Our PORT . OUR WORLD.
The outfits are meant to serve as a reminder of the harsh era of dockworkers and life at the harbor. They were designed using materials once common in maritime labor from heavy canvas fabric to hemp ropes and sailcloth
M O I N.
Between 1960 and 1965, the number of dockworkers remained approximately constant at just under 14,000. However, despite steadily increasing cargo volumes, their numbers continuously declined. The reason for this was the growing level of mechanization, as more and more people were replaced by machines.
The labor-intensive way of life also meant that, well into the 20th century, all major port cities around the world had neighborhoods near the harbor whose populations earned their living through such loading work. In Hamburg, one such district was the Gängeviertel, which, however, underwent major redevelopment in the 20th century as a result of the 1892 cholera epidemic and the Hamburg dockworkers’ strike of 1896/1897. In New York, there were 51,000 dockworkers in 1951, while London had around 50,000 at the same time, all of whom lived near the harbor. In Manchester, after the end of the Second World War, 54 percent of dockworkers lived within one mile of the docks, while in southern Brooklyn, one in every six employed men worked either as a dockworker or a truck driver.
“…What was felt back then is still felt today.”
In the Port of Hamburg, by the end of the 19th century, 15 different occupational groups belonged to the dockworker workforce. After the largest group, the stevedores, the barge operators formed the next most significant group in terms of numbers. They handled the transport of goods by water to and from the seagoing ships. The quay workers were also a large occupational group. Their responsibility was to transfer cargo from the ships into the warehouses along the quays. Warehouse workers moved the goods within the storage facilities and loaded the barges that carried the goods to the ships.
Alongside these professions, there were others such as coal workers, grain workers, boiler cleaners, ship cleaners, ship painters, and machinists. The work depended almost entirely on the physical strength of the laborers. Mechanization remained largely absent until the first half of the 20th century.”
