1 Mendels, Franklin F., ‘Proto-Industrialization: the first phase of the industrialization process?’, Journal of Economic History 32 (03, 1972), 241–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 For a recent summary of arguments and trends in the discussion, see Clarkson, L. A., Proto-industrialization: the first phase of industrialization? (Houndmills etc., 1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Medick, Hans, ‘The proto-industrual family economy: the structural function of household and family during the transition from peasant society to industrial capitalism’, Social History 2 (1976), 305.Google Scholar

4 The most famous test of Medick's theory is to be found in Levine, David, ‘The demographic implications of rural industrialization: a family reconstitution study of Shepshed, Leicestershire, 1600–1851’, Social History 2 (1976), 177–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 See, for example, de Vries, Jan, The Dutch rural economy in the Golden Age, 1500–1700 (New Haven and London, 1974)Google Scholar, and Israel, Jonathan I., Dutch primacy in world trade, 1585–1740 (Oxford, 1989).Google Scholar

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7 Mendels, Franklin F., ‘Industrialization and population pressure in eighteenth-century Flanders’, (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1970), published under the same title in New York, 1981Google Scholar; Mendels, , ‘Proto-industrialization’.Google Scholar

8 Mokyr, Joel, ‘The industrial revolution in the Low Countries in the first half of the nineteenth century: a comparative case study’, Journal of Economic History, 34 (1974), 365–89, 370–1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Griffiths, , Industrial retardation, 187.Google Scholar

10 Sucher van Bath, B. H., in his impressive study of the rural society of Overijssel from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century (Een samenleving ander spanning. Geschiedenis van het platteland in Overijssel (Assen, 1957; repr. Utrecht, 1977))Google Scholar, is a notable exception. Although his study appeared too early to form part of the discussion on proto-industrialization, he combines changes in the economic structure of the province with changes in demography and social structure. It is a very rich source of facts and figures which, however, lacks analytical sharpness.

11 Janssens, A. A. P. O., ‘Family and social change. The household as process in an industrializing context, Tilburg 1840–1920’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Nijmegen, 1991)Google Scholar; the same author, ‘Huishoudens en produktie. Thuiswevers en fabrieksarbeiders in Tilburg in de negentiende eeuw’, in van den Brink, G. J. M., van der Veen, A. M. D. and van der Woude, A. M. eds., Werk, kerk en bed in Brabant. Demografische ontwikkelingen in oostelijk Noord-Brabant 1700–1920 ('s-Hertogenbosch, 1989), 145–66Google Scholar; van der Heijden, C. G. W. P., ‘Gezin en huishouden in Oost-Brabant, 1850–1900. Een aanzet tot beeldvorming’, in van den Brink, Werk, kerk en bed, 131–44Google Scholar; Klep, P. M. M., ‘Over de achteruitgang van de Noordbrabantse huisnijverheid, 1810–1920’, in Brabants Heem 39 (1987), 79–94.Google Scholar

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13 De Jonge, , Industrialisatie, 82–5, 19.Google Scholar The total workforce amounted to 1,250,108 people in 1849. The nearly 98,000 people employed in textile industries consisted of 43,503 people employed in cloth production (spinning, weaving and finishing), representing 3.5 per cent of the total workforce, and 54,104 employed in tailoring (4.3 per cent of the total workforce).

14 De Jonge, , Industrialisatie, 82–5; 19.Google Scholar A more precise estimate of the numbers of people involved in domestic industries cannot be given since sources on such vital data as employment figures and the labour participation of women and children are unavailable. This gap in the sources has seriously hindered research in this direction.

15 Rensen, G., ‘Arbeid in een veranderingsproces van bevolking, landbouw en industrie in Twente, 1750–1900’ (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Nijmegen, 1984), 152–3.Google Scholar

16 Klep, , ‘Noordbrabantse huisnijverheid’, 86.Google Scholar

17 De Jonge, , Industrialisatie, 19.Google Scholar

18 Shoemaking should undoubtedly be counted among the crafts. And in the example mentioned (the area of the Langstraat in Noord-Brabant), it was indeed organized as a domestic mass-production system. However, if proto-industry is considered as an industry that is relatively capital-extensive and labour-intensive (Mendels, , ‘Proto-industrialization’, 243)Google Scholar, then shoemaking has a questionable status among the classic examples of proto-industry. Although it was labour-intensive, it also took a considerable investment to start a business of one's own as a shoemaker, especially if (as was often the case in the nineteenth century) it was combined with a tannery. The investment involved not so much tools and equipment but rather the stock of raw materials, in this case hides. On the other hand, well into the twentieth century the industry remained dependent on a pool of domestic labourers (mainly women and children) to do the finishing. See de Jonge, , Industrialisatie, 68–81.Google Scholar

19 Posthumus, N. W. and Zaalberg, G. J. P. eds., Onderzoekingen naar de toestanden in de Nederlandse huisindustrie, 3 vols. ('s-Gravenhage, 1912–1914).Google Scholar

20 Levine, for example, found for Shepshed in 1812 more than 1,000 knitting frames among a population of just over 3,000. Textile production in Twente never reached this level of intensity.

