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Labour Relations at Manufactures in the Eighteenth Century: The Calico Printers in Europe*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 February 2009
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Many studies on proto-industrialization have followed Franklin Mendels' work, and virtually all concern cottage industries in rural areas. Occasionally, authors are also interested in urban proto-industries, which are correctly considered home industries here. This production method (aside from traditional manual labour) has certainly been decisive, both in supplying expanding markets during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and in raising capital for commercial production of goods. Cottage industries were the prevailing form of industry at the start of the Industrial Revolution (and during the preceding periods) and were consequently a direct prerequisite for it.
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- International Review of Social History , Volume 39 , supplement S2: Before the Unions. Wage earners and collective action in Europe, 1300–1850 , August 1994 , pp. 115 - 144
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- Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1994
References
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10 The monographs on calico printing explain the operations and organization of work within a manufacture, e.g.Forrer, Robert, Die Kunst des Zeugdrucks vom Mittelalter bis zur Empirezeit (Strasbourg, 1898)Google Scholar; Waitzfelder, Jacques, Der Augsburger Johann Heinrich von Schüle: Ein Pionier der Textilwirtschaft im XVIII. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1929)Google Scholar; Schillinger, Ruth, Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung des Staffdrucks (Cologne, 1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thijs, Alfons K. L., “Schets van de ontwikkeling der katoendrukkerij te Antwerpen 1753–1813”, Bijdragen tot de geschiedenis inzonderheid van net oud hertogdom Brabant, 3rd ser., 53 (1970), pp. 157–190Google Scholar; idem, Van “werkwinkel” tot “fabriek”: De textielnijverheid te Antwerpen (Brussels, 1987); Montgomery, Florence M., Printed Textiles: English and American Cottons and Linens 1700–1850 (London, 1970) (contains a guide to the literature)Google Scholar; Irwin, John and Brett, Katharine B., Origins of Chintz (London, 1970)Google Scholar; Lis, Catharina and Soly, Hugo, Een groot bedrijf in een kleine stad: De firma De Heyder & Co., te Lier 1757–1834 (Lier, 1987)Google Scholar; Brédif, Josette, Toiles de Jouy (London, 1989)Google Scholar; d'Allemagne, Henri-René, La toile imprimée et les indiennes de traite (Paris, 1942)Google Scholar; Musée de l'impression sur étoffes de Mulhouse = Bulletin Trimestriel de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 761, no. IV (1975); Turnbull, Geoffrey, A History of the Calico Printing Industry of Great Britain (Altrincham, 1951)Google Scholar; Aiolfi, Sergio, Calicos und gedrucktes Zeug (Stuttgart, 1987)Google Scholar; Jean-Richard, Anne, Kattundrucke der Schweiz im XVIII. Jahrhundert (Basel, 1968)Google Scholar; Simon, Christian, Wollt Ihr Euch der Sklaverei kein Ende machen? Der Streik der Busler Indiennearbeiter 1794 (Allschwil, 1983)Google Scholar; Caspard, Pierre, La Fabrique-Neuve de Cortaillod (Paris, 1979)Google Scholar; Viseux, Micheline, Le conton, l'impression (Thonon-les-Bains, 1991)Google Scholar. The most important document on the history of calico printing manufactures is the manuscript by Jean Ryhiner, partially published in Dollfuss-Ausset, D., Matériaux pour la coloration des étoffes (Paris, 1865)Google Scholar. A new, complete edition of this text is being prepared by Monique Drosson and the author.
11 Grau and López, Empresari, pp. 42ff., list three different types of management in manufactures: (i) all shareholders participated in the management; (ii) division of labour between two owners, one of whom acted as commercial director, the other controlled the production department; (iii) management by only one person (an owner or an employee). For women as directors, see Waitzfelder, Der Augsburger Schüle, pp. 114ff. (Madame Friedrich from Hamburg); Une femme d'affaires au XVIIIe siècle: La correspondence de Madame de Maraise, collaboratrice d'Oberkampf, ed. Chassagne, Serge (Toulouse, 1981)Google Scholar; Robert Peel married the daughter of his associate – she was in charge of the company's correspondence, see Chapman and Chassagne, European Textile Printers, p. 56.
12 On the careers of these and the following skilled artisans, see Caspard, Pierre, “Mon cher patron: Lettres d'un ouvrier suisse à ses employeurs, 1770–188”, Milieux (10 1980), pp. 50–63Google Scholar, and idem, “Gérer sa vie: Etude statistique sur le profil de carrière des ouvriers de l'indiennage 1750–1820”, Revue du Nord (January 1981), pp. 207–232.
