ABSTRACT
The city of Dusseldorf industrialized later than the urban centers in the Ruhr. Even before industrialization, however, it was an important local center. As a trading hub on the Rhine, the former capital of the Duchy of Berg, and then that of the district that bore its name, it had a population of 22,634 in 1816. Despite its more rapid growth, Oberbilk did not have very much more crowded housing than Dusseldorf as a whole, at least in 1867. The Landkreis of Dusseldorf was even less industrialized than the city, though the few factories it did have were larger on the average. Its most important industry was textiles. With large proportions of the taxpayers earning such low incomes, it would seem likely that in many working class families the wives and children of the principal breadwinner had to work.
