The ‘Unrealizable Chimera’: workers’ housing in nineteenth-century Mulhouse

Between 1853 and 1895, the Société mulhousienne des cités ouvrières (SOMCO) constructed over 1200 houses, which were sold by annuities to the workers of the town of Mulhouse. The scheme was influenced by unique local characteristics in Mulhouse, as well as international developments in reformed housing. The innovations made at Mulhouse in terms of architectural forms, financing and worker ownership made it internationally renowned by the end of the nineteenth century. Reformers marvelled at the transformation of ‘prolétaire’ into ‘propriétaire’ and called for widespread emulation. But in these calls for emulation of the ‘Mulhouse System’, reformers neglected the importance of the specific local conditions in Mulhouse that had facilitated the scheme’s inception and success. This article will show the importance of these local factors and their significance to the innovations of the cités ouvrières of Mulhouse, which explain why this meant that attempts to imitate elsewhere were doomed to failure.