13 Storey, Joyce, The Art of the Textile Blockmaker (Philadelphia, 1984)Google Scholar. “Teams of girls making pin-work blocks from the late eighteenth century” are mentioned by Chapman, Stanley D., “Quantity versus Quality in the British Industrial Revolution: The Case of Printed Textiles”, Northern History, 21 (1985), p. 178CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Berg, Age of Manufactures, P. 146. They are called “block pinners” at the Peel manufacture in Bury; see Chapman and Chassagne, European Textile Printers, p. 96.
14 Todericiu, Dora, ‘Jean-Michel Haussmann 1749–1824, 'meilleur teinutrier de France’ et Pionnier de l'industrialisation de la chimie”, Bulletin de la Société industrielle de Mulhouse, 810, no. III (1988), pp. 25–27Google Scholar; Schmitt, Jean-Marie, “Les établissements Haussmann de 1775 à 1830: Contours et repères”, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 810, no. III (1988), pp. 13–21Google Scholar. For chemical research at the Oberkampf manufacture in Jouy-en-Josas, see Josette Brédif, Toiles de Jouy, p. 28. Pre-scientific dyeing techniques are explained inPloss, Emil Ernst, Ein Buch von alten Farben (Munich, 1967)Google Scholar and Jean-Richard, Kattundrucke, pp. 56–73. Many interesting operating instructions and scientific reflections appear in Ryhiner's manuscript.
15 On women printers see Caspard, “Gérer sa vie”. Turnbull, History, p. 204 referred to a manufacture in Hayfield: at 100 tables, 20 men printers and 80 women printers worked; in another manufacture in Spring Vale 56 women printers used to work (at 52 tables in the whole company). In 1810, in the Labarthe manufacture in Geneva, 21 men printers (imprimeurs) and 22 women printers (rentreuses) worked at 43 tables; in 1811 there were 50 imprimeurs and 48 rentreuses at 98 tables. The number of teerers (age 5 to 13) was the same as the number of tables: Archives d'Etat de Genève, PH No. 5681.
16 In 1790, Hamburg calico printing manufactures occupied 6,000 people, 1,000 of them were women who did pencilling (Schilderinnen), Rita Bake, Frauenerwerbsarbeit, pp. 50, 246. Also see Caspard, Pierre, “Les pinceleuses d'Estavayer: Stratégies patronales sur le marché du travail féminin au XVIIIe siècle”, Schweizer Zeitschrift für Geschichte, 36 (1986), pp. 121–156Google Scholar; idem, “Gérer sa vie”, pp. 222–226, and Thijs, “Schets”, pp. 157ff.
17 Bleachers were often seasonal workers, see Lucassen, Jan, Migrant Labour in Europe 1600–1900: The Drift to the North Sea (London [etc.], 1987), pp. 83–86Google Scholar; p. 288, n. 79 mentions documents that regarded calico printing as migrant labour (also see following note).
18 Working hours have their own history. It is evident that work was longer in the summer than in the winter, and that more men and women were hired for the summer season than for the morte saison, e.g. at Dambrugge people worked from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the summer (with a break at noon of 1½ hours), but in the winter only engravers and designers plus a few printers worked; their hours were from sunrise to 8 p.m. (two breaks, one of 1½ hours at noon, the other of half an hour in the afternoon), Thijs, Werkwinkel, p. 385. For Antwerp see Thijs, “Schets”, p. 178. The Basel situation is reflected in Ryhiner's manuscript, see Dollfus-Ausset, Matériaux, p. 144. At the Neuchâtel manufactures, people worked in summer from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. (breaks: half an hour in the morning, 1½ hours at noon, sometimes half an hour in the afternoon); Caspard, Pierre, “Die Fabrik auf dem Dorf”, in Puls, Detlev (ed.), Wahrnehmungsformen und Protestverhalten (Frankfurt, 1979), p. 109Google Scholar. At the Jouy works of Oberkampf, the morte saison lasted from November until March; Brédif, Toiles de Jouy, p. 70.
