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# The Towns

The progress of urbanization in this period was most noticeable in Kolozsvár, which began to catch up to the two major Saxon towns. In 1788, the Gubernium backed the municipal council's project to tear down shops and stands across from the Bánffy Palace in Kolozsvár's central square. The following year, the paving of streets was begun on the initiative of District Commissioner Ádám Teleki. Officially-directed urban development acquired new momentum when, in 1790, Kolozsvár was designated Transylvania's capital. The strengthening of the Hungarians' national movement had finally brought a response to this long-standing demand. The Gubernium moved to Kolozsvár from Szeben, and so did, for a few years, the treasury administration. In 1791–92, the Gubernium launched a new program to pave Kolozsvár's streets. Plans were drawn up by the national building authority. A street-paving commission was formed under the chairmanship of István Koszta, who {2-657.} issued from the Romanian lesser nobility and was one of the most energetic members of the Gubernium; the other members of the commission came from the Gubernium, the national building authority, and the municipal administration. The work of paving lasted from 1792 to 1822. Plans had also been drawn up for a water distribution system, but they were not implemented. Street lighting began to be introduced at the end of the period. After an early initiative in 1819, work started in earnest in 1825, and the lighting system became operative on the last day of 1827.

In general, the earlier tensions that marked urban society were supplanted by new ones. Long-established burghers preserved their traditional status while enjoying some improvement in their material circumstances and adopting some aspects of European modernity. Few of them rose to a higher social state in this period. Among Saxon burghers, only the Bruckenthals rose to ranks of the aristocracy. At that, the father of Samuel Bruckenthal was not some modern entrepreneur but the royal magistrate in a small Saxon district; he surpassed many of his peers in demanding services from free Romanians and engaging in credit operations. A few scions of Saxon patricians (notably the brother of the diarist Heydendorf) forged a successful career in the military. The three-nations system assured Saxons of some access to the civil service, but, apart from the Bruckenthals, few of them had a noteworthy career. Saxon burghers were not particularly drawn to the civil service, and neither were the Hungarians and Romanians, whose prospects in that sphere were in any case more constrained.

Most of the new entrepreneurs did not come from old burgher families. In Brassó, it was the Greeks and Romanians who seemed particularly disposed to found or lease manufacturing enterprises; elsewhere, such initiatives were more commonly taken by landowners, immigrant craftsmen, and even leading intellectuals with a taste for business. Only in Szeben did some leading, old-line burghers found new enterprises in this period.

{2-658.} Guild craftsmen had to contend with several challenges. One came from craftsmen who did not belong to guilds. In 1798, at Brassó, the latter included six hundred Romanian blanket-weavers and string makers. They also had to face the initially modest, but growing competition from new manufacturing plants. The third, and greatest challenge came from an army of apprentices who had to contend with heavy workloads and tough hurdles in their fight to join the ranks of guild craftsmen. There was growing tension in this period between the guild master-craftsmen and their journeymen; the latter did not coalesce into a social movement, but unrest was rife among them. In 1780, at Kolozsvár, bootmakers' apprentices went on strike when the guild raised their workloads; the only result was that they were forbidden to moonlight. In 1786, the harness-makers' guild at Kolozsvár rejected a demand from apprentices that they be allowed to moonlight. In 1816, bootmakers' apprentices protested to the municipal authorities in Kolozsvár at their guild's decision to make them work overtime; apprentices with families felt particularly threatened by a measure that would deprive them of moonlighting income. In this case, the apprentices won the support of both the municipality and the Gubernium, which may have also taken into consideration the prevailing conditions of famine. The same guild's masters and apprentices clashed again in 1826: the former were allegedly indulgent towards the sons of master-craftsmen while mistreating other apprentices. The grievances of apprentices' associations led to other protests and strikes, but the unrest could not yet be characterized as a dynamic labor movement.