After World War II, the textile and several other industries of Zürich were declined. At that time the services sector, insurance companies, and notably banks gained importance and they contributed a lot to the economy. During World War II, Zürich banks took advantage of banking secrecy laws to help the Nazi Party launder gold and stolen valuables. A large number of immigrants from rural Switzerland and abroad moved to Zürich and the population of the city surpassed one million at the end of the 1950s.
Here below are some stunning vintage photos that show what Zurich looked like in the 1950s.
What’s the story behind the wale?
The more things change, the more they stay the same (traffic jams at Bellevue).
The women in photo #8 are suffragettes. Switzerland was probably the last country in Europe to give voting rights to women: 1971 at national level, with Appenzell withholding local voting rights till 1990 (!).
Anyone still call Genf Gämf?
Is the writing for the banners in the women’s voting protest called Sütterlin?
Normal cursive writing. Sütterlin was developed in Prussia in 1911 and was a German school script that was widely used in Germany until the 1940s (Wikipedia). Switzerland had its own writing traditions and was more strongly oriented towards Latin scripts than German Kurrent or Sütterlin. Although Kurrentschrift was also used to some extent in German-speaking Switzerland, Sütterlin was not adopted as a simplified school script.
Thanks. I just noticed the angularity of the script and wondered if it was related.
If it had been Sütterlin, you would have had massive difficulties reading it: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/18/2c/8a/182c8ad1205762a2d094b0f2620ff8bc–script-lettering.jpg
Wow. You are right. Very hard to read. Thanks.