A Social History of the Working-Class Movement in Southwestern Saxony, c. 1845 to 1905.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Rudolf Boch
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2017 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 355579263

We propose a historical research project on the Social Democratic workers' movement in southwestern Saxony between the 1840s and the 1900s. Southwestern Saxony, comprising the six Reichstag constituencies of Freiberg, Chemnitz, Glauchau, Zwickau, Stollberg and Mittweida, was the early stronghold of German Social Democracy: Most of the party's seats in national elections were won in this region in the 1860s and 70s. It is therefore quite remarkable and an obvious desideratum that a monographic study on the 19th century working-class movement in southwestern Saxony has yet to be written. A characteristic socio-economic feature of the Chemnitz-Zwickau-Glauchau area in the 19th century was the long persistence of decentralized systems of production in the export trades typical of the region (especially textiles), which brought about class structures shaped by market relations between a mass of (at least formally) independent small producers and an elite of merchant-manufacturers. In which way could we relate these social and economic constellations to the regional labour movement's visions of a future society, its strategies of industrial and political action, its forms of organisation or the social and cultural (self-) definition of its leaders, activists and followers? In this respect it is particularly interesting whether the political outlook, practices or forms of association of the early workers' movement in southwestern Saxony embraced basic principles of civil society - in the sense of a society based on the association of free and equal citizens. May we, moreover, connect the emergence of a labour movement in southwestern Saxony in the 1860s to programmatic, discursive, habitual or personal continuities to the 1848 revolutionary movement? Was there, on the other hand, in the course of the spreading of the factory system and of repressive state legisation during the later 19th century a re-orientation of the Social Democratic movement at its southwestern Saxon grass roots? Methodically, the project is based on an agency-oriented perspective on social group formation. It is especially inspired by Bruno Latour's sociological concept of analysing a society's fabric by a re-drawing of associations as well as his stress on the discursive construction of social groups and classes by the actors respectively their speakers themselves. We focus on fields of local and regional interaction and discourse: local politics and local government, election campaigns, associational life and civic commitment, co-operative economic self-help and industrial conflict.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Susanne Schötz