The monetary reform of 1854 in the Duchy of Schleswig: a case of attempted state-building

Abstract

This article is a survey of the monetary reform of 1854 in the Duchy of Schleswig, then part of the Danish monarchy. The reform can be seen as the third of three major attempts to overcome the economic and political difficulties associated with a heterogeneous and divided monetary system within the Danish state in the period from the end of the eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century. Informed by theories of institutional economics and state-building and based on contemporary sources, the article critically examines the problematic implementation of a single currency in a nineteenth-century region torn by ethno-political tensions and upheaval. The national split between German and Danish in the Duchy seriously hampered the dissemination of the new currency, thus obstructing the reform and the fulfilment of its underlying ambition: to transform Schleswig into a more harmonious polity within the institutional framework of the Danish composite monarchy.