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Heinrich, 4th Prince of Hanau

1842–1917

Born
8 Dec 1842, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe
Country of birth
Germany
Died
15 Jul 1917, Podolí
facts
7
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 · Schloss Wilhelmshöhe

    Birth, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe

  2. Died · Podolí

    Death, Podolí

What was it like?

The world around Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, 1842: 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.

Heinrich, was born around the same time as Robert Koch, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Antonín Dvořák.

Born around the same time

  • Robert Koch

    1843 · German physician, bacteriologist (1843–1910)

  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

    1840 · Russian composer (1840–1893)

  • Antonín Dvořák

    1841 · Czech composer (1841–1904)

  • Edvard Grieg

    1843 · Norwegian composer and pianist (1843–1907)

  • Émile Zola

    1840 · French novelist, journalist, playwright, and poet (1840–1902)

  • Claude Monet

    1840 · French painter (1840–1926)

Fashion

Festive attire and heated ruffles

For feast days, women wore black cashmere or silk dresses with a white ruffle at the collar that was permanently set into waves using a heated iron.

Head-carried baskets with embroidered rings

Deliverers carried their goods in round white baskets called Mange on their heads, supported by embroidered cloth rings that served as both cushions and decorative accessories.

Music

Daily castle tower music in Königsberg

City tower musicians performed chorales daily from Königsberg's castle tower, such as 'Ich weiß mein Gott, daß all mein Tun' at 11 am and 'Nun ruhen alle Wälder' at 9 pm.

The noisy brummtopf folk instrument

The brummtopf was a peculiar noise-making instrument used by groups of young people during winter festivities; it was made of a small wooden barrel covered with calfskin and played by rubbing horsehair strands inserted into the skin with wet hands.

Getting around

Railways revolutionized travel speeds

The emergence of railways in the 1840s revolutionized travel, drastically reducing journey times compared to stagecoaches. For instance, the Cologne-Minden route, which previously took over 60 hours by coach, could be covered in 9 hours by train by 1847.

Difficult and slow travel by stagecoach

Traveling by stagecoach in Prussia was often grueling and uncomfortable due to poorly maintained, unpaved roads and cramped, unsprung carriages. A journey from Berlin to Königsberg, spanning 565 kilometers, typically took ten to eleven days by post coach.

Daily life

Child labor and rudimentary schooling conditions

Children in rural areas were often tasked with labor, such as preparing and binding daily bundles of fuel for the household fire, a chore that frequently left their hands bleeding. Schooling was frequently held in the teacher's house, where the teacher was often a poorly paid local craftsman.

Homes heated by smoky, open hearths

Peasant homes often lacked chimneys, relying on open hearths that provided both light and heat while filling the living space with smoke. Small bundles of green pine brush, known as Kulelkes, were commonly used as fuel for these fires.

Food

Potatoes as the daily staple food

For many poor families, potatoes were the primary staple, often eaten two or three times a day, sometimes boiled in their skins without salt.

Daily wheat cake despite poverty

In some villages, even the poorest people ate wheat cake daily, fresh from the oven, which was criticized by doctors for supposedly damaging their digestion.

Prices and wages
Around 1847–1847

Potato prices caused hunger and riots

In April 1847, the price of five pounds of potatoes rose to five silver groschen, which equaled half of a typical daily wage in Berlin.

Around 1852–1853

Survival budget for a rural family

In the early 1850s, a rural worker's family of five needed approximately 76 Thalers annually for basic survival. A typical male day laborer could earn about 8 Mariengroschen per day during peak harvest months.

Work

Common jobs in 19th-century Prussia

Common jobs included agricultural work, such as farm laborers and servants (Gesinde), as well as home-based textile work like weaving. Many also worked as day laborers in both rural and growing urban areas.

Hardship and low weaver wages

A weaver could earn 3.5 Gulden for completing 40 ells of fabric in 8 to 10 days, while a child spooling thread earned only 2 to 3 Kreuzer per spool. Families often slept on the floor without beds in huts where frost and rain penetrated the roof.

News and letters

Informal letter delivery and optical telegraphy

To send letters, people often relied on informal opportunities like acquaintances traveling to save money, as official postage was expensive and based on distance. For urgent official business, Prussia operated an optical semaphore telegraph line between Berlin and the Rhine from 1832 to 1849, which could transmit a signal across the entire line in minutes.

During their lifetime

  1. 1842

    Freedom of movement laws in 1842

    Prussia introduced new laws enabling greater freedom of movement and settlement for individuals not dependent on public relief.

  2. 1844

    Weaver uprising in 1844

    Handloom weavers in Upper Silesia led a famous protest against their publishers due to harsh competition from mechanized factories.

  3. 1846

    Hunger crisis of 1846-1847

    A severe potato blight caused a major hunger crisis across Europe, leading to unrest in Prussian markets and bakeries.

  4. 1848

    Abolition of serfdom in 1848

    In 1848, the revolution led to the abolition of serfdom across the empire, fundamentally changing the lives of rural people.

  5. 1858

    Introduction of new silver florin currency

    The silver florin Austrian currency was introduced into circulation in 1858, replacing the previous Convention currency.

  6. 1860

    Railway transport arrives in Pilsen

    Ceremonial railway transport operations officially opened in Pilsen in 1860.

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.