Abstract

Practices and problems of succession in nineteenth- and twentieth-century family firms have been a favorite topic in more recent studies on the history of commercial enterprises, with increasing reference to the longevity of family businesses. This perspective on the early modern period has hardly been taken up, leaving us in a gray area. This contribution traces the history of a Salzburg cloth and silk mercery from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries and asks how these drapers and silk dealers, or their wives, obtained this concession. A concession and the right of citizenship were preconditions of running a retail business. There were various possibilities: A father or mother could pass it on to a son or daughter; it could also happen through the remarriage of a widow, or through the purchase of a concession (and usually of the business as well). All these forms of succession can be observed in the history of the Spängler cloth and silk mercery. The article concentrates on the importance of the family and their relatives in such transfers. In line with Michael Mitterauer’s research on crafts, we will explore whether the transfer from father (or mother) to son was not a more recent development, especially as demographic vagaries made such forms of succession difficult.