Workhouse and penitentiary
The factory and prison in Hamburg existed from 1618 to 1842 on Zuchthausstrasse near Alstertor , north of the horse market, today's Gerhart-Hauptmann-Platz , next to the spinning house , which was inaugurated in 1669 . The house was set up on the initiative of the Hamburg citizenship as a place of accommodation for social marginalized groups and was used to accommodate beggars and vagabonds , but also, for example, people who were admitted on the initiative of their relatives. The reason could be wasteful or dissolute lifestyle . Until the establishment of a general poor institution in 1788 and its reform efforts , it was the most important institution of the Hamburg poor system . The house was under collegial administration , a college set up for this purpose .
The idea behind the establishment of the workshop and penitentiary was that the inmates should earn their living through forced labor , integrated into a system of discipline and punishment, instead of receiving alms . Work equipment was, for example, a treadmill used to crush hemp fibers that were needed for linen weaving , or the rasping of colored wood for dyeing textiles. Other activities were linen weaving itself, tailoring , cobbler , spinning , winding and sewing work .
Punishment of the lazy: they should watch from a hoisted basket how the industrious are eating their food. Engraving by William Hogarth, around 1760
Treadmill and colored wood rasps in the factory and prison, Hamburg, 1710
The house burned down in 1666 and was rebuilt in 1670. In 1726 2,500 people were housed in the factory and prison, that was 3 percent of the Hamburg population at the time. In 1727 the Armenkontor also moved in , an administrative office that was also supposed to provide work for poor people who were not housed in the house. From the end of the 18th century, the city increasingly used the facility for the penal system . With a prison reform in 1811, during the French occupation of Hamburg, the prison for housing the prisoners was separated from the work house and poor house . Both departments remained in the same building. In 1816, the Kurhaus was also added to a building for the care of the sick. In the great fire of 1842, the factory and penitentiary also fell victim to the fire. A new work and poor house was built on the Finkenau in Hamburg-Uhlenhorst , at that time in front of the city gates; it remained under the prison administration until 1893.
literature
- Dirk Brietzke : The beginnings of modern social policy and training to work hard. On the importance of the factory and prison for the reforms of the Hamburg poor system in the 18th century. In: Communications of the Hamburg Working Group for Regional History (HAR) 30 (1997), pp. 38–46.
Individual evidence
- ^ Franklin Kopitzsch , Daniel Tilgner (ed.): Hamburg Lexikon. 3rd, updated edition. Ellert & Richter, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-8319-0179-1 , p. 752.
- ^ Care and Living: History ( Memento from May 9, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on June 6, 2016
- ^ Finding aid for the State Archives (PDF; 27 kB), accessed on January 1, 2012
Coordinates: 53 ° 33 ′ 8.3 " N , 9 ° 59 ′ 48.3" E