Women as Merchants in Eighteenth-Century Northern Germany: The Case of Stralsund, 1750–1830

1995 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel A. Rabuzzi

The purpose of this paper is to bring to our attention the important role of women in wholesale international commerce in eighteenth century northern Germany, using examples from Stralsund as a case study. (Stralsund, a port-city formerly in the Hanse, was at that time the capital of Swedish Pomerania and had a population, including garrison, of some 14,000 around 1800; it was an economic center of regional importance, specializing in the production of malt and the export of grain to Sweden and Western Europe). After sketching a social and economic profile of Stralsund's female merchants ca. 1750–1830, I will discuss the crucial issue of control, i.e., to what extent and how these women were able to operate independently within a political and legal system that favored men. In my conclusion, I suggest that women left, or were forced out of, the wholesale trade around 1850 as a result of political changes and a shift in the meaning of the concept of Bürger, rather than as a result of industrialization or market expansion. Throughout, I consider whether my observations about female merchants in Stralsund have any wider validity by comparing them with research on the commerce of other ports in Northern Europe and in North America.

Author(s):  
Brian Walker

This article looks at the role of religion in politics. Northern Ireland provides not only a good case study for this issue but also an opportunity to see how the subject has been approached in academic literature over the last forty years. It is argued here that religion can be a modern day, independent factor of considerable influence in politics. This has been important not only in Northern Ireland but also elsewhere in Western Europe in the twentieth century. This reality has been largely ignored until recently, partly because the situation in Northern Ireland has often been studied in a limited comparative context, and partly because of restrictive intellectual assumptions about the role of religion in politics.


2019 ◽  
pp. 133-150
Author(s):  
Katherine Parker

An informative example of the conscious act of naval hero-making are the commemorative medals struck in 1768 by the brother of George Anson. Anson had died in 1762, so these medals were not only a memorial to his life, but also a deliberate attempt to control his legacy. What the medals include, and omit, offers a fascinating opportunity to examine what some thought worthy of commemoration in eighteenth-century British culture. This chapter uses the medals as a prism through which to examine the interconnections between naval careers, material culture, and the process of commemoration. In addition, the paper offers a revaluation of the historiographical role of exploration in the eighteenth century and re-positions exploration as an explicitly naval activity in the British context.


Author(s):  
Gershon David Hundert

This chapter investigates the conditions in Jewish society in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the middle decades of the eighteenth century. The place of hasidism in the religious history of the eighteenth century ought to be reconsidered not only in light of the questions about the schismatic groups in the Orthodox Church raised by Ysander, but also in light of the general revivalist currents in western Europe. The social historian cannot explain hasidism, which belongs to the context of the development of the east European religious mentality in the eighteenth century. Social history does, however, point to some significant questions that ought to be explored further. One of these is the role of youth and generational conflict in the beginnings of the movement, and not only in its beginnings. A realistic recovery of the situation of the Polish-Lithuanian Jewry in the eighteenth century shows that neither the economic nor the security conditions were such as to warrant their use as causal or explanatory factors in the rise and reception of hasidism.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-321
Author(s):  
Dimitrios K. Lamprakis

The Ottoman eighteenth century is a period of decentralisation dominated by the emergence of peripheral semi-autonomous lords. This period is also marked by the spread of tax farming (iltizam), especially lifelong malikane contracts. This article is a case study of these two phenomena, through examination of the activities of minor/secondary notables in a remote corner of Ottoman Macedonia, namely the town of Serfice (today Servia, in Greek Macedonia), their relationship with the Giray dynasty ruling over the Tatar khanate of Crimea, who were in their own right the traditional patrimonial beneficiaries of the hasses of Serfice, and the role of the Ottoman administration operating as an efficient power broker. It also examines the role of the Giray dynasty in bestowals of timar grants on beneficiaries, in an era in which the timar system is described in the available bibliography as either moribund or completely defunct.


1965 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
William I. Roberts

In contrast to older views of the passive role of London houses in the American trade, the active influence of a leading English merchant on the business decision-making of his colonial counterparts emerges from this case study.


