Generating Incomes

Abstract

The middle classes could also generate income through investments and rents, and industrialization and the building boom of the second half of the century multiplied opportunities to do so. The lower middle classes appear to have shown a sustained interest in becoming landlords. Manufacturers, on the other hand, showed limited interest in investing except in their business. Property owners, for their part, did not put their money in industry, and appear to have been immune to property speculation—and the women were even more risk-averse than the men. The different middle classes were world apart. But although women did not treat property-ownership as a business, they personally managed their assets in a careful and businesslike fashion.