way. They derived
from their humble and often sectarian piety the courage and strength to try to
bring themselves and their own through the hard times without public or
private assistance. They experienced failed harvests, price rises, work stop-
pages and lack of earnings in a strongly eschatological sense. Johann Hirzel
refers with emphasis to these honourably poor outworkers. There was among
'this class of factory workers a further large, large number of righteous,
industrious, retiring, and pious Christian individuals and whole families, who
were most worthy of respect, trust and also of charitable help in the days of
need'.62 These people, who were 'engaged only in spinning and weaving, but
are diligent', worked until they collapsed in times of need in order to offset the
rising prices and their falling earnings. Johann Hirzel reports how in 1816
their rate of pay was reduced week by week. 'With steadily weakening forces
these poor people now struggle against their growing poverty. Hunger and
grief were imprinted on their features. They allowed only a few hours for
sleeping, in order to maintain their unhappy lives by means of exhausting
labour. But they will have to succumb, if help does not come.'63
It is not difficult to recognise that we are dealing here with people who had
an intellectual and spiritual anchor, which gave them self-confidence and self-
assertiveness. It could be that their smallholding and the position it gave them
in the local community guaranteed such an anchorage, it could be that their
'understanding of religion' dictated this attitude. The same intellectual and
spiritual foundation had previously, during good times with rich earnings,
prevented these people from all too easily repudiating their customary way
and form of life. However, it was different for those outworkers who did not
have this resource. They were the people who were not only materially
dependent on the putting-out industry, but who had also bound themselves
intellectually and spiritually to this new form of livelihood. Their self-
awareness and self-confidence rose and fell with the possibility of industrial
earnings. We have seen how this sector of the population had spent all their
earnings in the golden years on distinguishing themselves from their agricultural
environment by means of a costly manner of living. When their wages fell,
work stoppages occurred or prices increased, they not only possessed no
material reserves, but their spiritual resistance was equally exhausted. They
had no self-assurance any more, because their self-esteem as a class was
undermined. Their behaviour in poverty and hardship was characteristic.
They did not belong to the silent poor. They were not at all embarrassed about
petitioning the Poor Officers for Relief. L J . Schweizer, who described the
outworkers' poverty in harrowing terms, had to admit
that some of them, who complain the loudest and are already talking about starving to
death, did not belong in better times to the retiring, thrifty and orderly fathers of
families, and even now are basically not complaining about lack of necessary
sustenance, but rather about the removal of the means of continuing their previous
expenditure on clothes and soft living.64
The will to hold out was foreign to these circles. They showed little inclination
to work harder and live more moderately when their earnings dropped.
According to the parish report about Baretswil, it was
chiefly a source of moral impoverishment, causing many people to give up and to lose
heart as soon as they have sunk to a certain depth of economic collapse. - They have not
enough strength to pull themselves together again- to 'defend' themselves, as they used
to call it; so they let everything go as it goes.65
These outworkers had as little compunction about approaching the Poor
Offices as they had moral reservations about grasping the beggar's staff. The
sources speak out frequently and urgently about this. A large proportion of the
beggar convoys moving in hard times like a-plague of locusts through the
country consisted of impoverished and unemployed outworkers. The minutes
of the Economic Commission went as follows:
The beggar class consists mostly of the sort of folk who turned out badly during the
good times - getting into debt - and were not content with their earnings [from the
putting-out industry], who did poor work - cheating - tricking the tradesman in every
way, and who have dealt a fatal blow to manufacturing earnings. - These people were
the first to be given no work, and took most naturally to begging.66
The minister of Fischenthal wrote about the 'actual factory workers' (meaning
the landless outworkers):
As these people's earnings were now steadily diminishing, and Want with its fearful
consequences overwhelmed them, who could be surprised that among such people a
real race of beggars should emerge, being too little used to hardship, and mostly trained
in only one manufacture, having grown up in parlours or loom shops many of them
were left with neither strength nor ability for farmwork, especially when they were
obliged to change all at once to hard physical labour; many of them were also too lazy to
learn a new task, and they began to seek what they needed by begging until some of
them took up begging as a profession.67
Why did part of the outworker population grasp the dishonourable beg-
gar's staff and join the vagrants, the Lumpenproletariat? It should be mentioned
first that the life of the common people included various practices which made
it easier for them to grasp the beggar's staff. Remember how the travelling
artisans were allowed by custom to beg? The unemployed outworkers made
use of this custom, although not originally associated with it. The source just
quoted says of the outworkers that they 'began to travel as journeymen;
exchanging travel passes, testimonials and records of their employments and
so imposing under various guises on the goodwill of people far and near'.
Hawking, a particularly popular and familiar occupation in the Oberland,
was also used by the outworkers as an occasion and a cover for begging:
both with and without patents, with only a bit of cotton stuff, some botched filigree
work, or even just a couple offlowerpots, the beggars travel in large and small troupes
through the level regions of the cantons of Zurich, Schaffhausen, Thurgau and St Gall,
and even the most remote farmhouses do not escape these travellers' avid gaze. Loaded
with money, bread and other foods, the little troupe returns at the end of the week to our
beloved homeland, consumes its proceeds gaily and rapidly and once they are used up,
this hungry little nation readily undertakes a secondflightinto Egypt, in order to amass
food.68
Finally, the seasonal and harvest-time migrations, with their customary

practices, also set the outworkers on the road to beggardom.
However, little is explained by these points of contact with traditional forms
of mendicancy. A higher degree of mental poverty and spiritual self-abandon-
ment was required to set whole villages in the Oberland in the throes of
'begging fever' and to make them 'move, sack over shoulder, from village to
village'.69 Conditions were particularly bad in the spring of 1817. Thousands
of outworkers travelled through the countryside begging in order to avoid
starving to death. 'The beggars streamed past like an army', Jakob Stutz
recorded, 'their pale, mud-coloured, bloated faces, their wasted bodies, their
swollen feet, their leaden tread, oh, what a picture of wretchedness and terrible
poverty they made.'70 In the same year, Johann Schulthess, Canon and
Professor of Theology, and member of the Church and Education Council,
made a speech before the Zurich Synod in which he asked: 'Whether one
would not rather they [the medicant outworkers] underwent physical death
than such moral dissolution within their living bodies, God knows; but where
the entire civic and ecclesiastical society is concerned, this human horde,
which brings only trouble and harm, undoubtedly constitutes an unspeakable
evil.'71
Were these mendicant outworkers the flotsam and jetsam of industrialis-
ation, as Johann Schulthess and others were ready to admit? Certainly the
armies of vagrants were recruited from the many outworkers who were poorly
qualified hands, due to age, illness, infirmity or just through lack of skill, and
could only spin on the wheel or prepare the raw materials for spinning and
weaving. These people were singled out soonest by fate during work stoppages
and crises, but especially in the chaos during the Revolution and when hand
spinning collapsed. Their work must also have meant little to them, and their
earnings everything. Consequently their dwindling earnings caused them the
greatest degree of mental anguish. However, these instances do not suffice to
explain the phenomenon. Why did mendicancy become a customary form of
self-help for a proportion of the outworkers? We must attempt to answer this
question by looking at the industrial form of existence.
Anyone who bound his life to the putting-out industry had to come to terms
with an altered reality. He had to try to put down roots in a new spiritual and
material environment. The transition from a mainly agricultural to an
industrial way of life could not take effect without a violent shock to his mental
and spiritual system. His traditional ties, assumptions, forms of behaviour and
values lost their validity. The fundamental conditions of human life and
society were altered. Manners and customs which had previously invested the
life of both individuals and the community with a sense of direction and
orientation no longer fulfilled their functions in the new form of existence. We
have shown this in relation to the most varied spheres of life in the earlier
chapters, while taking care to establish that this did not result in a break with
tradition. The old adjusted to the new, was reassessed, re-experienced and
applied differently. It was not a one-sided process of disintegration, but a new
orientation which adjusted itself to the industrial existence. The new orien-
tation was supported and driven by a genuine and strong creative urge, which
gave the life of the common people new impulses and found expression in
popular culture. It took time for people to become reconciled to industrial
conditions of existence. Binding norms of behaviour towards the new environ-
ment could be found and confirmed by custom only over a long process, which
speeded up in times of prosperity. Earnings from cottage industry also
constituted the soil from which the industrial way of life grew. The thicker the
layer of humus, the more vigorously the industrial life style could grow on it.
We have encountered the self-confidence of the outworkers in times of
prosperity, their manner of living, their behaviour towards the agricultural
world, their manners and customs, which were mostly viewed as bad habits
and dissolute vices by their contemporaries. With their traditional men-
tality,72 the outworkers adjusted to this form of existence. The process of
coming to terms, adjusting and adapting was, however, not fated to be
peaceful and steady. Every price rise, work stoppage and wage reduction
immediately swept away the layer of humus in which the outworkers had
embedded their existence. The outworkers were obliged to discover that, after
their fashionable luxury requirements had been satisfied, soup kitchens and
beggary were lying in wait for them. Their self-confidence and self-conscious
pride in their social station, which was indeed for many of them only pride in
their earnings, gave way abruptly to leaden despair. They were confronted not
only with a material but also an intellectual and spiritual void. It was only then
that they realised the extent to which they had distanced themselves from the
ancient peasant form of existence and its safeguards. They were now com-
pletely disorientated. The authorities did not undertake any effective preven-
tive measures (apart from prohibitions and police regulations), and the official
arrangements for Poor Relief were not adequate to allay their suffering. In this
hopeless situation many outworkers were 'tortured by hunger and reduced by
lack of earnings to desperation and to becoming discontented vagrants'.73
Even when they were obliged only temporarily to resort to this pitiable
condition, it brought them into contact with the practices of people who spent
all their life on the road. We know the authorities' attitude to beggars and what
means they employed to fight them. But mendicancy remained a form of self-
help appropriate to the outworkers' social and economic conditions until far
into the nineteenth century. In 1831, for instance, the minister of Wyla could
still write that the lack of earnings everywhere in the eastern parishes of the
canton had resulted in people, especially the weaker, unqualified outworkers,
'sitting together without work and - grumbling- or grasping the beggar's staff
- which they were not used to do previously'.74
It is clear that the attitude of the ecclesiastical and lay authorities to
poverty, outlined at the beginning of this chapter, was responsible for this
situation. If the general opinion was that poverty was in some way dishonour-
able, even sinful, and that even those entitled to alms had to accept their dole
in the full glare of publicity, the indigent would not find it any more shaming to
be forced to survive for a while by begging in the streets. It must have been less
intimidating to ask for food and drink at the doors of the wealthy than to accept
one's bread dole before the assembled parishioners while being reminded that
by accepting alms one had forfeited the right to vote in the parish.75 With all its
abuses, mendicancy was entwined in the life of the age, which brings us back to
our initial questions.
In the early days of industrialisation, price rises and crises, poverty and
need, hunger, destitution and mendicancy were all familiar aspects of life.
They arose out of the social and economic conditions of the age and their
interaction with its social attitudes, its moral values and behaviour. We have
tried in this chapter to demonstrate, if only piecemeal, the mutual dependence
between social conditions and social behaviour. We took care to emphasise
this chronological and mental historical dependence, during which process
local fundamental forces also appeared in strength. Conditions in the
neighbouring industrial region of Appenzell and Toggenburg were already
different. A different economic and social structure had given rise to an
industrial population which 'had not been reduced by manufacturing to the
degree of distress into which the spinners and weavers of the Zurich region had
fallen'.76 It would, however, be wholly mistaken to blame the putting-out
industry for these conditions. We cannot emphasise this enough: cottage
industry and the putting-out system should not be looked at from the point of
view of uprooting. The cotton industry provided thousands with work and a
livelihood, gave them a home, even when they did not have an inch of land,
and saved thousands of people from the bitter fate of emigration, by establish-
ing the material preconditions for a settled life and for founding families of
their own. The changeover from a mainly peasant life and way of thinking to
an industrial one has profound repercussions and involves wide spheres of life.
Time is needed to adjust both materially and spiritually to the new industrial
conditions of existence, especially since this existence is constantly being put in
doubt by serious crises. It is only when industrial existence, with all its
unstable factors, acquires adequate and serviceable safeguards, anchored in
tradition and in the community, that the process of adjustment can succeed.
We will return to this question in the Conclusion.
The manufacture of cotton yarn through the putting-out system altered the
economic structure in many areas of the Zurich countryside. It need scarcely
be mentioned that this process, accomplished in periods of prosperity in an
unbridled, unsupervised and unpredictable manner, was not accomplished
harmoniously. It too needed time in which to accommodate the social and
economic spheres. Every common body reacted differently, according to its
own legal, social and economic peculiarity. Each common body had pressing
reasons of its own for establishing a social and economic equilibrium within
the changed economic structure. It is understandable that this could lead to
crises and desperate human situations. But we cannot lay the blame for this
wholly on the putting-out industry, given that this, with its human and
organisational structure and its mental, legal and economic foundations, was
but a product of the Ancien Regime, of city-state mercantilism. If we use
hindsight to assess the situation in terms of our modern social consciousness,
we find that the responsibility for poverty, crises and mendicancy lay with the
political and social structure of the Ancien Regime. We have spotlighted a few
instances illustrating this. There remains the task of briefly describing the
outworkers' fate in the stormy period around the turn of the century.
The transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century was a fateful
and dramatic time for the whole of Europe. They were years of upheaval and
transformation for State, economy and society, years which speeded up the
flow of history like a waterfall. This applied particularly to the old Confedera-
tion and the Zurich city-state. The Helvetic Revolution brought about the
collapse of the Ancien Regime and civic, social and economic life was
fundamentally transformed, although various reactionary movements
delayed and restricted this process. It constitutes an eminently important
historical hiatus and has up till now hardly been mentioned in this investiga-
tion, because it belongs in time and content to Part two of this work and only
there can its significance for our enquiry be given its full due.
These fateful and portentous years brought the population engaged in
industry an excess of poverty and misery. It was directly hit by the evils of war
and invasion, the political revolutions and all the muddle and confusion of the
age, but this was not all. These years also ushered in a technological revolution
of truly epoch-making significance, which shattered the very foundations of
the outworkers' life and existence: spinning jennies arrived in Switzerland
from England, causing the hand spinning industry to collapse. The economic
and social conditions of the outworkers, described in this chapter, deteriorated
completely during the course of this development.
This important transition has already been dealt with in numerous spe-
cialised studies, so we will limit ourselves to a few key words. Nor do we need to
discuss the rise and development of machine spinning or of factory industry in
Switzerland, since Part two will begin with these. We assume that the reader is
familiar with the historical events.
The first machine-spun English yarn arrived in Switzerland in 1790,
causing the price of all coarse-plied yarns to drop. This dealt a severe blow to
the unqualified workers, who could only spin coarse yarn on the wheel.
However much they strained and toiled, trying to make up for their falling
wages by increasing their output, these people sank more and more deeply into
abject poverty. They could work their fingers to the bone, but the number of
distraints increased, and the troupes of unemployed and unfed beggars grew
larger. Anyone who could replaced his spinning wheel with a loom, or tried to
earn a miserable living by spinning fine yarns. The most finely plied yarns
could not as yet be produced mechanically, which was vitally important for the
skilled spinners, the Briefgarn or Lothligarn spinners, as they were called. These
people were not as severely affected by the wage reductions as the spinning-
wheel workers, a circumstance which helped to relieve the poverty in the
Oberland, where most of the hand spinners lived. All the same, political events
and sabre-rattling led to a fall in demand for fine cloth and consequently for
fine-spun yarn. The effect was traumatic. Alongside the depressed prices came
the evils of war and occupation during the Revolution. French rule brought
with it import prohibitions and sales stoppages: both trade and manufacturing
were disrupted. The industrially employed population found itself in a
desperate situation: 'Our Revolution and lack of manufacturing earnings have
caused not just a mass of people to sink into oppressive poverty - but also a
large number into idleness and disorderliness - especially the young people.'77
We have already seen instances of their need. As the English spinning machine
was improved, even the finer sorts of yarn were affected by the falling prices.
The continental blockade throttled the import of English machine-spun
yarns, which delayed the collapse of hand spinning. Its death was granted a
last reprieve and the home industry won the time to change over to machine
production.78 However, the economic decrees and customs restrictions of the
Napoleonic era threatened to throttle the manufacture. Bankruptcy loomed
above many merchant houses, even old and respected ones. The outworkers
were obliged to get by on only a fraction of their previous wages, if they could
find any work at all. They suffered terrible poverty and hardship, especially in
1812 when a new series of price rises broke out. All official and private
attempts at procuring work proved inadequate. People tried to encourage the
manufacture of silk, woollen cloth and linen and to get the industry going
again. They strove to propagate and subsidise sheep breeding and hemp and
flax growing, and so on. However, none of these efforts was noticeably
successful. It was inevitable that the economic and social conditions which
had evolved in the eighteenth century, when the cottage industry was at its
peak, should now completely deteriorate. Shocked and horrified con-
temporaries watched the cotton manufacturing industry, the State's foster-
mother, dwindle and the hard-working spinning population sink into terrible
poverty. Now everyone was aware of the dark side to the over-expanded
cottage industry, about which so many clear-sighted patriots had warned:
Are not the following, to wit, the accumulation of the population to such a degree that it
is out of all proportion to the produce of the soil; the exaggerated expansion of a
manufacture which in good times cripples people, robbing them of their moral and
physical strength, and in bad times, delivers them over to misery and indigence, which
has the most destructive effects on bringing up children and makes us more dependent
politically and economically, all evils which balance out, and even tip the scales
against, all the advantages ensuing from them, however great these may seem.
This entreaty and question was posed anonymously in a script published in
1806, and continued as follows: 'But, it will be replied, since the evil is now
here, we ought to provide assistance for so many more or less underfed
persons, and wherever possible also try to bring about a less sudden and
devastating collapse of our prosperity.'79
These words reveal a sense of responsibility towards the population
engaged in industry, whose diligence and skill had contributed so much to the
prosperity of town and State. They are evidence of a real social political
understanding, of the realisation that the authorities were responsible for the
prevailing and future social and economic conditions. While this may seem
obvious to us, it is not so at all. For instance, a letter was sent on 4 April 1815
from the president of the Educational Council to the government which
included these amazingly injudicious sentences:
Without doubt the whole or the greater part of the factory workers, and the part of our
canton who live from factory earnings, have frequently given civic and church officials a
lot of serious trouble. Ever since our land has been populated by such people out of all
proportion to its size and produce, it has been on the whole a frivolous, carefree and
decadent horde, able to earn its living with ease, which has given rise by means of
premature and multiple reproduction to a more spineless and impoverished race, but
has failed to increase the State's inner strength. During the price rises of the seventies
and subsequently, whenever trade and commerce break down, the State has already
borne the burden of ensuring the survival of such a huge number of people, who, once
their earnings (which are dependent on foreign countries) dwindle and disappear, no
longer know how to find their necesssary support.80
The landless outworkers were not the only ones to be driven to poverty and
starvation by the collapse of the hand spinning industry and by market
stagnation and falling prices following the political disorder; the outworkers
who owned farms were also in a hopeless situation. As we know, these farms
were enormously indebted. When the interest could no longer be earned, an
enormous number of people were driven from their houses and farmsteads.
The outworkers' hitherto great creditworthiness soon disappeared. Cassan-
dra-like wails could be heard all over the place, complaining that the cotton
manufacturing industry was mortally wounded and that it would never
recover.81 This would incite the creditors to move against debtors who could
not pay with the utmost harshness, the more so in that many of the creditors
were also under pressure. Nor can we avoid the reproach that many a town
burgher sought, by mercilessly calling in their debts, to take revenge on the
rural population for the Helvetic Revolution and the political and social
defeat, and the shame they had suffered.
The outworkers' attitude to their basis of existence had hardened into
customary behaviour, and this proved to be just as destructive. The Oberland
spinners found it very difficult to quit the trade they had exercised for so long,
which had fed them until now but could do so no longer, and to earn their
living in a different employment. They were unable to grasp that the
foundations on which they had built their lives were collapsing. It was feared
'that they run the risk of seeking refuge from their poverty by taking desperate
measures rather than by changing to another trade'.82 The outworkers refused
to believe the first rumours about the English spinning jenny. The devil
himself could not invent a spinning wheel that could turn by itself, let alone a
person. What did England matter to us: 'We're in our country, and they're in
theirs!'83 It was only when spinning machines were set up in the Zurich
countryside and in the Oberland that the outworkers realised what had
happened to them. Dazed, they took on board the fact that they could now
hang their spinning wheels up above the chimney. Incapable of recognising
the signs of the times, the population engaged in industry directed its blind,
uncomprehending hate against the spinning jennies. It resulted in unrest and
menaces in the Oberland. There was an acute danger of the machines being
attacked.84
Towards the end of the eighteenth century the Zurich domestic weavers
were producing mostly fine muslin wares (in conjunction with the
embroiderers of St Gall and Appenzell). The disruption caused by the
Revolution and the Napoleonic wars drove this luxury industry into the
ground. After the Battle of Leipzig and the lifting of the continental blockade
the frontiers opened up again to the import of raw materials and the export of
finished wares. A strong demand had built up for coarse cotton cloth, called
calico (the Zurich hand weavers called it Galli for short). The mechanisation of
spinning increased and cheapened the production of thread, which resulted in
broad sections of the population being able to afford rough cotton cloth. As
well as this, a new technical invention called the flying shuttle was adopted in
the industrial regions of Zurich around 1800, which made weaving cotton
cloth cheaper. A new, faster bleaching process had the same effect. The strong
demand for coarse cotton cloth after the war was a very important feature of
the changeover from hand spinning to machine spinning. It helped to ease the
process of adjustment to a new sort of employment for the outworkers. The
majority of the hand spinners were spurred on to earn their livings as domestic
weavers by the big demand for weavers and their high earnings. Nor did the
changeover turn out to be too difficult, since weaving the coarse calico cloth
did not demand a lot of skill. Apart from this, technical improvements to the
weaving process contributed towards making it possible to learn the technique
in a few weeks.85 The Zurich fine-ware industry soon went over to producing
coarse calico. The years 1813 to 1815 brought rich earnings for the industrial
population:
Now the complaints and cries of woe about the war, price rises and pestilence and so on
were stilled, and instead jubilation and joy, dancing and merriment, not on account of
peace, but because of the good wages, with people being paid as much as between 1
Thaler and 3 Gulden for a small piece of calico. Oh, how the manufacturing people lived
it up then, as if it would last for ever.86
Cotton manufacture flourished like a hot house plant. Although its bloom
lasted only a few years, it had a fateful importance for the Zurich outworkers
and for the Oberland people especially. There were compelling reasons for
changing over, and the change itself was made very much easier by the factors
mentioned above. English machine-spun thread was not as yet produced in
sufficient quantity to flood the European markets. There was a huge demand
for thread, and hand-spun yarn could also be sold in insignificant quantities
alongside the native machine-spun yarn. Outworkers who had lost their
livelihoods, and who could not possibly have been employed in the newly built
machine spinning shops, were able to survive again.87 It was only then that the
loom travelled out of the villages into the homesteads and hamlets. The busy
clatter of the loom could now be heard in the remotest corners of the gullies, on
the slopes and crannies of the Oberland hills and mountains. Within a few
years there was hardly a house in these regions which did not have one or more
looms in it. It was a matter of life and death to be able to go on doing outwork,
especially for the hamlets and homesteads which had risen up during the wave
of industrial settlement in the eighteenth century. They had been founded on
earnings from cottage industry and could not exist without them. They were
too far away from the newly arisen and growing machine spinning shops,
which relied on the rivers for their power, for their inhabitants to earn their
livelihoods in such enterprises.
It is obvious that this changeover from domestic spinning to domestic
weaving led to various changes to people's traditional way of life, to their social
life, to their settlements and homes. The new tools, techniques and aids of the
work as well as its new noises had a direct effect on the groups working and
living under cottage industrial conditions. But in any case, even in places
where previously spinning but no weaving had been done, the inhabitants
were already familiar with these working and living conditions.
Calico wares were produced through the putting-out system as well. The
rural inhabitants' newly acquired freedom of trade and manufacture now
enabled them to ascend the social scale and become independent putters-out.
They made capable use of this freedom. A large number of rural manufac-
turers inserted themselves into the manufacturing industry, often employing
only a few hand-loom weavers, working hard and travelling long distances on
foot to distribute the warps, marketing the wares themselves. Especially after
1820, small putting-out establishments of this kind sprung up like mushrooms.
In the Hinwil district, for instance, there were around fifty such enterprises in
1839,88 thus providing the human and organisational structure of the putting-
out system with a new social structure. The family and neighbourly relations
between employee and employer were strengthened, allowing a better grasp of
the putting-out hierarchy. It was increasingly possible to change putting-out
masters. People were no longer tied for better or worse to one particular
putting-out establishment. Conversely, social distinctions within the parish
were growing more marked, giving rise to an industrial aristocracy, which
later also included the entrepreneurial factory manager families (some of the
rural putting-out masters also became factory owners). The possibilities for
social advancement through the newly acquired freedom of trade and
manufacture put new stimulus into the social life of the rural parishes. We can
only mention all these aspects in passing, because the development and history
of cottage industry in the nineteenth century does not belong to our theme, and
will receive full treatment in Part two of our investigation.
The collapse of hand spinning and the transition to machine spinning and
more domestic weaving did not, however, occur peacefully. The period of rich
earnings only lasted a short while; it was paid for with harsh crises and years of
starvation. Many factors contributed to this: more and more English machine-
spun thread was flooding the European markets. The English textile industry
managed to increase its production considerably by improving its looms and
preparatory processes, a development which not only robbed all the outwork-
ers of their livelihood, but also put several machine spinning shops in the
Zurich countryside out of business. Only efficient factory works, well managed
and equipped with good machinery, were able to withstand the competition.
In 1816 various European states introduced protective tariffs. The Federal
cantons were unable to counter these restrictions with their own customs
policy. On top of this, 1816 was a year when the harvest failed quite
spectacularly. The price of food soared in the winter of 1816-17. Many
examples have already been cited concerning 1817, the year of starvation. The
industrial regions in particular suffered unspeakable hardship. Countless
people died from lack of food or fell sick from eating unsuitable food.
So it was against this dreadful background that the textile industry's first
great transition took place: a major turning point in the history of the industry
and of technology in general. The economic and social structure of the putting-
out system, which had developed over 200 years and was maintained by a
suitable economic and social mentality, underwent a profound convulsion
following this collapse. But the forces which had driven, directed and
supported this development were also capable of completing the process of
transition and of ensuring the continuation of the Zurich textile industry: the
inventiveness, the entrepreneurial spirit, the energy and trading skills of the
putting-out and manufacturing masters overcame all the difficulties. New
machines were invented and constructed in their own country, new markets
were discovered and won outside Europe. Conversely, it was the industrial
population's own stubborn and unshakeable adherence to their particular
work and basis of existence, in spite of all the crises and hardship, which made
the transition easier. Their diligent and skilled hands remained within the
cotton manufacturing industry, and raised it to new heights in the twenties,
when new improvements were implemented.
To sum up: in the industrial regions of the Zurich countryside a population

evolved over the generations which knew that its existence was inseparably
bound up with the putting-out system. It clung with all the tenacity of its
traditional way of life and of thinking to the very basis of its existence, a basis
which was as much material as mental and spiritual. The scope of the
industrial population's fateful involvement in the putting-out system was
revealed in times of crisis: the traditional attitudes of the population engaged
in industry, which were bound up in community and custom, had resulted in
their accepting poverty, hardship and crises as familiar and unavoidable
features of their lives. It was their irrational moral and religious precepts
guiding their lives which bound them to their industrial employment, and
which let them cling to it even during times of poverty and hardship. Just as a
mountain farmer clears his fields and meadows of the debris left by the
floodwaters, and as a miner goes down the same pit in which his father and
brother may have lost their lives, so too did the outworker cling to his cotton
threads, which appeared to guarantee him life and livelihood, as they had done
for his father and grandfather. When this thread snapped in times of crisis, the
outworker accepted it with dull resignation, gathering up the torn strands
again when things improved.
Like peasants, miners and sailors, the outworkers were distinguished at the
onset of industrialisation by their resigned attitude towards the dangers and
risks of their profession. These were not natural catastrophes such as floods,
hail and storms, but sales stoppages, crises, slumps and the rising cost of
living. Their resignation was, as we have seen, based on religious and
ideological grounds. The outworker of the eighteenth century was scarcely
aware of the concept that he should take out adequate safeguards against the
vicissitudes of his profession, let alone demand civic, mutual or private
supervisory and insurance institutions. Manufacturing and factory laws,
accident and health protection, sayings, sickness, old-age and widows' funds,
trades union combinations to protect the workers5 interests, self-help organisa-
tions in general and much more - all these are part of the history of the
nineteenth century. They are not to be found under the Ancien Regime-only
their first stirrings are evident. Behind these institutions stands a truly exciting
slice of mental, cultural, state, social and economic history, which will be
extensively discussed in Part two of this investigation.
Let us recapitulate: much as the outworkers' insistence on adhering to an
insecure way of life may be incomprehensible to us with our modern percep-
tion of society, we should not overlook the fact that the outworkers' mentality
and attitude to life, bound up as it was in community and tradition, ensured
the continuity of the Zurich textile industry. We have shown in this chapter
how the industrial population overcame serious crises and emergencies
without losing hold of their industrial basis of existence. They were often
forced to change and to adapt. Their firm hold, together with the acquired
ability to change and adapt, also made it possible and necessary for the
industrial population of the Zurich countryside to withstand the worst and
most fundamental upheavals in their existence around the turn of the
eighteenth century and so ensure the continuation of the Zurich textile
industry. The old domestic spinning industry collapsed, but the putting-out
system was able to adjust and flourish anew, and machine spinning developed
in spite of all competition. The newly strengthened textile industry encour-
aged new branches of the industry to develop along industrial lines, a process
commonly known as the 'Industrial Revolution'.
If the industry allowed people to put down roots in their homeland, it was,
on the other hand, the workers who enabled the industry to become firmly
established and settled, and so ensured that it would survive difficulties and
crises. Industrial landscapes with all their cultural wealth arose.
7 • Conclusion
The last chapter ended with a complementary relationship - let us pick it up

again: on the one hand the putting-out industry gave people a homeland in the
comprehensive sense of the term; on the other hand these people ensured that
the textile industry found stability within their economic and cultural area, in
spite of all crises. The 'industrial landscape' grew out of this complementary
relationship. What do we understand by the term?
'Industrial landscape' is a cultural and morphological term. The cultural
landscape is stamped with visible signs of the putting-out industry. We have
learnt about them during our research. They are the changes to settlement,
buildings and home life - changes to husbandry, use of the soil and field
patterns (Chapter 4). On top of this there are the thousand and one things
which spring to the traveller's eye as he journeys through the industrial regions
of the Zurich landscape; it could be the spinning work place beside every
village well, the rotting and abandoned weaving equipment, the broken
spinning wheels near the woodpile - or it could be the yarn and cloth dealers
with their packs on their backs, whom he meets on the road, the mules laden
with cotton bales or the spinner-girls in their fasionable clothes. They all tell
him that he is passing through a bit of country in which the putting-out system
is at home.
When the putting-out system is at home in a landscape, it is clear that the
term 'industrial landscape' involves more than just these external signs.
Behind these signs stands a reality: the forms of popular life and culture, which
are ineluctably bound to the putting-out industry; forms of life and social life
adjusted to and appropriate to an industrial basis of existence. These forms of
life lay at the centre of our investigation. We have tried to show in all kinds of
spheres how the basic conditions of human life and social life are changed
when existence is founded wholly or partially on an industrial base. Instead of
summing up let us recall the following key words: the changes in people's
attitude to marriage and the marriage contract, to the structure and cohesion
of the family, and the early industrial demographic movements (Chapter 2);
the changes to people's diet, clothing, and the whole range of their needs, the
function of fashion and luxury in their new life style, the altered forms of
184
Conclusion 185
community and sociability and the new cultural wealth (Chapter 3); the
Protestant work ethic and the outworkers' attitude to work, the effect of
putting-out work on the life and culture of the common people (Chapter 5); the
behaviour of the industrially employed population towards their basis of
existence in times of poverty, hardship and crisis (Chapter 6). This reality lay
behind the visible signs which marked a particular cultural environment as an
'industrial landscape'.
With this, man, the creator and upholder of cultural existence, steps into
the limelight. Industry is rooted in people-it is implanted in their hearts. This
is a fact which had particular significance for those sectors of the population
which were employed in industry, which were forced to settle elsewhere. These
people carried with them as invisible baggage their skills, experience and their
ways of living, behaving and thinking, taught them by their industrial basis of
existence, and they transplanted the industry to their new homeland. A.
Karasek-Langer1 has provided us with telling examples from the most recent
past of this sort of industrial transplantation.
Industry is rooted in people. Their traditional ways of living and thinking,
bound up in community and custom, shaped their environment into an
'industrial landscape'. When we use this term, we recognise that 'in the
functional combination of the various elements constituting a living cultural
unity', industry is the 'dominant element'.2 Implicit in this term is also the
further profession that industrialisation cannot and should not be seen from
the point of view of destruction and accumulation.3 While the life and culture
of the common people were indeed altered by industrialisation, they were not
displayed and destroyed, but shaped anew. The term 'industrial landscape'
vouches for this. This thesis has already been advanced in our Introduction
and we hope it is sufficiently supported by the results of the present enquiry.
These final remarks lead us to a brief outlook: the Zurich Oberland along
with other parts of the Zurich countryside were already industrial landscapes
before factory industry took over in the nineteenth century. The radical
change from a predominantly agricultural to an industrial way of living and
thinking had already taken place. The new living conditions had already
gained a sufficient hold on the life and culture of the common people. The first
slumps, which accompanied the process, had been surmounted. The factory
industry of the nineteenth century found a population whose social structure,
manner of living, economic management and whole mental and spiritual
attitude demonstrated their familiarity with industrial conditions and terms of
existence, quite apart from the preconditions present in this population
regarding the techniques of work and their attitude to work. The factory
industry found that the ground had already been prepared and that it could
simply be grafted onto the putting-out industry.
The changes to the life of the common people under the influence of the
putting-out industry, which we have tried to analysis in this thesis, constituted
186 Conclusion
important preconditions and foundations for the subsequent factory industry.
We hope that our analysis has made this sufficiently clear. It is evident that the
upheavals brought about by factory industry were less radical than they would
have been if the factory industry had broken into an unprepared peasant and
farming world. The changes to people's way of life under the influence of
factory industry were not as massively fundamental as they had been with the
preceding putting-out industry, as long as they took place in fully developed
industrial regions like the Zurich countryside.
One fatefully significant circumstance attending the changeover from
cottage industry to factor industry was the cottage industry's refusal to
collapse and to leave the field wholly to the factory industry. It survived
varying fortunes, enduring all sorts of changes, right up until the twentieth
century. For generations many families had a dual industrial basis of
existence: some family members would earn their living in the textile factories
while the others worked at home, at their looms or embroidery frames. If the
family still owned a smallholding, it would be farmed in common, if individual
family members did not perform all or part of this task. Even when the factory
industry was not able to become established in several regions with an old
putting-out industry, it would still draw the inhabitants in its wake. Workers
of both sexes would climb down from their mountainous and hilly zones and
make the weary journey through wind and rain at all times of the year to the
factory in the valley. This dual industrial basis of existence made the process of
transition easier and had an equalising effect, dampening the reaction against
the new employment possibilities, which unfolded with the factory industry.
Within the social structure of the industrial landscape such families formed a
counterweight against the families which earned their livings exclusively in
factory halls and spent their lives in the new boarding houses.
The changes in people's way of life under the influence of the factory
industry were nevertheless comprehensive enough. They will provide the
theme for the sequel to this book. From the old roots of the putting-out
industry sprouted both an established entrepreneurial class and a settled
working class. The Zurich textile industry developed in a new century,
throbbing with new ideas and harnessed to an altered political, economic and
social order. The life and culture of the common people were altered still
further, supported by a population whose manner of living and thinking,
bound up in community and tradition, fettered them to the textile industry.
Anybody walking today through the Zurich Oberland would be aware of this
with every step he took, noticing, too, how the factory industry had been
grafted onto the old putting-out industry. Standing alongside the boarding
houses and factory works are the Flarz houses and the outworker cottages of
the eighteenth century. As well as the factory workers returning home from
work, one may now and again still meet an outworker doing her work in front
of her house.
Conclusion 187
Industrialisation is unquestionably one of the most astonishing phenomena
of our most recent history. Its effects cannot be overlooked and may scarcely be
overestimated. We expressed our conviction in the Introduction that it is a
common duty of all the arts disciplines dealing with the present age to research
this phenomenon. This investigation should contribute to this from the
historical and folklorist view point. The theme of 'Industrialisation and
Everyday Life' has an urgent immediacy, especially for the underdeveloped
countries, over whom industry is breaking like a tidal wave. For this reason we
think it important to study the process of development in the old industrial
landscapes of Europe, that we may more fully understand the present.
Postscript
Ulrich Pfister
Rudolf Braun's work on the social and cultural impact of cottage industry in
the canton of Zurich before 1800 belongs to a group of studies which appeared
around 1960 and opened the field of regional studies in social and economic
history.1 A common feature of them was their stress on structures and
processes bearing on the lives of the great mass of ordinary people, such as the
family, demography, work conditions, popular culture and mentality. All were
usually based on a detailed scrutiny of primary source material available for a
limited regional context.
Whereas in France the Annales movement paved the way for this new
paradigm and the Anglo-Saxon community itself had a long-standing heritage
in social and economic history, such a background was lacking in German
historiography.2 Hence, it is of little surprise that Rudolf Braun's
Industrialisierung und Volksleben has many of its roo'ts outside historiography and,
as the reader will note in the Introduction, rather in the specific Swiss
academic tradition of Volkskunde (folklore).3 Thus, while being in general a
study in the history of mentality, this work nevertheless stands outside the
corresponding tradition initiated by French writers.4 However, it does not
merely form an application of concepts derived from Volkskunde, but breaks
new ground by focussing less on cultural tradition (as was the usual approach
of the discipline) than on cultural change and innovation associated with the
emergence of industrial structures.5
As a consequence of its unique background this study, despite its academic
popularity, has tended to remain outside the mainstream of social historical
writing. While it paved the way for numerous quantitative and structure-
oriented works, the author himself always stressed the importance of the
complementary use of qualitative information by the historian.6 Hence,
considered in the context of the emerging saturation of the discipline with
quantitative work, Braun's study can also be regarded as a forerunner of'thick
description' as a specific methodology in historiography.7
Apart from its general value Braun's work is of particular importance in a
specific research field, namely the study of rural handicraft industry before the
advent of the factory, that is, of proto-industrialisation. Coined by Franklin
188
Postscript 189
Mendels in 1972 this term has been broadened conceptually and has been
discussed in a vast number of studies since.8 Together with a few other seminar
works,9 Braun's book served as a point of departure for the later discussion. In
order to appreciate its impact in more detail, and to point to more recent
extensions and revisions, the following discussion will be based on the well-
known conceptual framework introduced by Mendels.10 Each point (the
framework consists of four definitions and six hypotheses) will be introduced
briefly and will be discussed with reference to the study in question. It should
be pointed out, however, that this procedure is only used to put Braun's work
into a broader perspective; it does not form this book's conceptual
background.
Definition 1 Proto-industrial production is oriented towards manufactured
exports into markets beyond a regional context.
Definition 2 Proto-industrialisation is marked by the participation of rural
households in the production of manufactured goods, that is, by the
phenomenon of cottage industry.
Braun's book is one of the first modern studies which focusses on industrial-
isation before industrialisation, that is, on forms of handicraft production of
industrial products by individual households with the help of relatively
primitive technologies. It thus marks a break with traditional studies of the
origins of industrialisation, which usually began their analysis with the
introduction of the factory system. As a consequence, the current characterisa-
tion of export-oriented manufacture in rural households as a distinct social
and economic phenomemon reflects in part the emphases of Braun's study,
which later investigation was to replicate elsewhere.11 In the light of recent
doubts about the utility of the two definitional criteria in question,12 Braun's
documentation of a specific type of social behaviour among rural workers
engaged in export-oriented production of manufactures still retains much
analytical value, at least for those features of proto-industrialisation with
which he is concerned.
Definition 3 Proto-industry implies the differentiation between, on the one
hand, farmers producing a commercialised surplus, and, on the other, poor
farmers and cottagers seeking additional income either as agricultural
labourers or as workers in manufacturing. This differentiation may occur
either in a local context (village, region) or in a supra-regional context
(between regions, within nations or even internationally).
Together with the work of Thirsk,13 Braun's analysis of the distinctive
features of the Oberland of the canton of Zurich as compared to the rest of the
canton (mainly the Unterland; see Chapter 1 of this book) has sometimes been
regarded as telling evidence for the thesis of regional differentiation or
bifurcation as an integral aspect of proto-industrialisation.14 His main stress is
on the following causal chain believed to be decisive for the emergence of
cottage industry in the Oberland: originally, the hilly character and the
190 Postscript
infertile soils made the region unsuitable for the usual field rotation system
with corporate land use, as practised in the relatively flat Unterland. The
consequent dominance of separate ownership and individual land use
(Egartenwirtschafi) prevented the formation of close village communities which
could have restricted the use of commons and have erected barriers against
immigration. This in turn led to the emergence of a rural proletariat which was
only able to make ends meet with the help of earnings derived from manufac-
turing work.15 This process as a whole suggests the presence of certain
structural features which can be regarded as characteristic of proto-industrial
regions.
Stimulated by studies such as Braun's, later authors have elaborated on the
regional aspect of proto-industrialisation by using a systematic comparative
approach. Mendels, in particular, developed the notion of a typical proto-
industrial region being subdivided into first, a flat, rich agricultural area with
large concessions and possibly impartible inheritance; secondly, a hilly area
with poor soils, a predominance of dairy farming associated with proto-
industry, partible inheritance and labour migration into the richer area; and,
thirdly,, a larger town between these two complementary rural areas providing
the commercial and entrepreneurial skills required for the operation of the
economic links between the two.16
Despite the similarities between Braun's thesis and the bifurcation model
set out above, the canton of Zurich does not seem to fit very well into the
latter.17 The Unterland never was a rich and market-oriented grain producing
area; grain for the town of Zurich and the Oberland was imported from
southern Swabia which also offered an important seasonal labour market for
many poor people south of the Rhine. Obviously, the region complementary to
the Oberland (according to the model set out above) was not the Unterland
but southern Swabia, and both were separated by the Unterland, dominated
by subsistence agriculture supported by modest levels of proto-industrial
textile production at certain times (before the end of the seventeenth and
during the last years of the eighteenth centuries). This suggests that processes
of regional differentiation associated with cottage industry were of greater
complexity than proponents of the bifurcation thesis have concluded, on the
basis of Braun's work.
Definition 4 Proto-industrialisation is a regional phenomenon and has to
be analysed on this level of aggregation.
As mentioned at the outset the present book was among the first explicitly
to practise local history from the perspective of concepts of social and econ-
omic history;18 it thus played a considerable role in orienting research on
proto-industry towards a regional approach.
To turn to the hypotheses within Mendel's framework, the majority relate
to problems of organisation in the proto-industrial system, capital accumula-
tion, the acquisition of industrial knowledge by entrepreneurs and the import-
Postscript 191
ance of the emergence of commercial agriculture (in the context of regional
bifurcation) as a precondition for later urbanisation. Following the folklorist
approach of Braun's work these are not treated in much detail in his book. On
the other hand, it has made important contributions to the topics of the
demography of pro to-industrial populations (hypothesis 1 in Mendel's frame-
work) and of their cultural behaviour (hypothesis 5). The following discussion
relates exclusively to these two points.
The first hypothesis states that proto-industrialisation had the effect of
breaking up the system of the European pattern of late marriage which had
previously prevailed,19 and thus provided the base for significant population
growth. On the one hand, this was because incomes from cottage industry
allowed people to divide farms among their offspring without endangering
their subsistence, so that more people could marry; on the other hand, people
could marry at younger ages because earnings from manufacturing work
allowed marriages to be concluded without a significant agricultural base
(through inheritance, for example).
The present study was among the first to formulate this hypothesis and to
attempt its verification by demographic evidence (Chapter 2 above).20 At the
time of its first appearance this thesis stood in marked contrast to established
wisdom, which held that the great demographic transition was initiated by a
decline of mortality rather than by a rise in nuptiality and a corresponding
increase in fertility.21 In the meantime, however, the evolution of demographic
research techniques has made it possible to demonstrate that the marriage rate
was of considerable importance in population dynamics of the eighteenth
century.22
While some other studies have confirmed the patterns postulated by Braun
and Mendels,23 quite a number of empirical studies have come to negative
conclusions with respect to the hypothesis in question. As a consequence,
some authors have tended to discard the hypothesis altogether, whereas others
have tended to look for conditions under which the mechanisms in question
operate or do not operate; the main specifying factors which have been
suggested are the type of proto-industrialisation, the speed of its expansion,
the nature of its association with agriculture or the sexual division of labour.24
As for the canton of Zurich, a recent study has shown that the pattern
postulated above and in Chapter 2 in Braun's work does hold for the inner part
of the Oberland during the rapid expansion of proto-industry in the second
half of the eighteenth century, but not so for the outer areas of the Oberland
(with, admittedly, more modest levels of proto-industrialisation), and for
earlier periods. It suggests that a pattern of rising marriage and fertility rates
emerges only where cottage industry leads to a definitive break-up of agrarian
structures, and to the emergence of a rural proletariat largely dependent on
earnings from manufacturing.25
The other hypothesis addressed here states that proto-industrialisation
192 Postscript
facilitates the formation of a qualified labour force which can easily be
integrated into an industrial factory system.
Beyond the question of technical skills this hypothesis addresses more
immaterial aspects of the quality of a labour force such as work discipline. It is
perhaps in this field that Braun's study has proven most stimulating; it is also
here that it still goes clearly beyond more economistic approaches, such as the
one advocated by Mendels. In fact a substantial part of Braun's book (notably
Chapters 3 and 5) consists of a detailed analysis of the mentality displayed by
proto-industrial populations.
What becomes clear is that their ways of behaviour do not resemble very
much those of industrial workers. Work has still an eminently social character;
it is done in work groups of neighbours, of young people (Lichtstubeten) or in the
family. Likewise, it principally serves certain social goals which are partly new
(fulfilment of subsistence needs, acquisition of consumption goods associated
with social prestige), rather than the maximisation of income. On the other
hand, Braun points to a number of new elements within the culture of rural
working classes which, while often being rooted in traditional folk culture, take
on a new meaning through the fact that these groups are largely devoid of an
agricultural base and, therefore, develop new means of status allocation and
documentation. An often-cited example is the individualisation of courtship
customs brought about by a progressive weakening of familial control over
marriage arrangements based on the disposition of agricultural property
(Chapter 2).
While Braun's approach is basically descriptive in character (see notably
the statement at the beginning of Chapter 3), later authors, Medick in
particular, have attempted to link systematically the mental structures of
proto-industrial populations to the specific proto-industrial family economy.26
Even these extensions, however, rely in part on empirical evidence provided
by the present study. Perhaps the most important revision of these attempts at
more conceptional coherence is Medick's contention that the separation of the
proto-industrial worker from an agricultural base does not necessarily
individualise courtship and marriage choice; rather, the temporal necessity to
maximise the familial production of manufactures creates the base of new
objective criteria in marriage choice (e.g. work capacity). Since little empirical
material bearing on this issue is available, however, it is difficult to decide
between these two positions.
To conclude, the juxtaposition of Braun's work with a major recent analysis
of the concept of proto-industrialisation shows that it raised a number of issues
which, while extended and modified since, have mostly not yet been resolved.
Its frequent citation as a source of theoretical statements or, indeed, of
empirical evidence, is witness to its lasting relevance in the field of research on
proto-industrialisation.
Appendix: a note on the administrative structure
and social stratification in the countryside of
Zurich during the Ancien Regime
Ulrich Pfister
The territory of the canton of Zurich was acquired by the town of Zurich
during the late Middle Ages mostly through purchase or mortgaging by
declining feudal powers. During the Reformation a vast amount of church
property was secularised and seized by the town. The latter was ruled by two
town councils (a large and a small one, the latter being the governing body)
with two Mayors at its head. It is the small council which is usually addressed
as Your Worship in the sources quoted by the present book. The rural territory
was administered by governors {Land- and Obervogte for the secular property,
Amtsmdnner for former church property; the translation invariably uses the
term governor) chosen from among the members of the town council for a
limited period of years.
On the local level, a clear distinction must be made between the village
community and the church parish. The latter often encompassed several
villages and, particularly in the Oberland, hamlets and scattered farmsteads
not belonging to a commune. Its chief officer was the minister who, from the
late sixteenth century onwards, had to be a burgher of the town of Zurich. He
and the church eiders (Ehegaumer) chosen from among the parishioners formed
a supervisory body (the Stillstand) watching over the moral life in the parish
and administrating church funds, particularly with regard to Poor Relief.
The intermediary between the village community and the political
administration represented by the governor was the bailiff (in the sense of an
administrator; Untervogt) who usually was a member of the local upper class,
i.e. a wealthy farmer. Other positions usually taken by the village notables
were the adminstrator of the village funds (Seckelmeister), the bailiffs and
jurymen in the district courts as well as the lower officer ranks in the militia.
As elsewhere, the rural upper class can be broadly defined as the farmers
possessing at least one plough-team (full farmers). Apart from this group, half
farmers (those possessing only one animal capable of being used for draught
purposes), smallholders and landless day-labourers are social classes which
are frequently mentioned in the present context.
The interests of the local village community, and in particular those of
the upper class, become visible in the entry charters (Einzugsbriefe) quoted
193
194 Appendix
extensively in Chapter 1 of this study. Usually demanded by the village
notables (who form the delegation) from the governor and the town govern-
ment, they gave a commune the right to raise a fee from immigrants and
stipulated rules regarding the use of village property (the commons), the
division of holdings and the erection of new houses. However, and this is a
distinctive feature of areas where dispersed settlement predominated (as in the
Oberland) and where, correspondingly, village communities were weak, the
rural upper class, if it was able to organise itself at all, had to seek other ways to
safeguard its interest in restricting access to pasture and wood. Hence, church
parishes were used as the channel to formulate demands for entry charters.
A consequence of the restriction of mobility by entry charters was a stronger
division between burghers of the village commune and non-burghers or
villeins (Hintersdssen), i.e. persons living in a commune without having paid the
entry fee and in principle being denied the access to wood and pasture. If they
were poor they burdened the Relief funds of both Church and State, which
explains in part why they were strongly resented by the rural upper class.
Notes
Introduction
1. This aim is summarised in the title of an essay by Max Silberschmidt: 'Zur
Geistesgeschichte der industriellen Revolution', Schweizerische Hochschulzeitung, 29, no. 6
(1956).
2. See A. Karasek-Langer's fundamentally important remarks in 'Neusiedlung in
Bayern nach 1945', Jahrbuchfur Volkskunde der Heimatvertriebenen, 2 (1956), pp. 65ff.
3. See R. Weiss, Volkskunde derSchweiz, Erlenbach and Zurich 1946, pp. 15 and 23ff.
4. It should be mentioned here that the Tuchler (clothiers) employed by a putting-
out enterprise were often called Fabrikanten (manufacturers) in contemporary sources.
In the same way, outworkers employed in the putting-out industry were described as
Fabrikarbeiter (factory workers) in eighteenth-century sources (students of public
affairs, economists and physiocrats in the eighteenth century were already trying to
differentiate between 'factory' and 'manufacture', etc.). In this enquiry we have quoted
the contemporary term 'factory', without pointing out each time that it refers here only
to conditions within the putting-out industry. We refer the reader to the appropriate
entries in various encyclopaedias.
5. Walter Bodmer's Schweizerische Industriegeschichte, Zurich 1960, appeared shortly
before this enquiry was printed. We were not able to make use of this work, but would
like to take this opportunity to refer to it.
6. See Bibliography.
1 The preconditions for industrialisation

