Trawling through the first issue of a revolutionary periodical from the Vienna of 1848, I found my attention sidetracked by the advertisements on the back page. The first to catch my eye was within the scope of my professional interest in printers and publishers: a job advert for a corrector in the shop of the magazine’s own printer. But then I spotted the alarming offer underneath from one Wilhelm Gollmann, advertising his services as surgeon, midwife, dentist – and vet. His waiting room must have been quite a scene. If the medical profession has moved on since then, another advert showed that estate agents’ language has stayed much the same: ‘Not to be missed’ is the heading of an advertisement for a shop for sale.
These inspired me to check out the small ads in other issues, and they are a fascinating insight into both the personal and the political. Many are what you would expect – people seeking or offering jobs and accommodation, tradesmen advertising their wares, and individuals selling goods ranging from a grand piano to a National Guard uniform (‘to fit a tall gentleman’) by way of ‘two good horses with harness and travelling carriage’.
from Knötel, Uniformenkunde, VIII. Band, No. 7, @ BL 8827.dd.9
Some of them throw interesting sidelights on social assumptions, such as the woman seeking a teaching position, who emphasises that, coming from northern Germany, she ‘speaks a very pure German’ – one in the eye for the Viennese dialect there. Some also raise more pertinent questions: were so many shops up for sale or rent because the unrest and uncertainty of the times was driving tradesmen out of business? Or was this par for the course? (Obviously a comparison with pre- or post 1848 papers would answer this one quite easily.)
Alongside these general advertisements, anyone willing to pay could and did use these columns to express their own opinions, often at some length. These might concern urgent political issues and events, but also involved more personal grievances such as an accusation that a butcher is selling short weight, or a traveller’s complaint that due to the lack of programmes at Herr Strauss’s concerts he ‘continually had to get up and go over to the orchestra to see what was being played!’. I was rather taken by the combination of political and romantic sentiment behind the appeal by ‘a German-minded girl’ for Archduke Johann’s morganatic marriage to be formally recognised and his wife and children given full royal status
Finally, there are the genuinely personal ones, such as the man seeking to meet ‘an educated spinster or widow … of noble and gentle character, healthy and cheerful’ between the ages of 30 and 45 (he himself was 50!). And the cryptic ones: an assurance to ‘Dear Hanni in Ischl’ that the new apartment ‘has many nooks and numerous entrances’ (surely a code for something?), and the request to ‘the lady in the blue veil’ to ‘give the desired answer.’ I wonder if she did?
[SR]
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