Sleepers

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Share of Berlin apartments with sleepers

Sleepers (also bed-goers , sleepers or sleep-girls ; plural also sleepers ) were people who rented a bed for a small fee only for a few hours a day while the apartment owner did not need the sleeping place. The reason for this was the very scarce and therefore expensive living space at the time of industrialization , which could not accommodate all rural refugees .

The late lodger of Heinrich Zille

As sleepers, shift workers , for example, could sleep during the day for a small fee while the regular householder went about his work. Sleepers usually had no family connection, were not allowed to use the remaining rooms, such as the kitchen or the “ living room ”, and, unlike sub-tenants , did not receive breakfast.

The sleepers contributed to the further deterioration of the housing situation, as they disrupted the family and the intimate relationship of the householders. In addition, hygienic problems arose , which promoted the spread of epidemics , syphilis , tuberculosis and scabies . However, they were necessary to finance the apartments because the family income was often too low to finance an apartment themselves. In some places one's own bed was even rented to two different sleepers.

Statistically speaking, there were many more people sleeping in smaller apartments than in larger ones, since smaller apartments were more likely to give up a place to sleep than an entire room.

The widespread use of sleepers is shown by the example of Berlin: In 1880, 32,289 households (15.3%) offered accommodation for a total of 59,087 sleepers. By 1900 the number of households (including the suburbs of Berlin) had risen to 72,445 and the number of sleepers to 114,158 (84,235 sleep boys and 29,923 sleep girls).

“This social damage to housing has been greatly increased by the sleeping population. [...] In 1895 79435 people were counted in Berlin, 19836 in Dresden and 19101 in Leipzig. In some cases the same bed was used by two or even three people every eight hours within 24 hours without being able to get cold for a moment. "

- Friedrich H. Lorentz

term

The phenomenon was still unknown at the end of the 18th century (i.e. before the beginning of industrialization) because the term sleepwalker was only used synonymously for sleepwalker .

literature

  • Hannah Ahlheim: The dream of sleep in the 20th century. Knowledge, optimization fantasies and resistance . Wallstein, Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-8353-3247-8
  • Johannes Altenrath: The sleeper system and its reform. Statistics, dormitory supervision, single homes with special consideration of the female dormitory system . Berlin 1916 (including dissertation, University of Halle, 1916)
  • FJ Brüggemeier , L. Niethammer : Sleepers, schnapps casinos and heavy industrial colony. In: Jürgen Reulecke , Wolfhard Weber (Ed.): Factory - Family - After work. Contributions to social history in the industrial age. Wuppertal 1978, pp. 135-175, ISBN 3-87294-122-4 .
  • J. Ehmer: Living without your own apartment. In: Lutz Niethammer (Hrsg.): Wohnen im Wandel. Wuppertal 1979, pp. 132-150, ISBN 3-87294-142-9 .
  • Johann Friedrich Geist , Klaus Kürvers : The Berlin apartment building . Three volumes. Munich 1980–1989
  • Ralf Zünder: From a single home to a student residence on Danckelmannstrasse . Berlin (Studentenwerk Berlin) 1990.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Geist, Kürvers: The Berlin tenement house. Volume 2.Table on page 469
  2. a b Meyer's Large Conversation Lexicon . 6th edition. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1909 ( zeno.org [accessed on May 7, 2019] Lexicon entry "Schlafstelle").
  3. ^ Society between the 1830s and 1870s. Retrieved March 21, 2017 .
  4. ^ Friedrich H. Lorentz: The hygiene of the modern times . In: Kurt Krause (Ed.): The new adult education center . Library for modern intellectual education. tape 4 . Publishing house E. G. Weimann, Leipzig 1925, p. 50 .
  5. Johann Christoph Adelung : Grammatical-critical dictionary of the High German dialect . 2nd Edition. Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf and Compagnie , Leipzig 1793 ( zeno.org [accessed on May 7, 2019] lexicon entry "Sleeper").