Stefan Gorißen. Vom Handelshaus zum Unternehmen: Sozialgeschichte der Firma Harkort im Zeitalter der Protoindustrie (1720-1820). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002. 456 S. EUR 59.00 (paper), ISBN 978-3-525-35686-9.

Reviewed by Caroline Fohlin (Department of Economics and Institute for Applied Economics and the Study of Business Enterprise, Johns Hopkins University)
Published on H-German (November, 2005)

Industrialization used to be thought of as something revolutionary, a process that occurred in great spurts or waves. Likewise, economic historians commonly considered these processes as national phenomena, for which researchers would characterize differences among but not within countries. Over the past two or three decades, however, both of these conceptual frameworks have gradually disintegrated, as scholars have come to appreciate continuities across both time and space. Still, most studies of industrialization follow national boundaries. And even scholars who recognize the more gradual nature of industrial development continue to enumerate Industrial Revolutions (we are usually deemed to currently be experiencing the third such revolution). Historiographical issues such as these set the stage for Stefan Gorißen's study of the firm Harkort and its transition from commercial house to industrial producer as well as its place within the social, political, and economic development of what would become one of Germany's key industrial regions. In size and renown, the name Harkort itself perhaps ranks behind its more famous industrial counterparts, such as Krupp. Yet, as a window into the broader process of institutional transformation during protoindustrialization--from commodity-based commercial trade to industrial economy--this firm provides a more relevant and informative case. And as an extended family over multiple generations, the Harkorts offer rich insights into numerous facets of German social history of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Gorißen begins with an overview of Germany's economic, business, and political development over the eighteenth century, with particular emphasis on the iron industry of the Grafschaft Mark. Roughly bounded by Essen and Elberfeld in the west, by Dortmund and Hamm in the North, and by Lüdenscheid in the south, the area today comprises the eastern end of the greater Ruhr region. The Harkort family's estate sat along the Ennepe River, in an area dotted with metal working establishments.[1] These Hammerwerke--themselves reliant upon the river for power--provided the chief products for the Harkorts' initial line of business in trading. Gorißen chronicles the development of the industry, with attention not just to the technological change and vertical integration in the production processes, but to the evolving business forms, input conditions (labor and raw materials), and product markets as well. If politics and law influence business forms and functions now, they certainly did in the context of proto-industrial Germany, and for this reason, Gorißen takes the reader through Prussia's political and legal history as it relates particularly to the iron industry of the western provinces. While these sections provide additional context within which to understand the Harkort case study, the reader may feel as though this chapter wanders into less relevant territory unnecessarily.

The core of the study appears in chapter 3. Here Gorißen details the family Harkort and its ever expanding influence, in part via well-chosen intermarriage with other prominent families. Such Heiratspolitik integrated the Harkorts into the regional network of business elites and aided their accumulation of substantial human and social capital with which to further their business pursuits (p. 168). While the archival materials are lacking in quality and consistency up to 1720, they are sufficient after that point to permit a reasonably continuous and thorough recounting of the family's business activities for much of the subsequent century. In details of the family's accounting books and correspondence, Gorißen finds evidence of the capital structure of the firm, as well as its changing business forms and strategies. Through these ledgers and letters, he tracks the Harkorts' businesses, most of all the export of metal wares that constituted the essential source of income to the family firm, and he traces the destinations and product mix over the period of study. In doing so, Gorißen attempts to elucidate more general patterns of development in inter-regional (including international) trade and also to connect the development of markets and transactions costs, often through communication and transportation infrastructure improvements, with the evolution of the firm and its decisions on expanding in scale and scope. Wrapped up in both the trading and producing areas of the business were financing problems and opportunities, and Gorißen's attention to these issues offers new insights into the mobilization of capital--and the emergence of financial intermediaries of varying levels of specialization--that is seen as so central to the period of rapid industrialization that started shortly after the endpoint of this study. Not to miss any facet of the Harkorts' business, Gorißen also briefly covers the agricultural pursuits of the family firm, which in turn led to the processing and sale of their products (lime, mill products, for example), as well as the textile trade and coal mining that made up smaller proportions of the family's overall income.

The next chapter returns to the broader level, investigating the living standards of small metal workers in nearby Wetter and the Enneperstrasse. Though the chapter is not altogether irrelevant, the connection with the Harkort case study is loose, and the conclusions permissible from the data are rather weak. From here, Gorißen shifts to the bigger if more nebulous questions surrounding the emergence of the capitalist mindset and self-concept among businessmen of the proto-industrial era. The Harkort ledgers emerge once again as key evidence, as their lack of double-entry accounting methods evince--at least according to Sombart's way of thinking--a lack of rational, capitalist mentality. Moreover, the family's correspondence reveals a lack of liberal market-orientation, as laid out in detailed discussions on tax policies and government involvement (or interference) with market functioning. The reader may feel the urge to take this analysis a bit lightly: did all of Germany lag in the type of human capital development on which full-blown industrialization hinged, or were the Harkorts just backward thinkers and sloppy bookkeepers? To be fair, Gorißen does acknowledge the limits of the analysis. And also, there is utility in the exercise, if primarily to raise a number of questions about the social and cultural sides of economic development that usually get short shrift in the economic history literature, especially that of the economists' stripe.

The Harkort case study stands on its own as a major contribution to business, economic, and social history. The fine-grained portrait of this family and its businesses offers an unusually informative, micro-scale view into the workings of the German economy during the lead-up to industrialization. Whether it can be used on its own to draw strong conclusions on the pace and course of the larger-scale transformation of Germany and its regions from commercial trade to industrial production is less certain. This book will probably appeal more to specialists in the area of early industrial development, especially those interested in the Ruhr area and metal working. But energetic general readers will find the book useful and informative as well. And while it is not intended to be, and is not, a cliometric study, the author has unearthed reams of data that could form the basis for future statistically-based analysis that would appeal to additional audiences. Additionally, the thirty page (small font) bibliography provides a great starting point for researchers interested in pursuing their own studies of proto-industrialization in the Ruhr or elsewhere.

Note

[1]. The Harkort house remains a tourist attraction, along the Industriekultur-Route: <http://www.route-industriekultur.de/routen/09/09_37.htm >.

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Citation: Caroline Fohlin. Review of Gorißen, Stefan, Vom Handelshaus zum Unternehmen: Sozialgeschichte der Firma Harkort im Zeitalter der Protoindustrie (1720-1820). H-German, H-Net Reviews. November, 2005.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11243

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