Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T01:53:22.113Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Women and Family Capitalism in Greece, c.17801940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou
Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou
Affiliation:
IOANNA PEPELASIS MINOGLOU is assistant professor of economic history in the Department of Economics at Athens University of Economics and Business.
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Women have been important contributors to Greek mercantilism since the time of the economic migration that occurred at the end of the eighteenth century, and they were deeply involved in Greek capitalist development. Their role was particularly pronounced due to the predominance of the family in Greek society and business. Diaspora women operated as keepers of the internationally dispersed Greek clan, while their counterparts in mainland Greece perpetuated and strengthened the local family network.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 81 , Issue 3 , Autumn 2007 , pp. 517 - 538
Copyright
Copyright The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2007

References

1 Efthimios Papataxiarchis, Gender in Anthropology (and Historiography): A Few Cognitive and Methodological Prospects, Mnimon, no. 19 (1997): 201-10 (in Greek).

2 Varikas, Eleni, The Ladies Uprising: The Genesis of a Feminist Consciousness in Greece (Athens, 1987) (in Greek)Google Scholar; Fanouraki, Eleni, Instructrice, Femme et Mre: Ides sur l'Education de Femmes en Grce du XIXIe sicle (1830-1880) (Ph.D. diss., Universit de Paris 7, 1992)Google Scholar; Avdela, Efi, Civil Servants of a Female Gender: Gender Division of Labor in the Public Sector, 1908-1955 (Athens, 1990) (in Greek)Google Scholar; and The History of Women and Gender in Contemporary Greek Historiography: The State of the Art and Prospects, in The Historiography of Modern and Contemporary Greece (1833-2000), vol. 2, ed. Erevnon, Kentro Neoellinikon (Athens, 2004), 12338 (in Greek)Google Scholar. Moreover, for recent writings by gender historians who have contributed work primarily on Greece to the international discourse on methodological and other issues, see Avdela, Efi, Work, Gender, and History in the 1990s and Beyond, Gender and History 11, no. 3 (1999): 52841CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; and, with Varikas, Eleni, With a Different Face: Gender, Diversity and Ecumenism (Athens, 2000) (in Greek)Google Scholar.

3 Yannitsiotis, Yannis, The Social History of Piraeus: The Formation of the Bourgeois Class, 1860-1910 (Athens, 2006) (in Greek)Google Scholar; Papastefanakis, Leda, Men, Women, and Children: Labor and Technology in the Greek Cloth Industry: The Retsina Factory in Piraeus (1872-1940) (Ph.D. diss., University of Crete, 2002 in Greek)Google Scholar; Fountanopoulos, Kostas, Work and the Labor Movement in Salonika: Moral Economy and Collective Action in the Interwar Period (Athens, 2005) (in Greek)Google Scholar; Hantzaroula, Pothiti, The Making of Subordination: Domestic Servants in Greece, 1920-1945 (Ph.D. diss., European University Institute, Florence, 2002)Google Scholar; Vlami, Despoina, Women, Family, and Society of the Greek Commercial Diaspora, 18th-19th Centuries, Istorika 23, no. 45 (Dec. 2006): 24380 (in Greek)Google Scholar; Yannistiotis, Yannis, Social History in Greece: New Research on Class and Gender, paper given at a conference sponsored by the Department of History, Central European University, Budapest, 18-20 Nov., 2005.Google Scholar

4 Avdela, Efi, The History of Women and Gender in Contemporary Greek Historiography: The State of the Art and Prospects, in The Historiography of Modern and Contemporary Greece (1833-2000), vol. 2, ed. Erevnon, Kentro Neoellinikon (Athens, 2004), 12338 (in Greek)Google Scholar. See also Dertilis, George, History of the Greek State, 1830-1920, 2 vols. (Athens, 2004), 1:1925 (in Greek).Google Scholar

