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received: 2022-07-07                 DOI 10.19233/ASHS.2022.36
SAFE WATERS. 
AUSTRIAN SEAFARERS BETWEEN CHARITY AND WELFARE, CA. 1850–1920
Erica MEZZOLI
"Tor Vergata" University of Rome, Department of History, Humanities and Societies, Via Columbia, 1, 00133 Rome, Italy
e-mail: erica.mezzoli@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The article aims to highlight the characteristics and criticalities of the measures aimed at “ensuring” the 
“safety” of Austrian seamen, their families and the communities to which they belonged from the so-called 
Gründerzeit of the 1850s to post-WWI. Since seafaring exposed the workers and their families to the risk of 
poverty, the charitable foundations represented a pillar on which the Austrian shipping sector rested. In the last 
decades of the 19th century, the Austrian seafaring industrial revolution changed the scenario, not the seafarers’ 
welfare regulatory framework. In the meantime, seafarers’ socio-economic role and public image underwent a 
sort of transilience.
Keywords: Social security for seafarers, compulsory work-related injury insurance, compulsory sickness insurance, 
Austrian shipping industry, industrial breadwinner masculinities
 
ACQUE SICURE. 
I MARITTIMI AUSTRIACI TRA CARITÀ E PREVIDENZA SOCIALE, C. 1850–1920
SINTESI
L’articolo vuole mettere in evidenza caratteristiche e criticità delle misure rivolte a garantire la “sicurezza” dei 
marinai Austriaci, delle loro famiglie e delle comunità a cui appartenevano dal Gründerzeit degli anni ’50 del XIX 
secolo al primo dopoguerra. Poiché il lavoro marittimo esponeva sia i lavoratori che le loro famiglie al rischio di 
povertà, le fondazioni di beneficenza rappresentavano uno dei pilastri su cui poggiava il settore della navigazione 
commerciale. Negli ultimi decenni del XIX secolo, la rivoluzione industriale marittima austriaca cambiò lo scenario 
ma non il quadro normativo previdenziale per i marittimi. Nel frattempo, il ruolo socio-economico e l’immagine 
pubblica dei marittimi subirono una sorta di transilienza. 
Parole chiave: Previdenza sociale per marittimi, assicurazione obbligatoria contro gli infortuni sul lavoro, 
assicurazione sanitaria obbligatoria, industria armatoriale austriaca, mascolinità del capofamiglia in età industriale
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Today, as in the past, seafaring is one of the 
riskiest and most dangerous professions.1 When 
the “well-being” of this particular type of worker is 
taken into consideration, it is necessary to juggle a 
large number of variables: the alternation between 
different modes of production, the (unbalanced) 
interdependence between classes, the dominant 
cultural and moral frameworks and, finally, the 
(unequal) relations of power and economic depend-
ence between genders. The fact that the multina-
tional Austro-Hungarian state was not a maritime 
empire – and therefore its maritime sector was 
tiny – does not make things easier. On the contrary, 
this circumstance forces us to confront, even if only 
indirectly, the present-absent element of national 
affiliation when dealing with forms of social and 
political citizenship in the Habsburg Empire (Jud-
son, 2018).  
The aim of the following pages is to trace the 
evolution and highlight the characteristics and 
criticalities of the measures aimed at “ensuring” 
the “safety” of the Austrian seamen, their families 
and the communities to which they belonged. 
Alongside the analysis of the functioning and 
socio-economic role of charitable foundations in 
favour of seafarers, the focus will be on two aspects 
in particular: the labour welfare regulatory frame-
work – also related to seafaring – in the Austrian 
part of the Monarchy, and the issue concerning the 
prosperity and security of the waterfront, specifi-
cally that of Trieste. Concerning the former, given 
its self-explanatory nature, it is not necessary to 
bring any legal or legislative facet forward here. 
As for the waterfront – or “sailortown”, although 
the two terms do not always wholly overlap – it 
was both the liminal environment where a spe-
cific frontier society – i.e., the lower strata of the 
urban-maritime population – lived, worked and 
spent its leisure time (Milne, 2016, 2, 63 et passim; 
Beaven et al., 2016, 7), and a space of strategic 
importance within the framework of the mercantile 
activities of a port city (Fingard, 1982, 8). Clearly, 
that space – that “frontier” – was a reason for great 
control anxieties on the part of the authorities and 
economic stakeholders. In that context, alongside 
policing, an important instrument of discipling and 
repression of sailortown communities was repre-
sented by charity activities and welfare measures.2 
Also, like any other socio-economic and labour 
milieu, a sailortown and its populations are not al-
1 This article was written within the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie 
Skłodowska-Curie project “We Can Do It! Women’s labour market participation in the maritime sector in the Upper Adri-
atic after the World Wars in an intersectional perspective” (acronym: WeCanIt; grant agreement no. 894257; host institu-
tion: University of Ljubljana).
2 In this work, it is impossible to account for the vast literature on the nexus between charity/welfare measures and seamen and 
sailortown control and vigilance. To name a few: Fingard, 1978; Press, 1989; Williams, 1991; Kennerley, 2002; Kennerley, 2016; 
Nilson, 2016; Cadge & Skaggs, 2018. 
ways identical. They adapt to various solicitations 
and absorb all the consequences brought about 
by socio-economic, institutional, political, and, 
finally, technological transitions. In this regard, 
it is important to remember that the proletarised 
seafarers of the age of steam were anthropologi-
cally different from their older brothers on sailing 
vessels (Burton, 1999, 92; Nilson, 2016, 79; Bea-
ven, 2016). Moreover, a waterfront is also a place 
where the given womanliness’ and manliness’ 
patterns were constantly (re)negotiated and nor-
malised according to class and politics demands 
and where charity and welfare measures might 
play a pivotal role to that effect (Burton, 1991 and 
1999; Milne, 2016, 75; Dennis, 2011). As we will 
see, not even Trieste’s waterfront was unaffected 
by those dynamics.
AUSTRIAN SEAFARING AS A BOY
On 24 April 1854, at the Augustinian Church in 
Vienna, the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I married 
the Duchess of Bavaria Elisabeth, the eternal Sissi. 
It was the wedding of the century. In a polished Vi-
enna, the wedding celebrations lasted a week. Many 
subjects of the newly-wed imperial couple wanted 
to celebrate the happy event, and some chose to 
donate sums of money to charities. This general-
ised impulse of generosity also involved charitable 
foundations in favour of the Austrian seafarers. The 
fact was reported by the trade magazine Rivista 
Marittima which, considering the uniqueness and 
importance of the circumstance, decided to dedi-
cate a long article to the charitable organisations 
(pii Istituti) of the Austrian merchant marine.
In the piece, one can read: 
The retribution in old age of the labours, whi-
ch during the years of vigour and robustness 
wear down man to the advantage of society 
and its single members, has always appeared 
to be an obligation of humanity and dutiful 
gratitude. Thus, the poor knows that once 
unable to work, he can aspire to the offering 
of charity. Knowing that he is entitled to mercy 
after honourable service, he bears more gladly 
his condition; he acknowledges and respects 
the inscrutable decrees of the Almighty with 
greater resignation and sets out to work with 
hope and courage. (ASTs-GM, 1157, 5541)
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Therefore, it seems that the working class had 
to accept its condition of the “working poor”: it 
was simply an ineluctable fact, established even 
by God. There was no way out, no possibility of 
improvement or redemption beyond the “charity of 
the rich ones” (cf. Fabi, 1984).
On the other hand, the grandeur of the wealthy 
Austrian classes – particularly the merchant one 
– is almost understandable. We are at the very 
beginning of what is known as Gründerzeit (ca. 
1848–1873), the golden age of the Austrian (and 
German) “rich ones”. After the turmoils of 1848 
and in contrast with the political claims of the 
Springtime of the Peoples, major institutional re-
forms – especially of an economic nature – were 
implemented in the Empire. First of all, serfs were 
emancipated (Gundentlastung). Then, a formal 
customs union between Austria and Hungary was 
implemented, easing the domestic tariff system. 
Finally, a Ministry of Commerce in Vienna and 
chambers of commerce all over the Austrian ter-
ritories were established (Good, 1990, 210). For 
these reasons, many would agree with Eduard März 
when he observed that the 1850s represented the 
beginning of the industrial age of the Empire (März 
in Rudolph, 1990, 135).  
As far as commercial shipping is concerned, it 
had its fulcrum in Trieste, the emporium-city and 
free port of the Empire. However, in this case, 
the economic revival began earlier than in other 
imperial territories. Trieste’s Vormärz was charac-
terised by the establishment of three economic gi-
ants that would affect the maritime and mercantile 
activities of the Empire in the following decades: 
the Imperial Regia Privilegiata Compagnia di As-
sicurazioni Generali Austro-Italiche in 1831, the 
Österreichischer Lloyd-Lloyd Austriaco in 1833 
and, finally, the Riunione Adriatica di Sicurtà in 
1838. Concerning the maritime sector, the reform-
ist climate of the 1850s concretised, especially on 
the institutional side, with the establishment of the 
Central Seebehörde (Governo Centrale Marittimo) 
in Trieste in 1850.3
In contrast, there were no changes to the 
working conditions involving the merchant ships’ 
crews. In the Austrian Empire, maritime work was 
regulated by the Political and Navigation Edict 
3 The Central Seebehörde was established in 1850 in force of ordinance no. 178 (BLI, 1850, 178) of the Ministry of Com-
merce – thus by direct will of the baron von Bruck, founder in 1833 of the Österreichischer Lloyd-Lloyd Austriaco. It was 
the “intermediate” institution between the Ministry of Commerce and the imperial maritime socio-economic entities. It 
was competent in all matters relating to the merchant marine, e.g.: navigation regulations, police and medical port offices, 
shipbuilding, fishery, registration, assistance and education of seafarers, implementing maritime laws, etc. The Ausgleich 
of 1867 also affected the organisation of the imperial maritime sector. That year, the city of Rijeka was annexed to the 
Hungarian crown as a “special body” (corpus separatum), making the city the port of Hungary. This circumstance led to 
the establishment in 1870 of a twin institution of the Trieste’s Seebehörde in Rijeka (Magyar Királyi Tengerészeti Hatóság 
iratai - Pomorska oblast za ungarsko-hrvatsko primorje - Governo Marittimo per il Littorale Ungaro-Croato) with jurisdiction 
over the Hungarian-Croatian riparian areas. More information on port organization and maritime health in the Austrian part 
of the Empire in Terčon, 1993.   
(Editto Politico di Navigazione Mercantile Austri-
aca) issued by Empress Maria Theresa in 1774, and 
it remained the main legal framework regarding the 
rights and duties of the crew until the dissolution 
of the Empire in 1918. Thus, much of the treatment 
reserved for seamen depended on the captains and 
ship-owners.
As for the seafarers and the alms they “earned” 
after a lifetime of work, the aforementioned Rivista 
Marittima’s article specifies: 
This debt of gratitude is particularly felt to-
wards sailors who, since childhood, renounce 
motherly caresses to give themselves to the 
harrowing ordeal of a life full of deprivation. 
Exposed to the thousands of dangers inherent 
in their profession, they sail the seas quickly 
passing from torrid to glacial areas. Bold in-
dividuals who face the wrath of the elements 
shaken by storms are capable of any generous 
action. At the end of all this wear and tear, 
these men have only enough to support their 
families without being able to count on the 
benefit of their savings, which are absorbed 
by the need for honest recreation imperiously 
required by the long abstinence of sailing. 
(ASTs, GM, 1157, 5541)
Such a generous and compassionate approach 
towards seafarers must undoubtedly be due to the 
joyful atmosphere of the celebrations of the impe-
rial marriage. In this regard, it should be noted that 
we know practically nothing about the attitude of 
the imperial authorities towards seafarers and very 
little about the characteristics of the Austrian sail-
ortowns. However, Lucio Fabi’s fresco of poverty 
and charitable institutions in 19th-century Trieste 
can give us some clues as to how the authorities 
attempted to control and repress the class – i.e., 
the working class and the so-called “underclass” or, 
in other words, the Marx’s Lumpenproletariat – to 
which the seafarers belonged. 
As for Trieste during the “roaring ’50s”, Fabi notes 
the complete absence of the municipal ruling and 
merchant classes in matters relating to assistance to the 
poor. It seems that the Statthalter (Governor/Lieutenant) 
– the highest imperial city and Littoral’s (Küstenland) 
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authority – was the only institutional figure to deal with 
the issue, constantly urging the municipality to help 
the poor with their “pertinency” (Heimatrecht) (Fabi, 
1984, 131–132).4 
As for the “Fathers of the City” (i.e., the munici-
pal council members), their attitude ranged from 
open hostility to smug paternalism towards the 
poor, especially if they were young and a little dare-
devil. Their aversion to “wandering kids” (ragazzi 
girovaghi) was such that it led them to implement 
forms of “institutional crimping”.5 From the minutes 
of the meeting of the Major Council of Trieste dated 
15 June 1849, we learn that the municipal Public 
Security Committee – together with the Police Di-
rectorate and the Harbour Master – had created a 
task force whose purpose was “to remedy the just 
complaints of the population, in particular of the 
merchant class, for the thefts that occur during the 
unloading of vessels and barges, both at sea and 
on the waterfront; and to prevent theft in general 
and guarantee the security of the property”. The 
third point on their measures list ordered that, “as 
established by the current mercantile code, the 
compulsory embarkation of boys without any oc-
cupation on merchant ships has to continue with 
full energy”,6 and that the public authorities should 
have taken action with the military authorities “so 
that the Royal Navy will take Trieste’s boys as deck-
hands” (AGCT, 5 C.1-1849, 5107). However, some 
were making more sophisticated – and hypocritical 
– proposals. During the same session, councillor 
Luigi Lutschaunig submitted his plan to solve the 
“wandering kids” problem. Like his colleagues, he 
was worried about the lack of safety in the streets 
of Trieste sailortown, not so much for the damage 
that this circumstance could cause to trade “as for 
the consequent corruption of customs that ensues 
for the idle youth”. However, Lutschaunig wished 
4 The Austrian Empire never had a single Poor Law common to all domains. However, all the imperial provinces shared the Heimatrecht 
(pertinency, residence) framework, which represented the basis for all forms of assistance to the needy (Glaser, 1912, 246). It was intro-
duced by the Provisional Municipal Law (provisorische Gemeindegesetz, issued on 17 March 1849) and then confirmed by law no. 26 
– in particular by § 2 – of 1862 (Kiefer & Schausberger, 2009, 43; BLI, 1862, 26). However, Heimatrecht was definitively systematised in 
law no. 80 of 1863 (BLI, 1863, 80). The law guaranteed the right of undisturbed residence in a municipality and assistance in destitute 
circumstances from one’s municipality of residence (§ 1). Section four of the law dealt with the municipalities’ obligation to provide for 
the poor. In particular, it ordered that: assistance was limited to subsistence and the provision of medical care in the event of illness (§ 
24); the poor unemployed, if able to work, could be forced to work (§ 26); a municipality was obliged to take care of poor “foreigners” 
(non-residents) in a state of need (maintenance and medical care) or to provide for their burial in the event of death, but it could later ask 
for compensation from the municipality of residence of the poor in question (§§ 28–31). As for poverty data, in 1889, the year in which 
the two Austrian framework laws of the workers’ security system were approved, the 10,940 institutions for the poor in the Cisleithania 
assisted 288,742 people (112,190 men, 39%; 176,552 women, 61%) (Statistik, 1889, XLII).
5 Crimping or “sailor thieves” – a phenomenon also known by the exotic expression “shanghaiing” – was the practice of kidnapping men 
to make them serve as sailors on merchant ships.    
6 The Political and Navigation Edict (Editto Politico di Navigazione Mercantile Austriaca) of 1774 and the subsequent legal provi-
sions that supplemented it – i.e., the regulatory framework on which the Austrian merchant marine was based until the end of 
WWI – did not order anything of the kind of course.
7 “A total institution may be defined as a place of residence and work [in our case also education] where a large number of like-situated 
individuals cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time together lead an enclosed formally administered round of life” 
(Goffman, 1961, XIII). It is worth highlighting that a similar process of seamen criminalisation and the implementation of a naval system 
of disciplines were also taking place at the same time in Germany (Gerstenberger, 2001).
to make one point clear: he did not want this youth 
– “who are mostly made up of young delinquents” 
– to be punished. On the contrary, he wanted “to 
give them a way to get an honest crust of bread”. 
Thus, he wrote:
I take the liberty of proposing […] to have an 
old warship stationed permanently in our port 
with duties of harbour guard and, at the same 
time, asylum for those low-class youngsters 
who mainly loaf around all day in our streets. 
This harbour guard should be considered a for-
ced or voluntary shelter. In the first case, a lad 
caught in the act of theft would be detained or 
punished in some way to be established and, 
later, transferred aboard some warship – even-
tually, this should be the subject of a specific 
regulation. In the second case, when a young 
man volunteered, declaring that he wanted to 
dedicate himself – either out of desire or out of 
need – to seafaring, he should find immediate 
shelter there. […] I humbly believe that such 
a measure would result in two good things. 
On the one hand, our seafaring would acquire 
a reinforcement of good seamen over time 
and on the other, without resorting to acts of 
severity [sic!], society would be enriched with 
useful men who, without such a provision, 
would perhaps have become its abomination. 
(AGCT, 5 C.1-1849, 5107)
Perhaps, few other cases taken from historical 
sources can fit so well with Goffman’s definition of 
a “total institution”,7 where issues relating to the 
“assistance” of vulnerable or at-risk individuals, 
public safety – even “decorum” –, social exclu-
sion and coercion are intertwined inexorably and 
perversely. 
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The “Fathers of the City” told us how many 
low-rank seafaring careers started and how – using 
the Rivista Marittima words again – many Austrian 
“sailors, since childhood, renounce motherly caresses 
to give themselves to the harrowing ordeal of a life 
full of deprivation”. Seafaring was a “high-risk” pro-
fession, full of hardships in many respects indeed. 
It constantly exposed the worker – in most cases, a 
male worker – and his family to the risk of poverty. 
Therefore, turning to a charitable foundation dur-
ing one’s working life was expected, and it became 
necessary when one stopped working due to old age. 
As for seafarers’ families, seeking help from this kind 
of institution was almost an unavoidable fact in the 
event of the head of the household’s death. In this 
context, alongside labour and capital, charity can be 
considered the “third pillar” on which the Austrian 
seafaring rested.
THE CHARITABLE FOUNDATIONS
Usually, welfare and social security measures can 
be implemented under a public regime through state 
legal instruments which regulate and organise social 
policies; otherwise, they can be actualised through 
commercial means, i.e., by contracts concluded 
with an insurance institution. In the latter case, the 
market has the leading role. However, things worked 
differently for the Austrian seamen of the Austrian-
Hungarian Empire. Until 1913, there were no laws to 
protect these workers in the event of illness or injury 
in the workplace. Indeed, some of them could turn to 
insurance companies to secure health and workplace 
accident insurance policies and, perhaps, even old-
age pensions.8 Nevertheless, in general, this category 
of workers and their families had to resort to other 
bodies in case of need: the charitable foundations.
The two main relief foundations of Austrian 
seafaring were Pio fondo di marina Austro-illirico 
(Österr.-illyr. Marine-Unterstützungsfond) and Pio 
fondo di marina dalmato (Dalmatinischen Marine-
Unterstützungsfond). The Pio fondo di marina Austro-
illirico originated in the brotherhood of Saint Nicholas 
in Trieste as early as 1588. In 1783 brotherhoods were 
abolished, but that of Saint Nicholas was allowed to 
remain, with the name Istituto di marina. It was sup-
pressed during the French occupation but reactivated 
in 1814. As far as Dalmatia is concerned, the scholae 
of Saint Nicholas and Saint John of Nepomuk9 existed 
8 It is important to mention that some shipping companies had their welfare funds. In 1848, the Austrian Lloyd established the Istituto 
pensioni per gli impiegati della Società di Navigazione a Vapore del Lloyd Austriaco, whose purpose was to provide its members’ widows 
and orphans with pensions or other forms of economic support (Babudieri, 1964, 78).  
9 From the 16th century onwards, the cult of Saint John of Nepomuk spread very quickly in Central and Eastern Europe. The patron of Bo-
hemia, Saint John is also the protector of all those related to labour activities on waters (sailors, fishermen, millers, etc.) (Hupalo, 2019, 
21). For a general overview of the role of faith, beliefs, and superstitions within the maritime world, see Gambin, 2014.    
10 It is important to underline that the territorial jurisdiction of the two Pio fondo was not rigid. Since the first half of the 19th century, the 
Istituto di Marina of Trieste also subsidised seafarers from other maritime provinces of the Empire (Babudieri, 1964, 77).
there since the early modern period; they had the 
same purposes as the brotherhood of Saint Nicholas 
in Trieste. In 1820, probably in Zadar, an Istituto di 
marina similar to that of Trieste was founded for Dal-
matia (ASTs, GM, 1163, 4430).
After establishing the Central Seebehörde in Trieste 
in 1850, both foundations were administered by this 
new government body. After the creation of the sec-
ond Maritime Government in Rijeka with jurisdiction 
over the Hungarian-Croatian riparian areas in 1870, 
the framework would remain stable until the 1920s: 
the Pio Fondo di marina Austro-illirico for Trieste, 
Istria and the Kvarner islands; then, the Pio Fondo di 
marina dalmato for Dalmatia.10
The people selected to receive a subsidy followed 
a bottom-up process. In the first instance, grant ap-
plications had to be submitted to the relevant local 
commission. Those bodies were made up of three 
ship-owners and three sea captains chosen from the 
members of the local merchant class; finally, the lo-
cal port captain chaired the gathering. After an initial 
screening, applications for subsidies were passed to the 
Central Commission for the administration of the two 
relief foundations – composed of delegates from the 
Chambers of Commerce of the Littoral and Dalmatia 
– at the Maritime Government (Seebehörde - Governo 
Marittimo) in Trieste. The Central Commission had the 
final say and could order the subsidy payments of be-
tween 10 and 40 Kronen per month (ASTs, GM, 1160, 
4820; cf. 1161, 32291). Naturally, this system was not 
without its faults. In 1911, 38 seafarers of Mali Lošinj 
– including at least six captains – communicated to 
the Maritime Government their discontent regard-
ing the composition of Pio fondo local commission. 
They reported that the commission, which had been 
established for years at the local Harbour Master’s 
Office, did not respect the characteristics prescribed 
by the regulations (Maritime Government’s notice no. 
2570, 14 April 1871). It also included people who 
were not – and had never been – merchant captains 
or ship-owners such as, for example, a town clerk, 
a pharmacist, and a wine merchant. For this reason, 
the petitioners requested that the commission be dis-
solved (ASTs, GM, 1160, 4820).
As for resources, they were drained mainly by 
fines for fishery violations, with surtaxes on tonnage 
and port taxes, and finally from donations. Most of the 
resources obtained through those methods were in-
vested in state bonds or other financial products (e.g., 
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Prestito della città di Milano 1866, lottery loans, and 
other debentures) to get annual financial incomes. Al-
though they were intended as a protection instrument 
for (male) seafarers, as reported in the tables below, 
and at least starting from the last years of the 19th 
century, both foundations assumed an essential role 
in supporting seafarers’ families (widows and orphans) 
in the event of the male breadwinner’s death.
Pio Fondo di marina Austro-illirico and Pio Fondo 
di marina dalmato were not the only relief founda-
tions to which seafarers and their families could 
turn in times of need. In 1919 a further four smaller 
11 Source: ASTs, GM, 1157, (year 1854) 5541, (year 1894) 7081; 1158, (year 1897) 7016, (year 1899) 7526; 1159, (year 1902) 6920, (year 
1905) 13267; 1160, (year 1907) 18402, (year 1909) 15555; (year 1911) 26950; 1161, (year 1913) 16881.
12 Source: ASTs, GM, 1157, (year 1894) 7081; 1158, (year 1897) 7016, (year 1899) 7526; 1159, (year 1902) 6920, (year 1905) 13267; 1160, 
(year 1907) 18402, (year 1909) 15555, (year 1911) 26950; 1161, (year 1913) 16881.
foundations established by Trieste’s merchant class 
members also existed in Venezia Giulia (Julian 
March). They were Fondazione Erminia ved. Bussoli, 
favouring two sailors’ widows of Trieste and Piran; 
Fondazione Giuseppe ed Antonia coniugi Clivio, 
which provided two scholarships for students of the 
Trieste Nautical Academy; Fondazione Federico De-
seppi for fishermen; and finally, Fondazione Marco 
Domenico Garofolo for seamen, their widows and 
orphans of Trieste and the islands of Silba and 
Lošinj. The capital of these smaller foundations was 
managed by the Maritime Government of Trieste 
Table 1: Pio fondo di marina Austro-illirico beneficiaries per gender and age.11
Year Men Men - % Women Women - % Minors Minors - % Total
1854 432 62% 261 38% – – 696
1894 410 39% 617 59% 16 2% 1,043
1897 410 39% 617 59% 20 2% 1,047
1899 382 37% 619 60% 22 3% 1,023
1902 427 37% 688 60% 37 3% 1,152
1905 438 35% 749 60% 57 5% 1,244
1907 425 34% 779 62% 59 4% 1,263
1909 545 35% 880 58% 85 7% 1,510
1911 591 36% 957 58% 104 6% 1,652
1913 656 36% 1,047 57% 131 7% 1,834
Table 2: Pio fondo di marina dalmato beneficiaries per gender and age.12
Year Men Men - % Women Women - % Minors Minors - % Total
1894 68 43% 89 57% – – 157
1897 68 42% 93 58% – – 161
1899 65 36% 112 63% 2 1% 179
1902 42 30% 93 66% 5 4% 140
1905 42 29% 92 65% 8 6% 142
1907 52 33% 96 61% 10 6% 158
1909 95 37% 141 55% 21 8% 257
1911 120 33% 201 56% 37 11% 358
1913 113 33% 187 55% 38 12% 338
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Erica MEZZOLI: SAFE WATERS. AUSTRIAN SEAFARERS BETWEEN CHARITY AND WELFARE, CA. 1850–1920, 571–590
(ASTs, GM,131163, 4430).14 As regards the benefi-
ciaries’ selection, the criteria were established by 
the foundations’ statutes. Usually, applicants had to 
produce a certificate attesting to their condition of 
indigence and good morals, evidence of the dura-
tion of the service aboard, and any other document 
that could support their application. In some cases, 
as already mentioned, candidates had to prove they 
were originally from a specific locality. However, 
in other cases, the statutory instructions are much 
more “detailed”. For example, one of the two schol-
arships, Fondazione Giuseppe ed Antonia coniugi 
Clivio, was intended for an applicant from Bakar, 
preferably belonging to the Imoquina or Schnautz 
families (AST, GM, 1164, 5964). The statute of 
Fondazione Marco Domenico Garofolo also had 
a “familyist” purpose – sometimes, in business or 
trade organisations, it is considered a facet of “so-
cial capital” (cf. Jones, 2012, XI). Even in that case, 
the beneficiaries not only had to be from a specific 
locality, but they also had to demonstrate some de-
gree of kinship with the prominent Marco Domenico 
Garofolo (ASTs, GM, 1157, 10411). So – since she 
could prove she was Garofolo’s first cousin – the 
widow Anna Pizzoli from Mali Lošinj was able to 
secure a subsidy from Fondazione Marco Domenico 
Garofolo for many years (ASTs, GM, 1164, 8920). 
13 Source: ASTs, GM, 1164, 5964.
14 Before the outbreak of WWI, there were more charitable foundations which dealt with the assistance of seafarers and their rela-
tives in need. There were also, for example: Fondazione Francesco Giuseppe I to support Istrian seafaring; Fondazione Scaramangà 
favouring the widows and orphans of the Littoral seafarers; Fondazione Maria ved. Tercig to support sailors’ widows.
15 Moreover, in 1916 in Vienna, a specific relief committee was established to subsidise seafarers, fishermen and their families in a 
state of poverty due to the war (ASTs-CPT, 19, 17525 ex 1916). Also, it is worth mentioning the charity that, in a private capacity, 
some tycoons of the Austrian shipping industry did for the families of its employees in such a difficult moment. From June 1915 
to June 1922, Diodato Tripcovich paid 200 Kronen (later 200 Lire) per month to the widow and orphans of the engine driver 
Paglietach. Tripcovich stopped the subsidy in July 1922 following a lump sum of 2,400 Lire (ASTs-ST, 198).
16 The first chapter of law no. 1 of 1888 bears the wording “insurance extension”, but it is a bluff aimed at making it appear that Germany 
has beaten the times in social policy matters. The “precedent” to which the law of 1888 implicitly refers is the law of 1854 on mining 
(BLI, 1854, 254). The ninth and tenth chapters of the latter law explicitly addressed the issues relating to relations between workers and 
employers (§§ 200–209) and social security (§§ 210–214). As for the latter aspect, the law obliged the mine owners to set up brotherhood 
relief funds to support miners in need, their widows and orphans (§§ 210; 212; 214). For their part, miners were obliged to contribute 
to the fund (§ 211). Although these provisions were very far-sighted – representing the framework of the following measures for workers’ 
social security – they were designed solely to improve working and living conditions and to prevent forms of revolt of a specific category 
of workers subjected to particularly strenuous work. 
It is essential to highlight that these foundations 
maintained their functions even after the approval of 
the seafarers’ social security scheme in 1913, during 
the war and the post-WWI transition.15 In 1921, the 
Italian Cassa invalidi della marina mercantile extended 
its authority also over the Julian March (GU, 221, 
Royal Decree 1921/1231) and, in 1929, Pio fondo di 
marina austro-illirico, Pio fondo di marina dalmato, and 
Pio fondo di marina per Fiume e Seni were absorbed 
into the Italian Cassa Nazionale delle Assicurazioni 
Sociali in force of the Royal Decree 24 January 1929 
no. 158 (LF-II, 1837, 1893). In this way, the ex-imperial 
relief foundations for seafarers ceased de facto to exist. 
However, despite the currency’s devaluation due to 
rapid inflation in the post-WWI period, as seen from 
the table below, some foundations still had consider-
able assets and returns in 1923.
THE AUSTRIAN WORKERS’ SOCIAL SECURITY 
SCHEME
Between 1887 and 1888, the Imperial Council is-
sued the two laws that formed the framework of the 
Austrian workers’ social security system. The first, ap-
proved in December 1887, was the law concerning the 
extension16 of workers’ insurance against workplace 
accidents (BLI, 1888, 1), and, in March of the following 
Table 3: Assets and returns of Austrian seafarers’ relief foundations in 1923.13
Foundation name Net asset (nominal value) Net return (nominal value)
Pio fondo di marina Austro-illirico 1,021,500 Lire and 523,680 Kronen 170,000 Lire
Pio fondo di marina dalmato 373,000 Kronen 2,500 Lire
Fondazione Federico Deseppi 400 Lire 20 Lire
Fondazione Giuseppe ed Antonia coniugi Clivio 8,900 Lire and 1,800 Kronen 445 Lire
Fondazione Marco Domenico Garofolo 24,000 Kronen 920 Kronen
Fondazione Erminia ved. Bussoli 1,000 Lire 50 Lire
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year, the law regarding workers’ insurance in case of 
illness was also approved (BLI, 1888, 33). Following 
the German social policy scheme, the Austrian social 
security system was the second to be implemented 
worldwide.
As for the Austrian context, it is important to 
underline that the adoption of compulsory work-
ers’ insurance was intended to protect workers 
and their families in the event of loss or reduction 
of wages due to circumstances that prevented or 
diminished the worker’s ability to work (Manuale, 
1919, 9).17 As regards specifically the insurance 
for accidents at work, the Austrian “General Civil 
Code” (Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch – 
ABGB) established that involuntary damages must 
also be compensated (§ 1306) and that the burden 
of proof was on who had suffered the damage (§ 
1298). However, in some cases – such as railway 
accidents – the burden of proof was reversed. In 
Germany, before work-related accident insurance, 
the shifting of the burden of the proof applied to 
the whole large-scale industry (Manuale, 1919, 
10). Therefore, beyond the political question of 
anti-socialist action, it seems that in Germany, the 
adoption of the law against accidents at work had 
also found a not-insignificant reason in the will to 
overcome the existing legal practices, which did 
not favour the industrial sector at all.
