In the early twentieth century, women participated in urban protests over living conditions, particularly in the form of rent strikes in European cities such as Vienna and Budapest. Along with hunger protests, tenant protests can be considered a form of labour-related mobilization. Women, especially working-class and migrant women, were often at the forefront of these movements. These protests reflected broader concerns about the quality of life in rapidly industrialiszing cities.

Vienna’s population increased fivefold between 1850 and 1914, and Budapest experienced comparable growth. In both cities, a soaring population placed immense pressure on housing markets. Working-class districts became especially overcrowded, rents climbed faster than wages, and tenants were subject to severe abuse.

Against this backdrop, rent strikes and related tenant actions became common. Protest tactics included the refusal to pay rent, mass demonstrations, illegal squatting, and house boycotts, where the tenants of an entire building would threaten to terminate leases and publicly denounce exploitative landlords. These strategies bore similarities to workplace strikes, including the election of “shop stewards” to represent tenants’ interests. They were often accompanied by more expressive forms of protest like singing satirical songs and making noise with pots and pans, linking these movements to the domestic sphere, and highlighting the gendered nature of the protests.

Rent strike in Budapest, 1910 (Photographer: János Müllner, source: Hungarian National Museum)

In Vienna, a notable protest occurred in 1911 in the working-class district of Brigittenau, where several hundred women took part in a “rally with bats”, confronting landlords with physical symbols of resistance. Such dramatic events should be understood within the context of the extreme everyday hardship and frustration experienced by working-class tenants. Women’s participation was motivated by the burdens they carried as household “financial managers” responsible for maintaining the family home in increasingly difficult circumstances.

Between 1906 and 1912, Budapest, too, saw a series of rent-related protests that became increasingly coordinated. Women and even children were highly visible during these demonstrations. Leaders like Mariska Gárdos, a prominent figure in the Association of Women Workers of Hungary, used their platforms to highlight women’s involvement and the political potential of their participation. The Social Democratic Party of Hungary recognized the value of mobilizing tenants, eventually calling for a general rent strike in 1910. Gárdos underlined that women joined in large numbers in part because activists had found effective ways to address their concerns.

These protests in Vienna and Budapest were not isolated phenomena. Numerous other tenant actions in cities all around the world – for example, New York, Buenos Aires, and Veracruz – indicate that rent strikes were part of a broader, transnational trend in urban labour activism. The post-World War I period saw an evolution of these struggles. In both Central European cities, revolutionary upheavals in 1918–19 brought new forms of protest, such as unauthorized apartment takeovers and political interference in eviction cases.

The tenant movements in Vienna and Budapest before and after World War I reveal how for working-class women, everyday issues like housing became paths of political engagement. These protests linked domestic concerns with broader labour struggles, and they demonstrated that activism could emerge not only in the workplace but also within communities. Women’s central role in these movements challenges more traditional definitions of labour activism and invites an inclusive examination of the gendered social and political dynamics of early twentieth-century urban life.