5 Kinship business ties were not unknown in western business, but they were less dense. See Davidoff, Leonore and Hall, Catherine, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (London, 2002, rev. ed.)Google Scholar; Smith, Bonnie, Ladies of the Leisure Class: The Bourgeoises of Northern France in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, 1981)Google Scholar; and Frevert, Ute, Women in German History (Oxford, 1997)Google Scholar. For research on family businesses, see Colli, Andrea, Prez, Paloma Fernndez, and Rose, Mary B., National Determinants of Family Firm Development? Family Firms in Britain, Spain, and Italy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Enterprise & Society 4 (Mar. 2003): 2864CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 For the late twentieth century, see Cavounides, Jennifer, Conjugal Power and Synchronic Differentiation in Productive Organization, British Journal of Sociology 45, no. 3 (1994): 418.Google Scholar For activities of this type elsewhere, see Green, David R. and Owens, Alistair, Gentlewomanly Capitalism? Spinsters, Widows, and Wealth Holding in England and Wales, c.1800-1860, Economic History Review 56, no. 3 (2003): 51036CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beachy, Robert, Craig, Batrice, and Owens, Alistair, eds., Women, Business, and Finance in Nineteenth Century Europe (Oxford, 2006)Google Scholar; Newton, Lucy A. and Cottrell, Phillip L., Female Investors in the First English and Welsh Commercial Joint-Stock Banks, Accounting, Business, and Financial History 16, no. 2 (2006): 31540.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Greece in 2005 had an estimated per capita gross domestic product of $22,200 (ppp = purchasing power parity). National Statistical Service of Greece, Statistical Yearbook (Athens, 2005) (in Greek)Google Scholar.

8 National Statistical Service of Greece, Statistical Yearbook (Athens, 2001) (in Greek)Google Scholar. For international information, see Goldin, Claudia, Labor Markets in the Twentieth Century, National Bureau of Economic Research 21 (Apr. 1998): 163Google Scholar.

9 Three-quarters of female employers were found in the service sector. National Statistical Service of Greece, 2001 Population Census of Greece (Athens, 2001) (in Greek)Google Scholar; Hassid, Iossif and Karayiannis, Anastassios, Entrepreneurship in the Greek Economy (Athens, 1999), 10313 (in Greek)Google Scholar; Ioannides, Stavros, Entrepreneurship in Greece, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2003 (Athens, 2003), 5860 (in Greek)Google Scholar; Stratigaki, Maria, Women's Entrepreneurship (Athens, 2005), 79 (in Greek)Google Scholar.

10 Louri, Helen and Minoglou, Ioanna Pepelasis, A Hesitant Evolution: Industrialization and De-Industrialization in Greece over the Long Run, Journal of European Economic History 31, no. 2 (2002): 32148.Google Scholar

11 Harlaftis, Gelina, A History Of Greek-owned Shipping: The Making of an International Tramp Fleet, 1830 to the Present Day (London, 1996)Google Scholar; Dertilis, George and Frangiades, Alexis, Twentieth Century Important Landmarks of the Greek Economy, Oikonomikos Tachydromos, special issue, 23 (Dec. 1999): 627 (in Greek)Google Scholar; Dertilis, , History of the Greek State, 2: 76986Google Scholar; Dodd, Sarah Drakopoulou, National Differences in Entrepreneurial Networking, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development 14 (2002): 11734CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 The term mercantile as used here follows Turell, Robert Vicat and VanHelten, Jean Jacques, The Investment Group: The Missing Link in British Overseas Expansion before 1914? Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 40, no. 2 (1987): 27374Google Scholar.

13 Greek manufacturing firms have always retained a quasi-commercial character. Agriantoni, Christina and Chatziioannou, Maria Christina, Metaxourgeion: The Athens Silkmill (Athens, 1997)Google Scholar; and selected annual balance sheets of industrial firms in ICAP, Greek Financial Directory, 2000-2005 (Athens, 2000-2005)Google Scholar.

14 Kyriazis, Nota, Women's Employment and Gender Relations in Greece: Forces of Modernization and Tradition, European Urban and Regional Studies 5, no. 1 (1998): 6575CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kanellopoulos, C. N. and Mavromaras, K. G., Male-Female Labour Market Participation and Wage Differentials in Greece, Labour 16, no. 4 (2002): 771801CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Candylis, George, Three Families of the Great Diaspora: Chios-Pontos-Russia, 1822-1924 (Athens, 1994) (in Greek)Google Scholar; Varikas, The Ladies Uprising, 46. For France and Germany, see Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class, 3-18, 53-164, and Frevert, Women in German History, 120. In addition, for the geographic breadth of the diaspora, see Harlaftis, Gelina, Mapping the Greek Maritime Diaspora from the Early Eighteenth to the Late Twentieth Centuries, in Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks: Four Centuries of History, eds. McCabe, Ina Baghdiantz, Harlaftis, Gelina, and Minoglou, Ioanna Pepelasis (Oxford, 2005)Google Scholar.

16 Minoglou, Ioanna Pepelasis and Ioannides, Stavros, Market-Embedded Clans in Theory and History: Greek Diaspora Trading Companies in the Nineteenth Century, Business and Economic History On-Line: Papers Presented at the BHC Annual Meeting 2 (2004)Google Scholar. For an analysis from a family-network perspective, see Dertilis, , History of the Greek State, 1: 2743Google Scholar.