The subject of the Austrian occupational acci-
dent scheme (BLI, 1888, 1) was the compensation 
for damage deriving from an injury or death of 
the insured (the employee) following an accident 
at work. Similarly, the subject of workers’ illness 
insurance programme (BLI, 1888, 33) was granting 
subsidies in case of illness and covering burial costs 
in the event of the insured’s death. Both laws were 
in force on all territories of Cisleithania and re-
quired that all businesses owners such as factories, 
shipyards, transport and logistic facilities (e.g., port 
warehouses), construction sites, and other trades18 
must ensure all employees, without any distinc-
tion of duties, gender, or citizenship. So, it was 
not essential to be an Austrian citizen or have the 
“pertinency”/residency in a specific place to benefit 
from the two insurances. Both laws guaranteed the 
right to sickness and accident allowances simply 
because of a subordinate employment contract with 
an Austrian business. If the person entitled to com-
17 Besides the laws regarding workplace accidents and health insurance, those that regulated the compulsory workers’ insurances in force 
in Cisleithania were the following: concerning miners’ relief founds no. 127 of 1889, no. 14 of 1890, no. 3 of 1892 and no. 178 of 1892; 
regarding white-collar, old-age pensions no. 1 of 1907; about damages caused by a car no. 162 of 1908; relating to compensation no. 
29 of 1909; regarding some specific construction workers no. 96 of 1912; concerning seafarers no. 24 and 25 of 1913; about miners no. 
523 of 1917; reform of the law on accidents at work (1/1888 and 168/1894) no. 363 of 1917; and finally, the reform of the law on health 
insurance (33/1888 and 39/1889) no. 457 of 1917. 
18 For example, law no. 168 of 1894 extended the insurance’s obligation to cleaning companies too.
19 It is worth remembering that the territorial jurisdiction of the Institutes for insurance against accidents at work of Trieste extended over its 
territory, Littoral, Carniola and Dalmatia (Statut, 1913). 
pensation for injury was a foreign subject or per-
manently resided abroad, the insurance institution 
could compromise on the annuity and liquidate the 
insured with a good exit administered at one time 
(BLI, 1888, 1, § 42). The basis of both the allow-
ances and the insurance premiums was the worker’s 
actual salary. The latter also included piecework, 
benefits in kind, cost-of-living subsidies and tips if 
they were used to complete the fixed salary. So, the 
type of remuneration was irrelevant for insurance 
purposes. Paying the premiums to the insurance 
institutions was the employer’s responsibility. If 
specific categories of businesses were not obliged 
to take out insurance, entrepreneurs could still 
choose to insure voluntarily. Regarding workplace 
insurance, in the event of the insured’s death, the 
law also provided for the survivor’s pension up to 
20% of the accrued indemnity (BLI, 1888, 1, § 7). 
So, to sum up, both insurances consisted of the sim-
ple fact that a certain amount was taken from the 
salary of the employee, which the entrepreneur had 
to pay to the public/state insurance institutions. In 
the event of a worker’s illness or accident at work, 
the state provided compensation, also for the next 
of kin in the event of the insured’s death. The latter 
is not a circumstance to be taken for granted.
A final important aspect related to the 1887–
1888 laws approval worth mentioning was the 
one related to bureaucracy. First of all, new public 
bodies were established: the District sickness funds 
(in Italian Casse distrettuali per ammalati) and the 
Institutes for insurance against accidents at work (in 
Italian Istituti d’assicurazione per gli infortuni sul 
lavoro).19 Then, a public official class specialised 
in social security matters gradually began to be cre-
ated. As for our seafarers, they remained excluded 
from any form of protection in the event of illness or 
workplace injury. Ten years after the approval of the 
laws and the creation of the institutions mentioned 
above, those public officials complained that all 
their proposals and recommendations to improve 
the social security system were never incorporated 
by the government authorities. In particular, they 
criticised the fact that law no. 168 of 1894 extended 
the insurance against accidents at work to workers 
such as chimney sweeps and stonemasons. How-
ever, it completely disregarded seafarers, despite 
the fact they were among the categories of workers 
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most at risk, and the provision would have been met 
with favour from the ship-owners (Rapporto, 1900, 
3). In 1905, their frustration reached its limit. In the 
Ministry of the Interior reform programme dating 
back to the previous year, seafarers continued to be 
excluded from any provision. The Ministry justified 
this exclusion because it was complicated to equate 
seafarers with other workers and, before proceeding 
with the approval of the social security schemes in 
their favour, first an organic revision of the legisla-
tion on commercial navigation was necessary. It is 
worth mentioning that public officials (sarcastically) 
welcomed the fact that at least the Government 
had taken “an insignificant step” forward, that is, 
that it moved “from absolute denial to theoretical 
recognition” of the seafarers’ social protection issue 
(Questioni, 1905, 45–46).
 
THE AUSTRIAN SEAFARERS’ SOCIAL SECURITY 
SCHEME
Already in 1853, understanding the economic 
scope of the issue, the Chamber of Commerce – still 
named Deputazione di Borsa – of Trieste solicited 
the opinions of the seafarers’ class about the meas-
ures to be taken to avoid the loss of goods and 
human lives in the event of sea accidents along 
the Austrian coasts. Among the various measures, a 
commission of experts chosen within the Navy and 
among the members of the port authorities, insur-
ance and shipping companies suggested the crea-
tion of a “Shipwreck Institution” based on the British 
model,20 the execution of periodic seaworthiness 
inspections of the vessels and the free distribution 
among the captains of an Italian translation of the 
Traité de sauvetage par Conseil (ASTs-DBCCIT, 34, 
553).21 Nevertheless, the political authorities did 
not seem to adopt the proposed measures. 
About 30 years later, in Germany, moves towards 
adopting social policy measures would become 
more pressing and influential. The Austrian seafar-
ing class immediately grasped the famous message 
of Kaiser Wilhelm I to the Reichstag of November 
1881 on social security. In December of the same 
year, a commission created for the purpose submit-
ted to the attention of the Maritime Government of 
20 In all likelihood they meant the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck.  
21 Most likely they were referring to de Godde de Liancourt, 1841.
22 The old-age pension programme designed for seamen and fishermen was simple and functional. It provided a compulsory contribution 
equal to 5% of the annual income. So, considering that a sailor earned an average of 200 Forint and a merchant captain about 500 Forint 
in a year, the contribution should have been 10 and 25 Forint respectively. At the age of 60, a sailor would have acquired the right to 
receive an annual allowance of 120 Forint and a captain of 300 Forint, in both cases 60% of the annual income. Austrian seafarers and 
fishermen working on foreign-flagged vessels could have voluntarily contributed to the pension fund (ASTs, GM, 1163, 3633 ex 1881).
23 Similarly, in June 1913, the law establishing the invalidity fund of the merchant marine (Cassa invalidi della marina mercantile) was ap-
proved in Italy too (GU, 167, law 1913/767).
24 Exceptions for the insurance of foreign subjects if employed only temporarily were allowed (BLI, 1913, 25, § 3).
Trieste a proposal for a compulsory old-age pension 
scheme for the seafarers of the Austrian merchant 
marine also be extended to sea fishing fishermen.22 
Again, the proposal came to nothing. Given the 
context, it is reasonable to suppose that other events 
and circumstances proved to be more persuasive.
On the night of 14 April 1912, in the waters off 
the coast of Newfoundland, the largest ocean liner 
in service at that time – described as “unsinkable” 
by the international press – the steamer “Titanic” 
collided with an iceberg. It sank in less than three 
hours, causing the death of more than 1,500 people. 