1. See State Archive of Zurich (hereafter St.A.Z.) F I 354ff, Beschreybung der Armen
uff der ganzen Landschaft Zurich, 1649, 1600, 1680, 1700.
2. See St.A.Z. A 99, Gemeindeguter und Einzugsbriefe, viz., Toss 1630, Unterhittnau
1638, Pfaffikon 1739, Illnau-Otikon 1730, etc. See too F. Meier, Geschichte der Gemeinde
Wetzikon, Zurich 1881, p. 151.
3. St.A.Z. A 124.
4. Limited quantities of hemp and flax may have been imported from the Thurgau
and the Rhine valley, and from Swabia. See J. Ebel, Schilderung der Gebirgsvolker der
Schweiz, 2 vols., Leipzig 1789, 1802, vol. 1, p. 268.
5. Let us refer the reader to the various works on economic history by A. Biirkli-
Meyer, O. Haegi, W. Honegger, B. Keller, E. Kiinzle, and others.
6. See J.C. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage: 1st die Handelschaft, wie solche bey
uns beschaffen, unserem Lande schadlich oder niitzlich, in Absicht auf den Feldbau
und die Sitten des Volkes?', Magazinfur die Naturkunde Helvetiens, 3 (1788), p. 118.
195
196 Notes to pages 9-22
7.There was also a modest number of manufacturers in the town, but they do not
concern us here.
8. A. Biirkli-Meyer, Die Zurcherische Fabrikgesetzgebung vom Beginn des H.Jahrhunderts
an bis zur Schweizerischen Staatsumwdlzung von 1798, Zurich 1884, whose collection of laws
and directives provides impressive documentation of how the economic order slowly
altered. This process was carried out in the field of force between the old artisan and
guild order and the new forces in the putting-out industry.
9. See G. Finsler, Zurich in der zweiten Hdlfte des achtzehntenjahrhunderts, Zurich 1884,
p. 185.
10. St.A.Z. F I 354ff; the subsequent references are all quoted from this Poor
Register. Details of year and place are given in brackets in the text to allow the source to
be pin-pointed easily.
11. We shall retain only these simple facts at this stage, putting off all enquiries
about the origins of these conditions so as not to pre-empt our conclusions.
12. This involved not only political and economic dependence on the town, but
also, as alms recipients, the loss of communal rights. Alms recipients lost their active
rights as members of the village commune. See H. Strehler, Beitrdge zur Kulturgeschichte
der Zurcher Landschaft, Part II: 'Aberglaube, Armut und Better, in Zurcher Taschenbuch
aufdasjahr 1935 (1935), p. 95.
13. Even small local improvements in the labour market had a restricting effect.
Within the catchment area of the Wald weekly market with its peasant yarn manufac-
ture in 1649, for instance, hemp and flax were still being spun throughout. However,
this tells us nothing about the level of poverty in the Wald region, but rather, something
about the rates of pay for spinning in the putting-out industry and about the growth of
the putting-out system.
14. St.A.Z. A 99/1. A petition by the parish assembly of Unterdiirnten of 1 Nov.
1661 to their governor about raising the entry fee and ratifying their suggestions
concerning the use of the commonalty.
15. Strehler, Beitrdge zur Kulturgeschichte der Zurcher Landschaft, Part II, p. 83.
16. St.A.Z. A 99/1.
17. See the harvest records in minister Ulrich of Lufingen's diary for 1685-1710;
quoted in part by H. Morf, Neujahrsblatt der Hulfsgesellschaft von Winterthur, vol. 12: Aus der
Geschichte des zurcherischen Armenwesens, Winterthur 1873, p. 31. Morf also cites figures for
the extent of the impoverishment. In 1700 the ratio of families receiving Poor Relief to
other families in the better-off parishes was 1:8. This ratio could climb as high as 2:5.
The average for the whole canton was at most 1:5. Morf writes that 'it should not be
overlooked that people could be left without help who would nowadays have a prior
claim to charity' (p. 32).
18. In so far as he owned any such rights. In the sixteenth century the poor of the
village commune still had a distinguishing mark fixed to their shoulder. Strehler,
Beitrdge zur Kulturgeschichte der Zurcher Landschqft, Part II, p. 95.
19. We do not need to analyse the deep-seated social effects of this sort of
emigration more closely at this stage.
20. See for instance H. Bernhard, Wirtschafts- und Siedlungsgeschichte des Tosstales,
Diss., Zurich, 1912, p. 59; popular literature is particularly prone to cite this as the
origin.
21. F. Wyss, 'Die Schweizerischen Landsgemeinden', Zeitschrift fur schweizerisches
Recht, 1 (1852), p. 24.
22. Ibid., p. 25.
23. This development was accompanied by an alteration to the community as a
legal person. The communities became independent and the matters within their
Notes to pages 22-4 197
jurisdiction grew in number. We will discuss this in detail further on. We also refer the
reader to the various monographs, especially the one by F. Wyss. He points out the
reactionary character of process in question in a passage of such fundamental
significance that we quote it here: 'From the middle of the fifteenth century to the
middle of the sixteenth, it is very evident that the foundations, on which the inner
condition of the communities had until then rested, had collapsed. This was a
consequence of weakened domanial rights and the rise and increased power of the
peasantry, and was particularly apparent in the changeover from feudal tenure to
actual proprietory rights, liable only to rent, or, at least in an approximation to the
latter, in an abolishment or reduction of serfdom, in a narrowing of the gaps between
the several classes of the peasantry in a fragmentation of formerly closed and tied
estates, in a loosening of the formerly strict village regulations about the number and
location of houses, in a frequent change of residence and a facilitation of new
settlement. These facts were actively interrelated with the political and even the
religious movements of the age. They were manifestations which have appeared
successfully and lastingly in other states only in this century, and closer analogies have
been found amongst us again more recently. From the middle of the sixteenth century
and especially in the seventeenth century the attempt was made within the actual
community to protect the interests of the surviving larger landed estates and the
previous use of the commonalty, which had been endangered by these changes, and to
introduce to this purpose a new form of community right with a new set of tighter
restrictions' (ibid., p. 5).
24. The Zurich government had made sure of the right to determine and control
restrictions on settlement in the villages (private and legal concerns were entwined).
25. C.G. Schmidt, Der Schweizer Bauer im Zeitalter des Fruhkapitalismus, Berne 1932, p.
48: 'That the peasants as a rule demanded a high entry fee from all those who wanted to
settle in their midst as members of the community, in order to protect the form of
economy particular to their locality from external influence, is a circumstance which
has particular interest for economic history, since it shows how the peasants' subjective
aims, in our case their "esprit de retrecissement" (hidebound spirit). . . was upheld by
the objective lay-out of the economy, in our case, by the communal decrees, ratified by
the authorities, about taking on new citizens. It betrays how their mentality relied on
the "economic order".'
26. St.A.Z. A 99/6. Also called Dorfbrief (village charter), viz., Wildberg 18 Feb.
1642.
27. St.A.Z. A 99/2, Unterhittnau 16 March 1638.
28. St.A.Z. A 99/1, Baretswil and Adetswil 30 July 1565.
29. St.A.Z. A 99; compare too Bernhard, Wirtschafts- und Siedlungsgeschichte des
Tosstales, p. 53. We have not followed up the question about the origins of the scarcity of
common property. Its beginnings go back to the cultivation of the Oberland.
Seigneurial rights and, as we will see, natural conditions were contributory factors. We
have also abstained from establishing figures for any particular year about the level of
entry fees levied by the different community of the Zurich countryside.
30. See Chapters 2 and 4.
31. The extent to which the entry charters of the Oberland parishes differ from the
stereotype formulas of the other entry charters is revealing.
32. St.A.Z. A 99/1.
33. The church parish is not identical with the village community, nor did they
usually coincide, and their lands were separate. After the Reformation and its re-
organisation, the care of the poor devolved, along with other duties, on the church
parishes. According to Wyss the right of membership in the church parish was
'necessarily tied to membership of the secular parish, or to one of the many such village
communities belonging to the church parish' ('Die Schweizerischen Landsgemeinden',
p. 46).
34. St.A.Z. A 99/1. The permitted entry fee was also an entry fee to the church
parish. We must bear these connections in mind when we come to discuss the religious
and ecclesiastical attitudes of those people who had fallen into industrial dependence.
35. Ibid., A 99/1, A 99/3. Wildberg also did not have an entry charter 18 Feb. 1643.
36. Ibid., A 99/3.
37. Ibid., A 99/2.
38. Ibid., A 99/2, 5 May 1643.
39. Ibid., A 99/4.
40. Ibid., A 99/4. There can have been no answer to this renewed petition either.
The State Archive contains no relevant entry permit. See Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der
Frage',p. 79.
41. The term villein (Hintersasse) refers to a class of disenfranchised non-burghers
who have not paid the entry fee and who are in principle denied access to the use of the
commons (see also Appendix, p. 194). In our age, in which the parish is an independent
legal person, villeins no longer come under the landlord's protection; see Wyss, 'Die
Schweizerischen Landsgemeinden', p. 47.
42. St.A.Z. A 99/2, compare Hinteregg, 3 Jan. 1654.
43. See Meier, Geschichte der Gemeinde Wetzikon, pp. 159, 169ffand 197.
44. Their share in the parish facilities: schools, pastoral care, cemetery, etc.
45. St.A.Z. A 99/4, 17 Oct. 1621. The wording of the petition of 5 Oct. 1708 of the
church parish of Baretswil stresses in any case the protective character of the villeins5
fees: 'In the meantime your church parish Baretswil has been burdened with so many
villeins that from now on each one will have to pay 3 Pfund of villeins' fees (gelt) every
year (Art. 4)' (A 99/1).
46. St.A.Z. A 99/4. This is only one of many such references in the sources, and it
shows with the utmost clarity that there had been people since the beginning of
industrialisation who owned nothing except what they earned through the industry.
We stress this circumstance all the more, because the general opinion in the literature is
that the early outworkers as well as the factory workers of the nineteenth century were
exclusively small farmers who did industrial work on the side.
47. See Wyss, 'Die Schweizerischen Landsgemeinden', p. 26.
48. St.A.Z. A 99/1, request for an entry charter by the community of Unterdiirnten
ofl Nov. 1661.
49. Ibid., A 99/1, an entry charter of 15 Feb. 1638 for the community of Baretswil.
See too the entry charter of Kempten, Art. 6, quoted by Meier, Geschichte der Gemeinde
Wetzikon, p. 158.
50. Meier, Geschichte der Gemeinde Wetzikon, p. 157.
51. St.A.Z. A 99/2, entry charter for Hinteregg of 20 Dec. 1654. The wording was
almost identical in the charter for Kempten; Meier, Geschichte der Gemeinde Wetzikon, p.
160, viz., 'If someone sells his half of a house and two households are living in one
dwelling, then no more members of the village community should dwell in this house
than there would be in an undivided one.' Entry charter of 24 April 1600, St.A.Z. A 99/
1. Although the legal function of the house had its roots in the agricultural history of the
Middle Ages, it should be noted that there was something fundamentally new about
tying the commonage rights to the house. The medieval system of labour dues with its
manorial law courts and distribution of the produce survived only very exceptionally in
the Zurich countryside. When the villagers set up barriers against immigration, they
referred back simply to old legal thinking. For the legal function of the house, cf. P.
Leumann, Das Haus als Trdger von markgenossenschaftlichen Rechten undLasten, Diss., Zurich
1939; K.S. Kramer, 'Haus und Flur im bauerlichen Recht', Bayrische Heimatforschung, 2
(1950), and K.-S. Krauer, Die Nachbarschqft als bduerliche Gemeinschaft: Ein Beitrag zur
rechtlichen Volkskunde mit besonderer Berucksichtigung Bayerns, Munchen-Pasing 1954.
52. Wyss has shown that this fundamental trend was fully in tune with the Zeitgeist
and was paralleled in the towns by the development of their civic rights ('Die
Schweizerischen Landsgemeinden', p. 15). When the right to vote was coupled with the
commonage right, so that it shared the same material preconditions, then it was
impossible for individuals to enjoy civic rights. The problem lay principally with the
adult children of parish members who could not fulfil the material preconditions of
membership. Did they form a new circle, separate from the villeins, because they were
able to vote in certain parish matters? This poses the question about the historical
emergence of personal rights of citizenship. One would have to research each case; how
far and when each parish was able to achieve an actual separation of the commonage
community and the political community. Such an arrangement opened the door wide
to disputes about inheritance, which constituted a considerable force for change. See
too J.C. Niischeler, Beobachtungen eines redlichen Schweizers aus vaterldndischer Liebe entwar-
fen, Zurich 1786, pp. 8 and 12.
53. St.A.Z. A 99/5. The petition by the village community of Toss, viz., of 28 Jan.
1630, speaks of 'new immigrants, in whole and half houses on account of the
commonage and rather fine common property'; see too the sources quoted in n. 51
above.
54. Ibid., A 99/2. 4 June 1679. The petition of 28 Oct. 1654 by Hinteregg already
contains this condition. The petition of Unterdiirnten of 1 Nov. 1661 goes as follows:
'As hitherto the household dwellings were not split in two and it was not permitted that
even only two households should live under one roof, so it should remain this way in the
future'(A 99/1).
55. We are unable to establish how far this was influenced by old seigneurial rights.
56. St.A.Z. A 99/1.
57. Such a subdivision of holdings was performed by the community of
Unterwetzikon in 1714, probably as a result of disputes over inheritance. See Meier,
Geschichte der Gemeinde Wetzikon, p. 183.
5 8 . St.A.Z. A 61, sub Neftenbach, taken from Neujahrsblatt der Hulfsgesellschaft von
Winterthur, Morf, vol. 12, p. 19.
59. Ibid., A 99/1, Unterdurnten, 1 Nov. 1661.
60. See Schmidt, Der Schweizer Bauer, pp. 47 and 54.
61. Bernhard, 'Wirtschafts- und Siedlungsgeschichte des Tosstales', p. 87.
62. Ibid., p. 24. See too p. 26, where the morphological and geographical conditions
of the upper Tosstal are assessed from the point of view of building techniques.
63. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage', p. 73. We have not followed up the history of
settlement in the Oberland any further. Research into houses and settlements had
stressed the importance of the natural conditions for the form of settlement. Our region
lies in the rainy zone of the northern pre-Alpine area, which is typified by single
farmsteads. Historical forces play their part alongside these natural influences.
Seigneurial factors also contributed to the land clearance and settlement of the
Oberland: the more so since the Oberland region was opened up relatively late. Of
most significance for us is the fact that even before industrialisation the Oberland was a
landscape of isolated farms. Hamlets and villages arose where conditions permitted.
There is plenty of evidence for this. J. Ebel describes the eastern part of the canton of
Zurich as follows: 'Previously this whole mountainous part of the Allmann was
extremely wild, rough and sparsely populated; by the end of the fifteeenth century
wolves and bears still inhabited its wooded mountains': Gebirgsvolker, vol. 2, p. 46.
64. Meier, Geschichte der Gemeinde Wetzikon, pp. 17Iff.
65. Hermann Lussi, Chronik der Gemeinde Fischenthal, Wetzikon and Riiti 1932, pp.
104ff. See too Bernhard, 'Wirtschaft- und Siedlungsgeschichte des Tosstales', p. 58
(with bibliographical references); S. Schinz, Das hohere Gebirge des Kanton Zurich, und der
okonomisch-moralische Zustand der Bewohner, mit Vorschlag der Hulfe und Auskunftfur die bey
mangelnder Fabrikarbeit brotlose Ubervolkerung (Synodalrede), Zurich 1817, pp. 6ff; and
Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage', p. 75.
66. Thus have we avoided mentioning Zurich's policy concerning manufacture,
finance and trade. The disavantageous results this policy would have on the economic
situation of the Zurich countryside are well known. Nor have we mentioned tithes,
which must be named as a factor contributing to industry, since earnings from the
putting-out industry, which were not based on land, were not liable to paying tithes.
67. See Chapter 4 especially.
68. Paul Klaui and Edward Imhof, eds., Atlas zur Geschichte des Kantons Zurich,
Zurich 1951, Plate 35. Valid figures for winter employment are presented on this map.
Had valid figures also been compiled for the summertime, the highly industrialised
regions would stand out much more clearly. For instance, beneath the list offiguresfor
the Griiningen district one may read that 'According to the unanimous reports by the
officials, it may be calculated that at least a quarter of the 8,992 spinners were employed
in agriculture throughout the summer.' For Kyburg one may read that'In the upper
district in summertime a quarter of the spinners are to be subtracted on account of field-
work. In the lower district in summertime spinning almost completely stops.' In the
arable and wine growing regions this stands out even more clearly and is noted in many
reports: Horgen, for instance: The farmers' sons and daughters spin throughout the
winter on account of the good wages, but they stop when spring comes again.' Or about
Rafz, where 117 persons spin in the winter, the following applies: spinning 'lasts only
for the winter, and with spring and the beginning of the grape growing season it ceases'.
St.A.Z. A 76. The cotton cottage industry is the only one represented on the map.
69. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage', p. 74.
70. Klaui and Imhof, eds., Atlas, Plate 40. We are aware that very different motives
applied when emigration was considered. The 1734 to 1744 map only deals with
emigration to North America.
2 Changes to the structure of family and population in the industrial

