- Email: [email protected]
Introduction: Family enterprises and family life
History of the Family 6 (2001) 143 ± 145
Introduction: Family enterprises and family life Tamara K. Hareven, Andrejs Plakans* Department of History, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA
Among the questions in the field of family history that require more systematic attention is the complex interaction between families and the small-scale economic institutions in which their members were engaged. Earlier groundbreaking research paid most attention to what might be called the ``large'' aspects of the question: what happened to the family in periods of transition between agricultural and industrial±capitalist economies, how families adjusted to having to earn their living in work-sites in urban areas, how patterns of family demography were affected by the need to adapt to new work requirements. Such research underlined the undeniable importance of the economic and social forces that bore down on the family and carried it along, in a sense establishing the broad concerns family members individually and collectively needed to have in order to survive. Broad concerns translated into family strategies and different courses of action, both of which families needed to engage with larger economic changes and to become actors or agents in their own right. Family strategies Ð a research topic on which much works has already been done Ð meant the creation of plans to respond to economic opportunities and constraints to the family's advantage. Family strategies involved economic plans and choices, but were usually mitigated by cultural priorities as well. In certain situations, this was accomplished through small-scale entrepreneurship, as families established business ventures that supplemented their incomes or came to yield the primary family income. Sometimes, such ventures were innovative, sometimes they replicated on a reduced scale larger forms of business organization that had been invented earlier. The vocabulary used by historians to describe these family-based enterprises suggests their scope of economic action: ``workshop,'' ``retail,'' ``proto-industrial,'' ``artisan,'' ``home-based.'' Smallness often meant vulnerability to competitive forces and to restrictions on individual action, but it did not necessarily
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-515-292-9538; fax: +1-515-292-6045. E-mail address: [email protected]. 1081-602X/01/$ ± see front matter D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII: S 1 0 8 1 - 6 0 2 X ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 6 5 - 3
144
T.K. Hareven, A. Plakans / History of the Family 6 (2001) 143±145
lead to subordination or failure. Smallness, however, did require strategic thinking of a most intricate kind Ð how to overcome intrusive governmental prohibitions and regulations, find promising markets, allocate labor within the family group, cope with the vagaries of business cycles, and keep alive networks for continuity and success. The articles in this special issue explore various aspects of small-scale family-based entrepreneurship historically, and, comparatively in present day society. The theme of these case studies has to do with fine-grained planning, calculation, combination, and strategic thinking. Ulrich Pfister demonstrates in his portrayal of small textile entrepreneurs in the Zurich region of Switzerland in the 17th and 18th centuries how the earnings from innovative combinations of home-based economic activities were converted to proto-industrial capital. Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux's account of pre-industrial textile production in Rheims, France, at the end of the 18th century reveals how home-based weavers coped with irregular demand and shifting market forces by using family networks in and out of the city to sustain continuity in family enterprises. The next four articles have as their context the 19th century, which brought to Europe macroeconomic changes Ð seemingly unstoppable industrialization in its western and central regions and a flagging estate-based agricultural economy in the east Ð and, correspondingly, new challenges to small-scale enterprise. Josef Ehmer shows in his discussion of the artisans of 19th-century Vienna (Austria) that a dichotomous view of family adaptation, pitting a ``traditional'' against a ``modern'' family, is an oversimplification. A more precise portrayal requires understanding how the survival strategies of artisan families used kinship networks and guild relationships. Similar adaptive strategies could be found in mid-19th century Barcelona (Spain), as discussed by Juanjo Romero-Marin. Here, artisan guild networks, family ties, as well as master-artisan relationships were transformed into useful connections in an era of rapid industrial and political change. Tom Ericsson's examination of the involvement of unmarried women in the retail trades in three Swedish towns shows the adaptability of older family survival strategies, but also notes the need for ways of handling new concerns of status maintenance and a new sense of emancipation. By contrast with these rapidly changing microeconomic contexts, Andrejs Plakans describes how in the Russian Baltic provinces small-scale entrepreneurship of all kinds was blocked and discouraged by an economy based in landed estates until the very last decades of the 19th century. The final two articles deal with the late 20th century, by which time the European economy had changed dramatically and had introduced new problems to small-scale entrepreneurship. As Michael Blim shows in his discussion of the Marche region of Italy, considerable economic growth and differentiation created new opportunities for small enterprise but did not solve the problem of just labor allocation within the family. Women have continued to bear the double burden of work inside and outside the home. This question, and others concerning the workings of male- and female-headed enterprises, are carried to a world stage by Rae Lesser Blumberg's comparative article based on field studies (and interviews) of family-based microenterprises in Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Swaziland, and Guinea-Bissau. As her article makes very clear, the question of gender differentiation in the engagement of the family in microenterprises is supremely important.
T.K. Hareven, A. Plakans / History of the Family 6 (2001) 143±145
145
The provenance of the articles in this special issue is varied. Earlier versions were presented at a conference at the University of Delaware and at a session in a meeting of the Social Science History Association in New Orleans, and arrived through the normal submissions process of the Quarterly. Collectively, the articles demonstrate clearly the continuing need for additional historical and contemporary evidence about how the family Ð a small, adaptable, and versatile network Ð generated, sustained, and used business enterprises and entrepreneurial activities tailored to its own needs and capabilities. This is one worthy task, among others, for the future decades of the field.