19 See Fischer, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, pp. 242–257, 265ff., also Matis, Herbert, “Über die sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Vernältnisse österreichischer Fabrik- und Manufakturarbeiter um die Wende vom 18. zum 19. Jahrhundert”, Vierteljahreschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 53 (1966), pp. 433–476Google Scholar. Types of wages: though payment by piecework was customary for skilled workers, wages were paid every two weeks. Manoeuvres were mostly paid for time worked, although highly skilled personnel, such as chemists or designers, were hired for a year at a time. Thijs, Werkwinkel, pp. 371, 377, 378: wages for piece-work for designers, engravers, printers, and pinceauteuses at Dambrugge; Lausecker, Silvia, Vor- und frühindustrielle Produktionsformen am Belspiel der Seiden- und Boumwollindustrie in Wien 1740–1848 (Vienna, 1975), pp. 237ff.Google Scholar; annual wages plus extra pay per piece for engravers replaced payment for piece-work, later annual salaries for master printers, always payment by piece-work for journeyman printers; Caspard, “Fabrik”, p. 127 for Neuchâtel: designers, engravers, overseers, chemists received annual salaries, both male and female printers were paid piece-rates, manoeuvres worked by the day. Wage rates for the Haussmann manufacture at Logelbach near Colmar appear in Schmitt, “Les établissements Haussmann”, p. 14 (1780s): dessinateurs, 2000–6000 livres per year; maitres graveurs, 1200–1500 livres per year; imprimeurs, maximum 20 livres per week; manoeuvres, 10 livres per weeks. For wages at Oberkampf's business in Jouy-en-Josas, see Brédif, Toiles de Jouy, pp. 70 and 72; also Chapman and Chassagne, Textile Printers, p. 180. Interesting wage tables in Thijs, Werkwinkel, p. 371 (1779). Troeltsch, Walter, Die Calwer Zeughandlungs-Kompagnie und ihre Arbeiter (Jena, 1897), pp. 230–233Google Scholar gives wages in 1777 for men and women; also interesting are the wages for the revolutionary period at Troyes (1793); see d'Allemagne, Henri-René, La toile imprimée et les indiennes de traite (Paris, 1942), p. 14Google Scholar.
20 In Jouy-en-Josas women accounted for a third to a half of the workforce; their rate of pay was half that of men: Brédif, Toiles de Jouy, p. 72. The standard ratio of wages between men, women, and children was about 4:2:1, see Hofmann, Marie, Die Frauenarbeit in der niederösterreichischen Textilindustrie: Ihre Entwicklung in den ersten 100 Jahren bis 1848 (Vienna, 1940), pp. 49ff.Google Scholar; Otruba, Gustav, “Zur Geschichte der Frauen- und Kinderarbeit im Gewerbe und den Manufakturen Niederösterreichs”, Jahrbuch für Landeskunde von Niederösterreich, 34 (1958–1960), p. 178Google Scholar; Reith, Reinhold, Arbeits- und Lebensweise im städtischen Handwerk: Zur Sozialgeschichte Augsburger Handwerksgesellen im 18. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 1988), p. 155Google Scholar. For nineteenth-century situations, see Heer, Gret and Kern, Urs, “Alltag der Glarner Tuchdruckereiarbeiter im 19. Jahrhundert”, in Arbeitsalltag und Betriebsleben: Zur Geschichte industrieller Arbeits- und Lebensverhältnisse in der Schweiz (Diessenhofen, 1981), p. 105Google Scholar. Women's careers in the calico printing industry were studied by Caspard, “Gérer sa vie”.
21 Factory regulations from Dambrugge in Thijs, Werkwinkel, p. 367. Similar laws from Küpfer's Lörrach calico printing manufacture inHerbster, Karl, Zur Geschichte der Lörracher Tuchindustrie von ihren Anfängen-bis zur Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts (Lörrach, 1926), p. 44Google Scholar. At Jouy-en-Josas, printers formed ateliers, at Neuchâtel, similar printers' structures were called sociétés, while groups of women printers formed boutiques, and pinceauteuses worked in formations called tables; Caspard, “Gérer sa vie”, p. 219.