regions
1. It has been mentioned that this social restructuring of the Zurich countryside
reaches far back into the pre-industrial era. Undoubtedly such rural, but not peasant,
sections of the population developed their own life style, which was reflected in the
customs and life of the common people of the Oberland. One has only to think of
seasonally restricted work in the fields and the woods, of seasonal emigration and
homecoming, etc. But these people will scarcely have developed a class feeling of their
own. They lacked important preconditions for this. For instance, they did not enjoy a
common and unifying basis of life. They lacked the will to express class consciousness in
cultural terms. There was no room for this sort of cultural determinism there, where
people were vegetating at the margins of the peasant community in poverty and
hardship and whose whole energy was directed towards securing their basic needs from
day to day. Poverty and hardship do not make a class on their own. But these are
problems which require a more rigorous investigation than we can give them here,
given that it is doubtful if the available sources would permit this sort of investigation.
2. Courtship, marriage, inheritance, etc., are included in this, in their manifold
local variations.
3. J.C. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage: 1st die Handelschaft, wie solche bey uns
beschaffen, unserem Lande schadlich, oder niitzlich, in Absicht auf den Feldbau und
die Sitten des Volkes?', Magazinfur die Naturkunde Helvetiens, 3 (1788), p. 129.
4. See J.C. Niischeler, Beobachtungen eines redlichen Schweizers aus vdterlandischer Liebe
entworfen, Zurich 1786, p. 12, in which the problem of the communal right in relation to
the division of inheritance is mentioned. See too Chapter 4.
5. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage', pp. 129 and 104.
6. C. Meiners, Briefe uber die Schweiz, Part III, Tubingen 1791, p. 47.
7. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage', p. 77. The increase in marriages cannot of
course be considered in isolation, but must be set in relation to the population increase.
8. Viz., O. Haegi, Die Entwicklung der Zurcher-Oberldndischen Baumwollindustrie, Diss.,
Berne 1924, p. 34.
9. S. Schinz, Das hbhere Gebirge des Kanton Zurich, und der dkonomisch-moralische Zustand
der Bewohner, mit Vorschlag der Hulfe und Auskunftfur die bey mangelnder Fabrikarbeit brotlose
Ubervolkerung (Synodalrede), Zurich 1817, p. 8.
10. Ibid., p . 17.
1 1 . Vaterldndische Erinnerungen an meine Mitlandleute der dussern Rhoden, uber das
Verhdltnis der Landes-Produktion, gegen unsere angewohnten Bedurfnisse, 1811, p. 131.
12. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage', p . 130.
13. H. Strehler, Beitrdge zur Kulturgeschichte der Zurcher Landschaft, Part II:
'Aberglaube, Armut und Better, in Zurcher Taschenbuch aufdasjahr 1935 (1935), p. 83.
14. Nuscheler, Beobachtungen, p. 17.
15. Schinz, Das hbhere Gebirge, p. 11.
16. Johann Hirzel, Rede uber den physischen, okonomischen und sittlich-religidsen Zustand
der ostlichen Berggemeinden des Kanton Zurich (Synodalrede), Zurich 1816, p. 16.
17. J. Schulthess, Beherzigung des vor der Zurcher Synode gehaltenen Vortrags, Zurich
1817, p. 52.
18. Hirzel, Rede uber den physischen, okonomischen und sittlich-religidsen Zustand, pp. 24ff.
Many laws forbidding early marriages are found in the mandates of the seventeenth
century. The mandate of 1676 requires country people to produce at least 100 Gulden at
their wedding, or at least an assurance of being able to earn their own living (Strehler,
Beitrdge zur Kulturgeschichte der Zurcher Landschaft, Part II, p. 92). See too Schulthess,
Beherzigung, p. 60.
19. Quoted by F. Meier, Geschichte der Gemeinde Wetzikon, Zurich 1881, p. 461.
Johann Schulthess quotes as follows from a country minister's visitation notes (no
reference supplied): 'My church elders, noticing that it is mostly young married
couples who are suffering from the present shortage, who were indeed driven into
marriage by necessity or without sufficient fortune; and knowing that in the bordering
countries of Germany, no one is allowed to marry who does not have his own house,
have already asked me whether our government could not also introduce a law to
prevent such marriages: for the restriction in the matrimonial laws is not adequate for
this.'
20. Schulthess, Beherzigung, pp. 54ff. See too pp. 68ff.
21. See, for instance, H.F.K. Gunther, Das Bauerntum als Lebens- und Gemeinschafts-
form, Leipzig 1939, Chaps. 13 and 14.
22. See H. Strehler, Beitrdge zur Kulturgeschichte der Zurcher Landschaft, Part I: Kirche
undSchule im 17. undl8.Jahrhundert, Lachen 1934, p. 62: 'For all the wantonness and early
marriages these Licht- and Bett- or Gadenstubeten can be held responsible. It is because of
them that in many villages a wreath is now seldom worn at weddings. The mandate of
1647 included the following "We hereby prohibit to no less a degree . . . Lichtstubeten
and similar nocturnal junketings" ' (St.A.Z. I l l AAb.l).
23. See, too, 1650 mandate: Sabbath und Sittenmandatfur die Landschaft (Sabbath and
Moral Mandate for the Countryside), Art. 18; 1652 mandate: Satzungen und Ordnungen
wider die unzeitigen Ehen undanderen Leichtfertigkeiten (Legislation and Ordinances against
the Untimely Marriages and Other Wantonness); 1668 mandate: Wider die Hurerey und
Ehebruch, unzeitige Ehen, Fruhzeitigen Beyschlafs und anderen Leichtfertigkeiten (Against
Whoredom and Divorce, Untimely Marriages, Premature Cohabitation and Other
Wantonness), etc.: St.A.Z. Zurcher Mandate 1631-71 and 1671-1700, III AAb.l.
24. J. C. Niischeler, Uber die Revision der Matriomonialgesetze im Kanton Zurich, Zurich
1831, pp. 16 and 26.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid., p. 13: Niischeler goes on to say 'That it would be possible to put an end to
the zu Licht gehen, even after the Revolution, is proven by the example of a respectable
parish, which had nearly exhausted its Poor Relief funds during the expensive period of
1816-17 and the parish inhabitants were often obliged to pay taxes, so the parish
overseers looked for ways of reducing their expenditure and found that the parish
assistance for illegitimate children was very significant, and that the zu Licht gehen was
the main reason for this heavy expense, hence the decision on the part of the parish
council to put a stop to the zu Licht gehen in their parish.' The parish councillors directed
parents to save money by 'keeping their sons at home and fathers and mothers
supervising their daughters, so that no so-called "Lights" are able to come to them at
night time. But in order to put a stop to the existing nocturnal gatherings, these
gentlemen officials had to make the biggest sacrifice; taking it in turns to do a few
circuits around the parish with a contingent of parishioners on Sunday and Saturday
nights to places where the zu Licht gehen generally took place - warning the night
gatherers and sending them home' (p. 32).
27. Ibid., pp. 29ff.
28. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage' p. 122.
29. See Hans Bach told, Die Gebrduche bei Verlobung und Hochzeit, Basle 1914, pp.
123ff. 'The Zurich matrimonial law book of 1719 recognises a public announcement,
pledge or written note as evidence that a marriage oath has been given' (p. 125). It thus
cannot be stated that industrialisation destroyed the Christian basis of marriage.
30. Niischeler, Matrimonialgesetze, pp. 16ff, incl. p. 19.
31. Schulthess, Beherzigung, pp. 19-20.
32. See, for instance, Gunther, Das Bauerntum, Chaps. 13 and 14.
33. In peasant circles, people married the farm. Gotthelf provides instructive
examples of this.
34. Schulthess, Beherzigung, p. 19.
35. Niischeler, Matrimonialgesetze, p. 31.
36. G. Meyer von Knonau, in his book Der Kanton Zurich, St Gall and Berne 1844,
vol. 1, p. 196, provides statistics about the origin of domestic servants around 1836. Of
serving girls, etc., 156 originated from the Bulach district, 147 from Andelfingen, 109
from Regensberg (three mostly agrarian districts), 32 from Uster and 19 from Hinwil
(two industrial districts).
37. Meiners, Briefe, p. 48; see too J. Ebel, Schilderung der Gebirgsv'dlker der Schweiz,
Leipzig 1798, vol. 1, p. 280, about Appenzell.
38. Quoted in H. Krebser, Das erste Bevolkerungsverzeichnis der Gemeinde Wald aus dem
Jahre 1634 (off-print from Von euserer Walder Heirhat), Wald 1952, p. 8.
39. Parish roll of the Wald church, 1739, St.A.Z. EII 264a: the numbers refer to the
households.
40. Krebser, Das erste Bevolkerungsverzeichnis, p. 11.
41. Parish roll of the Wald church, 1739, St.A.Z. E II 264a.
42. See Chapter 4.
43. St.A.Z. E II 264a, parish roll of Baretswil 1723.
44. Niischeler, Beobachtungen, pp. 18ff.
45. Ibid., p. 19; Chapter 4 deals extensively with these questions.
47. Schinz, Das hohere Gebirge, p. 8.
49. U. Bragger, Leben und Schriften des armen Marines im Toggenburg, 3 vols., Basle
1945, vol. 3, p. 157.
50. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage', pp. 12Iff. See too Chapter 4, where further
comparisons are to be found. Johann Heinrich Waser (1742-80), an important
statistician of his time, stood in strong opposition to the regime and was sentenced and
put to death because he had allegedly stolen legal documents establishing seigneurial
rights over significant parts of the territory of the town of Zurich.
51. G. Meyer von Knonau, Die Volkszdhlung des Kantons Zurich am 9., 10., und 11. Mai
1836- ein Nachtrag, Zurich 1837, p. v.
52. H. Krebser, 'Aus der friiheren Industriegeschichte von Wald', Volksblatt vom
Bachtel, 32 (Heimatblatt), 19 Aug. 1949.
53. Meyer von Knonau, Volkszdhlung, p. vi. We have had occasion to mention the
problem of living space several times already. We have related the constituent factors to
industrialisation. See the section on luxury and the standard of living in Chapter 3.
54. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage , p. 77.
55. Meiners, Briefe, p. 47.
56. C. sixty-five years old. She wove in her parents' home in Kaltbrunn until 1910.
57. Bragger, Schriften, vol. 1, p. 126.
59. As people's needs increased and they expected a higher standard of living,
marriages became less fertile.
60. See Schweizerisches Idiotikon, 13 vols., Frauenfeld 189Iff, vol. 6, pp. 1496ff, where
the other meanings of the word are listed. See also F. Stalder, Versuch eines Schweizerischen
Idiotikons, Aarau 1812.
61. J. Stutz, Gemdlde aus dem Volksleben, Part III, Zurich 1836, p. 1.
62. J. Stutz, Lise und Salome, die beiden Webermddchen, Zurich 1847, pp. 11 and 79.
63. G. Finsler, Zurich in der zweiten Hdlfte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, Zurich 1884,
p. 253.
64. Niischeler, Beobachtungen, pp. 38ff.
66. Hirzel, Rede uber den physischen, okonomischen und sittlich-religiosen Zustand, p. 15.
67. This refers to the 'Erneuerte Schul- und Lehrordnung fur die Schulen der
Landschaft Zurich, vom 26. Weinmonat 1778'.
68. St.A.Z. I l l AAb.l, our text has been cut.
70. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage', p. 78, see Schulthess, Beherzigung, p. 58.
71. Minister Irminger of Henggart 1783, quoted in A. Bollinger, Die Zurcher
Landschaft an der Wende des 18. Jahrhunderts - nach Berichten der ascetischen Gesellschaft, Diss.,
Zurich 1941, p. 69.
74. Pastoral letter about the education of children in the countryside, 1777, p. 47.
3 Life and society of the population engaged in industry

