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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
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
Extract
In connection with some research on the beginnings of German business history the author of this paper has drawn attention to what is probably the earliest firm history ever written. This history of an iron works, entitled Geschichte und Feyer des Ersten Jahrhunderts des Eisenwerks Lauchhammer, was compiled by the Works' general manager, Johann Friedrich Trautscholdt, and privately printed in Dresden in 1825. Of the literally thousands of firm histories which have been issued in Europe and America since that time, only a few can bear comparison with this very first one, a truly remarkable performance. It is typically what the Germans call a Festschrift, i.e., a publication to celebrate an anniversary. This article, based thereon, will show what a mine of information that early firm history is; but hard work was necessary to bring the gold to the surface.
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- Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1953
References
1 The study has been published under the title “The Beginnings and Development of German Business History,” a Supplement to the Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, Sept., 1952.
2 The title reads in English: History and Celebration of the Hundredth Anniversary of the Lauchhammer Iron Works; iii, 83 pages, one frontispiece and 2 maps. There exist two slightly different editions in several German libraries. Microfilms of those in the Sächsische Landesbibliothek in Dresden are in Baker Library of Harvard University. The book's author, Trautscholdt, will be studied in detail (see third installment of this article).
3 Trautscholdt's book will be quoted hereafter as F. (this letter standing for the German Festschrift). However, in view of the small size of the item, citations will be kept to a minimum. In 1925 the Linke-Hofmann-Lauchhammer Werke, a merger which had absorbed the old Lauchhammer Works, published another Festschrift which cannot bear comparison with the first. But to the extent that it contains supplementary information, that book, entitled 200 Jahre Lauchhammer 1725–1926 (p. p. [1925]), has been used and will be cited F. of 1925. It is full of small errors.
For the background, see Beck, Ludwig, Geschichte des Eisens in technischer und kulturgeschichtlicher Beziehung, 5 vols. (Braunschweig, 1893–1903)Google Scholar, and Swank, James M., History of the Manufacture of Iron in All Ages (2d ed.; Philadelphia, 1892).Google Scholar Beck has given in III, 900–905 and IV, 105, 106 a short history of the Lauchhammer Works.
For the translation of the German technical terms the author has relied on Schlomann-Oldenbourg, , Illustrated Technical Dictionaries in Six Languages, XI, Metallurgy of Iron, compiled by Venator, William and DrRoss, Colin (London, 1911).Google Scholar
4 One gets a good idea of the Löwendal, family by reading the articles “Lowendahl (le maréchal Ulric-Frédéric-Woldemar de)” in Biographie Universelle Ancienne et Moderne, Nouvelle Edition (Paris, n.d.), XXV, 376 ff.Google Scholar, and the shorter one in the Nouvelle Biographie Générale, XXXII (Paris, 1863), 83.
5 For the details of the concession, see Beck, op. cit., III, 900, 901.
6 The German word Zeug is used for so many different things that the term Zeugeisen is not clear. It probably meant iron for tools and implements.
7 The following facts can be established at this time: In 1809 the Lauchhammer Works cast parts of a steam engine for the salt works at Dürrenberg on the basis of models received. The latter were the work of the Saxon mining official, Christian Friedrich Brendel (1776–1861), who had been sent to England to study her modern machines and who in 1811 became the engine master at Dürrenberg. See F., 36, 67; Matschoss, Conrad, Die Entwicklung der Dampfmaschine (Berlin, 1908), I, 162Google Scholar; and my essay “The Leaders of the German Steam Engine Industry during the First Hundred Years” in Journal of Economic History, IV (1944), 137, 138.
8 See second installment.
9 See F., page 24.
10 See the biographies in F., 17 ff.; Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, V (Leipzig, 1877), 760, 761; von Weber, Karl, “Detlev, Graf von Einsiedel, Königlich Sächsischer Cabinets-Minister” in Archiv für die Sächsische Geschichte, I (1863), 58 ff., 129 ff.Google Scholar; Johnson, Eduard, “Zur Lebensgeschichte des Kabinetts-Ministers Detlev Graf von Einsiedel” in Neues Archiv für Sächsische Geschichte, XII (1891), 185 ff.Google Scholar
11 The American reader may get the “feel” of the Lauchhammer Works in the Löwendal era by reading Neu, Irene D., “The Iron Plantations of Colonial New York” in New York History (January, 1952)Google Scholar, and Bining, Arthur Cecil, Pennsylvania Iron Manufacture in the Eighteenth Century, Publications of the Pennsylvania Historical Commission, IV (Harrisburg, 1938), especially 30–36, 67 ff., 107 ff.Google Scholar The reader will find many similarities and telling dissimilarities and should understand especially that the technique used in German forges was different from that described by Bining. Useful for purposes of comparison is also the story of the Hope Furnace in Hedges, James B., The Browns of Providence Plantations: Colonial Years (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1952), 123 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 See second installment.
13 Gädicke, Johann Christian, Fabriken- und Manufakturen-Adress- Buch von Teutschland und einigen angränzenden Ländern (Weimar, 1799), II, 279.Google Scholar The note reads in German: “1 Hochofen, 1 Frisch- und Staabfeuer, 2 Schaufelfeuer, 1 Zaynhammer, 1 Blechfeuer, 1 Eisendrahtmühle”; see also ibid., I, 152, 194. The Burghammer Works received a short note in vol. II, 78.
