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Archduke Heinrich Ferdinand of Austria

1878–1969

Born
13 Feb 1878, Salzburg
Country of birth
Austria–Hungary, today Austria
Died
21 May 1969, Salzburg
facts
8
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 · Salzburg

    Birth, Salzburg

  2. Event · Member of the House of Lords (Austria)

    Event

  3. Died · Salzburg

    Death, Salzburg

What was it like?

The world around Salzburg, 1878: 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 around the same time as Guillaume Apollinaire, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, and Pau Casals.

Known for

Titles held

  • Member of the House of Lords (Austria)1897–1918
Born around the same time

  • Guillaume Apollinaire

    1880 · French poet (1880–1918)

  • Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

    1876 · Italian poet and editor, founder of the Futurist movement (1876-1944)

  • Pau Casals

    1876 · Spanish cellist, conductor and composer (1876–1973)

  • Hermann Friese

    1880 · German-Brazilian athlete (1882-1945)

  • Helen Keller

    1880 · American deafblind author, political activist, lecturer, scholar (1880-1968)

  • Konrad Adenauer

    1876 · German politician, Chancellor of West Germany (1949–1963), Zentrum and CDU

Fashion

Peasant men's holiday shirt-sleeves

On feast days, peasant men often ate in their white shirt-sleeves, as these were considered an essential part of their holiday attire indoors.

Prankish feast day dessert centerpieces

At peasant feast day dinners, a dessert centerpiece was garnished with bows of bright ribbons, flowers, and deliberately hidden thorns and stinging nettles.

Music

Landler dance in the Wechsel region

The Landler was the dominant dance in the Wechsel region, often accompanied by instruments ranging from violins and clarinets to wind instruments and the Styrian diatonic harmonika. Thousands of Landler melodies were played at celebrations like harvest festivals or in local inns.

Rural music instruments in Voralpen

In rural areas near the Semmering and Wechsel regions, music was often performed using the zither and the hammered dulcimer (Hackbrett). This contrasted with urban areas where violin and harp combinations were more common in taverns.

Getting around

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.

Strict police control of early train travel

Initially, passengers traveling by train in Austria had to obtain a police permit the day before their journey, have it stamped at their destination, and return it upon arrival.

Daily life

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.

Strict regulations for Austrian schools

Austrian school laws were highly detailed, regulating everything from the size of school desks and classrooms to the pupils' specific attire on examination days.

Food

Affordable ice cream for the masses

In the 1860s, street confectioners began offering portions of ice cream on the Vienna Glacis for an "old Zehnerl," served with an edible cup and spoon made of hard dough.

Beer as food and drink

In Vienna, beer was considered both a food and a drink, and it was so essential that it even appeared on the imperial dinner table.

Prices and wages

Weekly wages in a 1870s factory

In the 1870s, unskilled laborers in a Viennese factory typically earned 5 to 6 florins (fl) per week. Skilled workers, such as toolmakers, could earn significantly more, with some skilled roles paying up to 18 florins weekly.

Around 1873–1873

High prices at the 1873 World's Fair

During the 1873 Vienna World's Fair, visitors faced high prices, such as 10 kreuzer for a buttered bread roll with ham and 10 kreuzer for a glass of beer.

Work

Common jobs and domestic service life

Common jobs included factory work, small-scale trade, and domestic service, with over 91,000 domestic servants in Vienna by 1890 alone. Female domestic servants often started as young as eight to fourteen years old and were frequently required to be on call 24 hours a day.

Harsh working conditions and daily schedules

Working days of 12 to 16 hours were standard, and many workers in brick factories were paid in tokens instead of cash, forcing them to buy supplies at overpriced company canteens. Workers often lived in miserable conditions, sometimes sleeping 50 people to a room on straw mattresses while paying rent for the privilege.

During their lifetime

  1. 1884

    Electric street lighting installed in 1884

    In 1884, the first permanent electric street lighting system in the empire was installed in Temesvár.

  2. 1892

    Gold crown currency introduced in 1892

    In 1892, the gold crown currency was introduced, replacing the old florin system.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

Family

Parents

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.