Experienced and Perceived Conjecture: Diary of a Manufacturer from Lille in the Days of the “Deep Depression” (1879-1891)

To understand how an entrepreneur manages his business, it is necessary to understand how he/she lives and how he/she views the world that surrounds him/her, and more particularly, the economic situation that takes shape day after day. While the economic crisis changed the context, an industrialist from Lille, Jules Emile Scrive-Loyer, kept on writing in his diary the conversations that enabled him to obtain the appropriate information for the prosperity of his business. Setbacks and successes of his local rivals, investments made here and there, management of the workforce and wage policy: these curious practices were common to all heads of businesses who were eager to be good managers. But the image the economic situation sent back to them was so impenetrable that it reinforced their cautiousness: the future of linen cloth was so uncertain that it seemed urgent not to do anything about it. Possibly, the hesitation of the linen industry and apathy were not meaningless with regard to a world of industry, which was partly weakened by the gravity of the economic crisis that shook western Europe in the late nineteenth century.