Women and family capitalism in Greece, c.1780-1940

Business History Review

Volumn 81, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 517-538

  Minoglou, Ioanna Pepelasis ^a  

^a ATHENS UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS   (Greece)

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EID: 38149102483     PISSN: 00076805     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0007680500036709     Document Type: Review

References (142)

1. Efthimios Papataxiarchis, "Gender in Anthropology (and Historiography): A Few Cognitive and Methodological Prospects," Mnimon, no. 19 (1997): 201-10 (in Greek).
2. Eleni Varikas, The Ladies' Uprising: The Genesis of a Feminist Consciousness in Greece (Athens, 1987) (in Greek);
3. Eleni Fanouraki, "'Instructrice, Femme et Mère': Idées sur l'Education de Femmes en Grèce du XIXIe siècle (1830-1880)" (Ph.D. diss., Université de Paris 7, 1992);
4. Efi Avdela, Civil Servants of a Female Gender: Gender Division of Labor in the Public Sector, 1908-1955 (Athens, 1990) (in Greek);
5. 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. Kentro Neoellinikon Erevnon (Athens, 2004), 123-38 (in Greek).
6. Moreover, for recent writings by gender historians who have contributed work primarily on Greece to the international discourse on methodological and other issues, see Efi Avdela, "Work, Gender, and History in the 1990s and Beyond," Gender and History 11, no. 3 (1999): 528-41;
7. and, with Eleni Varikas, With a Different Face: Gender, Diversity and Ecumenism (Athens, 2000) (in Greek).
8. Yannis Yannitsiotis, The Social History of Piraeus: The Formation of the Bourgeois Class, 1860-1910 (Athens, 2006) (in Greek);
9. Leda Papastefanakis, "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]);
10. Kostas Fountanopoulos, Work and the Labor Movement in Salonika: Moral Economy and Collective Action in the Interwar Period (Athens, 2005) (in Greek);
11. Pothiti Hantzaroula, "The Making of Subordination: Domestic Servants in Greece, 1920-1945" (Ph.D. diss., European University Institute, Florence, 2002);
12. Despoina Vlami, "Women, Family, and Society of the Greek Commercial Diaspora, 18th-19th Centuries," Istorika 23, no. 45 (Dec. 2006): 243-80 (in Greek);
13. Yannis Yannistiotis, "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.
14. Efi Avdela, "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. Kentro Neoellinikon Erevnon (Athens, 2004), 123-38 (in Greek).
15. See also George Dertilis, History of the Greek State, 1830-1920, 2 vols. (Athens, 2004), 1: 19-25 (in Greek).
16. Kinship business ties were not unknown in western business, but they were less dense. See Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (London, 2002, rev. ed.);
17. Bonnie Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class: The Bourgeoises of Northern France in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, 1981);
18. and Ute Frevert, Women in German History (Oxford, 1997).
19. For research on family businesses, see Andrea Colli, Paloma Fernández Pérez, and Mary B. Rose, "National Determinants of Family Firm Development? Family Firms in Britain, Spain, and Italy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries," Enterprise & Society 4 (Mar. 2003): 28-64.
20. For the late twentieth century, see Jennifer Cavounides, "Conjugal Power and Synchronic Differentiation in Productive Organization," British Journal of Sociology 45, no. 3 (1994): 418.
21. For activities of this type elsewhere, see David R. Green and Alistair Owens, "Gentlewomanly Capitalism? Spinsters, Widows, and Wealth Holding in England and Wales, c.1800-1860," Economic History Review 56, no. 3 (2003): 510-36;
22. Robert Beachy, Béatrice Craig, and Alistair Owens, eds., Women, Business, and Finance in Nineteenth Century Europe (Oxford, 2006);
23. Lucy A. Newton and Phillip L. Cottrell, "Female Investors in the First English and Welsh Commercial Joint-Stock Banks," Accounting, Business, and Financial History 16, no. 2 (2006): 315-40.
24. 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).
25. National Statistical Service of Greece, Statistical Yearbook (Athens, 2001) (in Greek). For international information, see Claudia Goldin, "Labor Markets in the Twentieth Century," National Bureau of Economic Research 21 (Apr. 1998): 1-63.
26. 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);
27. Iossif Hassid and Anastassios Karayiannis, Entrepreneurship in the Greek Economy (Athens, 1999), 103-13 (in Greek);
28. Stavros Ioannides, Entrepreneurship in Greece, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2003 (Athens, 2003), 58-60 (in Greek);
29. Maria Stratigaki, Women's Entrepreneurship (Athens, 2005), 79 (in Greek).
30. Helen Louri and Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou, "A Hesitant Evolution: Industrialization and De-Industrialization in Greece over the Long Run," Journal of European Economic History 31, no. 2 (2002): 321-48.
31. Gelina Harlaftis, A History Of Greek-owned Shipping: The Making of an International Tramp Fleet, 1830 to the Present Day (London, 1996);
32. George Dertilis and Alexis Frangiades, "Twentieth Century Important Landmarks of the Greek Economy," Oikonomikos Tachydromos, special issue, 23 (Dec. 1999): 6-27 (in Greek);
33. Dertilis, History of the Greek State, 2: 769-86;
34. Sarah Drakopoulou Dodd, "National Differences in Entrepreneurial Networking," Entrepreneurship and Regional Development 14 (2002): 117-34.
35. The term "mercantile" as used here follows Robert Vicat Turell and Jean Jacques Van-Helten, "The Investment Group: The Missing Link in British Overseas Expansion before 1914?" Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 40, no. 2 (1987): 273-74.
36. Greek manufacturing firms have always retained a quasi-commercial character. Christina Agriantoni and Maria Christina Chatziioannou, Metaxourgeion: The Athens Silkmill (Athens, 1997);
37. and selected annual balance sheets of industrial firms in ICAP, Greek Financial Directory, 2000-2005 (Athens, 2000-2005).
38. Nota Kyriazis, "Women's Employment and Gender Relations in Greece: Forces of Modernization and Tradition," European Urban and Regional Studies 5, no. 1 (1998): 65-75;
39. C. N. Kanellopoulos and K. G. Mavromaras, "Male-Female Labour Market Participation and Wage Differentials in Greece," Labour 16, no. 4 (2002): 771-801.
40. George Candylis, Three Families of the Great Diaspora: Chios-Pontos-Russia, 1822-1924 (Athens, 1994) (in Greek);
41. Varikas, The Ladies' Uprising, 46.
42. For France and Germany, see Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class, 3-18, 53-164,
43. and Frevert, Women in German History, 120.
44. In addition, for the geographic breadth of the diaspora, see Gelina Harlaftis, "Mapping the Greek Maritime Diaspora from the Early Eighteenth to the Late Twentieth Centuries," in Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks: Four Centuries of History, eds. Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, Gelina Harlaftis, and Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou (Oxford, 2005).
45. Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou and Stavros Ioannides, "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).
46. For an analysis from a family-network perspective, see Dertilis, History of the Greek State, 1: 27-43.
47. Harlaftis, A History of Greek-owned Shipping. For the wider European experience, see Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 219;
48. Colli et al., "National Determinants of Family Firm Development," 40-42.
49. Olympia Selekou, Everyday Life of Diaspora Greeks: Public and Private Life (Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Century) (Athens, 2004), 30, 40 (in Greek);
50. Haris Exertzoglou, National Identity in Constantinople in the Nineteenth Century: The Greek Literary Society of Constantinople, 1861-1912 (Athens, 1996), 57-58 (in Greek).
51. Dimitris Vikelas, Complete Works, vol. 1, My Life (Athens, 1908; 1997 ed. edited by Alkis Angelou), 30, 51, 112 (in Greek).
52. For examples of this general pattern elsewhere, see Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class, 137, 144-46;
53. and Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 451.
54. Vikelas, My Life; Andreas Syngros, Reminiscences (Athens, 1907; 1998 ed. edited by Alkis Angelou and Maria Christina Chatziioannou) (in Greek);
55. Selekou, Everyday Life, 55-59;
56. and Candylis, Three Families of the Great Diaspora.
