This DEA is part of a doctoral thesis project whose objective is to study the world of Catalan textile colonies based on two case studies: the Viladomiu Vell colony and the colònia cal Marçal. Since the publication in the nineteenth century of Morote's famous article "Feudalism in factories" where both the quarrels between manufacturers and between the latter and municipalities were reported, on the one hand, and the living and working conditions of the inhabitants of colonies, on the other hand, some studies, sometimes due to lack of sources, and others due to lack of depth, have reproduced a series of topics related to the ways of life in these places. Topics, for example, the social control of the inhabitants of these by their owners, the priest and the factory director; the lack of mobility of workers in industrial colonies; lower wages; or the lack of social conflicitivity as of the twentieth century. Therefore, the future thesis will try to analyze from a case study the validity or not of these topics
Taking into account that industrial colonies constitute an important factor of first order to appreciate the complexity of the process of industrialization in Catalonia, and if it is adhered to the fact that 94 colonies have been counted, but only s They have done five case studies and a series of monographic articles for some more cases, the considerations that can be reached do not allow much discussion. Lack of studies.
On the other hand, the study of the economic results of these companies has not been all the deep that this object of study requires. The accomplishment of a good framework on the economic results of the industrial colonies like factories facilitates the study of other questions still not worked, as they are the cost of construction and maintenance of the industrial colonies; what supposed the saving of the fiscal exemptions on the general business costs; or what were the wage costs of these factories, etc. It is therefore absolutely necessary before analyzing other social aspects of the colonies, knowing the economic basis in which they moved.
For all these reasons, in this research we analyze some aspects of the accounts of the Viladomiu colonies (1873-1960). And in order to contrast the results obtained with those of other similar companies, the aspects mentioned by the Palà-Valls colonies (1878-1960) have also been analyzed. They have divided the following hypotheses:
1.The Catalan industry was a very profitable business.
2. The preferred financing policy for Catalan industrialists was self-financing.
3. The Catalan cotton garment made it possible to promote the social rise of some modest families in the interior of Catalonia.
Therefore, in order to establish the economic activity of these companies, and to rebuild Viladomiu's career as cotton manufacturers, the following issues have been analyzed:
1. The history of companies Viladomiu.
2. The financial profitability of the Viladomiu and Palà-Valls colonies
3. The financing policies applied in the aforementioned companies.
4. The results obtained have been contrasted with the results presented by other authors for the following factories: the Sedó colony (NADAL, 1992), the factory "Rambla de Viladova" (SOLER, 1997) and the Berenguer d ' Artés (FERRER, in the press).
To carry out the analysis of all these aspects, the following sources have been used: Firstly, company incorporation deeds, the wills of the partners, land purchase deeds and other similar documentation have been used for the purpose to rebuild Viladomiu's career as manufacturers. And secondly, for the study of accounting issues, Inventory Books were used both in the Viladomiu colonies and in the Palà-Valls colonies. These books contain an annual report on the value of the concepts that make up the assets and liabilities, which make up the accounts of any company. As for the chronology, it moves between the years 1873-1960 for the Viladomiu case and between 1878-1960 for the case Palà-Valls.
