Where Gumbo Was #498
When you visit a museum with a very broad name—in this case, the Arbeitsmuseum, of Museum of Work—you can predict in advance that either it is so broad it will exhaust you, or that it has focused on a particular slice of its theme, and has a lot to say about it.
Fortunately, the Museum of Work in Barmbek, historically a working-class and industrial district of Hamburg, has taken the second path, focusing on work and industry in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the changes in how people work and what they do, symbolized by the collection of gloves for different work seen above.
The museum is located in the former factory of what was once home to one of the earliest and largest manufacturers of vulcanized rubber products, especially combs, but also rubber objects of many kinds, including statuary.
To be honest, though, the inside story is not what grabs you first. When you leave the S-Bahn rail station that’s just opposite the museum, the first sight that grabs your eye is an oddly-shaped startlingly blue locomotive, mounted in the middle of a traffic circle. Retired in the 1990s after 40 years of moving coal at a Hamburg power plant, its operators nicknamed it ‘Thermos Bottle.’
And, because no one doesn’t like big construction machines, there are a few more samples in the courtyard. But the real star of the show is TRUDE, the giant tunnel-boring cutting head that spent a bit over two years boring a 2km tunnel under the Elbe River. The name is actually made up from Tief RUnter Die Elbe, or Deep Under The Elbe. Easily mistaken for a Ferris wheel!
TRUDE emerging through muck at the end of her job…
Once inside the exhibits begin one floor up, with equipment and photos from the comb factory that was the original tenant. To my surprise, I learned that the combs weren’t molded with their teeth in place; they were gang-cut into the molded rubber pieces and then cleaned and packaged. The workers in the picture are pressing the blanks against the multi-wheel cutter.
The next exhibit on takes us to a cleaner and likely safer workplace: the office of one of the big trading and shipping companies that dominated Hamburg’s economy before the First World War. The label on the typewriter—”Sorry, Out of Service”—doesn’t seem surprising…
Beyond the office exhibit lies the largest area of the floor, one that is not only an exhibit, but a working space. It covers the last two centuries of printing history, but it’s also a working late 20th-century printshop, kept alive by enthusiasts from that era of Hamburg’s printing workers. A little pang: I worked for years with some of the same equipment.
Some represents clearly older technology…
The curved metal plates below were saved from the last run of Hamburg newspaper Die Zeit before it switched to offset printing in 1974. The museum makes the point that changing technology changes jobs; when rapid printing of newspapers on web presses began in the early 1800s, presses were sometimes destroyed by workers who saw their old trade disappearing.
On the next floor up, there are exhibits of the tools, dress and work of different trades, each with discussion of how changes have happened over the past hundred years or so. One, which applies to many trades, was the invention of the time clock, enabling ever tighter control over time and production.
Carpenter’s tools, and a training model for building a roof; shoemaker’s tools and a doctor’s instrument set…
A coppersmith’s tools and a sample of fine work…
Tools and equipment for other sorts of metalworking, and clothing for metal workers. The blue (blue collar?) was standard because the herbal dye from woad was the cheapest possible before the 20th century.
Samples of foundry work, and an old print of what it was like to work in a 19th century foundry.
Getting closer to our time, there’s a Commodore PET computer, and an early IBM PC on display. Like the typewriter above, they are ‘Out of Service.’
Not just protective clothing for some trades, but uniforms, complete with distinctive hats. There’s also a display of university student and staff hats.
Retail trade and engineering are represented, along with an exhibit that shows a pagination stamp as the work tool of the ‘Schwarzarbeiter’ or moonlighter, and a pair of high-heeled boots identified as ‘workboots for sex workers.’
One of Hamburg’s biggest industries, although the work of sailors isn’t really represented in the museum. Perhaps on another trip I’ll find a museum about that… The pins represent the various shipping companies that called Hamburg home, and they are part of another story in the museum.
The pins, and thousands of other stamped and enameled pins were made by companies, mostly small, like Carl Wild, whose story is told in a ground-floor exhibit. Stamping machines like the huge one below were used in the process, but mostly also smaller table-top models.
As the letter on the left indicates, during the Nazi era, Wild did a booming business first in party symbols, and then in medals and insignia for the German armed forces; the letter is an order for 60,000 more War Service Medals, along with a complaint that the previous ones weren’t shiny enough. The order was likely not completed: It was issued on April 5, 1945. By the end of the year, the company was producing signs and pins for the British Army. The room below is a recreation of the company’s workshops.
But all that industry, it must be remembered, relied on large numbers of workers, often working under unpleasant or underpaid conditions. Hamburg was a stronghold of labor and socialist movements as well. Below, a sample of May Day postcards featuring the fight for the Eight-Hour Day.
And from more recent times, a 1974 call for a strike, and a ballot for workers to authorize a strike. Below it, an assortment of handouts, posters and promo items from recent campaigns for a higher minimum wage.
And, there’s a safety section as well, featuring ‘motivational’ posters warning of danger on the job, including this unusual one drawn by the artist Käthe Kollwitz with the tagline ‘A Warning for Attention at Work.’
Clockwise from top left: ‘While running engines, Doors Open! Exhaust gases are poisonous’; ‘Watch Out! Use Head Protection!; ‘Watch Out! Think of Your Mother…’ and ‘Are you doing all you can to prevent accidents?’
The museum has (of course!) a gift shop, with numbers of the posters above and some period motivational pieces as well as the usual mugs, caps and books. There’s also a cafe with limited menu near the ticket counter.
There are a few English signs giving a general overview of sections, but otherwise all the labeling is in German. There is a free English audioguide available which gives a broad narrative, but being able to read German is the key to getting most of the detailed information.
Congratulations to George G for again solving our weekly puzzle!