It is regarded as one of the deadliest peacetime mar-
itime disasters in history. The “Titanic” sinking was 
also a workplace accident of international signifi-
cance (ca. 685 crew members lost their lives) and a 
big scandal that had major consequences within the 
global maritime capitalism of that time. Although 
it is not appropriate to go into detail, suffice to say 
that the families of the crew members who perished 
during the disaster asked for compensation from the 
ship-owner, the White Star Line company. It was the 
British Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1897 that 
made the survivors and relatives of the crew mem-
bers that passed away eligible for compensation 
from the shipping company, not the state (Moses, 
2018, 162–163). Anyway, less than a year after the 
“Titanic” tragedy, protection in the event of illness 
and accident in the workplace was finally extended 
to Austrian seamen.23 
On 11 February 1913, both the law on compul-
sory health insurance (BLI, 1913, 24) and the law 
concerning compulsory injury insurance (BLI, 1913, 
25) for seafarers and fishermen were issued. They 
followed the structure, intentions and modalities of 
the two previous framework acts and, also in the 
seafarers’ case, in the event of a worker’s illness or 
an accident at work, the state provided compensa-
tion. Both laws ordered the businessperson – i.e., the 
ship-owner, the representative of the ship-owner’s 
consortium or the shipping company owing vessels 
flying under the Austrian flag – to insure the sub-
ordinate workers, regardless of their duties or rank 
aboard, gender, nationality or citizenship.24 The 
obligation was not limited to commercial shipping 
but also included the crews of training and science 
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ships and sport boats (ASTs, GM, 827, 32573).25 As 
far as accident insurance was concerned, diseases 
such as cholera, plague, yellow fever and beriberi 
were equated to injuries (BLI, 1913, 25, § 3). In the 
case of seafarers, the law provided for the survivor’s 
pension in case of the insured’s death, both in the 
event of a shipwreck and for the vessel’s disappear-
ance (BLI, 1913, 25, §§ 4-5). A particular branch of 
the Institute for Accidents at Work of Trieste dedi-
cated to the seafaring workforce had jurisdiction 
over all the Austrian vessels, shipping companies 
and ship-owners’ consortia. 
The law that insured seafarers in case of illness 
did not differ from the framework scheme dating 
back to 1888. The most interesting aspect of health 
insurance for seafarers concerns its organisational 
and institutional aspects. The law provided that a 
vessel crew had to be insured at the district sickness 
fund of the locality where the vessel was registered 
(BLI, 1913, 24, § 5). However, this provision 
seemed challenging to implement. Thus, shipping 
companies and ship-owners created their company 
sickness funds, organising them into a federation 
(Federazione delle Casse Marittime di Malattia della 
Marina Mercantile) whose headquarters was in Tri-
este. At the end of WWI, and following the extension 
of the jurisdiction of the Italian Cassa invalidi della 
marina mercantile to the newly acquired territories, 
the social partners of the Venezia Giulia commer-
cial navigation (for employers, the Federazione 
degli Armatori della Venezia Giulia; for workers, the 
Federazione della Gente di Mare) decided to accept 
the conditions of the Italian collective contract for 
the recruitment of seafarers. From this circumstance 
arose the need to follow the “Italian model”, creat-
ing something similar to what in Italy was called 
“business fund” (cassa d’esercizio) (ASTs, GM, 837, 
1649). So, in 1921, the general sickness fund for 
seafarers in Julian March (Cassa Generale di Malat-
tia per Marittimi nella Venezia Giulia) was created. 
Similarly, the Institute for Accidents at Work of 
Trieste’s maritime branch was no longer functional 
in the post-war scenario. Therefore, in 1920, the 
Mutual insurance consortium for seafarers’ work-
related accidents (Sindacato d’assicurazione mutua 
per gl’infortuni della gente di mare) was established 
in Trieste.
Both 1913 Austrian seafarers’ insurances became 
fully operational on 1 January 1914. They had only 6–7 
months to test their effectiveness, and then the scenario 
and the priorities would change drastically.
25 An interesting aspect of the seafarers’ social security laws is that they used different criteria from the Austrian framework 
law on merchant marine (BLI, 1879, 65) to distinguish between different types of maritime navigation. The 1913 laws distin-
guished between “small” (vessels less than 50 gross tons) and “large” navigation (vessels over 50 gross tons). Since the laws 
provided for the compulsory registration of all Austrian maritime enterprises with the Institute for Accidents at Work of Trieste, 
we know that the size of the Austrian merchant marine on the eve of WWI was 759 units: 410 businesses related to the “large” 
navigation and 349 businesses related to the “small” one (Rapporto, 1915, 3). 
TRIESTE WORKING-CLASS HERO: 
THE “IRON SAILOR”
With the roar of the “guns of August”, Trieste im-
mediately began to bleed dry of people (Fabi, 1996, 
16, 61; Scartabellati, 2006, 161), jobs (Fabi, 1996, 
20; Manenti, 2015, 78–80) and capital (Mezzoli, 
2015). Following the entrance of the Anglo-French 
naval forces into the Adriatic basin on 13 August 
1914, Trieste military authorities ordered the city’s 
military evacuation too (Marzari, 1992). In 1915, 
Italy entered the war, a circumstance that led to the 
expulsion or internment of almost all of the city’s 
Italian population (regnicoli). In the third year of 
war in 1916, war-weariness was beginning to be felt 
significantly, in Trieste as elsewhere. In particular, 
food shortages, the deterioration of working condi-
tions and the rise in prices due to inflation resulted 
in civil and industrial unrest throughout the Empire. 
The situation also worried the military, who feared 
that a possible home front collapse could affect 
the soldiers’ willingness to fight (Obinger, 2018, 
78–79). In that desolation, a (working-class) hero 
was needed.
On the eve of WWI, Trieste was a great city/
port, the fourth largest city in the Empire (Cat-
taruzza, 1979, 5). It was also a synthesis of the 
political-economic architecture and of the moral 
and material culture that the 19th century pro-
duced in its breathtaking race towards progress. 
In that context, some had run better and faster 
than others, namely the maritime industry and, 
particularly, the shipping sector (Cattaruzza, 2002, 
176–178). From 1879, the year that marked the 
beginning of the merchant marine reform process, 
to the eve of WWI, Austrian industrial navigation 
(i.e., steam navigation) experienced an amazing 
evolution. The tonnage of Austrian commercial 
steam shipping increased sevenfold, and the 
number of registered seamen nearly tripled. It is 
indeed appropriate to say that in the context of the 
Austrian capitalist economy, a seafaring industrial 
revolution was taking place. 
The proscenium of that formidable success was Tri-
este. Here the tonnage of the commercial steam navi-
gation grew by five times, and the seafaring workforce 
more than doubled. In 1912, more than two-thirds 
of the tonnage of Austrian industrial shipping and its 
workforce – which consisted mainly of men – were 
concentrated in Trieste. Moreover, 60% of Austrian 
steamers also had Trieste as their home port. 
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In this picture, it is also necessary to mention 
the extraordinary increase in industrial produc-
tion and commercial traffic that crossed the city 
in the same years (Cattaruzza, 2002, 176–184),
a circumstance also due to Trieste’s intermodal 
transport system.28 As an example, in 1913, only in 
the area of the free port of Trieste (617,000m2, five 
docks, 3,100m of quays) 2,146 vessels (both steam 
and sailing ships; overall 3,042,403 tons) docked 
to unload the goods they transported (Statistica-
Statistik, 1913, 149). A trade of this magnitude 
naturally represented a significant opportunity for 
ashore maritime work, first for the (male) work-
ers who dealt with loading and unloading goods 
from the ships’ holds, then also for the shipyards’ 
workers. As Joy Parr highlighted in her study 
on Ontario’s industrial communities, the “spe-
cialisation” of a community in a particular type of 
economy (i.e., one-industry community) also has 
consequences in its inner workings regarding class 
and gender relations (i.e., jobs’ sex labelling and 
“gendered” communities) (Parr, 1990). As for our 
case, it is possible to affirm that, considering its 
economic characteristics, Trieste was a “working-
class’” and “men’s city” during the last decades 
of the 19th and the first of the 20th centuries at 
least. At the same time, in the “West” a direct in-
terdependence between industrial capitalism and 
patriarchal gender relations was settling down: the 
male sole-breadwinner paradigm was establishing 
itself as the dominant working-class family model 
(Rose, 1986, 114; Soccombe, 1986, 54). As Valerie 
26 Source: Statistica-Statistik, (year 1879) 6; (year 1890) 6; (year 1900) 12; (year 1912) 12.  
27 Source: Statistica-Statistik, (year 1879) 3; (year 1890) 3; (year 1900) 3; (year 1912) 3.   
28 The port of Trieste was connected to the railway in 1857.
Burton has shown, seafaring labour – maybe, the 
entire spectrum of maritime work – is particularly 
receptive to the interactions between modes of 
production, relations among social classes and 
power relationships between genders. The devel-
opment of industrial (i.e., steam) navigation, and 
the subsequent formation of social relations shaped 
by industrial capitalism, exposed seafarers to a 
greater extent to the norms and conventions of the 
ashore communities. Thus, more or less wittingly, 
in the late 19th–early 20th century, also seafarers – 
and the other maritime workers – gave credit to the 
male sole-breadwinner industrial capitalist diktat 
(Burton, 1991, 180–181, 189 et passim).
