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A German Eighteenth-Century Iron Works During its First Hundred Years: Notes Contributing to the Unwritten History of European Aristocratic Business Leadership—II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Fritz Redlich
Affiliation:
Research Center in Entrepreneurial History, Harvard University

Extract

If one remembers Count Detlev von Einsiedel's character and achievements, as described in the first installment of this article, one will not be surprised that under his leadership a spirit of scientific enlightenment, of restless improvement, and of innovation came to permeate the Lauchhammer Works so that it became one of the leading German iron works. To be sure, genuine primary innovation was rare, as it is by necessity. Only in the case of casting figures and in that of enameling iron utensils was something brought into existence in the Lauchhammer plants that had never existed before. But on top of that, there were numerous derivative innovations, i.e., innovations as far as that particular part of Germany was concerned. Or to put it differently, the elder Count Einsiedel transferred to Saxony achievements made in the most advanced areas of eighteenth-century iron industry. It is from this point of view that the following presentation must be read, a presentation in which the Count's primary innovations, previously described, are not mentioned again.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1953

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References

42 See Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, XXVII (June, 1953), 73–74.

43 Trautscholdt expressed this fact in the following charming and old-fashioned way which cannot be translated. He praised that “seit der Leitung des Herrn Conferenzministers ein geistiges Leben das ganze Geschäft beseelte.”

44 For the terminology see my article “Innovation in Business” in The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, X (1951), 285 ff.

45 Beck, Ludwig, Geschichte des Eisens in technischer und kulturgeschichtlicher Beziehung (Braunschweig, 18931903), IV, 617.Google Scholar

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47 200 Jahre Lauchhammer, 1725–1925 (p. p. [1925]), 24.

48 Lampadius, op. cit., 304.

49 See Beck, op. cii., III, 616, 731, 732. On the last-named page there are two drawings of the furnace.

50 Lampadius, op. cit., 297, reports that by 1800 a second furnace was built and held in reserve.

51 The following is based on an anonymously published article “Beiträge zur Geschichte des Eisens” in Stahl und Eisen, XXV (1905), 1231–1234, 1300–1305. The article is based on archival material, much of which is reprinted therein.

52 See my essay, “The Leaders of the German Steam Engine Industry during the First Hundred Years” in Journal of Economic History, IV (1944), 122, 123.

53 According to Lampadius, op. cit., 305, in periods of draught the blower was then worked by man or animal power.

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55 Actually per Zoll, but one Zoll corresponds approximately to one inch.

56 See below page 148.

57 To avoid misunderstandings, the eighteenth-century term Kunstmeister denoted an engineer and engine designer, not a machine tender.

58 See Lampadius, op. cit., 298. Incidentally he also collected minerals and samples of products of furnaces and forges.

59 See Festschrift zum hundertjährigen Jubiläum der Königl. Sächs. Bergakademie zu Freiberg am 30. July, 1866 (Dresden, 1866), 8 ff., 17 ff.

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