Deutsche Geschichte: Urzeit und Mittelalter

Cost of living in German towns

Bibliographic data

Multivolume work

Identifikator:: 1892063557

Document type:: Multivolume work

Author:: Lamprecht, Karl http://d-nb.info/gnd/118569015

Title:: Deutsche Geschichte

Place of publication:: Berlin

Publisher:: Gaertner

Year of publication:: 1891-

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Volume

Identifikator:: 1892064405

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-236566

Document type:: Volume

Author:: Lamprecht, Karl http://d-nb.info/gnd/118569015

Title:: Urzeit und Mittelalter

Volume count:: Abt. 1

Place of publication:: Freiburg im Breisgau

Publisher:: Heyfelder

Year of publication:: 1904

Scope:: XVII, 411 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Multivolume work

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Fünftes Buch

Collection:: Economics Books

MANNHEIM. 385 A large number of working men live at a distance from their employment, and in the interest of these the municipal authorities issue cheap “ workmen’s tickets ” available on certain of the tramway routes. Books of 50 coupons, each available for one journey, are sold for 2s. 6d., so that the holder can for less than 1 id. a day travel to and from his work, however far away his home may be. These tickets are issued only to bona-fide workpeople with an income not exceeding £60 a year, and they may not be used on Sundays and festivals. During 1905 nearly nine-and-a-half million persons were carried on the three principal industrial routes. Labour organisations are numerous, powerful, and active in Mannheim. They are of three kinds, the so-called “ Free” organisations, which are Social Democratic, and which claim to have an aggregate membership of 12,000 ; the “ Christian ” organisations, which are in the main Roman Catholic ; and the Hirsch-Duncker organisations, which here carry on a vigorous propaganda. One effect of persistent organisation is seen in the multiplicity of the wages agreements which have been concluded in Mannheim during the past decade, especially in the building trades, which are now entirely regulated by formal wages compacts extending over a series of years. The earliest agreements of the kind were those of the printers, bookbinders, and a section of the corn- millers, concluded in 1896. Then followed the carpenters’ agreement in 1897 ; the glaziers, warehouse labourers, and potters obtained “tariffs” in 1898, and the shoemakers in 1899. With the beginning of the new century the “ tariff” movement made immediate and rapid progress, and by the year 1905 no fewer than 19 trade unions, representing 1,459 separate undertakings, both large and small, and 5,902 workpeople had secured agreements fixing wages, hours, and other conditions of employment, while a minimum wage had been obtained in 1,387 concerns having 5,330 workpeople. Many of these wages agreements were only concluded after a struggle conducted with great tenacity on both sides, and so recently as 1905 of 27 strikes of all kinds which occurred at Mannheim, nine had for their object the conclusion of wages agreements, though the object sought was only obtained in six cases. While a comparatively small proportion of the industrial workpeople of Mannheim are women (about 15 per cent.), employment is offered to a very large number of women and girls by miscellaneous occupations, some of them followed in the home. Amongst these are the sorting of coffee beans and wool, tobacco stripping, saffron plucking, sack mending, cardboard box making, the plaiting of horsehair work, corset sewing, the painting and putting together of dolls, &c. The earnings thus gained are small in comparison to the time occupied, for the home worker often sits at her task until far into the night, since the time spared from domestic duty is all she can give to this extra task, but they are a welcome addition to her husband’s wages. Mannheim may be counted as one of the most thriving of German industrial towns, and the standard of wages is in some trades relatively high, yet even here may be observed on a large scale the competition of women of the poorer class for the unconsidered odds and ends of employment which factory returns do not recognise and factory laws do not regulate. Sack mending is one of the meaner home occupations of poor women in Mannheim. The women fetch the torn sacks from the warehouses in perambulators or light handcarts, with scraps of material for patching, and by renovating 150 to 250 a week can earn, at the rate of three or four pfennige (§(/. to 4d ) per sack, from 45. 6<i. to 10s. As a rule, it is the wives of outdoor workers, coal carriers, and other seasonal labourers who are so employed. The delivery of the daily newspapers from house to house is another occupation that falls almost exclusively to women and big girls, not merely in Mannheim, but in German towns generally, for the employment of children on the streets is severely restricted. The German newspaper is virtually published by subscription, for the sale in shops and public places is comparatively small. The copies subscribed for—by the week, month, or quarter, as the case may be— are delivered in town at an inclusive subscription price, and for distributing the two editions each day the “ newspaper-woman ” (Zeitungsfrau) receives 15 to 20 pfennige (1§<Y. to 2£d.) per copy and month. Should she carry out 150 copies each day, her earnings may amount to from 22s. 6d. to 30s. per month.

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Cost of living in German towns

Multivolume work

Volume

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation