Marion Stein

Maria Donata Nanetta Paulina Gustava Erwina Wilhelmine Stein, known as Marion Stein, was an Austrian-born British concert pianist. During her marriage to George Lascelles, Earl of Harewood, she was known as Marion Lascelles, Countess of Harewood and was a member of the extended British royal family.

Four Sets of Traditional Clothes

People traditionally owned four sets of clothes: daily workwear, clothes for ordinary feast days, Sunday attire, and special outfits for high religious holidays. Many people were even buried in their wedding suit, which served as their formal holiday attire.

Underwear Habits in Rural Austria

In the rural summer, women did not wear underpants; instead, they wore several petticoats if it was cold in winter. Men wore long winter underwear that had to be tied at the waist and ankles.

Cost of Vienna Folk Dance Events

In the 1930s, outdoor folk dance events in Vienna, such as those in Türkenschanzpark, charged an admission fee of 80 Groschen.

Traditional Austrian Folk Instruments

Traditional musical instruments used in regional Austrian folk music included violins, harps, zithers, dulcimers, wind instruments, and the diatonic button-key accordion known as the Styrian harmonica.

Transport in 1925: Horses and Electric Trams

Around 1925, most of the population in rural Austria relied on horse-drawn carriages for transport, while city dwellers in Vienna used a modern network of electric trams and buses. Private automobiles were rare, reserved only for the very wealthy.

Rail Travel in the 1930s

During the 1930s, a rail journey from Munich to Reit im Winkl took approximately 5 hours.

Childhood and education in Tyrol

Children in rural Tyrol often faced heavy agricultural labor, which frequently hindered their school attendance. Access to further education was strictly dependent on the family's financial situation.

Shared Facilities in Urban Apartments

Many Viennese apartments were cramped, with single rooms lacking private sanitary facilities, meaning residents often had to share toilets and water sources located in the building's hallway.

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.

Wartime food queues and charity soup meals

During World War I, famine forced city dwellers to wait in queues for hours, sometimes starting at night, for small and often unpalatable food rations. A single daily meal at charity kitchens might consist of a thin vegetable soup of turnips, carrots, and beets, costing 30 heller.

Food prices in 1925 Vienna

In 1925, a kilogram of bread in Vienna cost 65.2 Groschen, while a kilogram of beef cost 329.4 Groschen.

Domestic work as a common livelihood

By the 1930s, there were over 133,000 domestic workers in Austria, many of whom were women from rural regions who moved frequently between jobs to find better livelihoods. Although legislation in 1920 improved their status by including rights like sick pay and holidays, competition for these positions remained high due to unemployment.

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.