Marienthal textile factory

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Gramatneusiedl, Marienthal, former workers' house Theresienmühle (around 1980)
Gramatneusiedl, Marienthal, Laden-Mühle area around 1980 (right of Fischa center : area of ​​the market town of Reisenberg , Baden district )

The Marienthal textile factory was an industrial company in the Lower Austrian market town of Gramatneusiedl in the 19th and 20th centuries. The factory gave the Marienthal district its name. It was only after its closure in 1930 that the company achieved international fame through the sociological study Die Arbeitslosen von Marienthal .

history

The company was founded in 1826. The retired police superintendent Leopold Pausinger and his partner Franz Xaver Wurm bought the existing Theresienmühle in 1819 and set up the privately owned flax and tow spinning factory in Marienthal . The name Marienthal was first mentioned in January 1823. In 1827 the company had to be closed again due to financial problems.

A second attempt was made by the banker and philanthropist Hermann Todesco , who bought the disused factory. He had the old Theresienmühle torn down and built a new factory building in 1833. In 1835, 286 people worked in the Marienthal cotton spinning and woolen goods factory . In 1833, Todesco also had a factory school built, which was closed again in 1885. In 1844 Todesco founded a children's institution , a preliminary form of the kindergarten . This existed in a form adapted to the respective time until 1970.

In 1843 the number of employees was reduced to 140 (including 22 children). After Hermann Todesco's death in 1844, Todesco's son, Max , took over the company. He had a spinning mill, a carding mill and a weaving mill built on the site of the shop-mill (across the road to Reisenberg) . The factory building from 1833 - a spacious three-storey building consisting of three wings - was converted into a workers 'residence and another workers' residence was built. This was the beginning of the Marienthal workers' colony.

The opening of the Vienna-Raaber Bahn to Bruck an der Leitha in 1846 had a positive effect on the company's development. In 1858 1,000 people were employed. In that year the two brothers Eduard and Moritz von Todesco took over the company. The company grew steadily and in 1864 merged with the Trumau cotton spinning mill to form the Marienthaler and Trumauer Actien-Spinn-Fabriks-Gesellschaft , later Actien-Gesellschaft der cotton spinning, weaving, bleaching, finishing, dyeing and printing works in Trumau and Marienthal . In the same year, a workers' consumption association and a factory hospital with a swimming pool were built for the employees .

In 1925 the majority of the shares were taken over by the United Austrian Textile Industry Mautner Aktiengesellschaft from Isidor Mautner . In 1929 the plant employed around 1,300 people. Due to the global economic crisis in 1929, the plant had to close on February 12, 1930.

In the following years Marie Jahoda , Paul Lazarsfeld and Hans Zeisel carried out a research project on the effects of long-term unemployment in the workers' settlement. The study Die Arbeitslosen von Marienthal , published in 1933, is one of the classics of empirical sociology .

Successor company

In 1934, Kurt Sonnenschein, whose factory in Unterwaltersdorf fell victim to a fire in 1933 , reopened the company. It was entered in the commercial register in Mariental as the Frommenger mechanical weaving and sizing company Kurt Sonnenschein and equipped with a completely new machine park. The workforce grew slowly again to 130 employees in 1938.

After the Anschluss , the plant was “ Aryanized ” and became the property of Fritz Ries , who sold it back to Adolf Ahlers in 1941. Due to the war, however, the tailoring shop had to be closed in 1943.

On April 2, 1945, shortly before the liberation of Gramatneusiedl by the Red Army , members of the German Wehrmacht burned down almost the entire complex. The repair work on the destroyed looms was started in the summer, so that a makeshift operation could be started in 1946. In 1950 around 100 people were employed again. In 1953 the company was restituted to the Sonnenschein family . Colored laundry was again produced in the factory, as it was before the war, but also tire fabrics for the Semperit company in Traiskirchen .

However, the company was short-lived. After five years, the company had to be closed again in 1958. The next owner was Justinian Karolyi, who set up a silk weaving mill on the premises. However, this company only survived for a short time. March 31, 1961 was the actual end of the Marienthal textile factory .

museum

Replica of the former Consumverein branch, now a museum

The museum is located in a close-to-the-original replica (2009) of the Arbeiter-Consum-Verein building from 1864, which was demolished in 2008. It deals with the factory and workers' colony from 1820 to 1930, with the study Die Arbeitslosen von Marienthal and their authors, with the history of the place according to the study to this day and with Marienthal's working-class culture, entrepreneurial culture, the world of work, work and unemployment.

literature

  • Herbert Matis: The manufactory and early factory in the quarter under the Vienna Woods. An investigation into the beginnings of large-scale companies from the age of mercantilism to 1848 . Part 3: The manufactories and factories according to the individual branches of production . Dissertation. University of Vienna, Vienna 1965.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Gustav Otruba : Industrial Topography of Lower Austria from the Age of Mercantilism to the First World War . The economic and social development of Lower Austria from the industrial revolution to the present, Volume 3. Vienna 1956, Permalink Österreichischer Bibliothekenverbund , p. 114.
  2. ^ Matis: Manufaktur , 3rd T., p. 333.
  3. ↑ Small chronicle of Gramatneusiedl, Marienthal and Neu-Reisenberg . In: agso.uni-graz.at , accessed on September 15, 2010.
  4. ↑ a b Matis: Manufaktur , 3rd T., p. 317.
  5. ↑ Kurt Sonnenschein textile factory . In: agso.uni-graz.at , accessed on September 15, 2010.
  6. ↑ The museum Marienthal. Kulturverein Museum Marienthal-Gramatneusiedl, February 2013, accessed on April 25, 2017 .
  7. ^ Museum Marienthal. In: Museum Management Lower Austria. Retrieved April 25, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Permalink Austrian Library Association .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Behind and on the group of trees: former Consumverein branch. - Building complex demolished in 2008.

Web links

Commons : Marienthal  - collection of images, videos and audio files