22 “Since handicraft skill is the foundation of manufacture, and since the mechanism of Manufacture as a whole possesses no objective framework which would be independent of the workers themselves, capital is constantly compelled to wrestle with the insubordination of the workers. […] Hence the complaint that the workers lack discipline runs through the whole of the period of manufacture.”Marx, K., Capital, vol. I, trans. Fowkes, B. (Harmondsworth, 1976), pp. 489–490Google Scholar. Ryhiner's opinion in Dollfus-Ausset, Matériaux, p. 67. On the cost of labour, see e.g. Caspard, “Fabrik auf dem Dorf”, p. 106; Chapman, Stanley David, The Cotton Industry in the Industrial Revolution (London, 1987), p. 47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Sizes of manufactures: in 1805, Jouy-en-Josas had 1021 ouvriers: 3 designers, engravers for copper plates, 40 engravers for wooden blocks, 30 picoteuses, 175 printers (men and women), 190 teerers (both sexes), 10 printers specializing in copperplate printing, d 570 pinceauteuses, Brédif, Josette, Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf et la manufacture de Jouy-en-Josas (Colmar, 1987), pp. 15 and 170Google Scholar. Haussmann employed 400 workers at Logelbach works near Colmar in 1777 and 1,000–1,200 in 1786 (i.e. 125 tables); Schmitt, “Les éstablissements Haussmann”, pp. 15–23. The largest number of employees know of is reported for Schüle's manufacture at Augsburg: 3,500 workers for 1780, 10 per cent of the inhabitants of Augsburg, Waizfelder, Der Augsburger Schüle, p. 111;Schillinger, Ruth, Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung des Stoffdrucks (Cologne, 1964), p. 20CrossRefGoogle Scholar mentions 1,500 workers, which seems more reasonable. Haussmann produced 50,000 printed pieces per year with a workforce of 1,000 people; Schüle printed 70,000 pieces.
23 Smit, W. J., De Katoendrukkerij in Nederland tot 1813 (Rotterdam, 1928), pp. 131ff., 261ff.Google Scholar;Dekker, Rudolf, “Labour Conflicts and Working-Class Culture in Early Modern Holland”, International Review of Social History, 35 (1990), pp. 397–400CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and idem, “De staking van de Amsterdamse kantoendrukkersknechts in 1744”, Textielhistorische Bijdragen, 26 (1986), pp. 24–38. I have to omit some details here and in the Basel case, below.
24 See Dekker as quoted above for these institutions.
25 Simon, Wollt Ihr Euch der Sklaverei kein Ende machen?
26 Translator's note: the area of Basel on the right bank of the Rhine.
27 Caspard, “Estavayer”, p. 146; Caspard, “Fabrik auf dem Dorf”, p. 136; Rudolf Weinhold, “Meister – Gesellen – Manufakturierer: Zur Keramikproduktion und ihren Produzenten in Sachsen und Thüringen zwischen 1750 und 1850”, in idem (ed.) Volksleben zwischen Zunft und Fabrik (Berlin, 1982), p. 210, for example of the day labourers at the wood shop in the Meissen porcelain works. Bake, Frauenerwerbsarbeit, p. 121 wrote about a women's strike in the Metsch batiste manufacture at Stockerau. Other protests by women can be found in the records of the Commission des fabriques de Mulhouse (see my forthcoming book on conflicts in manufactures).
28 In another example from the porcelain manufacture in Meissen, painters went on strike for an allowance for high cost of living in 1761. They were immediately joined by the throwers and the moulders; Weinhold, “Meister”, p. 208. On the other hand, apprentices were forced to join the strikers in the Mosney riot, see Turnbull, History p. 185.
29 Simon, Wollt Ihr Euch der Sklaverei kein Ende machen?, p. 74.
30 For riot'traditions in rural communities, Blickle, Peter, Unruhen in der ständischen Gesellschaft 1300–1800 (Munich, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with bibliography. On workers' organizations other than traditional guilds, see Berg, Age of Manufactures, p. 87; Prothero, Artisans and Politics; Dobson, Masters and Journeymen', Rule, John, The Experience of Labour in Eighteenth Century Industry (London, 1981)Google Scholar, and idem, The Labouring Class in Early Industrial England 1750–1850 (London, 1986). Workers from manufacturing trades got their own guild through Prussian authorities, e.g. master weavers working under a puttingout system, see Krüger, Manufakturwesen, p. 535.
31 Krüger, Manufakturwesen, p. 519; Simon, Wollt Ihr Euch der Sklaverei kein Ende mochen?, p. 55; Rule, Experience of Labour, p. 178; idem, Labouring Classes, p. 261.
32 See, for example, Krüger, Manufakturwesen, p. 516.
33 See Rule, Labouring Classes, p. 263; idem, Experience of Labour, p. 184. In 1786, eleven people signed a letter notifying the proprietors of their solemn oath to set fire to the manufactures in Mosney and Manchester, because cylinder printing machines had been introduced that ruined the “trade” of the journeymen printers; Chapman and Chassagne, European Textile Printers, p. 31.
