Boom Time
Faster, bigger, showier: the so-called Ringstrasse Era, named for Vienna’s newly created grand boulevard, was a time of wealth and opportunity. Industrialists and bankers, many of whom built mansions along the boulevard, emerged as a new elite during this heyday of unregulated markets.
Like other rapidly growing European capitals, Vienna attracted hundreds of thousands of immigrants. Their hopes for better lives were mostly disappointed. Working conditions in Vienna’s factories were miserable; housing in the city’s tenements was abysmal.
What happens when boom turns to bust? The 1873 stock market crash shattered expectations of endless financial growth. In 1881, the devastating fire at the Ringtheater exposed the risk of reckless development. Soon people in the impoverished lower-middle and exploited working classes started to protest their situations.