Im 15. Jahrhundert begann sich in Innsbruck eine erste frühe Form der Industrialisierung zu entwickeln. Die Metallverarbeitung florierte unter der aufsteigenden Bauwirtschaft in der boomenden Residenzstadt und der Herstellung von Waffen und Rüstungen. Viele Faktoren trafen dafür zusammen. Die verkehrsgünstige Lage der Stadt, die Verfügbarkeit von Wasserkraft, Innsbrucks politischer Aufstieg, das Knowhow der Handwerker und die Verfügbarkeit von Kapital unter Maximilian ermöglichten den Aufbau von Infrastruktur. Glocken- und Waffengießer wie die Löfflers errichteten in Hötting, Mühlau und Dreiheiligen Betriebe, die zu den führenden Werken Europas ihrer Zeit gehörten. Entlang des Sillkanals nutzten Mühlen und Betriebe die Wasserkraft zur Energiegewinnung. Pulverstampfer und Silberschmelzen hatten sich in der Silbergasse, der heutigen Universitätsstraße, angesiedelt. In der heutigen Adamgasse gab es eine Munitionsfabrik, die 1636 explodierte.

Metalworking also boosted other sectors of the economy. At the beginning of the 17th century, there were 270 businesses in Innsbruck, employing master craftsmen, journeymen and apprentices. Although the majority of Innsbruckers were still employed in administration, trade, crafts and the money that could be earned from them attracted a new class of people. There was a reshuffling within the city. Citizens and businesses were pushed out of the new town by the civil service and the nobility. Most of the baroque palazzi that adorn Maria-Theresienstraße today were built in the 17th century, while Dreiheiligen and St. Nikolaus became Innsbruck's industrial and working-class districts. In addition to the metalworking industry around Silbergasse, tanners, carpenters, wainwrights, master builders, stonemasons and other craftsmen of early industrialisation also settled here.

Industry not only changed the rules of the social game with the influx of new workers and their families, it also had an impact on the appearance of Innsbruck. Unlike the farmers, the labourers were not the subjects of any master. Although entrepreneurs were not of noble blood, they often had more capital at their disposal than the aristocracy. The old hierarchies still existed, but were beginning to become at least somewhat fragile. The new citizens brought with them new fashions and dressed differently. Capital from outside came into the city. Houses and churches were built for the newly arrived subjects. The large workshops changed the smell and sound of the city. The smelting works were loud, the smoke from the furnaces polluted the air. Innsbruck had gone from being a small settlement on the Inn bridge to a proto-industrial town.

Growth was slowed for several decades at the end of the 18th century by the Napoleonic Wars. The second wave of industrialisation came late in Innsbruck compared to other European regions. One reason for this was the late establishment of a functioning banking system in the city. Catholics still regarded bankers as „usurers and borrower“ and doing business with money was considered indecent. Without financing, however, even large enterprises could not be founded. In 1715, the Tyrolean provincial government had issued the so-called Banko gegründet und in der Herzog-Friedrich-Straße gab es die Privatbank Bederunger, erst mit der Gründung der ersten Filiale der Sparkasse wurde es möglich, sein Geld nicht mehr unter dem Kopfpolster zu verwahren. Nach 1850 begann man Kredite zu vergeben, was die Gründung heimischer größerer Betriebe ermöglichte. Das Small craftThe town's former craft businesses, which were organised in guilds, came under pressure from the achievements of modern goods production. In St. Nikolaus, Wilten, Mühlau and Pradl, modern factories were built along the Mühlbach stream and the Sill Canal. Many innovative company founders came from outside Innsbruck. Peter Walde, who moved to Innsbruck from Lusatia, founded his company in 1777 in what is now Innstrasse 23, producing products made from fat, such as tallow candles and soaps. Eight generations later, Walde is still one of the oldest family businesses in Austria. Today you can buy the result of centuries of tradition in soap and candle form in the listed main building with its Gothic vaults. Franz Josef Adam came from the Vinschgau Valley to found the city's largest brewery to date in a former aristocratic residence. In 1838, the spinning machine arrived via the Dornbirn company Herrburger & Rhomberg over the Arlberg to Pradl. H&R had acquired a plot of land on the Sillgründe. Thanks to the river's water power, the site was ideal for the heavy machinery used in the textile industry. In addition to the traditional sheep's wool, cotton was now also processed. 

Just like 400 years earlier, the Second Industrial Revolution changed the city and the everyday lives of its inhabitants forever. Neighbourhoods such as Mühlau, Pradl and Wilten grew rapidly. The factories were often located in the centre of residential areas. Over 20 businesses were still using the Sill Canal around 1900. The Haidmühle The power plant in Salurnerstraße existed from 1315 to 1907 and supplied a textile factory in Dreiheiligenstraße with energy from the Sill Canal. The noise and exhaust fumes from the engines were hell for the neighbours, as a newspaper article from 1912 shows:

„Entrüstung ruft bei den Bewohnern des nächst dem Hauptbahnhofe gelegenen Stadtteiles der seit einiger Zeit in der hibler´schen Feigenkaffeefabrik aufgestellte Explosionsmotor hervor. Der Lärm, welchen diese Maschine fast den ganzen Tag ununterbrochen verbreitet, stört die ganz Umgebung in der empfindlichsten Weise und muß die umliegenden Wohnungen entwerten. In den am Bahnhofplatze liegenden Hotels sind die früher so gesuchten und beliebten Gartenzimmer kaum mehr zu vermieten. Noch schlimmer als der ruhestörende Lärm aber ist der Qualm und Gestank der neuen Maschine…“

