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Archduke Franz Josef of Austria

1905–1975

Born
4 Feb 1905, Vienna
Country of birth
Austria–Hungary, today Austria
Died
9 May 1975, Hernstein
facts
9
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

A life in time

  1. Born · Vienna

    Birth, Vienna

  2. Died · Hernstein

    Death, Hernstein

What was it like?

The world around Vienna, 1905: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

Archduke was born the same year as Arthur Koestler, Greta Garbo, and Joan Crawford.

Born the same year

  • Arthur Koestler

    Hungarian-British author and journalist (1905–1983)

  • Greta Garbo

    Swedish-American actress (1905–1990)

  • Joan Crawford

    American actress (1908–1977)

  • Henry Fonda

    American actor (1905–1982)

  • Angelo Schiavio

    Italian footballer (1905-1990)

  • Jean-Paul Sartre

    French existentialist philosopher (1905–1980)

Fashion
Around 1900–1903

Peasant men's holiday shirt-sleeves

On feast days, peasant men in rural Austria-Hungary traditionally wore white shirt-sleeves as an essential and prideful part of their indoor holiday dress.

Infant swaddling for physical development

To help them grow straight, infants in the Kirchberg region were placed in a swaddling cushion for several months, which prevented them from moving or kicking.

Music

Dominant folk dances in rural Wechsel

In the Wechsel region, the Ländler/Steirer dance was the most common type until World War I, often performed at farmers' festivities or local inns. Music was played on diverse instruments ranging from violins and clarinets to military-style wind instruments.

Instruments and foot-tapping dance customs

In the Ziller Valley, traditional wedding music was performed by ensembles consisting of two fiddles, a diatonic accordion, a Tyrolean folk harp, and a string bass. Dancers at these events frequently tapped their toes in time with the music, using specific patterns for two-four and three-four time signatures.

Getting around
Around 1914–1914

State control of Austrian railways in 1914

By 1914, the Imperial-Royal State Railways held a near monopoly, with 82 percent of the 22,981 kilometers of railway tracks in Austria being state-owned.

Around 1875–1899

Faster rail connections to Budapest

By 1900, the travel time for a direct train between Vienna and Budapest had been reduced to four and a half hours, down from the approximately six hours required when the line first opened.

Daily life

Housing for the poor in Vienna

In 1909, around 66,000 people in Vienna were bed-renters who did not have their own home and paid to use a bed for only a few hours. Many tenement buildings lacked running water, toilets, and electricity, requiring residents to collect water from a corridor tap called a Bassena.

Around 1875–1899

Shared water taps in Vienna apartment buildings

In urban Vienna, many apartments lacked private water or toilets, requiring residents to fetch water from a shared tap in the corridor called a bassena.

Food

Ideal middle-class meals and coffee house culture

Before the war, the ideal middle-class meal consisted of a three-course menu featuring soup, a main dish of meat with side dishes, and dessert. Intellectuals frequented coffee houses around 1900 to enjoy coffee drinks like the Melange.

Around 1914–1918

War bread and synthetic food substitutes

When bread grain became scarce during the war, bakers used inferior surrogates, causing the resulting "war bread" to crumble into thousands of crumbs when cut. Housewives also increasingly relied on synthetic food substitutes like margarine and beet sugar to supplement limited supplies.

Prices and wages
Around 1910–1910

Cost of soup ingredients in 1910

In 1910, a Maggi beef bouillon cube cost 5 hellers, whereas a full kilogram of soup meat was significantly more expensive at 1 crown and 50 hellers.

Work

Hardships of domestic service work

Domestic servants often worked from early morning until late at night, and until 1911, masters had the legal right to physically punish their staff. Even after laws were passed in 1920 to limit hours to 13 per day, many servants continued to work longer shifts and could not lock their own rooms.

Low wages and long hours

A worker in wool weaving could earn 34 Heller for finishing a shoulder collar, which took a significant amount of time, or roughly 51 Heller per day if highly skilled. Cigarette paper production workers could earn 10 to 12 Kronen for a long shift starting at 5 a.m. and ending at 8:30 p.m.

News and letters
Around 1914–1918

Postage-free military mail during the war

During World War I, military personnel could send letters weighing up to 100 grams and official field service postcards postage-free within the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.

Around 1875–1899

Pneumatic Mail and City Delivery Delays

In Vienna, a pneumatic mail system allowed letters to be delivered quickly, with some reaching their destination in just ninety minutes. Conversely, standard city mail faced delays, often taking hours to reach suburban locations.

During their lifetime

  1. 1914

    Wartime inflation begins, 1914

    Just after war broke out in 1914, the government began using the printing press to fund military costs, causing the money supply to expand by 977 percent by 1918.

  2. 1915

    Ersatz bread introduced, 1915

    In early 1915, the government forced citizens to eat bread made with ersatz ingredients like sawdust because food supplies were severely depleted.

  3. 1919

    Women gain vote, 1919

    The new Republic introduced women's suffrage, with women voting for the first time in the February 1919 national assembly elections.

  4. 1923

    Hyperinflation peak, 1923

    In 1923, the cost-of-living index soared to 1,183,600 compared to 100 in 1914, reflecting the catastrophic hyperinflation after the war.

  5. 1927

    Palace of Justice fire, 1927

    On July 15, 1927, police fired on protesters during a general strike, resulting in 89 deaths and thousands of injuries.

  6. 1933

    Mass unemployment, 1933

    In February 1933, the Great Depression reached a peak in Austria, leaving approximately 600,000 people unemployed.

Family

Parents

Spouses

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.