During WWI, most of the activities related to 
commercial shipping and fishery stopped. The is-
sue of the social security system for seamen was 
no longer on the agenda. Now, pre-war seamen, 
fishermen and maritime workers were infantrymen 
on the battlefields or sailors of the imperial navy. 
As in other cases other than Trieste and the Littoral, 
women, children, and the elderly were “only” wives, 
children and parents to support before the war. They 
belonged only to the private sphere. However, with 
the prolongation of the war, the question relating to 
the livelihood of those people’s categories assumed 
a public and “strategic” character. 
At the beginning of July 1916, posters began to 
appear in the city announcing an unusual event 
for Trieste (cf. Benco, 1919a, 181): the inaugura-
tion of the “Iron Sailor” (marinaio in ferro), one of 
the many nail men (Nagelmänner) erected in the 
Table 4: Austrian industrial navigation.26
1879 1890 1900 1912
Steamers 101 135 199 394
Tonnage 60,139 87,474 190,620 422,368
Crew 2,432 2,857 3,919 6,667
Table 5: Trieste’s industrial navigation.27
1879 1879 - % 1890 1890 - % 1900 1900 - % 1912 1912 - %
Steamers 93 92% 113 84% 127 64% 236 60%
Tonnage 59,932 99% 84,584 97% 156,482 82% 324,357 77%
Crew 2,391 98% 2,707 95% 3,207 82% 5,025 75%
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Austro-Hungarian and German Empires during 
WWI.29 The occurrence scheduled on 9 July 1916 
in Piazza Grande (now Piazza Unità d’Italia) was 
promoted by the “Società Triestina Austria” as-
29 They were wooden monuments in which nails of iron, silver or gold were hammered in exchange for offerings, later donated to chari-
table cause (Bellucci, 1919, 1–34). Interestingly enough, in the Ottoman Empire, a “wooden cannon” – called “Souvenir of Bravery” in 
Turkish Hâtıra-i Celâdet Topu – was established during WWI too. In November 1915, the activists of the Association for the Support of 
Needy Soldiers’ Families (Asker Âilelerine Yardımcı Hanımlar Cemiyeti) were granted permission to install a wooden canon in Istanbul’s 
Beyazıd Square. Also in this case, contributors could drive a nail into the monument in return for an offering. The proceeds would have 
been donated to the families of the soldiers, particularly the muinsiz aile, the soldiers’ families whose sole male breadwinners were en-
listed (van Os, 2011, 269; Akın, 2014, 22 et passim).    
sociation. According to their intention, the “Iron 
Sailor” was “destined to [become] destination of 
pitiful pilgrimage by those citizens who, with the 
corresponding offering of their forces, would like 
Figure 1: Inauguration of the “Iron Sailor” nail man (Trieste, Piazza Grande, 9 July 1916) (Source: CMSPCT-SZ, 
f. 10, it. 19).
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to pay due tribute to the heroism of the brave ones 
who, as an unshakeable bulwark, stand in defence 
of Trieste and the great homeland”. All proceeds 
would be donated to the relief foundation in favour 
of the widows and orphans of Trieste’s conscripts 
(BCAH-SM, 14). 
The day following the inauguration, the front page 
of the newspaper La Gazzetta di Trieste read:
It was time! Trieste, the kind city whose big 
heart wins over anyone who visits it. Trieste, 
which for its traditions well deserves the 
appellation of ‘most faithful’, could not wait 
any longer. It could not be inferior to its sister 
cities in Austria and not possess its “iron man” 
and express, even in this form – a visible and 
material symbol – its iron will for victory and 
sacrifice. Now she had it! […] In the middle 
of Piazza Grande’s garden, in an elegant kiosk 
painted in white with red trimmings, a virile 
figure of a sailor stands, with his eyes turned 
towards the sea and his weapon at his foot. 
[…] The handsome sailor, whom an artist’s 
hand raised here in front of us in the centre of 
the city of Trieste, must be for us a symbol of 
our defensive strength.30
30 La Gazzetta di Trieste, 10 July 1916: La solenne inaugurazione del “Marinaio in ferro”, 1.
31 La Gazzetta di Trieste, 10 July 1916: La solenne inaugurazione del “Marinaio in ferro”, 1.
Naturally, all the civil and military authorities of 
the city participated in the celebration, “along with 
people made up of citizens of all classes”.31 The occa-
sion was ecumenical, both from the point of view of 
class belonging and national affiliation. For its “iron 
man”, Trieste was called to mobilise as a unique com-
munity of people. After all, nothing different could be 
expected from “Società Triestina Austria”, an associa-
tion that had as its first statutory purpose the “union 
and solidarity among people of chaste customs and 
patriotic sentiments”, at least formally, independently 
from any other identity attribute (Società, 1907, 3). 
In any case, due to the peculiarities of the city’s 
economic system and labour market, that “handsome 
sailor” – who as a civilian would undoubtedly have 
been employed in the maritime sector – could have 
been the son, the brother, the betrothed, the husband 
or, finally, the father of any Triestiner regardless of 
national affiliation.
However, it must be said that at least a part of 
Trieste forgot its “iron man” over time. In May 1918, 
someone wondered what happened to the monu-
ment and addressed the question to a newspaper, 
likely the socialist newspaper Il Lavoratore. The 
answer, which appeared in the column “Petty cor-
respondence” (Piccola posta), was blunt and harsh: 
Figure 2: Flyer in German, Italian and Slovenian showing the prices of the nails for the “Iron Sailor” 
(Source: CMSPCT-DT, 15).
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“We know nothing of the miserable end of the ‘Iron 
Sailor’, which was... wooden!”.32 This response 
was noticed by a reader who decided to entrust 
the information he had about the “Iron Sailor” to 
another newspaper, La Gazzetta di Trieste. So, we 
learn that the “iron man” was currently placed in 
the spaces of the Trieste’s War Exhibition (Espo-
sizione di guerra) and that, thanks to that charity 
mode, more than 35,000 Krone had already been 
raised. The editorial staff of La Gazzetta di Trieste 
also decided to reply, asserting that they could not 
understand how some were unable to see around 
the “Iron Sailor” “a swarm of children whose great-
est support – the father – is gone anymore and that, 
weakly supported by mourning mothers, extend 
their hands in supplication towards that symbol”.33 
From that moment on, there was no further news 
on the “Iron Sailor” until the end of October 1918, 
when the city uprisings marked de facto the end of 
WWI in Trieste. During these uprisings, the crowd 
tore its “iron man” to pieces in the same square 
where his effigy was unveiled. The remains were 
then burned and thrown into the sea (Benco, 1919b, 
127; F-CMSA, 8963).
Trieste’s “Iron Sailor” was not the only “iron 
man” of WWI. Also in 1916, Jack Cornwell, a 
16-year-old working-class boy gave a lesson of 
gallantry and manhood to the entire British Empire. 
However, in this case, we are rather dealing with 
a “golden boy”, where the hero is the “son of the 
nation”: the one boy’s heroism and sacrifice stood 
for the martyrdom of a whole valiant generation of 
young men (Conly, 2009, 160–192). In contrast, 
Trieste’s “Iron Sailor” was the material portrayal 
of the manly and mature “call of duty”. It was the 
prototype of the working-class hero and male (sole) 
breadwinner who, in peacetime, had the responsi-
bility of feeding and supporting his family while, in 
times of war, was called to defend the safety of the 
whole community to which he belonged and that 
the war put in danger. Therefore, in this context and 
in the case of Trieste’s “Iron Sailor”, it seems that 
other forces were at play and had taken over, unlike 
the Czech scenario depicted by Tara Zahra where, 
during the conflict, “each nation only cares for its 
own” (Zahra, 2006). 
