Önsegélyezés és önszerveződés. Temetkezési és betegsegélyező egyletek a reformkori Pesten
Self-help and Self-organisation. Friendly Societies in Pest in the First Half of the 19th Century.

Summary/Abstract: Providing sickness and burial benefit to their membership, friendly societies were important and popular elements of social organisation in mid-19th century Pest. The analysis of the social history of these societies has revealed that their rules as well as the rate of their membership within the urban population were alike to their Western- European counterparts. The article stresses both the continuity of the guilds’ traditional arrangements to support the master’s family, and the novelty of friendly societies which had a mixed social composition recruiting many of their members from out of the civic (bürgerliche) artisan world, and were based on the liberal principle of voluntary joining. The rapid dissemination of this form of organisation can be explained with the fast pace of urbanisation in Pest absorbing masses of non-civic groups (including lower-rank officials, daily workers and non-authorised craftsmen), the still significant proportion of the immigrants from German towns (mediating the culture of philanthropy, thrift and associations), and the economic growth in those decades, rather than any rise in burial costs. Still, the success of friendly societies as insurance organisations does not seem to have resulted in a vivid associational life, even if some evidence for democratic procedure has been found, such as the election of the leaders and the dismissal of corrupt officials.

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