!!!Manufaktur

Manufaktur (from English "manufacture"; derived from the Latin word 
"manus" = hand; made by hand), German name for an early form of 
capitalist industrial enterprise. The emergence of "manufactures", 
which were particularly prevalent in the field of textiles production 
in Austria during the 17%%sup th/%  and 18%%sup th/%  centuries, was 
partly influenced by  Mercantilism. Parts of the work (spinning and 
weaving) were done by outworkers, while the employees of the 
manufacture were in charge of the preparation of the yarn and the 
spools, the dyeing of the cloth and the final stages of production. 
Machines played only a minor role in the production process. Around 
1780 the wool clothing manufacture, which had been founded in the town 
of Linz in 1672, employed 800 factory workers, as well as 40,000 
outworkers resident in Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Styria and 
Bohemia. Similarly to the manufacture at Sassin (Saštin, 
Slovakia), the chintz and cotton manufacture set up at Schwechat in 
1724, was granted an "exclusive privilege" until 1764. In 1752 it 
employed 494 factory workers, 5,000 outworkers who lived nearby, as 
well as 20,000 outworkers resident in the northern parts of the 
Waldviertel (one of the four main regions of Lower Austria). The most 
important cotton manufactures of the Habsburg lands, as well as the 
residential areas of their outworkers, were to be found in Lower 
Austria (at Fridau, St. Poelten, Kettenhof bei Schwechat and 
Enns-Himberg), an area in which several dozens of smaller manufactures 
were also established. Textiles produced on a large scale were at 
first made of lamb´s wool, then of cotton. The English invention 
of the automatic spinning machine at the beginning of the 19%%sup th/% 
 century heralded the end of the era of manufactures. Only a few 
manufactures kept up business. They were active in the fields of metal 
processing (needles at  Lichtenwoerth), mirror production (from 1701 
at Neuhaus, Lower Austria) and china production (since 1718 in 
Vienna).

!Literature
G. Otruba, Zur Geschichte der Frauen- und Kinderarbeit im 
Gewerbe und in den Manufakturen Niederoesterreichs, in: Jahrbuch fuer 
Landeskunde von Niederoesterreich 34, 1960; E. Bruckmueller, 
Handel und Gewerbe zur Zeit Josephs II., in: Oesterreich zur Zeit 
Kaiser Josephs II., exhibition catalogue, Melk 1980.


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