The Instrumentalization of Bürgerlichkeit: Associations and the Middle Class in Hallein, Austria from the Nineteenth to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

The history of associations has a close connection with the history of the middle class. The development of a civil, middle-class society in Germany and Austria during the nineteenth century was based on associations.2 Associations were founded voluntarily in order to manage tasks that could not be done by the individual because these tasks required more funds or more intellectual power than any one individual could provide.3 These associations were found in many spheres: culture as well as history, leisure activities, economic or social targets and the political realm. All were involved in organizing urban society.