17 Harlaftis, A History of Greek-owned Shipping. For the wider European experience, see Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 219; Colli et al., National Determinants of Family Firm Development, 40-42.

18 Selekou, Olympia, Everyday Life of Diaspora Greeks: Public and Private Life (Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Century) (Athens, 2004), 30, 40 (in Greek)Google Scholar; Exertzoglou, Haris, National Identity in Constantinople in the Nineteenth Century: The Greek Literary Society of Constantinople, 1861-1912 (Athens, 1996), 5758 (in Greek)Google Scholar.

19 Vikelas, Dimitris, Complete Works, vol. 1, My Life (Athens, 1908; 1997 ed. edited by Angelou, Alkis), 30, 51, 112 (in Greek)Google Scholar.

20 For examples of this general pattern elsewhere, see Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class, 137, 144-46; and Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 451.

21 Vikelas, My Life; Syngros, Andreas, Reminiscences (Athens, 1907; 1998 ed. edited by Angelou, Alkis and Chatziioannou, Maria Christina) (in Greek)Google Scholar; Selekou, Everyday Life, 55-59; and Candylis, Three Families of the Great Diaspora.

22 For examples of female gossip internationally, see Susan Mann Trofimenkoff, Gossip in History, Canadian Historical Association, Presidential Address, 1985; Capp, Bernard, When Gossips Meet: Women, Family, and Neighbourhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Neth, Mary, Preserving the Family Farm: Women, Community, and the Foundations of Agribusiness in the Midwest, 1900-1940 (Baltimore, 1995), 4070Google Scholar.

23 Vikelas, My Life, 112-13, 151, 254, 274, 280-81; Delta, Penelope, First Memories, ed. Zannas, Pavlos (Athens, 2000) (in Greek)Google Scholar.

24 Vikelas, My Life, 113; Papakonstantinou, Katerina, Greek Commercial Enterprises in Central Europe in the Second Half of the 18th Century: The Pondikas Family, Ph.D. diss., Athens University, 2002, 233 (in Greek)Google Scholar; Sifneos FamilyMerchant House (1850-1912) correspondence, 1902-1912. See, for example, Vassias Sifneos to his mother, 21 and 24 Dec. 1911 and 5 Apr. 1912, Sifneos Archive, Center of Modern Hellenic Studies at the National Research Foundation-Evridiki Sifneos.

25 Papakonstantinou, Greek Commercial Enterprises in Central Europe, 243; Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 320; Frevert, Women in German History, 114; Pepelasis Minoglou and Ioannides, Market-Embedded Clans.

26 Exertzoglou, Haris, The Creation of the Public Space in Constantinople in the Nineteenth Century, in The Outside Hellenism of Constantinople and Smyrna, 1880-1922, ed. Etaireia Spoudon Neo Hellenikou Politismou kai Genikis Paideias Association for the Study of Greek Civilization and General Education (Athens, 1998), 2426Google Scholar; Selekou, Everyday Life, 212-24; Vlami, Women, Family, and Society; and Vlarni, Despoina, The Florin, the Grain, and Garden Street: Greek Merchants in Livorno, 1750-1868 (Athens, 2000), 21922 (in Greek)Google Scholar.

27 Evridiki Sifneos, Businessmen, Wives, and Family Firms: Evidence from Family Records of the Greek Business Networks of the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late 19th Century, European Business History Association Annual Congress, 23-25 Aug. 2002, Helsinki; and Mytileneans in RussiaThe Case of the Sifneos Brothers, Lesviaka Deltion tis Etaireias Lesviakon Meleton, 1993, 192 (in Greek); Anna Mandylara, The Secret Life of Business Widows and Heiresses in Greek Networking across the Mediterranean in the 19th Century, unpublished paper, 2002; Delta, First Memories, 6.

28 Selekou, Everyday Life, 30; Sifneos, Businessmen, Wives, and Family Firms"; Papakonstantinou, Greek Commercial Enterprises in Central Europe, 245-46; Sideri, Matoula Tomara, Alexandrian Families: Horemi, Benaki, Salvagou (Athens, 2004), 72 (in Greek)Google Scholar.