21 Full-time employment is the employment that would be reached in a situation where the total production of the area would be produced by full-time weavers only. Total employment is larger than full-time employment because, weaving being to a large extent a by-employment, the total volume of, for example, cotton, was partly produced by part-time weavers. Thus, the total number of people working in weaving has to be larger than the production allows for under the assumption that only full-time weavers are employed. For estimates of both full-time and total employment, see Figure 4 and n. 49, below.

22 van Zanden, J. L., ‘De opkomst van een eigenerfde boerenklasse in Overijssel, 1750–1830’, A. A. G. Bijdragen 24 (1984), 105–30.Google Scholar

23 It is not clear whether this reorientation should be interpreted as a movement toward regional specialization, as was suggested in Mendels' model of proto-industrialization. I have not yet established whether there was any significant economic relationship between Salland, Vollenhove and Twente. Another point is that the commercialization of agriculture in Salland and Vollenhove took place during a period of recession in the Twente textiles industry.

24 van Bath, Slicher, Samenleving, 203.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., 201.

26 Schütten, G. J., Varen waar geen water is. Reconstructie van een verdwenen wereld. Geschiedenes van de scheepvaart ten oosten van de Ijssel van 1300 tot 1930 (Hengelo, 1981), 13.Google Scholar

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28 Roessingh, H. J., ‘Landbouw in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, 1650–1815’, Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, vol. 8 (Haarlem, 1979), 14–72, 45.Google Scholar

29 The land which peasants did possess was needed for arable farming, and it was far too valuable to be used as grazing land for their cattle. On the other hand, they needed fertilizer, which consisted primarily of organic manure until the introduction of artificial fertilizer in the late nineteenth century. They were therefore forced to keep some cattle, which by custom could be grazed on the commons. This allowed the poorer peasnts to maintain their small landholdings in spite of the structural weakness of the arrangement. On the other hand, the same structural weakness also affected in large measure those farmers who possessed more land. In the end, they too were subjected to the vicious circle of constant fertilizer shortages, lack of proper pastures and therefore poor crops which gave a surplus only in good years. But they had at least the advantage that they were able to market their surpluses and derive some profit from the land, whereas peasants and cottars could only hope to provide for their own subsistence.

30 van Bath, Slicher, Samenleving, 13Google Scholar; Schütten, , Varen waar geen water is, 17–18.Google Scholar

31 von Bönnighausen, Freiherr, Ueber die Tremisene Roggenwirtschaft (Berlin, 1820), 89.Google Scholar Quoted in Schütten, , Varen waar geen water is, 18.Google Scholar

32 van Bath, B. H. Slicher, De agrarische geschiedenis van West-Europa 500–1850 (Utrecht and Antwerp, 1980), 67.Google Scholar

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38 The first initiatives towards the dissolution of the marken originated in circles of (mostly urban) intellectuals. From the second half of the eighteenth century, several plans were presented to break up the marken in order to increase the productivity of the land. However, these initiatives failed because they did not take into consideration the specific, entangled nature of the agricultural system in the eastern, sandy areas. See Demoed, , Mandegoed schandegoed, 23–44.Google Scholar

39 Rensen, , ‘Arbeid’, 266.Google Scholar

40 See e.g. Kellenbenz, H., ‘Rural industries in the west from the end of the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century’, in Earle, P. ed., Essays in European economic history 1500–1800 (Oxford, 1974), 45–88.Google Scholar

41 In 1636 in Ootmarsum, and in 1641 in Enschede. See Boot, J. A. P. G. and Blonk, A., Van smiet-tot snelspoel. De opkomst van de Twents-Gelderse textielindustrie in het begin van de 19de eeuw (Hengelo, 1957), 13.Google Scholar

42 Boot, and Blonk, , Van smiet- tot snelspoel, 13.Google Scholar

43 Schüren, , Staat, 13.Google Scholar

44 Boot, and Blonk, , Van smiet- tot snelspoel, 12.Google Scholar They also mention exports to Antwerp and Lisbon. Similarly, during the eighteenth century exports to Britain are mentioned. See van bath, Slicher, Samenleving, 202.Google Scholar

45 van Bath, Slicher, Samenleving, 204.Google Scholar

46 Boot, and Blonk, , Van smiet- tot snelspoel, 121–9.Google Scholar On the technique of the flying shuttle, see Bohnsack, A., Spinnen und Weben. Entwicklung von Technik und Arbeit im Textilgewerbe (Reinbeck bei Hamburg, 1989), 187–90.Google Scholar

47 Concerning the motivation of the Dutch state and the NHM for supporting cotton weaving and spinning in Twente in the period 1830–54, see Griffiths, , Industrial retardation, ch. 6 (‘Cotton textiles under the Nederlandsche Handel Maatschappij’), 138–84Google Scholar, and Griffiths, R. T., ‘Ambacht en nijverheid in de Noordelijke Nederlanden 1770–1844’, Algemene Geschiedenes der Nederlanden, vol. 10 (Haarlem, 1980), 219–52, esp. pp. 236–47.Google Scholar