CONCLUSION
The relationships that bind philanthropists and 
the poor are complex and perverse, and the case 
of charitable activities in favour of the Austrian 
seafarers and their families during the 19th and 
early 20th centuries is no exception. In our case, 
32 La Gazzetta di Trieste, 8 May 1918: Contro la carità, 2.
33 La Gazzetta di Trieste, 8 May 1918: Contro la carità, 2.
they went far beyond the “mere” relations between 
classes determined by economic power relations 
but involved cultural, moral and even “popula-
tion politics” variables. They are perfectly situated 
within the framework of power relations depicted 
by Stuard Woolf, where the poor were only partially 
one of the products of the socio-economic context 
of reference. Rather, as Stuart Woolf noted, the poor 
were poor also because they were “drawn that way” 
by the elites. Moreover, “the essence of this con-
struct was the acceptance by the poor themselves 
of a condition of dependence on others” (Woolf, 
1986, 63). As we have seen from the article in 
Rivista Marittima, the charity was aimed precisely 
at helping the working poor to accept with greater 
resignation – and, at the same time, to work more 
and better – their condition of poverty as desired 
by God. However, before the elites could spare any 
loose change, it was necessary to take a preliminary 
step: to separate the “deserving” poor who, due to 
their moral qualities, had earned charity from the 
“undeserving” ones who, for the good of the com-
munity, had to be removed, ostracised, possibly, 
locked up (Woolf, 1978, 1062–1063). In this regard, 
it seems that in Trieste in the mid-19th century, for 
some of those “undeserving” poor, the practice was 
that of being kidnapped and put to forced labour by 
city institutions. That labour was seafaring, and it 
represented the first form of “charity” that young, 
male and a little “hot-headed” individuals received 
from the city elites. In this way, those young men 
began a hazardous, precarious, poorly paid and 
badly reputed profession. A job that would have re-
quired constant recourse, in particular by his family 
members, to the support measures offered by the 
charitable foundations set up, financed and admin-
istered by the same elite who had previously mar-
ginalised him and aggravated his socio-economic 
condition. 
Priorities change over time, regardless of the 
will of a few influential people. Although the 
Spring of Peoples in Austria faded immediately, 
after 1848 everything was different in the Empire. 
Moreover, in the second half of the 19th century, a 
new sensibility towards workers’ agencies and the 
state’s role in dealing with social issues emerged 
in Europe (Moses, 2018, 57). As noted by Michael 
Keating, welfare can also represent an essential 
instrument for the territorial integration of a state. 
In particular, because “it provided equal standards 
of service across the national territory, […] aimed 
at compensating for economic change and drawing 
underdeveloped territories into the national econo-
my” (Keating, 2021, 331). Regarding the economic 
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Figure 3: 1 Kronen stamp, whose proceeds would have been donated to the Royal 
Imperial relief found for Austrian military widows and orphans. In the image, the 
wording “The fallen heroes for the Homeland” (Source: AST-GM, 1163, 15634).
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unification of the Imperial territories, in 1775, 
Maria Theresa created the Cisleithanian common 
market, and one of the most significant reforms of 
the years 1848–1849 was the establishment of the 
customs union between the Austrian and the Hun-
garian territories of the Empire (Komlos, 1983, 29, 
25). In that context, the laws relating to the workers’ 
social policy scheme of 1887–1888 – in force on 
all the Cisleithanian territories – were conforming 
to that spirit, representing a piece in the picture of 
the Austrian post-1848 “revolution from above”. In 
this case, however, it was not the market or capital 
at the centre of the political and governance agenda 
but labour. Moreover, as Julia Moses noted, “indus-
trial modernity, characterised by factory work, male 
breadwinners and urban living, created new social 
problems that requires novel solutions” (Moses, 
2016, 3). Nevertheless, Austrian seafaring labour 
was not even touched by that wave. Again, it ap-
pears that the safety and well-being of the seamen 
and their families remained dependent on the will 
of, in the words of Karl Polany, a certain “society 
that was not subject to the laws of the state, but, 
on the contrary, subjected the state to its own laws” 
(Polanyi, 1944, 116).
When, in 1914, WWI broke out, the social security 
programme for seafarers had just been approved. So, 
it was no longer an item on anyone’s agenda; in any 
case, the war was bringing about other and new issues 
that were higher priority. On the one hand, the war 
represented a total upheaval of reality; on the other, 
some daily life realities found themselves in the cir-
cumstances of showing their most pertinent face. Be-
sides, some issues took on new meanings too. This is 
the case for Trieste and, in general, Austrian seafarers 
who saw themselves being transfigured into the nail 
man “Iron Sailor”, Trieste’s WWI “iron man”. Trieste’s 
“Iron Sailor” indeed represented a male figure with 
somewhat rough manners, but also gallant because 
he was courageous and loyal; bold and, at the same 
time, reassuring because he was considered solid and 
reliable; finally, politic and of-the-people at the same 
time because he was “ecumenical” from the point of 
view of national affiliation. The “wandering kid” who 
had to be captured, embarked by force and, therefore, 
removed for the common good of the 1850s during 
WWI had become the stable working-class family 
man and sole male breadwinner “next door” who was 
fighting to preserve the common good, everyone’s 
security and well-being, and the status quo too. Thus, 
between the 19th and 20th centuries, we witness a 
dramatic twist in the masculinity of the Austrian 
seafarers, and of those of Trieste in particular: from 
embodying the “immature” – i.e., in need of charity 
due to poverty, thus unable to support themselves and 
their family – and marginalised masculinity of the 
mid-19th century urban underclass, to representing a 
typology of those that Raewyn W. Connell identifies 
as “men of reason” (Connell, 1995, 164–181), so, 
in our case, complicit masculinity to the hegemonic 
patriarchal culture. The degree and quality of the tran-
silience are astounding. The question of how close to 
reality this construct was and how much it resulted 
from ideology is a matter that needs further research. 
Anyway, what is certain is that the war brought to 
light and magnified a process underway before the 
outbreak of the conflict. As Valerie Burton noted, 
industrial (i.e., stem) shipping capitalism restructured 
seafarers’ masculinity and breadwinner roles (Burton, 
1991, 196). This observation seems to be true also for 
the case of Trieste and Austrian seafaring. The reasons 
for this circumstance must be explored in the new 
mechanisms and exigencies of a social, economic and 
cultural nature triggered by the extraordinary exploit 
of the Austrian and Triestine shipping industry of the 
last decades of the 19th century. 
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VARNE VODE. AVSTRIJSKI POMORŠČAKI MED DOBRODELNOSTJO IN 
SOCIALNO ZAŠČITO, OKOLI 1850–1920
Erica MEZZOLI
Univerza "Tor Vergata" v Rimu, Oddelek za zgodovino, humanistiko in družboslovje, Via Columbia, 1, 00133 Rim, Italija
e-mail: erica.mezzoli@gmail.com
POVZETEK
Namen članka je izpostaviti značilnosti in kritične točke ukrepov, namenjenih zagotavljanju “varnosti” 
avstrijskih pomorščakov, njihovih družin in skupnosti, ki so jim pripadali, od Gründerzeit v petdesetih letih 
19. stoletja do zgodnjega povojnega obdobja. Delo v pomorstvu je v številnih pogledih zelo tvegan poklic. 
Zlasti v preteklosti je delavca, običajno moškega, in njegovo družino, nenehno izpostavljal tveganju, da za-
padejo v revščino. Obračanje na dobrodelne ustanove v času delovne dobe in ob odhodu iz službe zaradi 
starosti je bilo zato nekaj običajnega. Kar zadeva družine, je bilo iskanje pomoči pri tovrstnih ustanovah 
skoraj neizogibna okoliščina v primeru nezmožnosti glave družine za delo. Zato lahko, poleg dela in kapi-
tala, dobrodelne ustanove štejemo za tretji steber, na katerem je slonel trgovski ladijski sektor v avstrijskem 
cesarstvu. V zadnjih desetletjih 19. stoletja se je v Avstriji zgodila prava pomorska industrijska revolucija, 
ki je korenito spremenila družbenogospodarsko okolje, ne pa tudi okvira socialne varnosti pomorščakov. 
Kljub temu sta se družbenogospodarska vloga in javna podoba pomorščakov spremenili.
Ključne besede: Socialna varnost pomorščakov, obvezno nezgodno zavarovanje pri delu, obvezno zdravstveno 
zavarovanje, avstrijska ladjedelniška industrija, moškost poglavarja družine v industrijski dobi
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