Web application Spaengler Household Account Books 1733-1785

In a research cooperation between the Chair of Economic, Social and Environmental History at the History Department of the University of Salzburg, and the Salzburg Stadtarchiv, four household account books of the Salzburg cloth and silk merchant, Franz Anton Spängler, covering the period 1733 to 1785, were transcribed and analyzed. The some 21.000 entries in these books of expenses will now be made accessible as a web application interlinking the comprehensive text edition with a database. These account books offer direct access to consumers and their world of goods and they permit conclusions to be drawn for a relatively long span of time about the consumption of food and objects, the usage of objects, and the satisfaction of basic needs such as firewood and water and final waste disposal. These account books give additional insight into employment and compensation of the household staff and private tutors, medication orders, honoraria to physicians, barber- surgeons and midwives; and the entries on gifts, church service grants, alms and tips also cast light on social relations and networks. Payment methods and creditor relations can likewise be gathered as well as wages and prices. These account books document services that the household itself rendered as well as ones that it solicited, such as work by artisans or even laundresses and charwomen, fowlers and other (nondomestic) servants. Thus these account books give a glimpse into the livelihood of an upper middleclass family of merchants, as well as the everyday life of their household staff and allowance-affording employments which are otherwise difficult to document. The digital humanities have decisively broadened the means to process and analyze such a source: Computer-supported processing of data has become feasible and allows unlimited accessibility via the Internet. In addition, the original account books will be presented in a way that makes it possible to consult it in conjunction with the text edition and the database. This web application can also be useful for other problems beyond historical questions about everyday life and consumption and it can also be used for academic teaching. In the past, when account books from the 18th century have been edited, they were neither available in digital form nor have they been released in the Internet as an open access publication. This project thus has the character of a pilot scheme.