Audio clip: From handcraft to steam power
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Click here for the audio clip From craft to steam power
This audio clip is part of the Learning Route Waalwijk. View the route here.
Grandpa: It was around 1800 that the real peasant poverty was over. The whole household cooperated to make a shoe in those days, which meant that more could be produced as well as earned.
Sanne: The whole household? Also the children?
Grandpa: Everyone yes, including the children, but that was also a different time. A few people made real money, of course. Not the home workers but a "pattern" or boss who took orders for many shoes and put them out to the various home workers. Something of the wealth of that time can still be seen in frame or bell gables of houses.
Sanne: So still real handiwork from home, and with the whole family? You can hardly imagine that now. So when did those factories start?
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Click here for the audio clip From craft to steam power
This audio clip is part of the Learning Route Waalwijk. View the route here.
Grandpa: It was around 1800 that the real peasant poverty was over. The whole household cooperated to make a shoe in those days, which meant that more could be produced as well as earned.
Sanne: The whole household? Also the children?
Grandpa: Everyone yes, including the children, but that was also a different time. A few people made real money, of course. Not the home workers but a "pattern" or boss who took orders for many shoes and put them out to the various home workers. Something of the wealth of that time can still be seen in frame or bell gables of houses.
Sanne: So still real handiwork from home, and with the whole family? You can hardly imagine that now. So when did those factories start?
Grandfather: Much later, but by the way, when my father worked in the factory, we weren't very well off either.... These were uncertain times, wages were very low, and we had to make do with what we had. But the first shoe factory in Waalwijk was established around 1896. That was the first step towards steam machinery. You know, to move the large quantities of leather, shoes and workers, a railroad was even built. A steam train ran from Geertruidenberg to Den Bosch; the Halvezolenlijntje.
Sanne: A train, here? Where?
Grandpa: Well... Exactly where we are now. From that side all the way through between those two whole soles to Waalwijk and over the bridge there. And every crossing was hand-guarded by railroad guards. You can still see their houses standing along the tracks.
