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Results in, and there may be ambiguity here.
It’s from an 1858 petition written by a Catholic teacher to a Calvinist industrialist, asking for a new Catholic church in Mulhouse, Alsace.
Distraction from news: research thread on why I think this ambiguity was intentional
1/ https://twitter.com/History_Will/status/1258691519277604865
It’s from an 1858 petition written by a Catholic teacher to a Calvinist industrialist, asking for a new Catholic church in Mulhouse, Alsace.
Distraction from news: research thread on why I think this ambiguity was intentional
1/ https://twitter.com/History_Will/status/1258691519277604865
CONTEXT
At the start of the French Revolution, Alsace had a population of around 710,000:
500,000 Catholics
190,000 Protestants (incl. 18,000 Calvinists)
20,000 Jews
Around 6,000 of the Calvinists were in Mulhouse, an independent city republic in the midst of French Alsace
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At the start of the French Revolution, Alsace had a population of around 710,000:
500,000 Catholics
190,000 Protestants (incl. 18,000 Calvinists)
20,000 Jews
Around 6,000 of the Calvinists were in Mulhouse, an independent city republic in the midst of French Alsace
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Mulhouse’s Calvinist elite voted to join France in 1798 to expand their textile factories.
Catholic workers flooded into the city, reaching parity by mid-1830s and vastly outnumbering Protestants by the 1850s.
Money and power, however, remained with the same old families
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Catholic workers flooded into the city, reaching parity by mid-1830s and vastly outnumbering Protestants by the 1850s.
Money and power, however, remained with the same old families
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Calvinism and independence remained core to elite identity through the century.
A new sub-prefect posted to Mulhouse in 1857 wrote:
“This town is a vast factory, the owners of which belong, in their hearts, their minds and their language, to a foreign and Protestant race”
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A new sub-prefect posted to Mulhouse in 1857 wrote:
“This town is a vast factory, the owners of which belong, in their hearts, their minds and their language, to a foreign and Protestant race”
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The Calvinist elite families – the Dollfus, Kœchlin, Schlumberger – not only ran the textile factories, but also dominated local government.
They engaged in vast schemes of paternalism and philanthropy for the city’s workers, including constructing schools and crêches.
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They engaged in vast schemes of paternalism and philanthropy for the city’s workers, including constructing schools and crêches.
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The most famous of their paternalism were the cités ouvrières: a housing scheme pioneered by Jean Dollfus from 1853, to transform ‘prolétaire’ into ‘propriétaire’ through healthy houses, gardens, and homeownership.
(Read more @FrenchHistoryUK: https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/crx096
)
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(Read more @FrenchHistoryUK: https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/crx096
)6/