29 Igglesi, Angeliki, Northern Greek Merchants at the End of the Ottoman Period: Stavros, Ioannou (Athens, 2004), 2089,11 (in Greek)Google Scholar; Seirinidou, Vasso, Greeks in Vienna, 1780-1850 (Ph.D. diss., Athens University, 2002), 325, 334 (in Greek)Google Scholar; Mandylara, Anna, The Greek Business Community in Marseille, 1816-1900: Individual and Network Strategies (Ph.D. diss., Department of History and Civilization, European University Institute, Florence, 1998), 13547Google Scholar; Tomara Sideri, 33, 175-77.

30 Kremmydas, Vassilis, Commercial Practices at the End of the Ottoman Rule: Merchants and Shipowners from Mykonos (Athens, 1993), 145, 208 (in Greek)Google Scholar; Mandylara, Greek Business Community in Marseille, 142-43; Polemis, Dimitrios, The Sailing Ships of Andros (Andros, 1991), 26, 93 (in Greek)Google Scholar; Katsiardi-Hering, Olga, The Greek Community in Trieste, 1751-1830, vol. 1 (Athens, 1986), 3034 (in Greek)Google Scholar.

31 Papakonstantinou, Greek Commercial Enterprises in Central Europe, 239, 245.

32 Igglesi, Northern Greek Merchants, 64-65, 182-83; Mandylara, The Greek Business Community in Marseille, 140-46; Vlami, Greek Merchant Community in Livorno, 450; and Vlami, Women, Family, and Society.

33 For this section, I wish to thank Panagiota Nika and Veni Arakelian for their research assistance and the Economics Research Center of the Athens University of Economics and Business for its financial support.

34 Vogli, Elpida, Works and Days of Greek Families, 1750-1940 (Athens, 2005), 4177 (in Greek)Google Scholar; Foreman-Peck, James and Minoglou, Ioanna Pepelasis, Entrepreneurship and Convergence: Greek Businessmen in the Nineteenth Century, Rivista di Storia Economica 16, no. 3 (2000): 298300Google Scholar; McCabe, Ina Baghdiantz, Harlaftis, Gelina, and Minoglou, Ioanna Pepelasis, eds., Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks: Four Centuries of History (Oxford, 2005)Google Scholar.

35 Dertilis, History of the Greek State, 1: 21-23.

36 Vaxevanoglou, Aliki, Greek Capitalists, 1900-1940: A Social and Economic Approach (Athens, 1994), 182 (in Greek)Google Scholar; Alexander, Alec P., Greek Industrialists: An Economic and Social Analysis (Athens, 1964), 113.Google Scholar

37 The data set deriving from the founding charters of S.A. companies (most of which were published in the Greek Government Gazette) has been constructed within the context of the research program on the History of Greek Entrepreneurship, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business.

38 Foreman-Peck and Pepelasis Minoglou, Entrepreneurship and Convergence, 279-303.

39 Sakis Gekas, Nineteenth-Century Greek Port Towns: History, Historiography, and Comparison: The Case of the Marine Insurance Companies, paper presented at the New Re-searchers Session, Economic History Society Annual Conference, Royal Holloway, Apr. 2004.

40 A complete and detailed chronological record of the number of S.A. companies in operation does not exist. Moreover, it is not possible to estimate the share of S.A. companies in the total number of business enterprises, since comprehensive information is lacking on the legal (commercial court) registrations of private proprietorships and partnerships. It may be deduced that the corporate sector was small. For the year 1930, the share of S.A. companies was less than 1 percent of total business enterprises. However, working capital of S.A. companies in 1927-28 was equivalent to 18 percent of GDP. See Dritsas, Margarita, Naissance et volution des enterprises Greques au XXe Sicle, in Naissance et Mort des Enterprises en Europe XlXe-XXe Siecles, eds. Moss, Michael and Jobert, Phillipe (Bourgogne, 1997), 4446Google Scholar; Angelopoulos, Angelos, Socits Anonymes in Greece (Athens, 1928), 23, 37-38 (in Greek)Google Scholar; Haritakis, George, Economic Yearbook of Greece, 1929 (Athens, 1931), part D, 297310 (in Greek)Google Scholar; Kostelenos, George, Money and Output in Greece: 1858-1938 (Athens, 1995), 459.Google Scholar

41 Karavas, Konstantinos, Theoretical and Practical Textbook of Socit Anonymes Companies (Athens, 1930), 14 (in Greek).Google Scholar

42 Shares were issued to the bearer or in a specific name. However, when issued to a specific name, it was usual to back-sign the shares and transfer them to other persons; after a short period (for example, two years) the shares could also become anonymous.

43 Karatzas, Neoklis, Judicial Practice with Regard to Greek Commercial Law (Patras, 1872), 11 (in Greek)Google Scholar.

44 One exception to this was the S.A. start-up Central Company of Commerce, Industry, and Shipping, founded in Piraeus in 1919; its charter explicitly stated that women could not sit on the board of directors. Greek Government Gazette, no. 49,1919.

