Dickmann, Lars: Topographien des Verlorenen. Zur Praxis des Verlierens und Findens im Basler Avisblatt. Masterarbeit, Dep. Geschichte, Uni Basel 2022
Abstract: As a platform for advertisements for sale, requests for loans, job offers and more, the Avisblatt enabled the inhabitants of Basel to advertise lost objects and restitute found objects in return for a reward from as early as 1729. Analysing the years from 1729 to 1844 shows that the practice of losing and finding in Basel during the Sattelzeit was the subject of a variety of negotiation processes and took place in specific social and cultural spaces. Andreas Reckwitz's formulation of doing loss and its counterpart of doing finding is therefore suitable as a conceptual framework. Basel's lost property thus stands in a tense relationship between vigilance (active participation of urban society in the recovery of a missing object) and deviance (theft and fencing). They also show that temporary rights of use and ownership were by no means congruent.
Engel, Alexander: Patterns of everyday exchange: big historical data and the case of the Basel advertisement paper, 1729–1844, in: Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 64, 2023/1, 143–178
Abstract: With concepts like the consumer revolution or the industrious revolution, the changing behaviour of private households in the 18th and early 19th centuries has become of great interest. The article suggests a new way to observe intentions and decisions, by utilizing a database of 850,000 classified ads from the Basel Avisblatt over a span of 116 years. Changes in food prices constantly altered the discretionary income of households, which forced budget-related decisions. By cross-correlating indicators of discretionary income with the changing number of different types of ads, patterns of utilizing the Avisblatt can be identified, and strategies to stabilize discretionary income deduced.
Engel, Alexander / Brauner, Christina: Verlosen, verschießen, versteigern, in: Marktgeschehen. Fragmente einer Geschichte frühneuzeitlichen Wirtschaftens, 2023, 209–220
Abstract: A look at lotteries, auctions, and shooting contests reveals that early modern market events could also be an experience. This experience character was not only achieved through accompanying amusements such as fairground attractions or free beer at shooting contests and lotteries. Rather, it often stemmed from a sophisticated organisation of the events at the economic core of the market, from the design of the market exchange itself as a specific procedure, as the actual staging of a market situation in the form of an attractive and captivating market event.
Reimann, Anna: For humble homes and wealthy tables: advertising consumables in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Basel, in: History of Retailing and Consumption, 9.2, 2023, 164–186.
Abstract: This article investigates the promotion of food and drink through newspaper advertisements in the Swiss city of Basel. Drawing on over 39,000 sale advertisements for consumables between 1729 and 1844 published in the local intelligence paper, it calls into question the marginal role given to advertising in practices of selling groceries during the long eighteenth century. Sellers of food and drink in Basel demonstrated a wide variety of different commercial strategies and languages tailored to the commodities for sale and the customers they sought to attract. These results further problematise the still prevalent notion of slow development of consumption and retail cultures in German-speaking areas of Europe.
Reimann, Anna: Von unbequemen Strohsäcken und dunstenden Federbergen: Zur unsichtbaren Materialität des Komforts. In: Tina Asmussen, Eva Brugger, Maike Christadler, Anja Rathmann-Lutz, Anna Reimann, Carla Roth, Sarah-Maria Schober, Ina Serif (eds.): Materialized Histories. Eine Festschrift 2.0, 13/07/2021, https://mhistories.hypotheses.org/4138.
Abstract: Departing from a construction sketch for a fashionable (day) bed from 1788, this contribution slips under the covers of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century beds. While museum displays and contemporary illustrations stress the visual surface of such furniture, the focus here is on the invisible inner materiality of quilts, comforters, and mattresses, revealing scratchy straw and fluffy (and enormously expensive) eiderdown, as well as more or less successful experiments with moss and air. In order to guarantee a restful, comfortable and hygienic sleep, these bed furnishings had to be constantly patched, stuffed and renewed, with the cleaning of feathers and down considered particularly important. Feather-stuffed blankets, pillows and mattresses were also the subject of an ongoing controversy, especially in the German-speaking world: for some they were the epitome of luxury and comfort, while others saw them not only as the cause of various illnesses and moral deficiencies, but also of a significant reduction in the life expectancy of unsuspecting sleepers.
Reimann, Anna / Engel, Alexander / Dickmann, Lars: Von Eseln, Bienen und Tauben: Tiere in der Stadtgesellschaft, in: Susanna Burghartz (ed.), Aufbrüche, Krisen, Transformationen. 1510–1790. Stadt.Geschichte.Basel Bd. 4, Basel: Merian 2024, 216–217.
