Search

This article discusses the role of rural domestic industry in Bohemia, Czech Republic in the eighteenth century. Historical research in many countries has generally emphasized the importance of domestic industry and of the putting-out system--a system whose beginnings can be discerned as early as the fourteenth century. For instance in Bohemia that in 1600 there were in the town of Frydlant 59 looms, but in the rural area of its domain in 1601 the number was 199. In Liberec in 1601 the town numbered 27 looms, the rural domain 78, rising to 184 by 1618. Such towns were not exceptional. In addition it should be emphasized that linen production in Bohemia always relied on a division of labor between village spinners and urban weavers. As early as the second half of the sixteenth century, Bohemian linen was sold to the great German merchant houses at Nuremberg and other cities. And fairly soon Dutchmen and Englishmen joined in. This development lasted throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In fact domestic industry and the putting-out system played the most important part in the production of industrial goods in eighteenth-century Bohemia, especially in the production of linen, less so in wool, cotton, and glass. This is certainly due to the very high quality of Bohemian flax, which for centuries had been processed within the country.

Economist Joseph Alois Schwnpeter was born at Triesch in Moravia on February 3, 1883. His father was a textile manufacturer and his mother, Joan Marguerite, daughter of Julius Gruener, a physician in Wiener-Neustadt. He was their only child. Nothing more is known for certain about his forbears. His physical appearance, inherited from his father, suggests a mixed ancestry. He once toyed with the idea that the name Schumpeter came from Italy, but he could find no evidence to support it. As far as we know, the Schumpter tree flowered luxuriantly only once. Now it is extinct. His father died when Schumpeter was four years old. The young widow, then only twenty-six married Sigismund von Kebler, lieutenant-general in the Austro-Hungarian army, seven years later. Without doubt, his mother was the most important personal influence in Schumpeter's life. She was handsome, talented and ambitious for her son. His devotion to her continued without diminution or disillusion not only to the end of her life but to the end of his. His career in Egypt was cut short by the onset of Malta fever. He returned to Vienna in 1909 and in the same year accepted a professorship in economics at the University of Czernowitz. Although he found the life of that city to his liking, he considered most of his academic colleagues dull and provincial whatever their merits in their particular fields. His stern self-discipline required him to grade every day for his intellectual performance. The poorer days received a grade of zero and the best, one. And from the daily grades he built up to assessments of the weeks, the months and the years. His standards were such that he hardly ever satisfied himself.

Suggests a method and some terminology that might be applicable for studies on the geographic and political boundaries of the Upper Silesia region, which is part of the great border belt between Germans and Slavs. Natural defense boundaries; Boundaries marked in nature; Boundaries based on areas similar in landscape features.

The article discusses the attitude of Czechoslovak Foreign Minister, Eduard Beneš towards Locarno treaties, the resulting German proposal, through some unpublished documents. The German proposal aims to detach France from Poland and other allies of which Czech was one. Beneš was not unduly bothered by the proposal but was reasonably trusting in French policy. German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann welcomed Beneš' readiness to conclude an arbitration treaty with Germany.

Examines the growth and spread of coal-mining in Upper Silesia and Northern Moravia, Czech Republic. Structure of the coal basin; Quality and amount of coal; Pattern of political boundaries imposed in the area; Geographical expansion of mining.