The Challenge of Industrialization: The Catholic Church and the Working Class in and around Vienna, 1815–1848

Abstract

The period from the fall of Napoleon in 1815 to the March, 1848, Revolution brought to the Habsburg empire the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, with all its attendant social evils. Increasing poverty, vice, and crime presented a growing challenge to the Catholic clergy, traditionally the custodians of moral standards in the monarchy. In the larger cities, most notably in Vienna, priests and bishops could no longer ignore the social problems arising in the expanding industrial towns. This study seeks to explore the extent to which Austrian churchmen, particularly those in the archdiocese of Vienna, where the greatest industrial activity occurred, involved themselves in the problems of the increasing numbers of factory workers in the new towns surrounding the capital during the period before 1848.