ARTis ON ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 67-77
Author(s):  
Shir Kochavi

A diplomatic gift in the form of a Hanukkah Lamp, given to President Harry Truman by the Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion in 1951 was selected for this occasion by museum personnel from the Bezalel Museum in Jerusalem and the Jewish Museum in New York. Based on primary sources found in archives in Israel and in the United States, this case study investigates the process of objects exchange between two museums, orchestrated on the basis of an existing collegial relationship, and illustrates how the Hanukkah Lamp becomes more than itself and signifies both the history of the Jewish people and the mutual obligations between the two nations. Drawing on the theories of Marcel Mauss, Arjun Appadurai, and Igor Kopytoff on the notion of the gift, the article highlights the layers of meanings attributed to a gifted object.


2020 ◽  
pp. 112-123
Author(s):  
Subrena E. Smith

Anna Morandi was the foremost anatomist in eighteenth-century Bologna. Although her work was widely recognized as exceptional by the scientists of her day, she was not granted the standing of a scientist. In this chapter, the author uses Morandi as a case study to illuminate aspects of the philosophy of science. In particular, the chapter addresses conceptions of scientific objectivity and the role of social values in science, drawing on the work of Helen Longino. In addition to the phenomena described by Longino, the author argues that social values enter into science and impact scientific research by determining how individuals are positioned in scientific communities, or excluded from them.


2020 ◽  
pp. 163-192
Author(s):  
Olga Sánchez-Kisielewska

This chapter explores the role of a musical pattern, the Romanesca schema, as a signifier of spiritual meanings in opera. It addresses the relationship between the Romanesca and the hymn topic and argues that the schema, semantically empty in its origins, acquired in the late eighteenth century connotations of ceremony, solemnity, alterity, and even transcendence. Several vignettes from operas by Haydn and Mozart illustrate how composers deployed the pattern in scenes depicting worship, prayers, and ritual actions. Beethoven’s Fidelio occupies the final section, a case study that shows the Romanesca interacting with other elements of the musical structure for expressive purposes. The chapter provides a novel interpretation of certain moments of the opera, suggesting that Beethoven relied on the sacred implications of the Romanesca—arguably available to historical listeners—to intensify the spiritual dimension of the drama.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 105-118
Author(s):  
María J. Andrade ◽  
João Pedro Costa ◽  
Eduardo Jiménez-Morales ◽  
Jonathan Ruiz-Jaramillo

The relationships Malaga has established with its port have changed over the centuries, conjuring up a variety of scenarios and circumstances. The past and present are closely linked phenomena in this case study where the porosity of the port‐city fabric has marked the city’s development and constitutes a key issue in the current and future challenges it faces. Malaga provides a particularly interesting example of a post‐industrial city that has reopened its port to its inhabitants’ acclaim while maintaining port activity. However, the growth tourism has seen in recent years has come to dominate the local economy. Cruise ships have taken on a significant role and have brought about important changes in the dynamics and flows between the port and the city, unsettling the balance between the two. This profile explores port‐city development through the lens of boundaries and flows, demonstrating how their dynamics have determined Malaga’s spatial, functional, and social development over time and how they continue to do so to this day. This article reviews the transformations the city has undergone and its future opportunities to achieve a balanced and sustainable port‐city relationship.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 234-260
Author(s):  
Jared Ross Hardesty

Abstract This essay argues that the “slave community” paradigm obfuscates alternative lived experiences for enslaved men and women, especially those living in the urban areas of the early modern Atlantic world, and uses eighteenth-century Boston as a case study. A bustling Atlantic port city where slaves comprised between ten and fifteen percent of the population, Boston provides an important counterpoint. Slaves were a minority of residents, lived in households with few other people of African descent, worked with laborers from across the socio-economic spectrum, and had near constant interaction with their masters. Moreover, slavery in Boston reached its zenith before the American Revolution, meaning older, pre-revolutionary and early modern notions of social order—hierarchy, deference, and dependence—structured their society and everyday lives. These factors imbricated enslaved Bostonians in the broader society. Boston’s slaves inhabited multiple “social worlds” where they fostered a rich tapestry of relations and forms of resistance.


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