Beer WagonHomemade ToyVienna, 1929

Paths, Goods, Markets

Nowhere is the process of modernization asevident as in the revolution of the economic system.Conditions of space, time, capital, and merchandiseunderwent fundamental change and subjected dailylife to new rules. With the establishing of modernmeans of transportation, which greatly speeded upcommunications, the villages came to more closelyresemble the centres, and the cities themselvesexperienced unprecedented growth.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century,roads were populated by pedlars and proud carterswho conveyed goods over land and to the dispersedconsumers. The advent of the railroad entailed a neworientation to time and distance by the end of thecentury: cultural exchange as a whole began to gainmomentum.

Nevertheless, earlier cultural and economicpatterns lived on in rural areas until well into thetwentieth century. These included the orientation tomarket towns on market days and the reluctantacceptance of modern trade. In the general stores, forexample, buying on credit was just as usual as payingin cash.

Man and Economy