1. J.C. Niischeler, Beobachtungen eines redlichen Schweizers aus vaterldndischer Liebe
entworfen, Zurich 1786, p. 16.
die sitten des Volkes?', Magazinfur die Naturkunde Helvetiens, 3 (1788), p. 130.
3. Extracts from the Stillstand notices of the church parish of Wald, Walder
Ortschronik, MS 21.
4. It can also be tied to the family and even become the object of free purchase. The
development must have been similar to that of the communal membership right. The
question is not relevant to our theme.
5. R. Weiss, Volkskunde der Schweiz, Erlenbach and Zurich 1946, p. 128.
6. See, for instance, Zeitbeobachtungen uber das schweizerische Baumwollgewerbe, dessert
Folgen und Aussichten, Switzerland 1806, no author cited, p. 10: 'But it is just as true that
through the influence of cotton the population in various regions has accumulated to
such a degree, that it is out of all proportion to the produce of the soil.'
7. Vaterldndische Erinnerungen an meine Mitlandleute der dussern Rhoden, uber das Verhdltnis
der Landes-Produktion, gegen unsere angewohten Bedurfnisse, 1811, p. 21.
8. For how far this applies to the Oberland, see Chapter 4.
9. Reports by the Ascetische Gesellschaft quoted by C.G. Schmidt, Der Schweizer
Bauer im Zeitalter des Fruhkapitalismus, Berne 1932, p. 80. n. 174. Charitable farmers of
Ottenbach provide for the beggar children (1692) 'with a crust of bread, a gift of flour, a
beaker of milk, a bit of turnip, a gift of Anken, a little basket with fruit, with a half
measure of peas'. See too H. Morf, Neujahrsblatt der Hulfsgesellschaft von Winterthur, vol 12:
Aus der Geschichte des zurcherischen Armenwessens, Winterthur 1873, p. 28. An experienced
countryman tells a young peasant lad: 'You have surely already heard about corn,
wheat, barley, beans, oats, rye, peas and then also about white and yellow turnips,
about cabbage and savoys and potatoes: these ar.e most of the things which one grows in
the fields for people and cattle'; see Unterricht uber den Landbau in einem freundlichen
Gesprdch zwischen einem alien, erfahrenen Landmann und einemjungen Bauernknab, zum Gebrauch
unserer Landschulen, Zurich 1774, p. 41.
10. Federal Councillor Forrer has elevated this motto to a state maxim in one of his
speeches' 'No one shall starve, no one shall go without a decent dwelling and clothing,
that is what the State is for.'
11. See H. Strehler, Beitrdge zur Kultutgeschichte der Zurcher Landschaft, Part II:
'Aberglaube, Armut and Better in Zurcher Taschenbuch aufdasjahr 1935 (1935), p. 96;
about food in general: H. Messikommer, Aus alter ZeiV. Sitten und Gebrduche in Zuricher
Oberland, 3 vols., Zurich 1909-11, vol. 1, pp. 11, 31, 40ff.
12. Salomon von Orelli describes the peasants and landowners of the Wadenswil
region: 'The country farmers remained fairly loyal to their fathers' way of life; since
they mostly inhabited the higher regions, far away from the villages, they did not
encounter those among the village inhabitants who were employed in manufacture on a
daily basis, and so were less influenced by their customs, especially as they seemed
despicable to them. Their houses remained as they should be, large but real farm-
houses, and they fashioned their clothes according to the old shapes and from cheap
material. They mostly ate the food they produced themselves: they imbibed cider,
curds and home-made wine during their heavy field-work. Coffee was revolting to
them, too thin and not as stimulating as a drink, and as a foodstuff, it seemed fully
nonsensical to them. They belittled in all earnestness those who spent their good money
on those sorts of fancy foods; but they did not mind in the least selling their milk at a
right high price to those Caffeeschleker, as they called them. There were just as many rich
persons of this class as there were among the manufacturers, but their money had not
been acquired over such a short time. Their wealth was based on frugality, moderation
and thrift, wherever they were to be found.' Salomon von Orelli. Abschriften nebst
Manuskripten uber den Stafner Handels, St.A.Z. B X 39, p. 6 (quoted by D. Fretz,
Neujahrsblatt der Lesegesellschaft Wadenswil, Lesegesellschaft Wadenswil, Wadenswil 1939,
Chap. 2, n. 26).
13. H. Spoerry-Jaeggi, Die Baumwollindustrie von Wald, Wald 1935, p. 25.
14. Elisabeth Hess: born 25 Oct. 1864, died 12 March 1948; handwritten curriculum
vitae, Walder Ortschronik, MS 43.
15. Heinrich Hess: born 1874, died 1919: 'Mein Lebenslauf, Walder Ortschronik,
MS 8.
16. 'Etwas aus der guten alten Zeiten', Volksblatt vom Bachtel, 12 and 13 (Heimat-
blatt), Oct. 1944; informant H. R. born 1876.
17. Brief an einen Burger des Kanton A . , uber die Bedurfnisse der Zeit und des Vaterlandes,
1811,p. 11.
18. Vaterla'ndische Erinnerungen, p . 1 1 5 .
1 9 . Zeitbeobachtungen, p. 17.
20. St.A.Z. A 76.
21. S. Schinz, Das hb'here Gebirge des Kanton Zurich, und der Okonomisch-moralische
Zustand der Bewohner, mit Vorschlag der H'ulfe und Auskunftfur die bey mangelnder Fabrikarbeit
brotlose Ubervb'lkerung (Synodalrede), Zurich 1817, p. 8.
22. Parish report of 1702, quoted by Herrmann Lussi, Chronik der Gemeinde
Fischenthal, Wetzikon and Ruti 1932, p. 105.
23. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage', p. 64; the author talks about the eastern side
of the Ziirichsee.
24. Ibid., p. 68; the western side of the Ziirichsee is being discussed.
25. Ibid., pp. 78 and 139.
27. Report by the Ascetische Gesellschaft, Wallisellen 1788, quoted by A. Bol-
linger, Die Zurcher Landschaft an der Wende des W.Jahrhunderts - nach Berichten der ascetischen
Gesellschaft, Diss., Zurich 1941, p. 75.
28. Report by the Ascetische Gesellschaft, quoted by ibid., p. 78.
29. Minister Holzhalb, Wallisellen 1788, quoted by ibid., p. 78.
30. J. Schulthess, Beherzigung p. 57. Re the chicory-water, see Messikommer, Aus
alter Zeit, vol. 1, p. 42.
31. J. Stutz, 7x7Jahre - aus meinem Leben, als Beitrag zur ndheren Kenntnis des Volkes,
Pfaffikon 1853, pp. 36Iff.
33. This fact is well documented; see, for instance, Zeitbeobachtungen, p. 14.
34. H. Krebser, 'Aus der friiheren Industriegeschichte von Wald', Volksblatt vom
Bachtel, 32 (Heimatblatt), 19 Aug. 1949.
36. See ibid., p. 45: 'At the same time most of the farms [in the Oberland] consist of
meadows, which are ploughed up every so often, and planted with corn, oats, beans,
but preferably with potatoes. These are just as much at home here and form the most
important agricultural produce. For this reason it was also here that the first
ordinances respecting the tithes payable on potatoes had to be drawn up in 1750 for
Fischenthal and in 1774 for Wald.'
37. H. Krebser, 'Aus der friiheren Industriegeschichte'; see too F. Meier, Geschichte
der Gemeinde Wetzikon, Zurich 1881, p. 528.
38. The geographical situation of the Oberland also contributed towards this
changeover. The heavy rainfall of the lower Alpine zones is not suitable for growing
wheat.
39. H. Krebser, Wald im Zurcher Oberland, Wald 1951, p. 30, with many further
references. See tooj. Stutz, Lise undSalome, die beiden Webermddchen, Zurich 1847, p. 61:
'On the scrubbed table boiled potates were steaming, white and red ones, nearby stood
a green dish with milk curds, and a prettily carved oak beaker with caraway seeds and
salt. That was the whole meal.'
40. See Schinz, Das hbhere Gebirge, p. 9.
41. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage', pp. 80ff.
45. Zeitbeobachtungen, p. 10.
46. Johan Hirzel, Rede uber den physischen, okonomischen und sittlich-religidsen Zustandder
ostlichen Berggemeinden des Kanton Zurich (Synodalrede), Zurich 1816, p. 14.
47. U. Bragger, Leben undSchriften des armen Mannes in Toggenburg, 3 vols., Basle 1945,
vol. l . p . 331.
48. Hirzel, Rede uber den physischen okonomischen und sittlich-religidsen Zustand, p. 14.
49. Stutz, 7x7Jahre, p. 409.
50. See Weiss, Volkskunde der Schweiz, pp. 140ff.
51. When domestic spinning changed over to domestic weaving, a change in
everyday clothing also took place. The oldest and most worn clothes were good enough
for working at the loom, and old domestic weavers would emphasise how much
domestic weaving had spared their clothes; slippers and an old apron had sufficed for it.
52. A report by the Ascetische Gesellschaft, quoted by Bollinger, Die Zurcher
Landschaft, p. 54.
53. See Schmidt, Der Schweizer Bauer, p. 24.
54. This spirit of the age is already documented in the term Buss-Mandat (Penance
Ordinance).
55. St.A.Z. IIIAAb.l.
56. Johann Kaspar Escher, 'Bemerkungen iiber die Regierung der Grafschaft
Kyburg', Archiv fur Schweizerische Geschichte, 4 (1846), p. 262.
57. Report by the Ascetische Gesellschaft, quoted by Schmidt, Der Schweizer Bauer,
p. 35.
58. Report by the Ascetische Gesellschaft, quoted by ibid., p. 101 n. 211.
60. Unterricht uber den Landbau, p. 68\
6 1 . Meiners, Briefe, p. 60.
62. Hirzel, Rede uber den physischen, okonomischen und sittlich-religidsen Zustand, p. 14.
63. Report by the Ascetische Gesellschaft, quoted by Bollinger, Die Zurcher
Landschaft, p. 30.
64. Salomon von Orelli, see above, quoted by Fretz, Neujahrsblatt der Lesegesellschaft
W'ddenswil, vol. 11, Chap. 2, n. 14.
65. Bragger, Schriften, vol. 3, p. 157.
66. Quoted in Meier, Geschichte der Gemeinde Wetzikon, p. 436. Village mockery and
keeping the utmost distance between two groups within the local community shows
how far the sense of village community had disintegrated.
67. Ibid., p. 526.
70. Report by the Ascetische Gesellschaft, quoted in Schmidt, Der Schweizer Bauer,
p. 101 n. 211.
71. Stutz, 7X7 Jahre, p. 466. The miller-girl is Jakob's godmother. Jakob Stutz
came from a propertied family. His father ran a yarn business as well as the farm.
Nevertheless, Jakob's mother's clothes were 'the peasant costume of the times, bodice
and skirt, which were nothing less than lovely and very uncomfortable to boot. For all
that, they clung firmly to the traditional fashion, decrying everything new as sinful and
never thinking that their clothes had also once been the latest fashion. The only thing
they allowed themselves was to change their red stockings for white ones and their high
Stockli shoes for ones with lower heels.' {Ibid., p. 13).
72. Brief an einen Burger, p. 11.
73. See Michael Bosch, Freymuthige Gedanken uber den sittlichen Verf all seines Vater-
landes, Lichtensteg 1784, p. 21.
74. The discussion about luxury reached a high point in the second half of the
eighteenth century. The second discussion followed a century later.
75. Leonhard Meister: Professor at the Carolinum in Zurich; Johann Heinrich
Pestalozzi: important publicist and pedagogue of the Enlightenment.
76. L. Meister, in Aufwandgesetze. Sammlung einiger Schriften, welche bei der Aufmun-
terungsgesellschaft in Basel eingelaufen sind uber die Frage: Inwiefern ist es schicklich, dem
Aufwande der Burger, in einem kleinen Freystaate, dessen Wohlfahrt aufdie Handelschaft gegrundet
ist, Schranken zu setzen?, Basle 1781 (ZBZ xviii. 1774), p. 16.
77. J. H. Pestalozzi, in ibid., pp. 10fT.
78. See the statements about fashion: Meister, in ibid., p. 48.
79. Meister, in ibid., pp. 16fTand 35.
80. Pestalozzi, in ibid., p. 13.
81. Vaterla'ndische Erinnerungen, p. 115.
82. Meister, in Aufwandgesetze, p. 22.
8 3 . Pestalozzi, in ibid., p . 14.
84. Ibid., p. 33.
85. Meister, in ibid., p. 53.
86. Pestalozzi, in ibid., p. 23.
87. Ibid., p. 33.
88. Anonymous prize-winner, in ibid., p. 16; see too p. 14.
89. Michael Bosch, minister of Wildhaus, Freymuthige Gedanken, p. 12.
90. Meister, in Aufwandgesetze, pp. 50ff.
91. Pestalozzi, in ibid., pp. 17ff.
92. Ibid., p. 15.
93. Meister, in ibid., p. 60; Pestalozzi, in ibid., p. 29; Anonymous, in ibid., pp. 19
and 64.
94. Meister, in ibid., p. 49.
95. Pestalozzi, in ibid., p. 55; the extent to which the author had to take censorship
into account is uncertain.
96. Anonymous, in ibid., pp. 24ff.
97. Ibid., pp. 9ff.
98. Meister, in ibid., p. 63. Pestalozzi also reassesses the old notion of luxury and
the class concepts behind it (see ibid., p. 9).
99. Nowadays a mink coat or a SS-type Jaguar are factors determining their
owner's social standing, and important for establishing his credit-worthiness. In the
last analysis, the American's question 'How much are you?' illustrates this notion of
class.
100. Schmidt, Der Schweizer Bauer, pp. 62ff.
101. According to Fritz Rudolf Staehelin's verbal testimony (investigator in
farmhouse research for the canton of Zurich), the outworkers must thus have made
increased demands on dwellings in the Zurich countryside. But precise information is
hard to gather (when houses are knocked down the panelling, for instance, ought to be
dated). See Chapter 4.
102. Jakob Stutz also mentioned the Steckliherren in 7x7 Jahre, pp. 121 and 275.
103. Salomon von Orelli, Abschriften nebst Manuskripten uber den Stafner Handels,
St.A.Z. BX39, quoted in Fretz, Neujahrsblatt der Lesegesellschaft Wddenswil, vol. 11, pp.
39ff. The Stutz family prove that not all clothiers felt obliged to lead this life style.
106. See for instance Jakob Stutz, 7X 7Jahre, pp. 289ff, where the girl reapers, who
move to Uster and Greifensee, carry a heavy barley loaf on their heads on the way
home, a pretty bunch of blossom in their pinnies and holding their sickles carefully
wrapped in straw. When Jakob went to fetch the hired reapers from the mountains to
Felmis, the whole gathering of reapers was as joyful 'as if they were going to a wedding'.
107. Salomon von Orelli, Abschriften nebst Manuskripten uber den Stafner Handels,
St.A.Z. BX39, quoted in Fretz, Neujahrsblatt der Lesegesellschaft Wddenswil, vol. 11, p. 167
n. 12.
108. St.A.Z. E II 120; see the visitation report for Wald of the same year.
109. St.A.Z. E II 127. The Sabbath and Moral mandates forbade Lichtstubeten. For
instance, Art. 18: among other things are to be forbidden 'the Lichtstubeten and other
similar frivolous gatherings in day or night time including the Weydstubeten (meadow
rooms)'.
110. See Strehler, Beitrdge zMr Kulturgeschichte der Zurcher Landschaft, Part 11, pp. 60ff;
we have culled the following material from these source references. On this point we
refer the reader to the visitation reports of Freiamt-Kap. 1699, Bauma 1701, Bubikon
1707.
111. St.A.Z., 1685, E II 122, p. 1375.
112. Quoted in Meier, Geschichte der Gemeinde Wetzikon, p. 437; see too Messikom-
mer, Aus alter Zeit, p. 122.
113. Messikommer, Aus alter Zeit, p. 126.
115. Stutz, 7X7Jahre, p. 182.
116. K. Meuli, 'Maske, Maskereien', in Handworterbuch des Deutschen Aberglaubens,
10 vols., Berlin 1927-42, vol. 6, p. 1818.
117. E. Strubin, Baselbieter Volksleben, Basle 1952, p. 136.
118. St.A.Z. I l l AAb.l.
120. St.A.Z., Freiamt-Kap. 1682, E II 122, p. 546.
121. Ibid.
122. J.C. Niischeler, Uber die Revision der Matrimonialgesetze im Kanton Zurich, Zurich
1831, p. 5.
123. St.A.Z. Winterthurer-Kap. 1669, E II 118, p. 459.
124. St.A.Z., Freiamt-Kap. 1682, E II 122, p. 546.
125. See Strehler, Beitrdge zur Kulturgeschichte der Zurcher Landschaft, Part II, p. 58.
126. Extracts from the Stillstand records of the church parish of Wald, Walder
Ortschronik, MS 2\.
127. Walder Stillstandsakten 1760; Walder Ortschronik, MS 21.
128. Walder Stillstandsakten 1752; Walder Ortschronik, MS 21.
129. Escher, 'Bemerkungen', p. 258.
130. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage', pp. 145ff.
131. Hirzel, Rede uber den physischen, okonomischen und siitlich-religibsen Zustand, p. 14;
see too Zeitbeobachtungen, p. 12.
132. St.A.Z. A 124, 1761, quoted in Meier, Geschichte der Gemeinde Wetzikon, p. 436.
133. J.H. Heidegger, Der vernunftige Dorfpfarrer, Zurich 1791, pp. 18ff; the following
extracts too.
134. The term originates from Heidegger himself, who called his minister a
'Religions- und Volksgluckseligkeitslehrer' (teacher of religion and national
happiness).
135. See Fretz, Neujahrsblatt der Lesegesellschaft Wddenswil, vol. 11, pp. 12ff.
138. See ibid., pp. 125, 388 and 426.
139. Ibid., pp. 121ff; the other extracts too.
141. As in all true story-telling and singing gatherings, individual members emerge
as choir leaders and as special story-telling types (see Stutz, 7X7 Jahre, p. 97). These
spinning gatherings would often lock themselves within such a mythical circle. Stutz
provides examples of this in his chapter on spinning parlours.
143. Ibid., p. 99.
144. Ibid., p. 137.
146. Stutz, 7X7Jahre, p. 119. See St.A.Z. I l l AAb.l. The mandate of 7 July 1658
includes the following: 'And we also want to include that, in the present harvest time,
the young folk, lads and daughters be diligently watched and carefully kept in by all
masters and wives, that they may have no opportunity to meet up at night in one place,
but be kept apart.'
148. G. Finsler, O. Hunziker, H. Morf, H. Strehler, J. Studer, and others.
149. Niischeler, Beobachtungen, p. 26.
150. Re the obligation to attend church services (Kirchenzwang) see, for instance,
the Stillstandsakten for Wald of 21 March 1756. 'By order of His Lordship Governor
Grebel in Gruningen, Heinrich Honegger from Hittenberg, soldier, and Jakob, tailor,
of Selmatt were forcibly brought by virtue of the Chancery ordinance before His
Reverence by the district summoner and condemned to sit three days in the tower and
the tailor to get twelve strokes on the Stud. Which two were earnestly spoken to,
on account of failing to attend public church services, etc., about the parable in
Matt. 22, 1.' (Walder Ortschronik, MS 22).
151. The source references are provided in Chapter 1.
152. See Weiss, Volkskunde der Schweiz, p. 306.
153. Hirzel, Rede uber den physischen, okonomischen und sittlich-religidsen Zustand, p. 14;
see re peasant piety: 'Zwolf Fragen nach bauerlicher Frommigkeit und Sittlichkeit',
answered by A. Brunner, Rotwasser-Laupen (Wald parish), in Schweizerische Theolo-
gische Zeitschrift, 3 (1911).
154. Hirzel, Rede uber den physischen, okonomischen und sittlich-religidsen Zustand, p. 10.
155. Weiss, Volkskunde der Schweiz, p. 306.
156. St.A.Z, Egg 1674, E II 120.
157. See Stutz, 7x7Jahre, pp. 338ff.
158. Hirzel, Rede uber den physischen, okonomischen und sittlich-religidsen, Zustand, p. 10.
159. See Strehler, Beitrdge zur Kulturgeschichte der Zurcher Landschaft, Part II, p. 94;
and R. Weiss 'Vom Standort des Lehrers in userer Zeit', Schweizerische Lehrerzeitung, 1
(1957), p. 4.
160. H. Escher, Synodalrede uber die Besten Mittel zur Beforderung eines verbesserten
Zustands der zurcherischen Kirche, Zurich 1774, pp. 12ff.
161. Hedwid Strehler is an exception. In her chapter on teaching ('Der Unter-
richt') she follows up the question of the tools of instruction (Beitrdge zur Kulturgeschichte
der Ziircher Landschaft, Part II, pp. 105fi). We have summarised a few of her conclusions.
The Namenbuchlein (illustrated primers) began with twenty-four little pictures illustrat-
ing the alphabet. Then came exercises using syllables, which were often combined to
form the most nonsensical words, such as 'enheiten', 'elkeit', 'zigster', 'samstes'. They
would finish off with reading exercises in the form of the most varied Christian prayers
and the Ten Commandments. During the Reformation Leo Jud compiled a big
Catechism as a book of comprehensive religious instruction for the common people and
a smaller, easier one for the young. The big Leo Jud Catechism was replaced in 1639 by
the Fragstucklein. They were called, after the Jud Catechism, the 'Little Catechism' or
the 'little Lehrmeister\ A special edition of references was printed in the Zeugnisbuch in
1628, assembled by Baumler. In 1639 H.C. Suter divided the enlarged Baumler
Catechism (with the extensive references) into forty-eight Pensa, introducing each
Pensum with a few verses from the Lobwasser Book of Psalms, and adding a Catechism
song, summarising the content of all the foregoing Pensa. This book was known from
then on as Die Zeugnisse, and is in fact the Zeugnisbuch in the extended and present
meaning of the term. The first of the ninety-three questions in the Fragebuchlein run as
follows:
Question 1: What is your only and greatest solace in life and death?
Answer 1: Life Everlasting.
Question 2: Who gives you Life Everlasting?
Answer 2: God alone, through Jesus Christ.
Question 3: What is God?
Answer 3: God is the eternal, highest and greatest good, from whom we
receive all good things.
Question 4: Is there then but one God or are there many gods?
Answer 4: There is but one single true God (. . . and so on).
The big Catechism is constructed along the same lines.
162. See Stutz, 7X7Jahre, pp. 93ff.
163. Escher, Synodalrede, p. 24. In the Stutz household were found, for instance,
Himmelsleiter, Das Paradiesgdrtlein, Das wahre Christentum, Der grosse Habermann, Die
Kreuzschule, Krafts Handbuch, etc.: see Stutz, 7x7 Jahre, p. 244. See too Messikommer,
Aus alter Zeit, p. 20 and Strehler, Beitrdge zur Kulturgeschichte der Ziircher Landschaft,
Part II. p. 70, in which various books of moral instruction are briefly described.
164. The Lobwasser Psalms were the most popular of all the editions available. L.
Meister wrote in 1782 that 'People in the Zurich countryside use (during church
services) the Lobwasser Psalms with melodies by Gaudimel; it appears that it is
difficult to introduce other holy songs.' (Kleine Reisen durch einige Schweizer Kantone, Basle
1782, p. 177). In 1792 Minister Dalliker of Buchs noticed that 'the old remain eternally
loyal to their "Ambrosius Lobesan" ' (quoted in Fretz, Neujahrsblatt der Lesegesellschaft
Wddenswil, vol. 11, p. 158 n. 67). Among others were Kaspar Bachofen's Musikalisches
Halleluja oder schb'ne und geistreiche Gesdnge mit neuen und anmutigen Melodien {Musical
Halleluja or Beautiful and Spiritual Songs with New and Cheerful Melodies), which appeared in
Zurich in 1758 and in 1767, in the 7th and 8th editions respectively, and Johann
Schmidlin's Singendes und spielendes Vergnugen Reiner Andacht oder gestliche Gesdnge nach der
Wahl des Besten gesammelt, zur Erweckung des innern Christentums eingerichtet und mit
musikalischen Kompositionen begleitet {Enjoyable Songs and Music for Pure Contemplation or Holy
Songs Assembled by Choosing the Best, Arranged to Arouse the Inner Kingdom of God and
Accompanied by Musical Compositions), published in Zurich in 1758 and 1767, in the 2nd
and 3rd editions respectively (see Fretz, Neujahrsblatt der Lesegesellschaft Wddenswil, vol.
11, p. 22). We include folk-tales, ballads, etc., under the rubric 'oral-literature'. The
story of Genoveva, for instance, as well as stories about bandits, murder and love in the
form of'folk-songs', which Bas-Anneli, for instance, knew an awful lot of. 'Bas Anneli
could not sing, so she just declaimed the songs' (Stutz, 7X7Jahre, p. 59).
165. J.H. Pestalozzi, Sdmtliche Werke, ed. A. Buchenau, E. Spranger and H.
Stettbacher, 28 vols., Berlin 1927-76, vol. 10, pp. 272-85.
166. Ibid., p. 287.
167. See Fretz, Neujahrsblatt der Lesegesellschaft Wddenswil, vol. 11, p. 65.
169. Ibid., p. 121. See too Fretz, Neujahrsblatt der Lesegesellschaft Wddenswil, vol. 11,
pp. 19ff.
170. Fretz, Neujahrsblatt der Lesegesellschaft Wddenswil, vol. 11, p. 21.
171. Salomon von Orelli, Abschriften nebst Manuskripten uber den Stdfner Handels,
St.A.Z. BX39, quoted in ibid., p. 22.
172. Ibid., p. 27.
173. The text was published by Orell-Gessner in Zurich, and it is significant that
the Textbuchlein (little text book) was got up to resemble the town Kantatentextbuchlein,
which were used for concerts.
175. Ibid., p. 32.
176. Ibid., p. 38.
177. Ibid., p. 39. It should be stressed that not all clothiers in the Zurich territory
counted as representatives of new ways of life and as transmitters of new luxury and
cultural goods. There were many who were still anchored to their farms and who also
held firmly and conscientiously to traditional ways of life, with the 'morals-enforcing
plough' (Pestalozzi, Werke, vol. 10, p. 275). We have already mentioned the Stutz
family, where we saw how stubbornly Jakob's mother remained loyal to the traditional
costume.
178. Pestalozzi, Werke, vol. 10, p. 294.
180. Breitinger's verdict took place in the Examinatorenkonvent, quoted in ibid., p.
43. Fretz remarks that Breitinger distorted the situation: 'Voltaire had already mostly
been translated into German for those who just wanted to get to know him out of a
desire to be in fashion . . . There was something hiding in these people, which could
indeed erupt unpleasantly, but was none-the-less based on a healthy talent and not just
on superficial imitation.'
181. Ibid., p. 47, and see too L. Weisz, 'Die literarischen Gesellschaften des alten
Zurichs', Neue Zurcher Zeitung, 15 and 16 Nov. 1933.
182. Salomon von Orelli, Abschriften nebst Manuskripten den Stafner Handels, St.A.Z.
BX39, quoted in Fretz, Neujahrsblatt der Lesegesellshaft Wddenswil, vol. 11, p. 53. With
this kind of people, Fretz wrote, the performances must always have been tragedies,
featuring men and 'female persons'.
183. Quoted in ibid., p. 52.
184. Ibid., pp. 64ff.
185. Ibid., pp. 87ff.
186. See Ibid., Chap. 4; Wolfgang von Wartburg, 'Zurich und die franzosische
Revolution' Baseler Beitrdge zur Geschichtswissenschaft, GO, (1956), and A. Custer, Die
Zurcher Untertanen und die franzosische Revolution, Diss., Zurich 1942, p. 69. A. Custer
quotes a saying by the big farmer Danliker, to wit: 'the members of the reading and
music societies with their round hats are the originators of all evil'.
187. See Fretz, Neujahrsblatt der Lesegesellshaft Wadenswil, vol 11, pp. 67ff, 69 and
71.
188. We are unfortunately obliged to refrain from investigating the form, activity
and development of the Wadenswil Reading Society any further. Fretz parades every
detail before us; the details are important.
189. The following quotations are taken from the archive of the Ascetische
Gesellschaft, III, no. 85, Zurich Central Library.
190. We mentioned the cultural gap between the lake districts and the Oberland
when discussing luxury and clothes.
191. Quoted in Krebser, Wald im Zurcher Oberland, p. 27. The other details are also
to be found in it.
192. Volksblatt vom Bachtel (Heimatblatt), 29 Aug. 1874.
193. G. Peterhans-Bianzano, Ins Zurcher Oberland, Winterthur 1925, p. 27.
194. In the second half of the nineteenth century craftsmen and workers tried to
make the cultural wealth of their age accessible within their own circles and organisa-
tions. These efforts towards self-education all experienced the same fate again, they
were partly drawn within the sphere of influence of the international worker associa-
tions, which identified their striving towards intellectual independence with the class
struggle.
195. Quoted in Custer, Die Zurcher Untertanen, p. 51.
196. See the chapters in ibid., entitled 'Die franzosische Revolution und die
schweizerische Freiheitstradition' and 'Patriotismus'.
197. See the chapter in ibid., entitled 'Revolutionare und obrigkeitstreue Gesin-
nung im Volke', pp. 86ff and n. 184.
198. Bragger, Schriften; R. Weiss, Hduser undLandschaften der Schweiz, Erlenbach and
Zurich 1958, pp. 209ff. Uli Bragger was an outworker and a yarn dealer. We know that
his thirst for education was stilled in an urban educational circle. Salomon Schinz,
provides us with a very fine picture of the Oberland population (Das hohere Gebirge, pp.
9ff) in which its restless nature also has a place: 'On the whole this little mountain
populace comes closest in its arrangements, its way of life and its customs to the
description of the inhabitants of the Allmann mountains drawn up by Herr Deacon
Hirzel. They are not lacking in abilities in the slightest, but rather in opportunities to
develop or train them. Inquisitive, lively, often judging people and things very
accurately, proud and headstrong [perhaps because of the isolated situation of many
dwellings, or the result of inadequate education], cheerful, often even horribly
frivolous; for all that not easy to deal with and lead, especially where people want to
treat them harshly and condescendingly. Otherwise sensitive and often movingly
devoted to those who show them honest goodwill, and dedicated whole-heartedly to
their mountains and their free way of life! But all this is also being modified by the
variety of employment and situations.'
199. A. Hauser discovered this house motto while out walking and we include it
here with his amiable permission.
4 The impact of industrialisation on the house and the rural