Introduction: Family enterprises and family life Tamara K. Hareven, Andrejs Plakans* Department of History, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA
Among the questions in the field of family history that require more systematic attention is the complex interaction between families and the small-scale economic institutions in which their members were engaged. Earlier groundbreaking research paid most attention to what might be called the ``large'' aspects of the question: what happened to the family in periods of transition between agricultural and industrial±capitalist economies, how families adjusted to having to earn their living in work-sites in urban areas, how patterns of family demography were affected by the need to adapt to new work requirements. Such research underlined the undeniable importance of the economic and social forces that bore down on the family and carried it along, in a sense establishing the broad concerns family members individually and collectively needed to have in order to survive. Broad concerns translated into family strategies and different courses of action, both of which families needed to engage with larger economic changes and to become actors or agents in their own right. Family strategies Ð a research topic on which much works has already been done Ð meant the creation of plans to respond to economic opportunities and constraints to the family's advantage. Family strategies involved economic plans and choices, but were usually mitigated by cultural priorities as well. In certain situations, this was accomplished through small-scale entrepreneurship, as families established business ventures that supplemented their incomes or came to yield the primary family income. Sometimes, such ventures were innovative, sometimes they replicated on a reduced scale larger forms of business organization that had been invented earlier. The vocabulary used by historians to describe these family-based enterprises suggests their scope of economic action: ``workshop,'' ``retail,'' ``proto-industrial,'' ``artisan,'' ``home-based.'' Smallness often meant vulnerability to competitive forces and to restrictions on individual action, but it did not necessarily
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-515-292-9538; fax: +1-515-292-6045. E-mail address: [email protected]. 1081-602X/01/$ ± see front matter D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII: S 1 0 8 1 - 6 0 2 X ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 6 5 - 3
144
T.K. Hareven, A. Plakans / History of the Family 6 (2001) 143±145
lead to subordination or failure. Smallness, however, did require strategic thinking of a most intricate kind Ð how to overcome intrusive governmental prohibitions and regulations, find promising markets, allocate labor within the family group, cope with the vagaries of business cycles, and keep alive networks for continuity and success. The articles in this special issue explore various aspects of small-scale family-based entrepreneurship historically, and, comparatively in present day society. The theme of these case studies has to do with fine-grained planning, calculation, combination, and strategic thinking. Ulrich Pfister demonstrates in his portrayal of small textile entrepreneurs in the Zurich region of Switzerland in the 17th and 18th centuries how the earnings from innovative combinations of home-based economic activities were converted to proto-industrial capital. Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux's account of pre-industrial textile production in Rheims, France, at the end of the 18th century reveals how home-based weavers coped with irregular demand and shifting market forces by using family networks in and out of the city to sustain continuity in family enterprises. The next four articles have as their context the 19th century, which brought to Europe macroeconomic changes Ð seemingly unstoppable industrialization in its western and central regions and a flagging estate-based agricultural economy in the east Ð and, correspondingly, new challenges to small-scale enterprise. Josef Ehmer shows in his discussion of the artisans of 19th-century Vienna (Austria) that a dichotomous view of family adaptation, pitting a ``traditional'' against a ``modern'' family, is an oversimplification. A more precise portrayal requires understanding how the survival strategies of artisan families used kinship networks and guild relationships. Similar adaptive strategies could be found in mid-19th century Barcelona (Spain), as discussed by Juanjo Romero-Marin. Here, artisan guild networks, family ties, as well as master-artisan relationships were transformed into useful connections in an era of rapid industrial and political change. Tom Ericsson's examination of the involvement of unmarried women in the retail trades in three Swedish towns shows the adaptability of older family survival strategies, but also notes the need for ways of handling new concerns of status maintenance and a new sense of emancipation. By contrast with these rapidly changing microeconomic contexts, Andrejs Plakans describes how in the Russian Baltic provinces small-scale entrepreneurship of all kinds was blocked and discouraged by an economy based in landed estates until the very last decades of the 19th century. The final two articles deal with the late 20th century, by which time the European economy had changed dramatically and had introduced new problems to small-scale entrepreneurship. As Michael Blim shows in his discussion of the Marche region of Italy, considerable economic growth and differentiation created new opportunities for small enterprise but did not solve the problem of just labor allocation within the family. Women have continued to bear the double burden of work inside and outside the home. This question, and others concerning the workings of male- and female-headed enterprises, are carried to a world stage by Rae Lesser Blumberg's comparative article based on field studies (and interviews) of family-based microenterprises in Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Swaziland, and Guinea-Bissau. As her article makes very clear, the question of gender differentiation in the engagement of the family in microenterprises is supremely important.
T.K. Hareven, A. Plakans / History of the Family 6 (2001) 143±145
145
The provenance of the articles in this special issue is varied. Earlier versions were presented at a conference at the University of Delaware and at a session in a meeting of the Social Science History Association in New Orleans, and arrived through the normal submissions process of the Quarterly. Collectively, the articles demonstrate clearly the continuing need for additional historical and contemporary evidence about how the family Ð a small, adaptable, and versatile network Ð generated, sustained, and used business enterprises and entrepreneurial activities tailored to its own needs and capabilities. This is one worthy task, among others, for the future decades of the field.