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The hat as a marker

The Farmhand from the Stainz Region is stands out due to his sugar-loaf hat. The “Bullkoglerhut”, usually made of loden felt, was common in this conspicuous form in parts of western Styria until the mid-19th century. Sometimes these hats were decorated with laces the number and colour is said to have indicated the social position and property status of the person. The laces for the hat in the display case were added in the 1980s by a museum employee who also knitted the trim. The jacket came from Schladming, the neckerchief belonged to a peasant family from Passail, and the pipe bears a maker's note from southern Styria: “M. Knecht, Sausal Craftsmanship”.

Except for the hat, therefore, all the other items are not from the Stainz region—another example of Geramb's practice of unabashedly assembling pieces of clothing from different parts of Styria and yet still assigning the Tracht figure to a particular region. Hats signalled membership of a particular social class as early as the early Middle Ages. In the context of the formation of national and regional identities, they became the hallmark of a particular region.

The clothing of the Mürz Valley Hunter around 1830 was apparently of particular interest to Tracht researcher Viktor Geramb, who appears wearing it in a photo from the 1920s. According to Geramb, the loden jacket in tailcoat form—the so-called steirische Frackerl (‘little Styrian tailcoat’)—and loden trousers with green cloth decorations came into fashion around 1840. Geramb stated that the ‘buttoned trousers’ or Tschariwarihosn were an adaptation of military uniform trousers from the time of the ‘wars of liberation’ against Napoleonic supremacy.

The jacket and trousers were once owned by the Wolfbauer family of innkeepers from Kindberg, as was the ‘Archduke Johann hat’, which was made by hatter Johann Fischl from Pirkfeld. Until the mid-1980s, the Mürz Valley Hunter still carried a shotgun, but this was removed from the display following the redesign in 2003. It can be assumed that this figure also represents a historical person, but to date no references to its human model have been found.

The Schlömmer sisters

The mannequin and Tracht of the Grundlsee Woman were based on a coloured pencil drawing by Carl Theodor von Blaas from 1934, which is held in the collection of the Folk Life Museum. The portrait painter, who was internationally renowned at the time, drew the 22-year-old Martha Schlömmer.

Martha Schlömmer grew up very close to where the family of Konrad and Anna Mautner lived in Grundlsee. Her twin sister Flora married their eldest son Heinrich Mathias Mautner in 1937. The young couple was able to flee to America in 1941. Together with Anna Mautner, the couple successfully produced handmade ‘Styrian fashion’ there. Martha Schlömmer remained in Styria and married Max Köberl. She died on 25 November 1991.

Folkloric identifications

According to Viktor Geramb, the Salzstockhut (‘salt dome hat’) was characteristic for the Tracht of the women from the Styrian Salzkammergut—a region already the focus of intensive research in folk studies at the time. It was a white felt hat with a tapering top hat and a slightly downturned brim, usually with a black headscarf underneath that was tied at the back. The hat came into the museum through a purchase in 1918 and is probably the only item from the Salzkammergut. The rest of the clothing was acquired by Geramb in 1934 in a second-hand shop in Graz. Geramb described not only the hat and the elaborately designed spencer but also the ‘fine facial features’ of the Grundlsee Woman as ‘characteristic’ of the region. This points to the desire, one shared by folk studies, for identifiability—not just through clothing, but also through the mythical science of physiognomy, which was popular again at the time. This linked a person’s outer appearance with their character—a few years later, this view would be merged into the murderous ‘racial hygiene’ of the ‘Third Reich’.

One of the two ‘Piper Boys’

This figure embodies one of the famous ‘Aussee Piper Boys’, or Pfeiferlbuam. The music of the brothers Franz (1819–1882) and Josef Steinegger from Grundlsee—lumberjacks and salt workers by trade—was very popular with summer resort guests in Aussee and the surrounding area. The Viennese painter Matthias Ranftl portrayed the legendary folk music duo, who were also not unknown in the capital and seat of the imperial family: in 1853/1854 the brothers spent the winter in Vienna at the invitation of Countess Josephine von Wertheimstein. The actor, singer, composer and zither player Andreas Baumann also made them famous: in 1854 he immortalised them in the yodel song Di zwoa Pfeifabubn.

In contrast, as a folklorist and Tracht researcher, Konrad Mautner was interested in their clothing. He described their way of wearing lederhosen over the knee, or the shorter, more recent version, which came into fashion from about 1850 and showed the knee. The Aussee Man’s clothing, however, did not belong to either of the Steinegger brothers. The jacket, lederhosen and waistcoat were purchased by the museum in 1936 and inventoried as ‘Aussee men’s Tracht c. 1870’. The ‘Aussee hat’ was a new acquisition made by ‘bourgeois hat maker’ Xaver Satz in Leoben.

Schwegelpfeife hype in folk studies

The instrument played by the Steinegger brothers was the Seitl or Schwegelpfeife, a keyless transverse flute made of wood. Even at that time, folk song research associated traditional forms of playing and customs with the Schwegelpfeife and popularised the instrument. It is therefore conceivable that Viktor Geramb and Alexander Silveri immortaliszed Franz Steinegger with this figure, who had in fact recorded  "Styrian dances" on the Schwegelpfeife.

Josef Schneiber in persona

The Old Man from the Upper Mur Valley likely immortalises another person from the milieu of the Folk Life Museum in the Trachtensaal—probably Josef Schneiber, born in 1908 in St. Gallen in Styria. Schneiber was ordained a priest in 1932 and was a member of the Bund Neuland, a Catholic association, where he also met Alexander Silveri. In the 1930s he carried out religious duties at St. Anthony's Church, was a frequent guest of Viktor Geramb and his family, and accompanied him to official appointments, for example to meet with the provincial governor.

In 1938, before the Anschluss (‘annexation’) of Austria to the German Reich, Schneiber participated in the ‘Working Group for Religious Peace’ in Graz. This group of National Socialist-minded priests called for a rapprochement with the Nazi regime and cooperation between State and Church. Banned by the Austrian Bishops' Conference, it then went ‘underground’. In 1940 Schneiber trained as a medical orderly. Letters from this time show that he could hardly wait for deployment to the front as a ‘baptism of fire’ and that he had not given up his belief in cooperation between the Church and the Nazi state. However, military deployment was not to be. Schneiber was appointed head of the newly created Seelsorgewerk and remained in office until 1949. Even before the establishment of the working group, he was considered an advocate and pioneer of ecumenical rapprochement between churches. In 1958 Josef Schneiber was appointed rector of the seminary in Graz and held this office until his death in 1964.

Schneiber had a personal relationship not only with Geramb but also with Silveri, one that went beyond their time together in the Bund Neuland. Silveri made a bust of Josef Schneiber—and also his gravestone.

The clothing

Geramb assembled the overcoat, shoes and shirt from the museum collection. The knee-length coat is made of dark blue loden with a turn-down collar of velvet. It was purchased in 1938 for 8 shillings and, according to the museum inventory, comes from ‘Upper Styria’. The black trousers are made of calfskin (Irchleder) from the knee down. These long trousers with ltubular eather attachments of different heights were also called Stößelhosen. They were purchased in November 1938 for 50 Reichsmark from a ‘Fräulein Capesius’, a senior teacher from Neumarkt. To date more detailed information about the origin of this item has not been found.