57. For examples of female gossip internationally, see Susan Mann Trofimenkoff, "Gossip in History," Canadian Historical Association, Presidential Address, 1985;
58. Bernard Capp, When Gossips Meet: Women, Family, and Neighbourhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003);
59. Mary Neth, Preserving the Family Farm: Women, Community, and the Foundations of Agribusiness in the Midwest, 1900-1940 (Baltimore, 1995), 40-70.
60. Vikelas, My Life, 112-13, 151, 254, 274, 280-81;
61. Penelope Delta, First Memories, ed. Pavlos Zannas (Athens, 2000) (in Greek).
62. Vikelas, My Life, 113;
63. Katerina Papakonstantinou, "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); Sifneos Family/Merchant 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.
64. Papakonstantinou, "Greek Commercial Enterprises in Central Europe," 243;
65. Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 320;
66. Frevert, Women in German History, 114;
67. Pepelasis Minoglou and Ioannides, "Market-Embedded Clans."
68. Haris Exertzoglou, "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), 24-26;
69. Selekou, Everyday Life, 212-24;
70. Vlami, "Women, Family, and Society";
71. and Despoina Vlami, The Florin, the Grain, and Garden Street: Greek Merchants in Livorno, 1750-1868 (Athens, 2000), 219-22 (in Greek).
72. 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;
73. and "Mytileneans in Russia - The Case of the Sifneos Brothers," Lesviaka Deltion tis Etaireias Lesviakon Meleton, 1993, 192 (in Greek);
74. Anna Mandylara, "The Secret Life of Business Widows and Heiresses in Greek Networking across the Mediterranean in the 19th Century," unpublished paper, 2002;
75. Delta, First Memories, 6.
76. Selekou, Everyday Life, 30;
77. Sifneos, "Businessmen, Wives, and Family Firms";
78. Papakonstantinou, "Greek Commercial Enterprises in Central Europe," 245-46;
79. Matoula Tomara Sideri, Alexandrian Families: Horemi, Benaki, Salvagou (Athens, 2004), 72 (in Greek).
80. Angeliki Igglesi, Northern Greek Merchants at the End of the Ottoman Period: Stavros, Ioannou (Athens, 2004), 208-9, 11 (in Greek);
81. Vasso Seirinidou, "Greeks in Vienna, 1780-1850" (Ph.D. diss., Athens University, 2002), 325, 334 (in Greek);
82. Anna Mandylara, "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), 135-47; Tomara Sideri, 33, 175-77.
83. Vassilis Kremmydas, Commercial Practices at the End of the Ottoman Rule: Merchants and Shipowners from Mykonos (Athens, 1993), 145, 208 (in Greek);
84. Mandylara, "Greek Business Community in Marseille," 142-43;
85. Dimitrios Polemis, The Sailing Ships of Andros (Andros, 1991), 26, 93 (in Greek);
86. Olga Katsiardi-Hering, The Greek Community in Trieste, 1751-1830, vol. 1 (Athens, 1986), 303-4 (in Greek).
87. Papakonstantinou, "Greek Commercial Enterprises in Central Europe," 239, 245.
88. Igglesi, Northern Greek Merchants, 64-65, 182-83;
89. Mandylara, "The Greek Business Community in Marseille," 140-46;
90. Vlami, "Greek Merchant Community in Livorno," 450;
91. and Vlami, "Women, Family, and Society."
92. 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.
93. Elpida Vogli, Works and Days of Greek Families, 1750-1940 (Athens, 2005), 41-77 (in Greek);
94. James Foreman-Peck and Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou, "Entrepreneurship and Convergence: Greek Businessmen in the Nineteenth Century," Rivista di Storia Economica 16, no. 3 (2000): 298-300;
95. Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, Gelina Harlaftis, and Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou, eds., Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks: Four Centuries of History (Oxford, 2005).
96. Dertilis, History of the Greek State, 1: 21-23.
97. Aliki Vaxevanoglou, Greek Capitalists, 1900-1940: A Social and Economic Approach (Athens, 1994), 182 (in Greek);
98. Alec P. Alexander, Greek Industrialists: An Economic and Social Analysis (Athens, 1964), 113.
99. 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.
100. Foreman-Peck and Pepelasis Minoglou, "Entrepreneurship and Convergence," 279-303.
101. Sakis Gekas, "Nineteenth-Century Greek Port Towns: History, Historiography, and Comparison: The Case of the Marine Insurance Companies," paper presented at the New Researchers' Session, Economic History Society Annual Conference, Royal Holloway, Apr. 2004.