economy
1. For a more extensive treatment of this topic, see F.R. Staehelin, 'Geschichtliche
Wandlungen der Zurcher Hauslandschaft um 1800', unpublished master thesis,
University of Zurich, Zurich n.d. [late 1950s]; a copy of the manuscript has been
deposited in the Zurich Central Library.
2. See St.A.Z. B IX 74, p. 251. See too Hans J. Wehrli, 'Uber die landwirtschaft-
lichen Zustande im Kanton Zurich in der zweiten Halfte des 18. Jahrhunderts' (Nach
den Berichten der okonomischen Kommission der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft),
XCV Neujahrsblatt zum Besten des Waisenhauses in Zurich fur dasjahr 1932 (1932), p. 8.
3. St.A.Z. B IX 74, p. 251; elsewhere: 'In Regensdorf the village rights are
responsible for the houses having to be built against one another.' B IX 74, p. 252.
4. See Chapter 1.
5. St.A.Z. B IX 74, p. 253.
6. See H. Bernhard, Wirtschafts- und Siedlungsgeschichte des Tosstales, Diss., Zurich
1912, p. 86.
7. See ibid., Tab. 3, App. 11.
9. See ibid., pp. 1 and 75.
10. See ibid., pp. 87ff with illustrations and especially Tab. 5, App. 13.
12. See ibid., Tab. p. 61. Based on the collections of 1787. The spinners in the lower
parishes were really only employed at spinning during the idle times in winter.
13. Johann Caspar Hirzel, Derphilosophische Kaufmann, Zurich 1775, pp. 103ff.
14. See Bernhard, 'Wirtschafts- und Siedlungsgechichte', pp. 74ff, as well as Tab.
5, App. 13, in which many further examples are to be found.
16. Volksblatt vom Bachtel (Heimatblatt), 12 and 13 Oct. 1944.
17. J. Ebel, Schilderung der Gebirgsvdlker der Schweiz, Leipzig 1798, vol. 1, p. 252.
die Sitten des Volkes?', Magazinfur die Naturkunde Helvetiens, 3 (1788), p. 77.
19. See Staehelin, 'Geschichtliche Wandlungen', pp. 36ff.
20. This example can be found with all the relevant source references, photographs
and plans of the foundations, in ibid.
21. J.C. Nuscheler, Beobachtungen eines redlichen Schweizers aus vaterldndischer Liebe
entworfen, Zurich 1786, p. 19.
22. Staehelin, 'Geschichtliche Wandlungen', p. 55, with photographs.
23. St.A.Z. A 99/3; likewise a projected entry charter from Ober-Mettmenstetten c.
1686 (undated): 'Upon one whole village right there may be built no more than two
living rooms and two hearths.' St.A.Z. A 99/3.
24. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage', p. 128; see too p. 78; likewise C. Meiners,
Briefe uber die Schweiz Part III, Tubingen 1791, p. 49.
25. Niischeler, Beobachtungen, pp. 19ff. The author continues by citing a rather
wicked example to illustrate the moral perils to which the children were exposed in
these living conditions.
26. St.A.Z. A 99/3 sub Maschwanden.
27. Ibid., sub Mettmenstetten-Dachelsen.
28. Ibid., B IX 96 sub Anleitung fur die Landgemeinden . . ., p. 4.
29. Meiners, Briefe, p. 49. For this description the author will have had the lake
parishes in mind, but it applies just as much to the Oberland. See too Hirzel,
'Beantwortung der Frage', p. 65: 'These [factory earnings] are also to be thanked for
the numbers of well-built, stone-clad houses, and the general introduction of tile roofs'
(the east side of the Zurich Lake is referred to here).
30. Ebel, Gebirgsvdlker, vol. 2, p. 46. The farm 'Ragenbuch' in the parish of
Fischental, high up on the way to the Strahlegg, even today still possesses a gorgeous
living room stove, with splendid painted tiles. It was built in 1699 by the renowned
potter David Pfau for a client in Winterthur and is supposed to have been moved to the
'Ragenbuch' farm in 1795. See Staehelin, 'Geschichtliche Wandlungen', p. 37.
31. St.A.Z. B X39, p. 4.
32. Ibid., B I X 111, p. 1.
33. Ibid., N 37 a/1 sub Hombrechtikon.
34. Ibid., N 37 a/1 sub Mannedorf.
35. Hirzel, Derphilosophische Kaufmann, pp. 103 and 101.
36. See Meiners, Briefe, p. 54.
37. See ibid., pp. 49ff.
38. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage', p. 46, see too pp. 80ff.
39. St.A.Z. N 37 a/1 sub Schonenberg.
40. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage', p, 122.
41. Ibid., p. 126.
43. Both of these quotations are taken from, Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage',
p. 124.
44. Ibid., p. 83.
5 Work in the putting-out industry and its effect on the life of the
common people
1. St.A.Z. F I 354fT.
2. Max Weber, Gesammelte Aufsdtze zur Religionssoziologie, 3 vols., Tubingen 1920-1,
vol. l , p . 26.
3. G. Finsler, W. Kohler and A. Ruegg, eds., Ulrich Zwingli, Zurich 1918, pp. 263ff
(a selection from his writings commissioned by the church council of the canton of
Zurich).
4. A. Niederer, Gemeinwerk im Wallis, Basle 1956, p. 48.
5. St.A.Z. Zurcher Mandate 1671-1700, III AAb.l.
6. Quoted in J.C. Hirzel, 'Beantwortung der Frage: 1st die Handelschaft, wie
solche bey uns beschaffen, unserem Lande schadlich, oder nutzlich, in Absicht auf den
Feldbau und die Sitten des Volkes?', Magazin fur die Naturkunde Helvetiens, 3 (1788),
p. 108.
7. St.A.Z. F I 354ff.
8. Look up 'miissig, Mussiggang' in the various dictionaries of proverbs.
9. Jakob Stutz, 7 X 7Jahre - aus meinem Leben, als Beitrag zur ndheren Kenntnis des Volkes,
Pfaffikon 1853, p. 212.
10. Ibid., pp. 125ff.
11. Ibid., pp. 121ff.
12. See Grutlikalenderfur dasjahr 1925; we refer deliberately to this source and not to
Robert Seidel, because this reference reveals how such songs of praise and hymns to
work entered the genre of popular calendars, thus becoming reading matter for the
common people.
13. Bericht uber einige Industrieverhdltnisse im Kanton Zurich, Zurich 1833, p. 26.
15. Ibid., pp. 106ff. Elsewhere, Hirzel wrote: 'But if we want to return to the reason
for and origin of this flouishing wealth, then we must stay with the holy Reformation,
and give honour to the Reformer Zwingli, the founder and originator of the same'
(p. 105).
16. Quoted in ibid., p. 108.
18. Let it be emphasised that we are not concerned with the purely technical side of
the spinning and weaving work. These questions are dealt with in the rich literature on
the subject: Emil Kiinzle, Oskar Haegi, Walter Honegger, Heinrich Spoerry-Jaeggi
and others (see Bibliography). Besides the purely scientific works, we recommend in
particular the description of domestic spinners and weavers provided by J.W. Goethe
in Gedenkausgabe der Werke, Briefe und Gesprdche (24 vols., Zurich 1949, vol. 8, Book 3,
Chap. 5). In this, Goethe provides a detailed description of the spinning and weaving
work processes. His account is based on the knowledge he had acquired among the
Zurich cottage workers. See F. Berthau, Goethe und seine Beziehung zur schweizerischen
Baumwollindustrie, Wetzikon 1888.
19. Niederer, Gemeinwerk im Wallis, p. 8.
20. See C.G. Schmidt, Der Schweizer Bauer im Zeitalter des Fruhkapitalismus, Berne
1932, pp. 36ff; and E. Strubin, Baselbieter Volksleben, Basle 1952, p. 52.
21. See R. Weiss, Volkskunde derSchweiz, Erlenbach and Zurich 1946, p. 102.
22. Archive of the Ascetishe Gesellschaft, III, no. 77, Zurich Central Library,
quoted in A. Bollinger, Die Zurcher Landschaft an der Wende des 18. Jahrhunderts - nach
Berichten der ascetischen Gesellschaft, Diss., Zurich 1941, p. 31.
2 3 . Strubin, Baselbieter Volksleben, p. 32.
24. Archive of the Ascetische Gesellschaft, quoted in Bollinger, Die Zurcher Land-
schaft, p. 31.
26. J.C. Hirzel quoted this saying and reported that this still youthful manufac-
turer had had to alter his wares a good ten times (ibid., p. 153).
27. The coarse dry yarn was spun on a wheel and measured by the pound. For this
reason it was called Pound-yarn as well as wheel-yarn. The fine, damp yarn, Lb'dli
(Lbthli) yarn, or Brief (stocking) yarn, was spun by hand on a spindle. It was measured
by the Schneller. One Schneller represented a thousand turns around a reel of 7/4 ells
circumference (105 cm.). This yarn was also called Schneller yarn. See A. Biirkli-Meyer,
Die Zurcherische Fabrikgesetzgebung vom Beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts an bis zur Schweizerischen
Staatsumwdlzung von 1798, Zurich 1884, pp. 34 and 47.
28. Jakob Stutz, Gemdlde aus dem Volksleben, Part III, Zurich 1836, chapter 'Die
Spinnstube - umgefahr urns Jahr 1807', pp. 3ff.
29. See the governmental factory ordinance of 1717; quoted in Biirkli-Meyer,
Zurcherische Fabrikgesetzgebung, pp. 28ff.
30. Goethe, Gedenkausgabe der Werke, vol. 8, Book 3, Chap. 5.
31. Similar conditions governed weaving and the cottage industrial processes
preparatory to spinning or weaving, which we do not discuss at this stage.
32. The visitation acts of the Wetzikon chapter, 1771/2; quoted in H. Strehler,
Beitrdge zur Kulturgeschichte der Zurcher Landschaft, Part I: Kirche und Schule im 17. und 18.
Jahrhundert, Lachen, 1934, p. 101.
33. Zeitbeobachtungen uber das schweizerische Baumwollgewerbe, dessen Folgen und Aussich-
ten, Switzerland 1806, p. 14.
schaft, p. 70.
35. St.A.Z. reports by ministers and the Poor Officers about 'the influence of the
factory conditions on Poor Relief and about the social position of the factory worker',
1857: N 37 a/1, sub Mannedorf.
36. Hans Kunz, 'Meine Vorfahren und die Geschichte der Textilindustriearbeiter
im Zurcher Oberland', Prufungsarbeit am Seminar Unterstrass 1946; Walder Orts-
chronik, MS 12, p. 12.
38. S. Schinz, Das hbhere Gebirge des Kanton Zurich, und der okonomisch-moralische
Zustand der Bewohner, mit Vorschlag der Hulfe und Auskunftfur die bey mangelnder Fabrikarbeit
brotlose Obervolkerung (Synodalrede), Zurich 1817, p. 12.
39. J.H. Pestalozzi, Wirtschaftliche und soziale Schriften, p. 446.
42. Stutz, 7 X7jahre, p. 27.
43. 'Protokoll des Fabrikdirektoriums 6', p. 114, quoted in A. Kiinzle, Die
Zurcherische Baumwollindustrie von ihren Anfdngen bis zur Einfuhrung des Fabrikbetriebes, Diss.,
Zurich 1906, p. 44.
44. Burkli-Meyer, Zurcherische Fabrikgesetzgebung, p. 38. A mandate of 23 June 1733,
'Regarding the dishonest workers', provides the following excerpt: 'That the silk, wool
and cotton which have been distributed round the countryside by the citizen tradesmen
to be combed, spun and woven are not to be considered as entrusted property, nor to be
in any way sold, purchased or pawned, nor may money, food or other goods be lent
against them.' Ibid., p. 42.
45. Johann Schulthess, Beherzigung des vor der Zurcher Synode gehaltenen Vortrags,
Zurich 1817, p. 41.
46. St.A.Z. N 37 a/1.
47. It is an unsigned report by the commission to the government council, printed
in Zurich 1833, p. 18.
48. H. Spoerry-Jaeggi, Zeit des Ubergangs von der Heimindustrie des Zurcher Oberlandes
zum industriellen Betrieb, Wald 1927, p. 17.
49. See Jakob Stutz, List und Salome, die beiden Webermddchen, Zurich 1847, p. 15.
50. Factory Ordinance of 16 August 1717, Burkli-Meyer, Zurcherische Fabrik-
gesetzgebung, p. 38.
51. The quoted material is taken from Burkli-Meyer's text. Details about the
technicalities of the work are of no importance to our enquiry and are not explained.
52. Ibid., p. 14.
54. Ibid.
55. J.H. Pestalozzi, 'Schriften zur Stafener Volksbewegung' ('writings about the
Stafa Rising'), in Sdmtliche Werke, ed. A. Buchenau, E. Spranger and H. Stettbacher, 28
vols., Berlin 1927-76, vol 10, pp. 282ff.
56. St.A.Z. B IX B 62 V, vol. 31, III, quoted in O. Haegi, Die Entwicklung der
Zurcher-Oberla'ndischen Baumwollindustrie, Diss., Berne 1924, p. 17.
5 7 . Niederer, Gemeinwerk im Wallis, p. 11.
58. R. Weiss calls it an 'ineradicable human characteristic', Volkskunde derSchweiz,
p. 15.
59. Parish curate Wegmann, 1768; quoted in R. Weiss, 'Vom Standpunkt des
Lehrers in userer Zeit', Schweizerische Lehrerzeitung, 1 (1957).
61. Although every local paper carries a business column, they have stayed this
way up to the present day. In the autumn of 1955 a winder told me worriedly that there
was almost no yarn left in the store and that there would certainly be a work stoppage. I
explained to her that there might be little yarn in the store, but that on the world
market, there was not too little but too much cotton. The American cotton policy was
not yet determined, but people were reckoning on a fall in prices. For this reason our
manufacture was delaying buying yarn and was laying in only as many supplies as were
absolutely necessary.
63. St.A.Z. N 37 a/1.
64. See Bollinger, Die Zurcher Landschaft, pp. 3Iff, and in general R. Weiss, Das
Alpenerlebnis in der Literatur des 18.Jahrhunderts, Zurich 1933.
67. Stutz, Gemdlde aus dem Volksleben, p. 37.
schaft, p. 54.
69. Johann Hirzel, Rede uber den physischen, okonomischen und sittlich-religiosen Zustand
70. Weiss, Volkskunde der Schweiz, p. 31.
71. From a lecture given by Hans-Rudolf Schinz before the Naturforschende
Gesellschaft Zurich 1782/3, quoted in D. Fretz, Neujahrsblatt der Lesegesellschaft
Wddenswil, vol. 11: Die Entstehung der Lesegesellschaft Wddenswil, Wadenswil 1939, p. 26.
72. Quoted in ibid., Chap. 1, n. 74.
73. Stutz, Gemdlde aus dem Volksleben, p. 74.
74. We will discuss these problems in detail in a sequel to this thesis. Likewise,
many things concerning cottage industry will only be mentioned there. For instance,
child labour and the physical damage inflicted by industrial work.
75. Stutz, Lise und Salome, p. 35.
76. See H. Strehler, Beitrdge zur Kulturgeschichte der Zurcher Landschaft, Part II:
'Aberglaube, Armut und Better, in Zurcher Taschenbuch aufdasjahr 1935 (1935), p. 90.
'The reason for being incapable of working is given with horrifying frequency as dim or
poor sight or even full blindness.'
77. Zurich Central Library, II, no. 101.
78. Zurich Central Library B 6a, both quotations in Bollinger, Die Zurcher
Landschaft, p. 55.
79. U. Bragger, Leben und Schriften des armen Mannes im Toggenburg, 3 vols., Basle
1945, vol. l , p . 246.
80. H. Messikommer, Aus alter Zeit: Sitten und Gebrduche im Zuricher Oberland, 3 vols.,
Zurich 1909-11, vol. 1, p. 25.
81. Stutz, 7X7 Jahre, p. 578; he refers to doing two jobs at once (Doppelarbeit).
83. The weaver was more exposed to this dichotomy due to his greater isolation. He
was also isolated by the clatter of his loom.
6 The outworkers9 attitude to poverty and crises

1. See Werner Sombart's essay regarding this methodological problem, 'Die
Arbeiterverhaltnisse im Zeitaker des Fruhkapitalismus', Archivfu'r Sozialwissenschaft und
Sozialpolitik, 44 (1917), pp. 19ff.
2. We would refer the reader to the following monographs: Alice Denzler, Geschichte
des Armenswesens im Kanton Zurich im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, Diss., Zurich 1920; Bertha
Keller, Das Armenwesen des Kantons Zurich vom Beginn des 18. Jahrhunderts bis zum
Armengesetz desjahres 1836, Diss., Zurich 1935; as well as the works by Hedwig Strehler
and H. Morf.
3. C.G. Schmidt, Der Schweizer Bauer im Zeitalter des Fruhkapitalismus, Berne 1932,
p. 51.
4. This and the next quotation is taken from St.A.Z. III. AAb. 1, Almosenordnung
1693.
5. See M. Adler, 'Fabrik und Zuchthaus', Kultur- und Zeitfragen, 10, p. 13.
6. Quoted in H. Morf, Neujahrsblatt der Hulfsgesellschaft von Winterthur, vol. 12: Aus der
Geschichte des zurcherischen Armenwesens, Winterthur 1873, p. 13.
7. St.A.Z. A 61/6, Bettelmandat 5 Feb. 1700.
8. Ibid., II AAb. 1, Almosenordnung 1693.
9. Ibid.
10. This comes from the foreword to two competition essays submitted to the
Aufmunterungsgesellschaft in Basle on the theme of poverty, mendicancy and charity:
Ueber Armuth Betteley und Wohltdtigkeit - a collection of a few essays submitted to the
Aufmunterungsgesellschaft in Basle in 1779, Basle 1780.
11. See, for instance, Werner Sombart, 'Die Arbeiterverhaltnisse', p. 26; J.A.C.
Brown, Tsychologie der industriellen Leistung', in Rowoholts deutsche Enzyklopddie, vol.
30, p. 10.
12. Max Weber, Gesammelte Aufsdtze zur Religionssoziologie, 3 vols., Tubingen 1920—
1, vol. 1; R.H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, Harmondsworth 1938. The
foreword to Tawney's work contains further bibliographical references.
13. Weber, Gesammelte Aufsdtze zur Religionssoziologie, vol. 1, p. 208.
14. See Keller, Das Armenwesen, p. 7.
15. Zurich Central Library, Zurcher Freitagszeitung 1816, no. 38.
16. Foreword to the competition essays of the Basle Aufmunterungsgesellschaft
1779.
17. Keller, Das Armenwesen, pp. 105ff.
18. Ibid., p. 7.
19. St.A.Z. NN 36, p. 49.
20. Ibid., N37a/l,subBaretswil.
21. Zurich Central Library, Neujahrsblatt der Zurcherischen Hulfsgesellschaft 1817.
22. See A. Biirkli-Meyer, 'Die Einfiihrung der mechanischen Baumwollspinnerei',
Fortschritt, Organ des kaufmannischen Vereins Zurich [1885], p. 8.
23. J.H. Pestalozzi, Sdmtliche Werke, ed. A. Buchenau, E. Spranger and H. Stett-
bacher, 28 vols., Berlin 1927-76, vol. 10, pp. 272ff.
25. See Pestalozzi, Werke, vol. 10, pp. 272ff.
26. The official accounts by the district governor of Kyburg for 1795, quoted in
Morf, Neujahrsblatt der Hulfsgesellschaft von Winterthur, vol. 12, p. 64.
27. St.A.Z. A 61/6, 12 April 1723.
28. Ibid., sub Steinmaur.
29. Ibid., A61/5a, sub Gossau.
30. Jakob Stutz, 7x7 Jahre - aus meinem Leben, als Beitrag zur ndheren Kenntnis des
Volkes, Pfaffikon 1853, p. 73.
31. F. Meier, Geschichte der Gemeinde Wetzikon, Zurich 1881, p. 526.
32. Ibid., p. 529.
33. H. Strehler, Beitrdge zur Kulturgeschichte der Zurcher Landschaft, Part II:
'Aberglaube, Armut und BetteP, in Zurcher Taschenbuch aufdasjahr 1935 (1935), p. 85;
see too Morf, Neujahrsblatt der Hulfsgesellschaft von Winterthur, vol. 12, pp. 30ff.
34. St.A.Z. E II 43, Synodalakten, 31 Oct. 1732.
35. / ^ . , A 6 1 / 6 , s u b M a u r .
36. Zurich Central Library, Neujahrsblatt der Zurcherischen Hulfsgesellschaft 1817,
37. Stillstandsprotokoll Wetzikon, p. 129; quoted in Keller, Das Armenwesen, p. 50.

