Surse pentru scrierea unei istorii de ramură industrială. Studiu de caz: industria sticlei (1948-2022)

Abstract

Although the process of industrialization started in Romania mostly from the second part of the 19th century and then it was amplified in the interwar period, it was only after 1948 that it started to count in a significant matter for the economy. Existent industrial factories were modernized, new ones were built, the workforce specialized in using the new machines and technologies adopted and accordingly, the range of products increased along with the many connections created between economical activities. After 1989, the change of the political regime and the need to adapt to the international context implied many changes for the industry, mostly not beneficial (for the short term). Thus, factories diminished their production or were closed, many products were no longer made and workers were left without a job. It all resulted in only a fraction of the industry to be still up and running.

            For Romania, industrialization and its reverse had a big impact in the economy and the society after 1948 and therefore, many studies should focus on presenting and analyzing their characteristics. At the moment, there are not too many such studies, which is understandable because of the scarcity of sources to sustain a proper research. In this article we identify sources and sketch a model to help us in resolving the problem in the future. For reasons related to how immense this research field actually is, we have focused on a study case for just a single industrial branch: the glass industry.