Aristokraten, die sich zu lange auf ihrem Geburtsverdienst auf der faulen Haut ausruhten, während sich die wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Spielregeln änderten, mussten ihre Anwesen an den neuen Geldadel verkaufen. Im Palais Sarnthein gegenüber der Triumphpforte, 1689 von Johann Anton Gumpp für David Graf Sarnthein noch als barocker Ansitz geplant, zog die Waffenfabrik und das Geschäft von Johann Peterlongo ein. Geschickte Mitglieder des Adelsstandes nutzten ihre Voraussetzungen und investierten Familienbesitz und Erträge aus der bäuerlichen Grundentlastung von 1848 in Industrie und Wirtschaft. Der steigende Arbeitskräftebedarf wurde von ehemaligen Knechten und Landwirten ohne Land gedeckt. Während sich die neue vermögende Unternehmerklasse Villen in Wilten, Pradl und dem Saggen bauen ließ und mittlere Angestellte in Wohnhäusern in denselben Vierteln wohnten, waren die Arbeiter in Arbeiterwohnheimen und Massenunterkünften untergebracht. Die einen sorgten in Betrieben wie dem Gaswerk, dem Steinbruch oder in einer der Fabriken für den Wohlstand, während ihn die anderen konsumierten. Schichten von 12 Stunden in engen, lauten und rußigen Bedingungen forderten den Arbeitern alles ab. Zu einem Verbot der Kinderarbeit kam es erst ab den 1840er Jahren. Frauen verdienten nur einen Bruchteil dessen, was Männer bekamen. Die Arbeiter wohnten oft in von ihren Arbeitgebern errichteten Mietskasernen und waren ihnen mangels eines Arbeitsrechtes auf Gedeih und Verderb ausgeliefert. Es gab weder Sozial- noch Arbeitslosenversicherungen. Wer nicht arbeiten konnte, war auf die Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen seines Heimatortes angewiesen. Angemerkt sei, dass sich dieser für uns furchterregende Alltag der Arbeiter nicht von den Arbeitsbedingungen in den Dörfern unterschied, sondern sich daraus entwickelte. Auch in der Landwirtschaft waren Kinderarbeit, Ungleichheit und prekäre Arbeitsverhältnisse die Regel.

However, industrialisation did not only affect everyday material life. Innsbruck experienced the kind of gentrification that can be observed today in trendy urban neighbourhoods such as Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin. The change from the rural life of the village to the city involved more than just a change of location. In one of his texts, the Innsbruck writer Josef Leitgeb tells us how people experienced the urbanisation of what was once a rural area: 

„…viel fremdes, billig gekleidetes Volk, in wachsenden Wohnblocks zusammengedrängt, morgens, mittags und abends die Straßen füllend, wenn es zur Arbeit ging oder von ihr kam, aus Werkstätten, Läden, Fabriken, vom Bahndienst, die Gesichter oft blaß und vorzeitig alternd, in Haltung, Sprache und Kleidung nichts Persönliches mehr, sondern ein Allgemeines, massenhaft Wiederholtes und Wiederholbares: städtischer Arbeitsmensch. Bahnhof und Gaswerk erschienen als Kern dieser neuen, unsäglich fremden Landschaft.“

For many Innsbruck residents, the revolutionary year of 1848 and the new economic circumstances led to bourgeoisie. There were always stories of people who rose through the ranks with hard work, luck, talent and a little financial start-up aid. Well-known Innsbruck examples outside the hotel and catering industry that still exist today are the Tyrolean stained glass business, the Hörtnagl grocery store and the Walde soap factory. Successful entrepreneurs took over the former role of the aristocratic landlords. Together with the numerous academics, they formed a new class that also gained more and more political influence. Beda Weber wrote in 1851: „Their social circles are without constraint, and there is a distinctly metropolitan flavour that is not so easy to find elsewhere in Tyrol." 

The workers also became bourgeois. While the landlord in the countryside was still master of the private lives of his farmhands and maidservants and was able to determine their lifestyle up to and including sexuality via the release for marriage, the labourers were now at least somewhat freer individually. They were poorly paid, but at least they now received their own wages instead of board and lodging and were able to organise their private affairs for themselves without the landlord's guardianship. 

The downside of this newfound self-determination was particularly evident in the first decades of industrialisation. There was hardly any state infrastructure for health and family care. Health care, pensions, old people's homes and kindergartens had not yet been invented, and in many cases the extended farming family had taken over these tasks until then. In the working-class neighbourhoods, unsupervised children romped around during the day: the youngest children, who were not yet subject to compulsory schooling, were particularly affected. In 1834, following an appeal by the Tyrolean provincial governor, a women's association was founded, which Child detention centres in the working-class neighbourhoods of St. Nikolaus, Dreiheiligen and Angerzell, now Museumstraße. The aim was not only to keep the children off the streets and provide them with clothing and food, but also to teach them manners, proper expression and virtuous behaviour. With a strict hand for "cleanliness, order and obedience", the wardens ensured that the children received at least a minimum level of care. The former Preservation centre in Paul-Hofhaimer-Gasse behind the Ferdinandeum still exists today. The classicist building now houses the Caritas integration kindergarten and a company kindergarten run by the state of Tyrol. 

Innsbruck is not a traditional working-class city. Nevertheless, Tyrol never saw the formation of a significant labour movement as in Vienna. Innsbruck has always been predominantly a commercial and university city. Although there were social democrats and a handful of communists, the number of workers was always too small to really make a difference. May Day marches are only attended by the majority of people for cheap schnitzel and free beer. There are hardly any other memorials to industrialisation and the achievements of the working class. In St.-Nikolaus-Gasse and in many tenement houses in Wilten and Pradl, a few houses have been preserved that give an impression of the everyday life of Innsbruck's working class.