Richard Schüller, Die Schuhmacherei in Wien

Richard Schüller’s research essay, originally published in 1896 as part of a larger collection, examines Viennese shoemaking through the competition among bespoke craft production, merchant-organized outwork, and mechanized factories. Its four sections move from production methods and competitive advantages to historical development, working conditions, and policy. The central argument is that industrial change cannot be explained by machinery or business size alone: retail organization, consumer requirements, and unequal labor conditions determine which forms prosper. Improving workers’ circumstances is therefore also essential to sustaining independent craftspeople.

Schüller opens with concrete descriptions of a bespoke workshop, a ready-made shoe shop supplied by independent piece masters, and a factory serving more than seventy outlets. These scenes distinguish commercial organization from production technique. The ready-made trade, or Konfektion, generally uses the same hand processes as bespoke shoemaking; its innovation lies in coordinating dispersed producers and reaching customers through shops. Factories introduce machinery and specialized operations, but their retail establishments resemble those of the outwork merchants. Schüller’s governing criterion is consequently broader than technical productivity:

Entscheidend für die Konkurrenzfähigkeit jeder Betriebsform ist das Verhältnis zwischen Bedürfnisbefriedigung und Preis, das sie den Konsumenten verschafft.

English translation: Decisive for the competitiveness of each form of enterprise is the relationship between satisfaction of needs and price that it provides consumers.

“Need satisfaction” encompasses both product quality and adaptation to the buyer: fit, style, convenience, and speed. Hand-produced bespoke and ready-made shoes can be equally good, whereas machine-made shoes still sacrifice some elasticity and elegance. Yet extensive inventories can fit most customers as effectively as individual measurement, while permitting immediate inspection and use. Selection thus becomes a competitive productive capacity. Its effectiveness depends on urban concentration: only sufficient turnover makes a comprehensive stock profitable. Bespoke work retains indispensable fields in unusual or diseased feet, the finest luxury footwear, and repairs.

Je kleiner ein Ort ist, desto wichtiger werden die Relationen, in denen die Kundenschuhmacherei der Konfektion und der Fabrik überlegen ist.

English translation: The smaller a locality is, the more important become the circumstances in which bespoke shoemaking is superior to the ready-made trade and the factory.

The survival of craft production is therefore geographically and socially conditioned, not simply a measure of technological backwardness. Schüller also resists treating cheapness as proof of efficiency. The lowest-priced shops combine inferior materials with extreme pressure on outworkers. Better ready-made merchants incur substantial hand-labor and distribution costs, yet remain competitive through low wages and long hours. Factories save on materials and labor, but selling to the final consumer absorbs part of those savings. Schüller criticizes calculations that omit distribution costs and exaggerate machine productivity. Bespoke shoes are often only moderately dearer than comparable ready-made products.

The historical section tests this account against guild records, tax returns, occupational censuses, and commercial reports. Schüller repeatedly qualifies their comparability: home workers disappear from some enumerations, formally independent taxpayers may actually work for merchants, and registration changes can produce fictitious growth. He rejects official export figures whose sudden increases reflect altered reporting rather than actual expansion. His reconstruction nevertheless identifies a broad trajectory: export growth in the 1850s and 1860s drew workers into the trade, followed after 1870 by contracting markets, foreign competition, and tariff barriers. Employment continued growing despite the export decline, creating severe pressure on earnings.

This history complicates a straightforward narrative of factory displacement. Mechanized factories remained a small part of Viennese production, while merchant-organized outwork occupied a much larger share. Bespoke shoemaking lost relative importance but could still expand absolutely as consumption increased. Its prospects depend on changing tastes, settlement patterns, and the gradual overcoming of consumer habits and investors’ reluctance to commit capital. Schüller’s forecasts remain conditional: greater differentiation of demand could enlarge the space for craft production even alongside large enterprises.

The investigation of labor gives the competitive analysis its sharpest social meaning. Wage books, workshop visits, and household observations reveal the difference between nominal weekly rates and insecure annual earnings. Even a comparatively favorable merchant enterprise combines tolerable workshop conditions with home workers laboring fourteen or fifteen hours for inadequate incomes. Elsewhere, overcrowding, unpaid apprentices, deductions for board, and exceptionally prolonged working days compound deprivation. Factories offer relatively better conditions because insurance, inspection, and protective legislation apply more effectively, although their conditions remain unsatisfactory.

Die Lage der Heimarbeiter des Verlages ist die Hauptursache der in der Wiener Schuhwarenerzeugung bestehenden traurigen Verhältnisse.

English translation: The situation of the putting-out system’s home workers is the principal cause of the distressing conditions prevailing in Viennese footwear production.

Outwork reproduces exploitation through subcontracting: workers employing assistants seek large orders, accept lower piece rates, and pass reductions downward. Their isolation weakens resistance. These conditions obstruct factory development while depressing the livelihoods of competing craftspeople. Schüller thus distinguishes legitimate advantages—machinery, purchasing economies, and extensive inventories—from advantages sustained by deprivation.

Die Hebung der Lage der gesamten Arbeiterschaft ist vielmehr die unerläßliche Vorbedingung und das wichtigste Mittel zur Hebung des Handwerkes.

English translation: Improving the situation of the entire workforce is, rather, the indispensable prerequisite and the most important means of improving the position of the handicraft trade.

His policy program follows this connection. Insurance and labor protection should extend to outwork and craft workshops, with responsibility placed on merchants rather than dispersed households. Housing reform and workers’ organization must supplement regulation. He also proposes reserving bespoke orders and repairs for bespoke shoemakers, preventing large retailers from extracting intermediary profits in these fields, and supporting craft cooperatives, potentially through public credit. The essay’s lasting analytical force lies in joining consumer benefits to labor institutions: large-scale enterprise has genuine advantages, but its development need not preserve every exploitative practice accompanying it. Craft policy must distinguish those processes rather than oppose modernization indiscriminately.