48 Boot, J. A. P. G., Twentsche Katoennijverheid 1830–1870 (Amsterdam, 1935), 61–2.Google Scholar

49 Both total and full-time employment figures are estimates at best and educated guesses at worst, and can only serve to indicate general trends rather than the precise development. Figures include both weavers and spinners. Full-time employment figures are based on production figures: they esimiate employment in Twente textiles under the assumption that the employment available would have been taken up by full-time workers only. The numbers for total employment are based on the numbers of looms in the region. These numbers, however, do not directly reflect the extent to which the looms were used at full capacity. It should be borne in mind, therefore, that Figure 2 cannot give an exact indication of the economic situation in Twente. Unfortunately, the data available do not allow for a more precise estimate of employment rates. (Gaps in the graphs indicate no available data.)

50 The introduction of mechanized production from 1865 resulted at first in a fall in total employment. This is due to the fact that the total number of looms in the region, on which the total employment figures are based, fell, while the remaining looms were either used more intensively or were to an increasing extent industrial looms.

51 Boot, , Twentsche Katoennijverheid, 72–3.Google Scholar

52 Griffiths, , Industrial retardation, 138–43.Google Scholar

53 See, for example, van Bath, Slicher, Samenleving, 237.Google Scholar

54 The dip in the population trend in Borne in 1879 is due to an administrative correction in total population figures after the population census of 1879.

55 Instead, the data are consistent with the finding of Houston and Snell that in some cases agricultural areas saw at least as rapid population growth as proto-industrial areas; see Houston, R. and Snell, K. D. M., ‘Proto-industrialization? Cottage industry, social change and industrial revolution’, Historical Journal 27 (1984), 482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 The ‘demographic transition’ is a model describing the phenomenon of the transition from a demographic regime with high death and birth rates to one with low death and birth rates in Western Europe in the second half of the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth century. Over this period, there was a time lag between the death rates and the fall in birth rates, which effectively caused a substantial growth in population.

57 The crisis which took place around 1832 is in part to be explained by the cholera epidemic which swept over Europe. However, this epidemic only lasted for a few months and can therefore only explain the mortality crisis of 1832, not the entire pattern of the period 1820–50.

58 In this study, for those rare cases in which a problem arises, the date of birth was assumed to be the same as the date of baptism.

59 The birth registers provided no possibility of entering the occupation of the mother. The marriage and death registers did provide this possibility, but only in Borne was it used regularly (though not always). In Wierden there was hardly ever any mention of a woman having an occupation.

60 It is exactly this development of proto-industry into factory industry that Mendels anticipated in ‘Proto-industrialization’. It is striking, however, that the transition itself and its social and economic consequences have so far received little attention.

61 A limitation of the occupation-related results of the family reconstitutions in this research is that consideration is limited to the occupations of the men at the time of their marriage. Often men would retain the occupation they had at their marriage for the rest of their lives, but some men would move between occupations fairly frequently. In this article, these shifts are not taken into account.

62 Medick, , ‘Proto-industrial family economy’, 304–5 (emphasis added).Google Scholar

63 Levine, , ‘Shepshed’, 185.Google Scholar

64 Completed family size is defined as the average number of births per completed marriage, that is, a marriage in which the wife survives at least through to the age of forty-five. In the total number of completed marriages used to determine completed family size, infertile completed marriages are included.

65 Levine, , ‘Shepshed’, 186Google Scholar; Knodel, John E., Demographic behaviour in the past. A study of fourteen German village populations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Cambridge, 1988), 355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66 The overall average of infertile marriages for Cohort 1 is 14.2%; for Cohort 2 it is 17.1%. One should, however, stress that it was only the fertility of a relatively small number of families that was calculated.

67 Engelen, T. L. M. and Meyer, M. M., ‘Gedwongen huwelijken op het Nederlandse platteland, 1812–1862’, A. A. G. Bijdragen 22 (1979), 190–220.Google Scholar

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69 Quoted in Rensen, , ‘Arbeid’, p. iii (my translation).Google Scholar

70 A major problem will be, of course, to find the sources which contain information relevant to this question. To my knowledge, so far only one article has been published which contains information on the extent to which farmers were dependent on by-employments: van der Heijden, C. G. W. P., ‘Wevende landbouwers of landbouwende wevers? Een onderzoek in het Oostbrabantse textielgebied aan het eind van de negentiende eeuw’ (‘Weaving farmers or farming weavers? An investigation of the Oostbrabant textile area at the end of the nineteenth century’), Textielhistorische Bijdragen 28 (1988), 42–80.Google Scholar In this article, van der Heijden refutes the suggestion that there was a wide spectrum of households between full-time farmers and full-time weavers, who combined in varying proportions fanning and weaving activities. On the contrary, society in Nuenen at the end of the nineteenth century, where van der Heijden undertook his case study, was highly polarized, with a clearly definable group of full-time farmers and an equally clear, though far larger, group of full-time weavers.

71 Schüren, , Staat, 27–8.Google Scholar