A Herman Ottó Múzeum Évkönyve 28-29. (1991)

NÉMETH Györgyi: Manufaktúrák Magyarországon az 1780-as években és az ipari tájkép formálása

ON SOME MANUFACTURES OF HUNGARY IN THE 1780s IN RELATION TO THE INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPE According to the general view of historians it was in the 1780s that the industrial revolution really started in England. But in the history of Hungarian industry the 1780s are known as the period when manufactures were most flourishing. The specific theme of the seventh international conference of TICCIH held in Brussels in 1990 „Technology, organization of labour and the shaping of the industrial landscape" provides a useful aspect for the investigation of the industrial production exceeding feudal level in the 1780s. Unfortunately we can analyze iron metallurgy, textile, paper and glass industry only with the concept of the conference in mind because the archival sources do not contain enough data for the study of leather, chemical, agricultural and minor industries. There are also excellent monographies written only on the history of textile manufactures, iron metallurgy, paper- and glass-making in Hungary. Investigation of the conditions of the four industries in the 1780s from the given aspect makes it possible to draw conclusions in respect of both the history of economics and the forming of environment. As regards the industrial development of the period certain common features can be observed independent from the fact whether a manufacture or a workshop on the border of feudal and capitalistic production is under discussion. There was a considerable progress in technology and in equipments but it was not overall. Bad technical circumstances, the use of old methods, the want of modern tools and machines were also characteristic. The number of the workers highly increased but skilled workers were missing so foreign workers were employed on a large scale. For all that this period meant a significant step towards the formation of capitalistic industry in Hungary though the industries in question were on different level of development. But the significance of the 1780s does not lie in this fact alone. With the help of the conference it was revealed that not only buildings e. g. the cloth manufacture at Apatin, the filature at Óbuda bűt also whole settlements came into being e. g. at Ómassa, Hámor, Ötházhuta which owed their existence solely to the industrial development of the age. But it resulted from the characteristics of this development that the buildings were not always suitable or were in poor condition just like roads which were few. So the industrial landscape was a true picture of the state of Hungarian industry at the end of the 18th century. Györgyi Németh