Käthe Leichter, How do Viennese home workers live?: a survey of the working and living conditions of a thousand Viennese home workers. Published by the Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte in Wien (Wien:Verl. „Arbeit und Wirtschaft”) 1928

Source Description

In 1928, the Vienna publishing house “Arbeit und Wirtschaft” published a social science study on the “living and working conditions of home workers in Vienna” on behalf of the Chamber of Laborers. It was written by the activist, editor, sociologist and social democrat Käthe Leichter (born Käthe Marianne Katharina Pick in 1895, murdered in 1942). The study is based on around 4,000 questionnaires sent out in March 1927, “at the time of the strongest growth in home labour [zur Zeit des stärksten Anwachsens der Heimarbeit]” (p. 7). Of the 4,000 questionnaires, 1,500 were returned filled out, of which 500 were deemed unusable. Leichter interpreted and statistically evaluated the results and presented them in a didactic manner on display boards. This was the largest study of its kind to date  A current research project is investigating the circumstances, consequences and nature of such encounters between Jews and non-Jews in “private” spaces in Budapest and Vienna, the two cities where the Habsburg monarchy had its residence. FWF ESP 120: Entanglements of Jews and non-Jews in Private Spaces, Budapest and Vienna 1880–1930.. The total volume comprises 145 pages, which are divided according to thematic aspects and the conditions of home labor in various occupational groups (clothing manufacture, chemical industry, paper manufacturing, etc.). In the introduction, Leichter discusses the structure of the study and methodological shortcomings, such as the fact that child labor was downplayed while other abuses were exaggerated. Among many important findings, Leichter concludes that home labor in Vienna was “a problem of women's work [ein Problem der Frauenarbeit]” (p. 5). The excerpt selected and presented in more detail below (four pages) covers the discussion of the living conditions of home workers in the first part of the study (pp. 43 to 46).

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Käthe Leichter, How do Viennese home workers live?: a survey of the working and living conditions of a thousand Viennese home workers. Published by the Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte in Wien (Wien:Verl. „Arbeit und Wirtschaft”) 1928, edited in: Jewish Textual Architectures, <https://jewish-textual-architectures.online/source/jta:source-6> [October 26, 2025].