34 On strikes in the calico printing industry see, besides Simon, Wollt Ihr Euch der Sklaverei kein Ende machen?, and Smit, Katoendrukkerij: Dekker, “Labour Conflicts”; Turnbull, History, p. 184; Dobson, Masters and Journeymen, p. 16 (also his list, p. 164). Contemporary texts seldom used the term “strike”. Rather, they mentioned people walking out of the workshop, or “abandoning their duties”; authorities and entrepreneurs used terms like “riot”, “tumult”, “insurrection”, “mutiny”, “conspiracy”, “combination”. Since 1763, “to strike” entailed “a concerned refusal to work by employees till some grievance is remedied”, Dobson, Masters and Journeymen, p. 19. Dobson showed statistics for labour disputes in London, pp. 42–44 for the years 1718–1800. For the role of traditional workers' organizations in labour conflicts in France, see Sewell, Work and Revolution, p. 32. For England, see Chapman and Chassagne, Textile Printers, p. 98. The modern terms “strike” and “labour movement” were discussed by Tenfelde, Klaus and Volkmann, Heinrich (eds), Streik: Zur Geschichte des Arbeitskampfes in Deutschland während der Industrialisierung (Munich, 1981)Google Scholar. My conception of strike follows the one described by Tenfelde and Volkmann, pp. 13, 17, although I deliberately ignore the context they presupposed. It is not obvious that all artisans' riots in guilds like those in the German Reich should be called strikes, see Elkar, Rainer S. (ed.), Deutsches Handwerk im Spa'tmittelalter undfrilher Neuzeit (Göttingen, 1983), p. 24Google Scholar; Reininghaus, Wilfried, Die Entstehung der Gesellengilden im Spätmittelalter (Wiesbaden, 1981), pp. 1OffGoogle Scholar. for research traditions in this field.
35 Archives d'Etat, Genève, “Minutaire” of the “notaire” Jean-Louis Duby 1760, vol. 4, pp. 26–28, 11 May 1732 (PC 3494).
36 Caspard, “Fabrik”, p. 121.
37 The abundance of examples precludes a detailed quotation. See the notary public records in the Archives d'Etat de Genève. Also see documents from the Cortaillod printing works at the Archives d'Etat de Neuchâtel, Fonds Fabrique Neuve, as well as from the Amsterdam case described above.
38 Brèdif, Toiles de Jouy, p. 70; Schmitt, Jean-Marie, Aux origines de la révolution industrielle en Alsace: Investissements et relations sociales dans la Vallée de St-Amarin an XVIIIe siècle (Strasbourg, 1980), p. 367Google Scholar.
39 Theories of subsistence orientation and leisure preference will not be discussed here. Examples appear in Caspard, “Fabrik”, p. 136. Workers wanted to earn enough during the summer to cover their cost of living during the winter. See, for example, Weinhold, “Meister”, p. 207.
40 The Basel case of 1794 resulted from one of these certificates (see above). The same way of inserting messages into this form was used in Prussia; see Straubel, Rolf, “Bemerkungen zum Verhältnis von Lokalbehörde und Wirtschaftsentwicklung: Das Berliner Seiden- und Baumwollgewerbe in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts”, Jahrbuch für Geschichte, 35 (1987), p. 142Google Scholar. For the introduction of these forms in Prussia (in 1769) and Austria, see Krüger, Manufaktunvesen, p. 280, and Lausecker, Produktionsformen, P. 105. In England, the Great Turnout of the calico printers was caused by the introduction of discharge papers by a group of entrepreneurs in 1790; Turnbull, History, p. 185. A similar agreement between proprietors in Geneva aimed to improve control over workers trying to leave the manufactures before completing their contracts, Archives d'Etat de Gèneve, Commerce A5, Ve registre (1729–1740), pp. 23–27 (16 December 1729). In Nantes, an entrepreneur was fined for engaging a printer without asking for his billet de congé: Roy, Bernard, Une capitate de l'indiennage: Nantes (Nantes, 1948), p. 159Google Scholar. Gellbach, Horst, Arbeitsvertragsrecht der Fabrikarbeiter im 18. Jahrhundert (Münster, 1939), p. 25Google Scholar, viewed the congé as a replacement for similar but verbal practice among artisans, Abdingen.
41 Simon, Wollt Ihr Euch der Sklaverei kein Ende madien?; see also the Ryhiner Manuscript.
42 Women's situation: Berg, Age of Manufactures, pp. 146, 151; Lausecker, Produktionsformen, p. 78; Hoffman, Frauenarbeit, p. 82. Men against women: Chassagne, Serge, La manufacture de toiles imprimées de Tournemine-les-Angers, 1752–1820 (Paris, 1971), p. 266Google Scholar; Roy, Nantes, pp. 176, 204. In Montpellier, skilled workers told the proprietor: “They would prefer to quit rather than to train any apprentice, whether male or female”; proprietors believed the conspirators wore a small dauphin made of silver, Chante, Alain, “L'indiennage à Montpellier au XVIIIe siècle” (Mémoire de maîtrise, Montpellier, 1972), pp. 216, 217Google Scholar. Masters and journeymen against apprentices: complaints about workers refusing to train apprentices were even found in the Dictionnaire des Arts et Métiers (1766), see D'Allemagne, Toile imprimée, p. 12. In Rouen, printers struggled to prevent their bosses from taking on apprentices. Information exists about similar “conspirations” in Orange (1760), Darnétal (1773), Beauvais (1778); Chassagne, Serge, “La naissance de l'industrie cotonnière en France 1760–1840” (Thèse Paris, Lilie, 1986), pp. 236, 242Google Scholar. On outdoor apprentices: Rule, Experience of Labour, pp. 100, 115; Chapman and Chassagne, Textile Printers, p. 95. On limited number of apprentices: Smit, Katoendnikkerij as above, also see Turnbull, History, pp. 186, 189; Krüger, Manufakturwesen, p. 530; Straubel, “Lokalbehörde”, p. 141; Carter, F. W., “The Cotton Printing Industry in Prague 1766–1873”, Textile History, 6 (1975), p. 133CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rule, Experience of Labour, p. 115.
43 See below.
44 Berg, Age of Manufactures, p. 83.
45 For some aspects of this discussion, see Henkel, Martin, Zunftmiβbräuche: “Arbeiterbewegung” im Merkantilismus (Frankfurt, 1989), pp. 10, 57, 140, 147, 314Google Scholar. He attacked authors who believed that workers before the nineteenth century were unable to learn from experience where their interests lay; see Griessinger, Andreas, Das symbolische Kapital der Ehre: Streikbewegungen und kollektives Bewuβtsein deutscher Handwerksgesellen im 18. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt, 1981)Google Scholar. Also see the suggestions of Thompson, E. P., “English Trade Unionism and Other Labour Movements before 1790”, Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, 17 (1968), pp. 19–24Google Scholar.
46 Iselin, Isaak (ed.). Ephemeriden der Menschheit, 12 1776, pp. 34–36Google Scholar, “Freyheit”. Citizens of the Republic can also determine that they are not “slaves” by the following facts: “No shameless citizen of the Republic who has flourished through me and my fellow Swiss citizens derides my judgement, […]. No merciless entrepreneur will take a kreutzer from me before I can provide my children with bread and sustenance, and nobody is allowed to demand a penny from me without any legal right, and he has to provide me with an invoice that we both consider accurate […]. I fear no order that, through abusing the name of our Lord and without indicating a reason, might force me to go where I do not want to go […].” Compare Hof, Ulrich Im, “Basel in Iselins Ephemeriden”, Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde, 91 (1991), pp. 147–158Google Scholar.
47 Simon, Wollt Ihr Euch der Sklaverei kein Ende machen?, pp. 25, 40, 68, 75–77, 83, 103, 109.
48 Simon, Christian, “Die Basler Landschaft und die französische Revolution. Aspekte des Verhältnisses zwischen Obrigkeit und Untertanen 1789–1797”, Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde, 82 (1982), pp. 65–96Google Scholar.
49 For cases in Basel, see Simon, Wollt lhr Euch der Sklaverei kein Ende machen?, pp. 83, 97: “Printing and engraving are crafts that require study. Artisans in these crafts should therefore not be regarded as servants [… ].“ In 1754, calico printing entrepreneur Rosenburger said that his workers should be considered Knecht und Mägd (servants and maids): Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt, Protokolle Ol, 1, p. 37 (10.7.1754). Even in the eighteenth century, honour did not result from work alone, but rather from art or skill, see Sewell, Work and Revolution, p. 23. Where powerful workers' organizations existed, they effectively defined workers' rights at the manufacturers.
