Normal Times? (Pluri-)Temporality in Everyday Life in Imperial Germany around 1900

Abstract

Abstract On an international level, temporal standardization was increasingly discussed in the last third of the nineteenth century, but how exactly it was defined and implemented in everyday life in late Imperial Germany has awaited investigation. This article comprises three examples that show how administrative attempts to denominate and institutionalize certain homogeneous concepts of time were dealt with in Germany on a practical basis around 1900. Drawing on both archival material and printed sources, the first example analyses temporal semantics in the public sphere and explains the boom in ‘normal’ times; the second example looks at how distributing normal time signals became a trade and, thus, a contested service; and the last example focuses on discussions and conflicts around the introduction of unified working times, especially in the industrial firm Siemens & Halske. The findings presented in this article show that, initially, introducing abstract concepts of normal times in different sectors of life paradoxically did not standardize the ways people understood and used time but rather further pluralized them. Thus, the processes of regulating and reforming pluritemporality in Imperial Germany were far from complete by the end of the century. The article offers a perspective on contemporaries as actors involved in a complex plurality of modernization efforts and projects, including temporal (self-)definitions and arrangements. By historicizing ‘time’ proper in late Imperial Germany, it contributes to the temporal turn, since it provides empirical evidence about how today’s standard time regimes emerged.