45 Gekas, Nineteenth-Century Greek Port Towns.

46 George Dertilis, History of the Greek State, 1: pts. 5 and 6.

47 Avdela, Efi, Between Duties and Rights: Gender and Citizenship in Greece, 1864-1952, in Citizenship and the Nation-State in Greece and Turkey, eds. Birtek, Faruk and Dragona, Thaleia (London, 2005), 121, 123;Google ScholarVarikas, Eleni, Gender and National Identity in Fin du Sicle Greece, Gender and History 3, no. 1 (1992): 11637Google Scholar.

48 For the golden age of the Greek sailing fleet, see Harlaftis, A History of Greek-owned Shipping, 108, 119; Dertilis, History of the Greek State, 2: 805-10.

49 Some scattered biographical information on elite women can be found in Spyros and Vovolinis, Konstantinos, Grand Greek Biographical Lexicon (Athens, 1958) (in Greek).Google Scholar

50 Meaning that each one of them held at least l percent of the shares in a specific start-up.

51 Greek Government Gazette, nos. 10 and 17, 1862.

52 The few cases in which women were also present in other types of insurance S.A. startups, such as the fire insurance company O Phoinix (1852), were embedded in family local networks. Greek Government Gazette, no. 18, 1852.

53 The term female start-up is used in the text to denote an S.A. start-up in which there were female shareholder(s). The word shareholder(s) is short for founding shareholder(s).

54 Greek Government Gazette, no. 7, 1856.

55 I Anatoli had been established in 1856, and its female shareholders then held 12 percent of its shares. Greek Government Gazette, no. 3, 1856; no. 47, 1862; no. 50, 1871.

56 See, for example, Greek Government Gazette, no. 4, 1901.

57 Clogg, Richard, A Concise History of Greece (Cambridge, 1992), 4799Google Scholar.

58 The S.A. start-ups were Marine Insurance Archipelagos (1917), Chiot Steam Shipping (1918), and Anatolian Sea Transport (1918). Greek Government Gazette, no. 96, 1917; nos. 137 and 154,1918.

59 Georgakopoulos, Leonidas, Company Law, vol. 2 (Athens, 1972) (in Greek).Google Scholar

60 The refugee influx was indeed large, considering that, in the previous census (1920), the population of Greece was 5,016,889. Clogg, A Concise History, 100-43; Haritakis, George, Economic Yearbook of Greece, 1939 (Athens, 1940), pt. 1, 33 (in Greek).Google Scholar

61 For the characteristics of this first industrialization phase of Greece, see Louri and Pepelasis Minoglou, A Hesitant Evolution, 327-31.

62 Colli, Perez, and Rose, National Determinants of Family Firm Development? 40-42.

63 Minoglou, Ioanna Pepelasis, Entrepreneurship in Nineteenth Century Greece (1830-1914), in The Development of the Greek Economy in the Nineteenth Century, eds. Kostis, Kostas and Petmezas, Socrates (Athens, 2006) (in Greek)Google Scholar.

64 Efi Avdela, Between Duties and Rights, 125; Avdela, , Women: The Social Issue, in Twentieth Century Greek History: The Interwar Years, vol. B1, ed. Hadziiossif, Christos (Athens, 2002), 33759 (in Greek)Google Scholar.

65 Commercial Chamber of Athens, 1902-2002: A Historical Trajectory into the Collective Memory of Merchants, ed. Chatzioannou, Maria Christina (Athens, 2002), 14872, 200-204 (in Greek)Google Scholar.

66 The widows Eleni Petasi (Construction Company of Irakelion, founded in 1926) and Evanthia Tzanidi (Koffa Bros Bank, established in 1928) were the first women shareholders to report themselves as merchants. Greek Government Gazette, no. 107,1926, and no. 25, 1928.

67 Except widows whose husbands had died while their business groups were in the process of forming an S.A.

68 Greek Government Gazette, no. 7,1928.

69 The first was involved in the flour mill Myloi Agiou Georgiou (Greek Government Gazette, no. 107, 1926); the second in the cotton factory Viomihania Vamvakos Syrou (Greek Government Gazette, no. 57, 1927); and the third in the shipping firm Atlantiki Atmoploia (Greek Government Gazette, no. 68,1928).

70 Greek Government Gazette, no. 185,1928.

71 Green and Owens, Gentlewomanly Capitalism? 532.