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Archduchess Maria Alice of Austria

1893–1962

Born
15 Jan 1893, Bratislava
Country of birth
Austria–Hungary, today Slovakia
Died
1 Jul 1962, Halbturn
facts
6
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 · Bratislava

    Birth, Bratislava

  2. Child born: Maria Imakulata Baronin Waldbott von Bassenheim

    Birth

  3. Died · Halbturn

    Death, Halbturn

What was it like?

The world around Bratislava, 1893: 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.

Archduchess was born the same year as Vladimir Mayakovsky, Mae West, and Lillian Gish.

Born the same year

  • Vladimir Mayakovsky

    Russian and Soviet poet (1893–1930)

  • Mae West

    American actress, singer, screenwriter, and writer (1893–1980)

  • Lillian Gish

    American actor, actress, motion picture producers and director, screenwriter

  • Amílcar Barbuy

    Brazilian footballer and manager (1893–1965)

  • Mao Zedong

    1st chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and founder of the People's Republic of China (1893–1976)

  • Joan Miró

    Spanish painter, sculptor, and ceramicist (1893–1983)

Fashion

Everyday footwear and going barefoot

For everyday work, especially in summer, many women and men in rural areas frequently went barefoot or wore simple homemade slippers made of linen or cloth.

Expensive festive wardrobes for women

Wealthy women in the Zvolen region kept up to 50 caps in their wardrobe, each costing 4 koruna, while a Trnava woman's entire outfit for a holiday could cost over 500 koruna.

Music

Burial of the bass ritual

A unique tradition was the burial of the bass, where musicians played a sorrowful folk spiritual song accompanied by mourners to mark the end of the festive Shrovetide season before Lent. Village musical performances were generally subject to the approval of the local mayor and often the priest.

Brass and string music in Slovak villages

In Western Slovakia, brass bands became popular alongside traditional string ensembles from the 1870s onwards. Musicians played at diverse occasions, including weddings, christenings, village fairs, and holiday celebrations like Christmas and Shrovetide.

Getting around

Faster rail travel between major cities

By 1900, the rail journey between Vienna and Budapest had been reduced to four and a half hours, down from approximately six hours when the line first opened.

Around 1900–1924

Carriage travel bet from Tornaľa to Budapest

A carriage journey between Tornaľa and Budapest, a distance of 185 km, was completed in 23 hours and 6 minutes as part of a bet.

Daily life

Lighting and water collection methods

Homes were lit by kerosene lamps, but because oil was expensive, people often relied on the bright flame of burning spruce wood in the open hearth for light. Water was fetched from wells in buckets called pitli, as villagers were unaccustomed to carrying loads on their heads.

School supplies and student rewards

Students wrote on stone tablets with slate pencils, and if they misbehaved, teachers would strike their palms with a cane. At the end of the school year, well-performing boys were awarded wooden-handled knives, while girls received rosaries.

Food

Chewing spruce resin was a common habit

Women and children often chewed spruce resin (smola), which had a dirty yellow color.

Children ate beer and bread for breakfast

It was common for children to have warm beer with bread for breakfast before going to school or work.

Prices and wages

Living and working conditions of industrial workers

In the late 19th century, factory workers often lived in dire conditions, sometimes sleeping in overcrowded, vermin-infested rooms where dozens of people shared a space. In brickyards, wages were sometimes paid in tokens (Blech) rather than money, forcing workers to buy overpriced goods in company-controlled canteens.

Around 1896–1903

Bread prices at the turn of the century

At the turn of the century, bread cost roughly 14 to 20 filler per kilogram depending on the type and location.

Work

Common jobs in Slovak rural households

Most people in the Slovak region worked in agriculture, livestock breeding, forestry, cheese production, and cloth manufacturing. Households often operated as self-sufficient units where spinning flax, making shoes, and tailoring were done manually.

The grueling 12 to 18 hour workday

A working day for rural families or industrial laborers was grueling, often lasting 12 to 18 hours. Farm children and adults worked from sunrise until after dark, performing manual tasks like tending livestock or plowing fields with oxen.

News and letters

Cost of sending letters inland

Between 1883 and 1899, sending an ordinary inland letter up to 20 grams cost 5 kreuzer, while a local letter cost 3 kreuzer.

Speed of mail and telegrams in Vienna

In Vienna, pneumatic tube mail for telegrams began in 1875, allowing capsules to travel much faster than traditional delivery; despite this, local mail in Vienna could still take one or two days to be delivered.

During their lifetime

  1. 1893

    Telephone Herald service begins in 1893

    Starting in 1893, the Telephone Herald service in Budapest allowed people to listen to daily news, music, and opera over their telephone lines.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 1918

    Spanish flu epidemic reaches Hungary

    In 1918, a flu epidemic reached Hungary, with the first cases reported in Budapest in June and elsewhere in July.

  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. 1920

    New state border established at Danube river

    In 1920, the Danube river became the new state border between Hungary and the first Czechoslovak Republic.

Family

Spouses

Children

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.