102. 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 Margarita Dritsas, "Naissance et Évolution des enterprises Greques au XXe Siècle," in Naissance et Mort des Enterprises en Europe XIXe-XXe Siecles, eds. Michael Moss and Phillipe Jobert (Bourgogne, 1997), 44-46;
103. Angelos Angelopoulos, Sociétés Anonymes in Greece (Athens, 1928), 23, 37-38 (in Greek);
104. George Haritakis, Economic Yearbook of Greece, 1929 (Athens, 1931), part D, 297-310 (in Greek);
105. George Kostelenos, Money and Output in Greece: 1858-1938 (Athens, 1995), 459.
106. Konstantinos Karavas, Theoretical and Practical Textbook of Société Anonymes Companies (Athens, 1930), 14 (in Greek).
107. 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.
108. Neoklis Karatzas, Judicial Practice with Regard to Greek Commercial Law (Patras, 1872), 11 (in Greek).
109. 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.
110. Gekas, "Nineteenth-Century Greek Port Towns."
111. George Dertilis, History of the Greek State, 1: pts. 5 and 6.
112. Efi Avdela, "Between Duties and Rights: Gender and Citizenship in Greece, 1864-1952," in Citizenship and the Nation-State in Greece and Turkey, eds. Faruk Birtek and Thaleia Dragona (London, 2005), 121, 123;
113. Eleni Varikas, "Gender and National Identity in Fin du Siècle Greece," Gender and History 3, no. 1 (1992): 116-37.
114. For the golden age of the Greek sailing fleet, see Harlaftis, A History of Greek-owned Shipping, 108, 119;
115. Dertilis, History of the Greek State, 2: 805-10.
116. Some scattered biographical information on elite women can be found in Spyros and Konstantinos Vovolinis, Grand Greek Biographical Lexicon (Athens, 1958) (in Greek).
117. Meaning that each one of them held at least 1 percent of the shares in a specific start-up.
118. Greek Government Gazette, nos. 10 and 17, 1862.
119. The few cases in which women were also present in other types of insurance S.A. start-ups, such as the fire insurance company O Phoinix (1852), were embedded in family local networks. Greek Government Gazette, no. 18, 1852.
120. 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)."
121. Greek Government Gazette, no. 7, 1856.
122. 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.
123. See, for example, Greek Government Gazette, no. 4, 1901.
124. Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece (Cambridge, 1992), 47-99.
125. 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.
126. Leonidas Georgakopoulos, Company Law, vol. 2 (Athens, 1972) (in Greek).
127. 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;
128. George Haritakis, Economic Yearbook of Greece, 1939 (Athens, 1940), pt. 1, 33 (in Greek).
129. For the characteristics of this first industrialization phase of Greece, see Louri and Pepelasis Minoglou, "A Hesitant Evolution," 327-31.
130. Colli, Perez, and Rose, "National Determinants of Family Firm Development?" 40-42.
131. Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou, "Entrepreneurship in Nineteenth Century Greece (1830-1914)," in The Development of the Greek Economy in the Nineteenth Century, eds. Kostas Kostis and Socrates Petmezas (Athens, 2006) (in Greek).
132. Efi Avdela, "Between Duties and Rights," 125;
133. Avdela, "Women: The Social Issue," in Twentieth Century Greek History: The Interwar Years, vol. B1, ed. Christos Hadziiossif (Athens, 2002), 337-59 (in Greek).
134. Commercial Chamber of Athens, 1902-2002: A Historical Trajectory into the Collective Memory of Merchants, ed. Maria Christina Chatzioannou (Athens, 2002), 148-72, 200-204 (in Greek).
135. 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.
136. Except widows whose husbands had died while their business groups were in the process of forming an S.A.
137. Greek Government Gazette, no. 7, 1928.
138. The first was involved in the flour mill Myloi Agiou Georgiou (Greek Government Gazette, no. 107, 1926);
139. the second in the cotton factory Viomihania Vamvakos Syrou (Greek Government Gazette, no. 57, 1927);
140. and the third in the shipping firm Atlantiki Atmoploia (Greek Government Gazette, no. 68, 1928).
141. Greek Government Gazette, no. 185, 1928.
142. Green and Owens, "Gentlewomanly Capitalism?" 532.