38. St.A.Z. B IX 70, p. 54.
39. /£*</., A 61/5, sub Zell.
40. See Morf, Neujahrsblatt der Hulfsgesellschqft von Winterthur, vol. 12, p. 30.
41. St.A.Z.A61/5a, sub Brutten.
42. Ibid., A 61/6.
43. Ibid.
4A. Ibid., B V 113, p. 34, 17 April 1723.
45. S. Schinz, Das hbhere Gebirge des Kanton Zurich, und der bkonomisch-moralische
Zustand der Bewohner, mit Vorschlag der Hulfe und Auskunftfur die bey mangelnder Fabrikarbeit
brotlose Ubervblkerung (Synodalrede), Zurich 1817, p. 8.
46. Morf, Neujahrsblatt der Hulfsgesellschaft von Winterthur, vol. 12, p. 44.
47. St.A.Z. B IX 72, pp. 503ff.
48. See Keller, Das Armenwesen, p. 95.
49. St.A.Z. B IX 72, pp. 503ff.
50. See ibid., B IX 96, sub Preisfrage 1803, p. 4.
51. Ibid., A 61/6, 12 April 1723.
52. Ibid., NN 36, p. 49.
53. See Sombart, 'Die Arbeiterverhaltnisse', p. 26.
55. Ibid., p. 487.
56. See E. Strubin, Baselbieter Volksleben, Basle 1952, p. 115.
57. See Stutz, 7x7Jahre, p. 409.
58. See, for instance, St.A.Z. N 37/al, sub Diirnten.
59. Quoted from H. Spoerry-Jaeggi, Zeit des Uber gangs von der Heimindustrie des
Zurcher Oberlandes zum industriellen Betrieb, Wald 1927, p. 41.
60. L J . Schweizer, Uber den zunehmenden Verdienstmangel in den ostlichen Gemeinden des
Kanton Zurich, Zurich 1831, p. 7.
61. Johann Hirzel, Rede uber den physischen, bkonomischen und sittlich-religidsen Zustand
62. Ibid., p. 16.
63. Ibid., p. 18; see too Schinz, Das hbhere Gebirge, p. 12, and Schweizer, Uber den
zunehmenden Verdienstmangel, p. 9, inter alia.
64. Schweizer, Uber den zunehmenden Verdienstmangel, p. 7.
65. St.A.Z. N 37/al, sub Baretswil; ibid., sub Ruti.
66. Ibid., B IX 96; directions for the country parishes of the canton of Zurich, as to
how the smallholders, day-labourers and factory workers may be employed so that they
are able to provide themselves and their families with what they need - without
resorting to begging. From the essays submitted to the Naturforschende Gesellschaft in
Zurich answering their competition question set for 1803; selected and published 1804,
p. 15.
68. Hirzel, Rede uber den physischen, bkonomischen und sittlich-religibsen Zustand, p. 13.
69. H. Messikommer, Aus alter Zeit: Sitten und Gebrduche im Zuricher Oberland, 3 vols.,
Zurich 1909-11, vol. 1, p. 62.
71. Johann Schulthess, Beherzigung des vor der Zurcher Synode gehaltenen Vortrags,
Zurich 1817, p. 37.
72. Kurt Stavenhagen would refer here to a 'phenomenally unhistorical' mentality.
73. Hirzel, Rede uber den physischen, bkonomischen und sittlich-religibssen Zustand, p. 14.
74. Schweizer, Uber den zunehmenden Verdienstmangel, p. 5.
75. In 1862 the Volksblatt vom Bachtel, for instance, could still print the following
notice on 15 June: 'The alms recipient Heinrich Honegger-Kuhn of Blattenbach,
factory worker at present in the boarding house in Stuck, is with reference to article 29
of the Poor Law forbidden from visiting taverns and gambling. The Alms Office.' It is
obvious that this sort of Poor Relief tended to encourage rather than hinder begging.
76. Pestalozzi, Werke, vol. 10, pp. 282ff.
77. St.A.Z. B IX 96, sub Anleitung fur die Landgemeinden . . ., p. 15.
78. Between 1808 and 1810 the employment level was satisfactory; see Spoerry-
Jaeggi, Zeit des Ubergangs, p. 60.
79. Zeitbeobachtungen uber das schweizerische Baumwollgewerbe, dessen Folgen und Aussich-
ten, Switzerland 1806, pp. 15ff.
80. St.A.Z. U 28.
81. See, for instance, Zeitbeobachtungen, p. 4. 'I hereby acknowledge that I do not
consider any arrangement, and even less any sort of political change, adequate to set
our cotton manufactures on a secure and solid basis, and to keep them as flourishing as
they have been up till now, not just for a few years but for later ages as well. My opinion
is that the present situation principally involves staving off the collapse as long as
possible and, when the blow can no longer be averted, making it less shattering.'
82. A letter from Conrad Escher von der Linth to Johann Rudolf Steinmuller,
dated 29 Dec. 1803, in Mitteilungen zur Vaterldndischen Geschichte, published by the
Historischer Verein in St Gall, 23 (1889), p. 354. The author discusses the 'Kellenland'
(Oberland) in this.
83. See Jakob Stutz, Gemdlde aus dem Volksleben, Part III, Zurich 1836, pp. 39ff.
84. Meier, Geschichte der Gemeinde Wetzikon, p. 269, and others.
85. See Stutz, 7x7Jahre, p. 577.
86. See ibid., p. 390.
87. G. Meyer von Knonau writes in his work Der Kanton Zurich^ St Gall and Berne
1844, vol. 1, p. 301: 'In 1827 there were 1,450 male and 1,150 female spinners in the
various spinning factories, as well as 2,400 under-age persons of both sexes, with a total
of 5,000 people employed.' As we will see in Part two, the first factory workers were
mostly recruited from among former cottage workers, especially from the landless hand
spinners.
88. A list of the business houses and factories in the canton of Zurich 1837 to 1870;
quoted from O. Haegi, Die Entwicklung der Zurcher-Oberldndischen Baumwollindustrie,
Diss., Berne, 1924, p. 61.
7 Conclusion
1. See A. Karasek-Langer, 'Neusiedlung in Bayern nach 1945', Jahrbuch fur
Volkskunde der Heimatvertriebenen, 2 (1956).
2. R. Weiss, Hduser und Landschaften der Schweiz, Erlenbach and Zurich, p. 317.
3. We refer once again to Karasek-Langer's programmatic remarks in
'Neusiedlung in Bayern nach 1945'.
Postscript
1. In France the basic study in this tradition is Pierre Goubert, Beauvais et le
Beauvaisis de 1600 a 1730, Paris 1960; in England J. D. Chambers, 'The Vale of Trent',
Economic History Review, Supplement 3 (1957).
2. For a survey of German historiography after the Second World War, see Georg
G. Iggers, New Directions in European Historiography, Middleton, Conn., 1975.
3. See the paradigmatic work by Rudolf Braun's teacher Richard Weiss, Volkskunde
der Schweiz, Erlenbach and Zurich 1946.
4. For a very influential work from this background which appeared at the same
time as Braun's study, see Philippe Aries, Centuries of Childhood, New York 1965; first ed.
1960.
5. See Hermann Bausinger, Utz Jeggle, Gottfried Korflf and Martin Scharfe,
Grundzuge der Volkskunde, Darmstadt 1978, Chap. 3.
6. See Rudolf Braun, 'Proto-industrialization and Demographic Changes in the
Canton of Zurich', in Charles Tilly, ed., Historical Studies of Changing Fertility, Princeton,
1978, pp. 289-334, notably p. 334.
7. The term has been coined by Clifford Geertz, 'Thick Description: Towards an
Interpretative Theory of Culture', in idem, The Interpretation of Culture, Boston 1973, pp.
3-30; the recent discussion on its use in historiography has been triggered by Lawrence
Stone, 'The Revival of the Narrative: Reflections on a New Old History', Past and
Present, 85 (1980), pp. 3-24.
8. Franklin Mendels, 'Proto-industrialization: The First Phase of the
Industrialization Process', Journal of Economic History, 32 (1972), pp. 241-61; for a
systematic overview, see idem, 'Des industries rurales a la proto-industrialisation:
Historique d'un changement de perspective', Annales, E.S.C., 39 (1984), pp. 997-1008;
Maxine Berg, Pat Hudson and Michael Sonenscher, 'Manufacture in Town and
Country Before the Factory', in idem, eds., Manufacture in Town and Country Before the
Factory, Cambridge 1983; Peter Kriedte, Hans Medick and Jiirgen Schlumbohm,
Industrialisation before Industrialisation: Rural Industry in the Genesis of Capitalism, Cam-
bridge and Paris 1982.
9. Notably Chambers, 'The Vale of Trent'; Joan Thirsk, 'Industries in the
Countryside', in F J . Fisher, ed., Essays in the Economic and Social History of Tudor and Stuart
England, Cambridge 1961, pp. 70-88; Eric L.Jones, 'Agricultural Origins of Industry',
Past and Present, 40 (1968), pp. 58-71.
10. Mendels, 'Des industries rurales'.
11. The emergence of export-oriented textile production in the canton of Zurich
dates back into the late sixteenth century, and since its beginnings a substantial part of
the workforce was located in the countryside; see Walter Bodmer, Die Entwicklung der
schweizerischen Textilindustrie im Rahmen der ubrigen Industrien, Zurich 1960.
12. Eckart Schremmer, 'Proto-industrialization: A Step toward Industrialization',
Journal of European Economic History, 10 (1981), pp. 653—71, argues in favour of a
perspective which does not distinguish between crafts producing for local markets and
export-oriented production; and Pierre Deyon, 'Fecondite et limites du modele
protoindustriel: premier bilan', Annales, E.S.C., 39 (1984), pp. 870ff, as well as Berg et
al., 'Manufacture in Town and Country', stress the importance of towns and of their
interactions with the countryside in the process.
13. Thirsk, 'Industries in the Countryside'.
14. The concept of regional bifurcation has been introduced into the discussion on
proto-industry by Jones, 'Agricultural origins of Industry'; for the most authoritative
recent discussion of the topic see Gay L. Gullickson. 'Agriculture and Cottage
Industry: Redefining the Causes of Proto-industrialization', Journal of Economic History,
43 (1983), pp. 831-50.
15. The importance of the absence of a control on the supply of rural labour as a
precondition of proto-industrial growth (in contrast to guild regulations in towns) is
particularly emphasised by Kriedte et al., Industrialization before Industrialization.
16. Mendels, 'Des industries rurales', pp. 990ff; a more extensive discussion is
provided in idem, 'Seasons and Regions in Agriculture and Industry during the Process
of Industrialization', in Sidney Pollard, ed., Region und Industrialisierung, Gottingen
1980. pp. 177-95; the above sketch also contains elements stressed by Thirsk,
'Industries in the Countryside'.
17. For the following, see Thomas Meier, Handwerk, Hauswerk, Heimarbeit: Nicht-
agrarische Tdtigkeiten und Erwerbsformen in einem traditionellen, Ackerbaugebiet des 18.
Jahrhunderts (Zurcher Unterland), Zurich 1986; and Peter Giger, 'Zurcher Korn markt-
politik im 18. Jahrhundert', unpublished master thesis, University of Zurich 1985.
18. For another early study in proto-industrialisation using a regional approach,
see Herbert Kisch, 'The Textile Industries in Silesia and the Rhineland: A Compara-
tive Study in Industrialization', Journal ofEconomic History, 19 (1959), pp. 541—64. Later
studies by the same author (following a genuine approach to proto-industrialisation
based on marxist theory and development economics) have been collected in idem, Die
hausindustriellen Textilgewerbe am Niederrhein vor der industriellen Revolution: Von der
ursprunglichen zur kapitalistischen Akkumulation, Gottingen 1981.
19. See J. Hajnal, 'European Marriage Patterns in Perspective', in David V. Glass
and D.E.G. Eversley, eds., Population in History, London 1965, pp. 101-43.
20. Further evidence has been added in Braun, 'Proto-industrialization and
Demographic Changes'.
21. See the contributions of Habakkuk and McKeown and Brown in Glass and
Eversley, eds., Population in History.
22. For England, see Edward A. Wrigley and Roger S. Schofield, The Population
History of England, 1541-1871, London 1981.
23. See, notably, David Levine, Family Formation in an Age ofNascent Capitalism, New
York 1977.
24. A survey of the evidence is given in Mendels, 'Des industries rurales',
Appendix. Outstanding attempts at a revision are Gay L. Gullickson, 'Proto-
industrialization, Demographic Behaviour and the Sexual Division of Labour in
Auffay, France', Peasant Studies, 9 (1982), pp. 105-18; and Myron P. Gutmann and
Rene Leboutte, 'Rethinking Proto-industrialization and the Family', Journal of Interdis-
ciplinary History, 14 (1984), pp. 587-607.
25. Ulrich Pfister, 'Proto-industrialization and Demographic Change: The Canton
of Zurich Revisited', to appear in Journal of European Economic History.
26. Hans Medick, 'The Proto-industrial Family Economy: The Structural Func-
tion of Household and Family during the Transition from Peasant Society to Industrial
Capitalism', Social History, 3 (1976), pp. 291-315; see also Kriedte etal., Industrialization
before Industrialization, Chaps. 2 and 3.
Sources and bibliography
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Entry Charters): 1529-1791 (A 99).
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(FI357).
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223
224 Sources and bibliography
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Zurich Central Library

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kleinen Freystaate, dessen Wohlfahrt aufdie Handelschaft gegrundet ist, Schranken zu setzen?,
Basle 1781 (ZBZ XVIII. 1774), (prize-winners: L. Meister, J.H. Pestalozzi,
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Bosch, M., Freymuthige Gedanken uber den sittlichen Verfall seines Vaterlandes, Lichtensteg
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Bragger, U., Leben und Schriften des armen Mannes im Toggenburg, 3 vols., publ. by Samuel
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Briefan einen Burger des Kanton A., uber die Bedurfnisse der Zeit und des Vaterlandes, author not
attributed. 1811.
Ebel, J., Schilderung der Gebirgsvolker der Schweiz, 2 vols., Leipzig 1798, 1802.
Escher, H., Synodalrede uber die besten Mittel zur Beforderung eines verbesserten Zustands der
zurcherischen Kirche, Zurich 1774.
Escher, J.K., 'Bemerkungen uber die Regierung der Grafschaft Kyburg', Archiv fur
Schweizerische Geschichte, (1846).
Heidegger, J.H., Der vernunftige Dorfpfarrer, Zurich 1791.
Hirzel, Johann, Rede uber den physischen, okonomischen und sittlich-religidsen Zustand der
ostlichen Berggemeinden des Kanton Zurich (Synodalrede), Zurich 1816.
Hirzel, J.C., Derphilosophische Kaufmann, Zurich 1775.
Beantwortung der Frage: Ist die Handelschaft, wie solche bey uns beschaffen,
unserem Lande schadlich, oder niitzlich, in Absicht auf den Feldbau und die Sitten
des Volkes?', Magazinfu'r die Naturkunde Helvetiens, 3 (1788).
Meiners, C , Briefe uber die Schweiz, Part III, Tubingen 1791.
Meister, L., Kleine Reisen durch einige Schweizer Kantone, Basle 1782.
Niischeler, J.C., Beobachtungen eines redlichen Schweizers aus vaterldndischer Liebe entworfen,
Zurich 1786.
Uber die Revision der Matrimonialgesetze im Kanton Zurich, Zurich 1831.
Pestalozzi, J.H., Sdmtliche Werke, ed. A. Buchenau, E. Spranger and H. Stettbacher, 28
vols., Berlin 1927-76.
Schinz, J.H., Versuch einer Geschichte der Handelsschaft der Stadt und Landschaft Zurich,
Zurich 1763.
Schinz, S., Das hbhere Gebirge des Kanton Zurich, und der okonomisch-moralische Zustand der
Bewohner, mit Vorschlag der Hulfe und Auskunft fur die bey mangelnder Fabrikarbeit brotlose
Ubervolkerung (Synodalrede) Zurich 1817.
Schulthess, J., Beherzigung des vor der Zurcher Synode gehaltenen Vortrags, Zurich 1817.
Schweizer, L J., Uber den zunehmenden Verdienstmangel in den ostlichen Gemeinden des Kanton
Zurich, Zurich 1831.
Sources and bibliography 225
Stutz,J., Gemdlde aus dem Volksleben, Part III, Zurich 1836.
Lise undSalome, die beiden Webermddchen, Zurich 1847.
7X 7Jahre - aus meinem Leben, ah Beitrag zur ndheren Kenntnis des Volkes, Pfaffikon 1853.
UberArmuth Betteley und Wohlthdtigkeit- Sammlung einiger bey der Aufmunterungsgesellschaft in
Basel, imjahr 1779 eingekommener Schriften, Basle 1780.
Unterricht uber den Landbau in einem freundlichen Gesprdch zwischen einem alien, erfahrenen
Landmann und einem jungen Bauernknab, zum Gebrauch unserer Landschulen, author not
attributed, Zurich 1774.
Vaterldndische Erinnerungen an meine Mitlandleute der dussern Rhoden, uber das Verhdltnis der
Landes-Produktion, gegen unsere angewohnten Bedurfnisse, author not attributed, 1811
(XXXI. 26813).
Zeitbeobachtungen uber das schweizerische Baumwollgewerbe, dessen Folgen und Aussichten,
author not attributed, Switzerland 1806.
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Adler, M., 'Fabrik und Zuchthaus', Kultur- und Zeitfragen 10.
Bernhard, H., Wirtschafts- und Siedlungsgeschichte des Tosstales, Diss., Zurich 1912.
Bodmer, W., Schweizerische Industriegeschichte, Zurich 1960.
Bollinger, A., Die Zurcher Landschaft an der Wende des 18. Jahrhunderts - nach Berichten der
ascetischen Gesellschaft. Diss., Zurich 1941.
Brepohl, W., 'Industrielle Volkskunde', in Karl G. Sprecht (ed.), SoziologischeForschung
unserer Zeit - Leopold von Wiese zum 75. Geburtstag, Koln 1951.
Brown, J.A.C., 'Psychologie der industriellen Leistung', in Rowohlts deutsche
Enzyklopddie, vol. 30.
Biirkli-Meyer, A., Die Zurcherische Fabrikgesetzgebung vom Beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts an bis
zur Schweizerischen Staatsumwdlzung von 1798, Zurich 1884.
(
Die Einfuhrung der mechanischen Baumwollspinnerei \ Fortschritt, Organ des kaufmdnnischen
Vereins Zurich [1885].
Custer, A., Die Zurcher Untertanen und die franzosische Revolution, Diss., Zurich 1942.
Denzler, A., Geschichte des Armenwesens im Kanton Zurich im 16. und 17.Jahrhundert, Diss.,
Zurich 1920.
Finsler, G., Zurich in der zweiten Hdlfte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, Zurich 1884.
Fretz, D., Neujahrsblatt der Lesegesellschaft Wddenswil, vol. 11: Die Entstehung der Lesegesells-
chaft Wddenswil, Wadenswil 1939.
Furger, F., Beiheft zur Vierteljahresschrift fur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, ed. Prof.
Below, vol. 11: Zum Verlagssystem als Organisationsform des Fruhkapitalismus im Tex-
tilgewerbe, Stuttgart 1927.
Haegi, O., Die Entwicklung der Zurcher-Oberldndischen Baumwollindustrie, Diss., Berne
1924.
Honegger, W., Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung der Landgemeinde Hinwil, Diss., Berne 1948.
Keller, B., Das Armenwesen des Kanton Zurich vom Beginn des 18. Jahrhunderts bis zum
Armengesetz desjahres 1836, Diss., Zurich 1935.
Keller, J., Die Hungersnot im Kanton Zurich in denjahren 1816-17, Zurich 1948.
Klaui, P., and Imhof, E., eds., Atlas zur Geschichte des Kantons Zurich, Zurich 1951.
Kramer, K.S., 'Haus und Flur im bauerlichen Recht', Bayrische Heimatforschung, 2
(1950).
Krebser, H., Waldim Zurcher Oberland, Wald 1951.
Das erste Bevblkerungsverzeichnis der Gemeinde Wald aus dem Jahre 1634, Wald 1952.
Kiinzle, E., Die Zurcherische Baumwollindustrie von ihren Anfdngen bis zur Einfuhrung des
Fabrikbetriebes, Diss., Zurich 1906.
226 Sources and bibliography
Leumann, P., Das Haus als Trdger von markgenossenschaftlichen Rechten und Lasten, Diss.,
Zurich 1939.
Liissi, H., Chronik der Gemeinde Fischenthal, Wetzikon and Riiti 1932.
Meier, F., Geschichte der Gemeinde Wetzikon, Zurich 1881.
Messikommer, H., Aus alter Zeit: Sitten und Gebrduche im Zuricher Oberland, 3 vols., Zurich
1909-11.
Meyer von Knonau, G., Die Volkszdhlung des Kantons Zurich am 9.10., und 11. Mai 1836- ein
Nachtrag, Zurich 1837.
DerKanton Zurich, St Gall and Berne 1844.
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zurcherischen Armenwesens, Winterthur 1873.
Niederer, A., Gemeinwerk im Wallis, Basle 1956.
Peuckert, W.E., Volkskunde des Proletariats, Frankfurt a. M. 1931.
Schmidt, C.G., Der Schweizer Bauer im Zeitalter des Fruhkapitalismus, Berne 1932.
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Hochschulzeitung, 29, no. 6 (1956).
Sombart, W., 'Die Arbeiterverhaltnisse im Zeitalter des Fruhkapitalismus', Archivfur
Sozialwissenschqft und Sozialpolitik, 44 (1917).
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industriellen Betrieb, Wald 1927.
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17. und 18. Jahrhundert, Lachen 1934; Part II: 'Aberglaube, Armut und Better, in
Zurcher Taschenbuch aufdasjahr 1935 (1935).
Strubin, E., Baselbieter Volksleben, Basle 1952.
Tawney, R.H., Religion and the rise of Capitalism, Harmondsworth 1938.
Weber, M., Gesammelte Aufsdtze zur Religionssoziologie, 3 vols., Tubingen 1920-1 (the
relevant parts of this study are translated in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism, London 1930).
Weiss, R., Volkskunde der Schweiz, Erlenbach and Zurich 1946.
Hduser und Landschaften der Schweiz, Erlenbach and Zurich 1958.
Wyss, F., 'Die Schweizerischen Landsgemeinden', Zeitschrift fur schweizerisches Recht, 1
(1852).
Index
adultery, 46, 47 Bubikon: entry charter, 24; poverty in, 166