50 Sewell, Work and Revolution, p. 13.
51 For migration of journeymen in the Reich (Walz), see Rainer S. Elkar, “Umrisse einer Geschichte der Gesellenwanderungen im Übergang von der Frühen Neuzeit zur Neuzeit”, in idem (ed.), Deutsches Handwerk in Spätmittelalter und früher Neuzeit (Güottingen, 1983), pp. 85–116. For the Compagnonnage in France, see Benoist, Luc, Le compagnonnage et les métiers (Paris, 1966)Google Scholar, and Truant, Cynthia M., “Solidarity and Symbolism Among Journeymen: The Case of Compagnonnage”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 21 (1979), pp. 214–226CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
52 On friendly societies and funds administered by entrepreneurs, see for Peel in Bury, Chapman and Chassagne, Textile Printers, p. 56. In Basel, poor-relief funds were created by order of the city government in 1769 to serve migrant manufacture workers. These funds also provided allowances for journeymen who wanted to leave town after receiving an Abscheid form: Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt, Protokolle 01, 2, pp. 343 (4.12.1794), and Niederlassung A2, p. 76. A box administered by the confraternity of the calico printers is reported for Bern, see Fetscherin, Werner, Beitrag zur Geschichte der Baumwollindustrie im alten Bern (Weinfelden, 1924), pp. 80ffGoogle Scholar. and Schneider, Hedwig, Die bernische Industrieund Handelspolitik im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Zurich, 1937), p. 100Google Scholar. For Orange, see Chobaut, “Avignon et Orange”, p. 151, and Chassagne, Naissance, p. 241. Also see Rule, Labouring Classes, p. 262; Dollfus-Ausset, Matériaux, p. 199; Chapman and Chassagne, Textile Printers, p. 122.
53 Schüle's father was a nailsmith and the proprietor of an ironworks shop. He used to work the fairs with his son and one of the merchants Schüle met there hired his son as an apprentice. After this training, Schüle became a merchant and later an entrepreneur with his own putting-out business (Verlag) and eventually proprietor of his world-famous calico printing manufacture in Augsburg; see Waizfelder, Schüle, p. 68.
Oberkampf was the son of a German dyer who later became the proprietor of a small calico printing shop near Lenzburg. He moved with his father to Basel, from where he went to Lörrach alone, and later to Paris via Mulhouse. In Paris, Oberkampf' knowledge was important to a capitalist who founded a calico printing business at the moment this branch was legalized after a long ban, see Tuchscherer, Jean-Michel, “La Manufacture Royale de Jouy-en-Josas”, Bulletin de la Socété Industrielle de Mulhouse, 761, no. IV (1975), p. 22Google Scholar.
Jean Haussmann was from a family of physicians and chemists. He became the apprentice of a merchant, worked as a clerk for Schüle, borrowed money from an Augsburg banker, and started his own calico printing business, see Schmitt, “Lès établissements Haussmann”, pp. 13–21.
J.-H. Dollfus was a painter who traded linen fabrics until he founded the first calico printing manufacture at Mulhouse with Schmalzer and Koechlin in 1746. His associates were capitalists from leading families of the town, see Tuchscherer, Jean-Michel, “Les dèbuts de l'impression sur étoffes à Mulhouse”, Bulletin Trimestriel de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 761, no. IV (1975), pp. 17–20Google Scholar.
54 Chassagne, Tournemine; idem, “Les ouvriers en indiennes de l'agglomération rouennaise 1760–1860”, in Travail, métiers et professions en Normandie (Nogent-sur-Marne, 1984), pp. 125–139; Chassagne, , La France d'Ancien Régime. Etudes réunies en l'honneur de Pierre Coubert, vol. I (Toulouse, 1984), pp. 119–128Google Scholar; Chassagne, , Dewerpe, Alain and Gaulupeau, Yves, “Les ouvriers de la manufacture de toiles imprimées d'Oberkampf à Jouy-en-Josas 1760–1815”, Le Mouvement Social, 97 (1976), pp. 39–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In 1989, I was told he had accumulated all the necessary material, except for German-speaking Alsace.
55 Schmidt, Révolution industrielle.
56 Prothero, Artisans and Politics, p. 332, emphasized the switch from the concept of orders to a discourse in terms of the unequal exchange between workers and merchants from 1820 to 1840.
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