Abstract: A city full of people is also a city city full of animals. In early modern Basel a large number of them were kept - initially because of their usefulness, or even indispensability for various purposes, from food and transport (poultry and
animals) to protection and pest control (dogs and cats). Looking into the local advertisement paper, the Avisblatt, it becomes clear that beyond that, animals were an important aspect of bourgeois living and consumer culture, propelling businesses and providing income.
Serif, Ina / Reimann, Anna: Alle Jahre wieder … was schenken? Anregungen aus dem Basler ‘Avisblatt’. In: Tina Asmussen, Eva Brugger, Maike Christadler, Anja Rathmann-Lutz, Anna Reimann, Carla Roth, Sarah-Maria Schober, Ina Serif (eds.): Materialized Histories. Materielle Kultur und digitale Forschung, 21/12/2022, https://mhistories.hypotheses.org/8895.
Abstract: For some, the end of the year is a time of reflection, contemplation and mystery. It is also a time of things, though, a time of candles, baubles, Christmas trees, lametta and nativity sets. And, most of all, it is a time of presents and – more or less frantic – explorations through shops and websites to find the right objects to wrap up for family and friends. For anyone out of ideas, a glance into the Basel ‘Avisblatt’ in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century might offer some new (old) ideas and even provide the very desperate with a historical excuse for delayed gifting at New Year’s instead of Christmas.
Serif, Ina / Reimann, Anna / Engel, Alexander / Dickmann, Lars: Printed Markets im digitalen Zeitalter: Die Digitalisierung, Aufbereitung und Analyse des Basler »Avisblatts« (1729–1844), in: Jahrbuch für Kommunikationsgeschichte 25, 2023, pp. 145-155.
Abstract: Almost one million individual (classified) advertisements printed in the Basel intelligencer Avisblatt between 1729 and 1844 offer diverse insights into urban society and its economies. With traditional methods, however, only selective insights are possible. The project »Printed Markets« at the University of Basel, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), has not only digitised, processed and published the paper, but also used, adapted and newly developed a spectrum of digital methods to address a large portfolio of historical questions. Hence, this contribution also advocates for the quantitative evaluation of advertisements in intelligencers which allows economic and social history of the 18th and early 19th century to be pursued as communication history, thus opening up new perspectives.
Reimann, Anna / Serif, Ina: Es wird zum Verkauff angetragen. Digitale Zugriffe auf (lokale) Konsum- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. In: Tagungsband Konferenz “digital history 2023” [im Erscheinen]
Abstract: This article presents the processing and analysis of a pre-modern advertising newspaper, the Basel "Avisblatt" (1729-1844), and the challenges that arose during the process, the results achieved so far and future prospects for use and research. In order to answer questions relating to economic, consumer and cultural history, the almost 1 million classified advertisements were placed at the centre of the analyses, with an R package developed in the project serving to classify the data set in more detail. The freely available dataset can be further enriched with the help of the package, making it usable for new research approaches. The package could also be used for other advertising papers and thus promises not only to open up a local serial source, but also to enable comparative analyses of different intelligence newspapers and thus to broaden the view beyond local borders and questions of consumer and economic history.
Currently prepared are
– a joint volume of the core team (written in English)
– the dissertation by Anna Reimann, working title "A newspaper full of things. Worlds of Goods in the Basel Avisblatt, 1729-1844"
(For details on ongoing research, see fields of work)
Struck, Joachim: "Eingesehen und dem Avisblatt einzurüken befohlen": das Basler Avis-Blatt in der Helvetik. Anzeigen als Medium institutioneller Kommunikation zwischen 1796 und 1805, Masterarbeit, Dep. Geschichte, Uni Basel, 2021
Abstract: The project examines how the Basler Avisblatt, which was firmly anchored as a medium in the everyday life of the Basel population, was used by the authorities as a semi-official publication organ in the years 1796-1805 - the last years of the Ancien Régime. The concept of "institutional communication" proves to be useful for analysing the numerous small advertisements published by the new state institutions of the Helvetic and Mediation periods. The political, institutional, and personal upheavals and continuities of the period under investigation are also reflected in the "institutional advertisements" of the Avisblatt. While the years of the Helvetic era were reflected in the advertisements in a language orientated towards the semantics of the French Revolution, the subsequent restorative phase of the Mediation saw a striking re-evaluation of terms such as "citizen" or "patriot", which were now used and reinterpreted in a conservative way.
