ABSTRACT
In Elberfeld and Barmen—the twin cities on the Wupper River—there developed an extraordinarily varied textile industry, one in which a miscellany of goods was manufactured by 1867 in an economic environment that featured an unusually complex mixture of domestic and modern factory stages of production. Industry there owed its inception to the presence of calcium compounds in local streams of sufficient strength to bleach cloth. Sources differ as to whether Elberfeld-Barmen cottage industry weavers had gardens as did their country counterparts. Wolfgang Kollmann says they did and that many raised a few sheep, pigs, or goats. Even the large master braiders remained in what was formally a cottage-industry stage of production. Though many had large complements of workers, they took commissions from merchant-manufacturers or factory owners and produced items for “wages.” Like the production of braids and cords, ribbon weaving concentrated considerably in the 1870s.