agriculture, 5; and attitudes to work, 137; building restrictions, 33; and the decline of
and cottage industry, 127-30; field agriculture, 130; in villages, 31, 51, 112,
systems, 31, 128-9, 130, 137, 190; 122-4
importance of the working year, 81-2; Biilach, population, 53
outworkers' attitudes to, 149-50; and Burg, Magdalena, 15
proto-industrialisation, 190; redeployment Burkli, David, 157
of outworkers in, 158
almsgiving, 154—5, 157, 162; and loss of calico industry, 179-80
parish rights, 20, 155, 175; recipients of carriers, 139; and attitudes to work, 142,
alms, 10-11, 13, 16 143-4; and payment of outworkers, 143-4,
Appenzell, 146, 175, 179; cottage industry 145; and poverty, 160
house, 119-20; Hirzel's description of, 135 Caspar, Josef, 12
Ascetic and Economic Societies, 97 charcoal-burners, 13, 137
associations, see societies cheating, among outworkers, 142-3, 144
childbirth, attitudes to, 51, 55
bailifTs, 193 children: attitudes to, 51, 54—5; migration of,
Baretswil: entry charter, 24; poverty in, 166, 14-15; of the poor, 17, 158; and Rast-
172 giving, 54, 55-9; as spinners, 12, 13, 16,
Bauma parish, number of residents, 115-16 17, 18, 132-3, 139, 152; at spinning
Baumberger, Hans, 13 places, 92-3; and the work ethic, 132-3
beggars' weddings, 42-3, 45, 60; and chimneys, and village rights, 121, 123
poverty, 158, 165 churches: inauguration of Wadenswil, 99,
begging, 16, 155-6, 157, 158, 172-5 100; and the outworkers, 93-5; parishes,
Bernhard, Hans, 30, 113, 114 193, 194; and Poor Relief, 155; sittings in
Bertschinger, Hans, 18 (kirchenorter), 61-2; see also clergy;
Beyel (district captain), 146 Protestant work ethic; religion
Billeter, Kaspar, 102 class consciousness, 151
Birch, Inspector von, 137 clergy: attitude to poverty, 163-4, 165, 168,
Bodmer, Anna, 16 169; see also churches; religion
Boiler, Johannes, 120 clothes, 69-74; clothiers, 80; outworkers,
books: in country schools in Zurich, 95-6; at 69-74; women in Maschwanden,
the Wadenswil Reading Society, 103 105-6; young unmarried girls, 86-7
Bosch, Michael, 78 clothiers, 4, 80—1; and attitudes to work,
Bosshart, Elsbethli, 16 143-4; clothes, 80; education and culture,
Bragger, Ulrich, 68, 72, 109, 152 98, 101; houses, 126; and payment of
bread consumption, 63, 65 outworkers, 143-4, 145; and poverty, 160;
bread dole, 155, 175 and revolutionary philosophy, 108
bread prices, 162-3 clubs, 106; see also societies
Breitinger, Jakob, 101 coffee, consumption of, 64-5
Brennwald, Pastor, 105-6 community: need for, 2-3; sense of, among
Brunner, Hans, 19 outworkers, 149-53
227
228 Index
conversation circles, 101-2 geographical distribution, of the cotton
cotton spinning, 144 putting-out industry, 33-4, 35
cotton weaving, 145, 148 179-81 Goethe, J. W. von, 140
courtship, 42-6, 83, 85-6, 192 going to the light (zu Licht gehen), 44, 46
Guster, Annemarie, 108 Graaf, Salomon, 160
Grob, Adam, 160
daughters: attitudes to work, 140, 141; lack Griiningen district: agriculture, 128, 129;
of housework skills, 66; obligations of, 54 earnings and attitudes to work in, 148;
day-labourers, 14, 19, 20-1, 137, 193; and revolutionary ideas, 108
attitudes to work, 138; poverty of, 11-12 Griiningery, Elsbeth, 11
diet, see food
divorces, 45, 46, 47 Halbherr, Hans, 18
dress, see clothes hamlets: growth of, 48, 93, 115, 116; living
conditions, 125; and spinning work, 124
hawking, 173
earnings, see payment system; wages Heidegger, Johann Heinrich, 88, 89
Ebel,J., 126 Helvetic Revolution (1798), 61, 87, 89, 130,
economic rationalism, and attitudes to work, 176, 179
141, 146 hemp, growing and spinning, 8, 9
education: country schools in Zurich, 93, Hess, Elisabeth, 63
95-6; and cultural change, 97-105 Hess, Heinrich, 16
Egli, Hans, 19 Hess, Senator Heinrich, 63
Ehrsam, Hans, 12 Hinausbauen, see villages: building restrictions
embezzlement, see cheating Hinwil: entry charter, 25; population, 52, 53
entry charters to villages, 22-5, 122, 124, Hirzel, J. C : on agriculture and cottage
193-4 industry, 127-8, 129, 130;" on attitudes of
Erisman, Margaret, 15 outworkers, 69; on attitudes to work,
Escher, Heinrich, 95, 96 134-5, 136, 138; on clothes, 71;
Escher, Johann Kaspar, 70, 88 description of the Oberland, 30-1, 32; on
food consumption, 64-5, 66, 67-8; on
Factory Ordinance (1717), 142, 144, 145 landless outworkers, 171; on marriage
famine, 162-3 patterns, 38, 39, 40, 42, 45; on population
farmers, see peasants growth, 51-2, 53-4, 114-15; on the
farming, see agriculture propertied outworkers, 171; on Rast-
farmsteads: and churches, 93; and the giving, 58; on religion, 95; on village
collapse of the spinning industry, 179; living conditions, 51
cottage industry smallholdings, 118-19; Hochholzer, Samuel, 156
house design, 118-19; living conditions, Hofmann, Anna, 18
125; neglect of, 57, 165; numbers of Hottinger, Johann, 163
inhabitants, 116; selling of (Stutz family), house ownership, 17-19; and sittings in
149; and spinning work, 124 church, 62; and village rights, 18, 19, 22,
fertility, 53-4, 191 27-3, 120-1
Fischenthal: landless outworkers in, 172; housekeeping, and putting-out work, 126-7,
numbers of marriages, 39; population, 53, 140-1
166; poverty in, 166 houses, 111-27; building materials, 127;
Flarz houses, 48, 117-18, 120, 121, 123, 127, construction of new, 112, 113; Flarz, 48,
186 117-18, 120, 121, 123, 127, 186; living
flax, growing and spinning, 8, 9 conditions in villages, 51, 122-7
folklore analysis, 1-3 Hiibscher, Anna, 18
food, 62-8; of clothiers, 80; and
entertainment of visitors, 82; price rises, industrial landscape, 184—5
159, 160, 181-2; in times of poverty, 151 inheritance patterns: changes in, due to
French Revolution, influence of philosophy, industrialisation, 38-9; and cottage
108 industry, 165
Fretz, Diethelm, 97, 99, 100-1, 103 insurance, attitudes to, 169, 182-3
Frey, Jakob, 12 International Association of Workers,
Furrer,Jagli, 18 151
Index 229
Karasek-Langer, A., 185 migration, from the Oberland, 14-16, 34, 173
Keller, Bertha, 166 military bands (Feldmusikanten), 98-9
Keller, Wilpot, 18 money, attitude to, of factory workers, 68-9
kinship groups, and housing, 117-18 Moos, Lienhart, 11
kitchens, communal, in shared houses, 121 Morf, Hans, 166
Klaiii, Paul, 34 Muller, Barbel, 14
Kochli, Heinrich, 101 Miiller, Felix, 15
Kollin, Major (of Zug), 135 Muller, Heinrich, 160
Krebser, Heinrich, 53, 67, 107 Muller, Jorg, 13, 14
Kunz, Hermine, 141 music societies, 99-100, 101, 102, 106
Kyburg district: agriculture, 128;
revolutionary ideas in, 108 Nageli, Johann Jakob, 99
Niederer, Arnold, 136
Niischeler, J. C : on churches, 93; on
Lahner, Hans, 19 courtship practices, 44-5; on living
land: dividing up of common land, 130; conditions in villages, 122-3, 127; on
patterns of use, 31-2, 128-9 population growth, 61; on Rast-giving, 57;
landless outworkers, 19-20; conspicuous on village living conditions, 51
consumption of, 73-4; families, 55; and
potato growing, 68; and poverty, 165-70, Oberholzer, Jakob, 63
171-3; and /to-giving, 57-8 Oeri, Jakob, 141
landowning outworkers, see propertied Oetelin, Jakob, 15
outworkers Orelli, Salomon von, 71-2; on life style of
Lichstubeten (lighted rooms), 83, 84-6, 192 clothiers, 80-1; on ostentation among
linen weaving, 8 outworkers, 82; on the Stafa Music
Lise and Salome (Stutz), 56
Society, 99-100; on Wadenswil societies,
Lochmann, Hans, 12
98, 99-100
luxury: changing attitudes to, 72-80; and
ostentation: changing attitudes to, 72-80;
living conditions, 125-6; and the clothiers, 80-1; and living conditions,
Protestant work ethic, 136 125-6; and the Protestant work ethic, 136
ovens, and village rights, 121, 122, 123
Maater,Jorg, 13
Mannedorf, minister of, on silk weavers, parish rights, see village rights
141, 142-3 payment system, in the putting-out industry,
manufacturers, see clothiers 143-5, 146
marriage patterns, 38, 39-40, 41-7, 59-60, peasants: attitudes to work, 136-7, 147; and
122; beggars' weddings, 42-3, 45, 60, 158, day-labourers 20; outworkers' attitude to,
165; and changes in life style, 126; 149-51, 168; security arrangements,
community of the unmarried, 83-9; and 169-70; and putting-out work, 17, 32; in
fertility, 53-4; numbers of marriages, 39; Zurich, 3-5
and proto-industrialisation, 191, 192 Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich: on Appenzell
Maschwanden, 105-6; living conditions in, and Zurich, 146; on attitudes to work,
123 141; on the clothiers and culture, 98, 101;
meat consumption, 63, 64, 65 on culture and education, 97; on luxury
Medick, Hans, 192 and ostentation, 75, 76-7, 78, 79; on
Meier, Johann Ludwig, 67 unemployment among outworkers, 159
Meiners, C : on diet of factory workers, 65, Peterhans-Bianzano, G., 107
66; on houses of factory workers, 125; on Pfaflhuser, Felix, 12
improvements after industrialisation, 129; Pfister, Barbara, 11
on life style of factory workers, 68, 71; on Picture from the Life of the Common People
marriage patterns, 39, 54; on new (Stutz), 149-50
settlement patterns, 48; on poverty and Plato, 156
crises, 159 poor people: attitudes to work, 137-8; in the
Meister, Leonhard, on luxury and Oberland, 10-17, 23-4; see also poverty
ostentation, 75-6, 78, 79 Poor Relief, 154-8, 164, 193; and landless
Mendels, Franklin, 188-9, 190, 191 outworkers, 172; and propertied
Meyer, Gerald, 52-3 outworkers, 171
230 Index
population: concept of over-population, 21; Shrove Tuesday nights, 85, 86
growth, 24, 34, 51-4, 60, 61, 114-16, 129, Sigg, Anna, 18
191; numbers in poverty, 166 silk weaving, 128, 141, 142-3, 148
potatoes, consumption of, 65, 66-8 Singing Schools, 98-9; see also songs
poverty: attitudes to, 151, 153, 154-83; in smallholdings, cottage industry, design of,
the Oberland, 10-17, 20, 23, 28-9, 166 118-19
pregnancies, pre-marital, 44, 45, 122 social class: in the countryside, 193, 194;
price rises: and the collapse of the spinning and the putting-out industry, 181; in
industry, 178; food, 159, 160, 162-3, Zurich, 3-4
181-2; and poverty, 159, 160; and societies, 97-108; conversation circles, 101-2;
propertied outworkers, 170 importance of statutes, 104, 105; music,
proletarianisation, 148-9 99-100, 101, 102, 106; reading, 98, 101,
propertied outworkers: attitudes to poverty, 102-5
170-1; and clothing, 69-70; diet, 62-4; songs: of spinners, 139-40, 149-50; sung at
families, 54, 55, 56-7; and /tar/-giving, spinning places, 90-1, 92
56-7, 59 spinners: attitudes to work, 138-41; children
property, attitudes to, 20 as, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 132-3, 139, 152;
prostitution, 46, 47 clothes, 69; eating habits, 66; living
Protestant work ethic, 74, 131-6, 138, 153; accommodation, 124, 125; songs, 139-40,
and poverty, 155, 157, 161 149-50; wages, 164
proto-industrialisation, 188-92 spinning: collapse of hand spinning, 37,
177-81; hemp and flax, 8, 9; and poverty,
Rast, the, 139 10-14; and the work ethic, 133
/fart-giving, 54, 55-9, 66 spinning parlours (Spinnstuben) 85, 86, 90-3
reading societies, 98, 101, 102-5 spinning places, 90-3
Regensberg, population, 52, 53 Sporri, Jorg, 16
regional bifurcation, 190 Stafa Music Society, 99-100
religion: and begging, 155-6; and the statutory regulation, of the putting-out
outworkers, 93-6; and Poor Relief, 155-7; industry, 144-5
and poverty, 161-2; see also churches; stealing, among outworkers, 142-3, 144
clergy; Protestant work ethic Steinmann, Jakob, 15
rights, see village rights Sternenberg, poverty in, 166
Ruegger, Heinrich, 11 story-telling, at spinning places, 90, 91, 92
Rugger, Elsbeth, 16 stoves, and village rights, 121-2
Russeger, Maria, 16 Straub, Anna, 16
Strehler, Hedwig, 84
Sann, Hans, 16 Stucki, Barbel, 16
Schankel, Barbara, 15 Stutz, Jakob: on attitudes to work, 142; on
Scheller, Martha, 16 beggars, 173; on clothing of outworkers,
Schinz, Salamon, 166; on the clothiers, 81; 74; on food consumption, 66; on poverty,
on marriage patterns, 40, 41-2; on 162; on /tart-giving, 56; sale of parental
population growth, 51; on spendthrift farm, 149; on Shrove Tuesday practices,
habits of factory workers, 68; on the 85; songs of spinners, 139-40; on spinning
starvation year (1817), 72-3 places, 90, 91, 92; on the starvation year
Schmidli, Anna, 18 (1817), 168; stories of childhood, 132-3;
Schmidt, C. G., 80, 155 on tradition, 147; as weaver, 152
Schneller, the, 139, 140 Sulzer, J. C , on food consumption, 63
Schonenberg, silk weaving in, 128 Sundays: observance of, 132; social life of
schools, see education the unmarried on, 86-7
Schulthess, Johann: on attitudes to children, Swiss Farmer in the Age of Early Capitalism
55; on beggars, 173; on corruption among (Schmidt), 80
outworkers, 142; on diet of factory
workers, 65; on marriage patterns, 42, 44, Tawney, R. H., 157
45-6; on population growth, 51; on Temperli, Jageli, 13
spinning places, 90 tithes, payment of, and potato growing, 66-7
Schweizer, L.J., 172 Toggenburg, 175; cottage industry house,
Seidel, Robert, 134 119-20
Index 231
town burghers: clothes, 70; houses, 127; and 66-7; sittings in church, 61-2; societies,
the transmission of culture, 97-8, 99, 100; 106, 107
in Zurich, 3-5 weavers: attitudes of different types, 152;
town councils, 193 attitudes to work, 138, 140, 141; life style
tradition: and attitudes to work, 136-7, of women, 72; living conditions, 124—5,
146-8; belief in, 2-3 126-7; male, 91; wages, 164
Triib, Elsbeth, 14-15 weaving: silk, 128, 141, 142-3, 148; linen, 8;
Triib,Jagli, 14 transition to domestic weaving, 179-81
Weber, Hans, 16
unemployment, 14, 158, 159 Weber, Hansjageli, 12
unmarried, community of the, 83-9 Weber, Max, 130, 134, 157
Weiss, Richard, 109
Werndly, Jageli, 14
vagrants, see beggars Wettstein, Jakob, 16
vandalism, 83-4 Wildberg, poverty in, 166
village rights: and agriculture, 130; and Winkler, Jageli, 15
entry charters, 22-5, 122, 124, 193-4; and Wirth, Jageli, 11-12
forms of housing, 120, 121—4; and house Wohlegemut, Jakob, 18
ownership, 18, 19, 22, 27-8, 120-1; loss of, women: abandoned wives and widows, 15,
by alms recipients, 20 16-17; attitudes to work, 140-1; in
villages: administrative structures, 193-4; Maschwanden, 105-6; weavers, 72, 126-7
building restrictions, 31, 51, 112, 122-4; work, attitudes to, 131-53; and the
living conditions, 51, 122-7; and outworkers' sense of community, 149-53
population growth, 114—16 work places, 89-93
villeins, 19, 194; and village communities, worker movement, Swiss, 151
25-6,27 Wyla, poverty in 166
Vogel, Heini, 12 Wyss, Klein-Jagli, 18
Vogler, Magdale, 12
yarn production, 8
Wadenswil: agriculture in, 129; inauguration yarn spinners, 152
of church, 99, 100; population, 52; young people (community of the
societies, 98, 102-5, 107-8 unmarried), 83—9
wages (earnings): and attitudes to poverty,
157; in the calico industry, 180; hand Zappert, Conradt, 14
spinners, 17, 177; and marriage patterns, Zschokke, Heinrich, 103
40; of outworkers, 88, 148, 150-1; and zu Licht gehen, see going to the light
poverty of outworkers, 158, 159, 160, 164 Zuppinger, Heinrich, 12
Wald parish: care of poor children, 158; Zurich, textile industry, 3-6, 8-10
development of, 48-9; potato growing in, Zwingli, H., 131, 132

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Industrialisation and Everyday Life

Industrialisierung und Volksleben by Rudolf Braun is widely regarded as a classic of

Professor of Modern History at the University of Zurich

Translated by Sarah Hanbury Tenison

The right of the

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

English translation © Maison des Sciences de l'Homme and Cambridge

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

Originally published in German as Industrialiserung und Volksleben

First published in English by Editions de la Maison des Sciences de

ISBN 0 521 35311 4 hardback

Transferred to digital printing 2005

Prefaces page vii

1 The preconditions for industrialisation 8

2 Changes to the structure of family and population in the industrial

3 Life and society of the population engaged in industry 61

6 The outworkers'attitude to poverty and crises 154

Postscript, by Ulrich Pfister 188

Appendix: a note on the administrative structure and social

by Ulrich Pfister 193

Sources and bibliography 223

Preface to the second (German) edition

Well brought up young ladies used to be taught 'not to put themselves

Preface to the first (German) edition

I must acknowledge the impressive achievement of Sarah Hanbury Tenison in

1 Juchart (of plough land) = 32.7 metric ares=0.81 acres

1 Gulden=2 Pfund=40 Schilling=\6 Batzen

Defining the topic

Those parts of the Zurich territory to be caught up soonest in the putting-out

As a result, they were asking to be granted an entry charter, which would

A variety of regulations concerning the use of the common lands heightened

When the natural conditions of the Oberland, its pre-industrial settlements

We have outlined many problems in this first chapter, which we will

number of 10 50 100 500

The cottage industry at the end of the eighteenth century

Hirzel is here describing a system of impartible inheritance, or the right to

It is obvious that marriages increased in frequency and were entered into at

At this stage we require only a limited view of the phenomenon of a new

If we follow the development of such hamlets using population registers,

1. Hans Krauer's, deceased, widow, Anna Kunz (born 1666). Child:

1. Heinrich Reymann's, deceased, children, Rudolf? Margartha?

Year Wadenswil Regensberg

Gerold Meyer of Knonau wrote in 1837 that the industry called in an

Bartentschweil 484 3,462

Bassersdorf 742 1,792

An article entitled 'From the Early Industrial History of Wald'52 provides

Contemporaries all view the consequences of Rast-giving in the same way:

The remarkable population increase which occurred in the eighteenth century

The influence of ostentation on the direction of the national character towards

The new attitude to luxury is an instructive illustration of how industrialis-

On Sunday 24 April 1760 Heinrich Hess killed fourteen-year-old Caspar

The educational material of the country schools of Zurich in the eighteenth

This introduction constitutes a splendid document about the educational

We realise from this description of obligatory village custom why Masch-

The collapse of village life becomes clearly visible in this gallery of

society of the early industrial countryside. Let us briefly recapitulate, in order

Altitude New Settlements

We have already studied this problem.