A detailed contemporary description of the Lauchhammer Works as it stood in the 1800's is to be found in Lampadius, Wilhelm August, Handbuch der allgemeinen Hüttenkunde, des Zweyten Theiles vierter Band enthält die hüttenmännische Benutzung der Eisenerze überhaupt, so wie der Frischprocesse und der Stahlfabrikation (Göttingen, 1810), 296 ff.Google Scholar
14 This translation of the German note is unsatisfactory: the word Schaufelfeuer appears neither in Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm's Deutsches Wörterbuch nor in Beck's standard work on iron (see footnote 3). The author is unable to translate or even to explain the term. Moreover for the German terms Stabhammer and Zaynhammer the English language has only the equivalent “bar forge,” while the German terms indicate two different shapes of iron bars. It is doubted whether the plate mill actually existed; it may have been in the planning stage when the author of the 1790's received his information. It did or would have hammered plate. As to the doubt, here expressed, see Stahl und Eisen, XXV (1905), 1232.
15 See second installment.
However, by way of a footnote, attention must be drawn to an episode of 1830, because it sheds much light on the spirit of the younger Einsiedel's administration, a strange mixture of technical progressivism and political backwardness. In that year the Gröditz plant, then already in a process of expansion, was to be further enlarged by a second blast furnace, presumably a coke furnace, to which a puddling furnace was to be attached. A tin plate plant was to be added. The application for a concession was coupled with the request for the delivery of a certain amount of charcoal per annum from the royal forests and for a ten-year special privilege. No other works of that description were to be erected during that period in the part of the kingdom in which the plants were to be established; existing enterprises were to be enjoined from building competing ones. That is to say, in the spirit of the eighteenth century the application was conditioned on a special privilege. Thereby it did not fit into the political climate of the nineteenth century. The Count was so conservative that he probably acted bona fide, but the public sensed an intention to abuse political power for business purposes. The concession was granted without the special privilege, but the concessionaire made no use of it; see von Weber, op. cit., 185 ff.
16 The terms in-migrant and out-migrant connote migrants within a country. The words were used by government agencies during World War II.
17 For the background, see Gardner, J. Starkie, Iron Work, I (London, 1893)Google Scholar, II (London, 1896); Clouzot, Henri, Les Arts du Métal… (Manuels d'Histoire de l'Art), (Paris, 1934), 283 ff.Google Scholar; Lasius, Julius, “Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Eisenkunstgusses” in Stahl und Eisen, XXVIII (1908), 385 ff.Google Scholar; and especially Lüer, Hermann and Creutz, Max, Geschichte der Metallkunst, I (Stuttgart, 1904), 255 ff.Google Scholar It is obvious from all those works, that iron objects of art were traditionally made by fire and hammer and that, by 1500, artisans learned to work also with other tools on cold iron. According to Clouzot (op. cit., 352), the casting of iron objects in general expanded after 1780; Lüer and Creutz date that expansion from 1800. The former author mentioned the Lauchhammer Works among the pioneers, the latter devoted a whole paragraph (on page 258) to its achievements in the field.
18 A picture of this first figure cast from iron is in F. of 1925, 48.
19 Contemporary reports on the achievement are to be found in Journal des Luxus und der Moden, I (1786), 366 ff.; XII (1797), 321, 322.
A modern scholarly treatment is in Hermann Schmitz, Berliner Eisenkunstguss. Festschrift zum fünfzigjährigen Bestehen des Königlichen Kunstgewerbe Museums (München, n.d. [1917]). 5 ff., especially 12, 13. On page 12, there is a picture of an early bust, cast by the Lauchhammer Works in 1789 or 1795, that of Freiherr von Heinitz. Other pictures of Lauchhammer's early castings, are in F. of 1925, plate after page 54, while one of a dual figure (Castor and Pollux), to be dealt with presently, is to be found as figure 18 in the above-cited Journal des Luxus und der Moden, XII (1797), May issue. This statue had been sold for the grand-ducal park in Weimar.
The following pertinent book is not available in America: Lauchhammer als Bildgiesserei in Eisen und Bronce (Leipzig and Berlin, 1899; Giesecke and Devrient).
20 See the list in F., 54 ff., which is the basis for Table I on page 81 of this article.
21 Edme Bouchardon (1698–1762), renowned French sculptor.
22 Gädecke, op. cit., I, 194 (“gegossene Öfen mit Aufsätzen von Figuren nach Antiken”). For examples, see F. of 1925, plate following page 54; Journal des Luxus und der Moden, plate XXX, Oct., 1786.
23 This term is not understandable.
24 This description of the stove production of the Lauchhammer Works is based on the essay “Ueber die eisernen Guss-Arbeiten der Gräfl. Einsiedeischen Eisen-Fabrick zu Lauchhammer bey Mückenberg in Sachsen” in Journal des Luxus und der Moden (as cited in footnote 19), 1786. The paper was written by no less a person than F. J. Bertuch (1747–1822), the reputable Weimar writer and publisher who took a great interest in the promotion of industry; see von Heinemann, Albrecht, Friedrich Johann Justin Bertuch, ein Weimarischer Buchhändler der Goethezeit (Bad Münster am Stein, 1950).Google Scholar
The statue of Ganymed offered with stoves of type 1 was copied from a famous ancient statue in the park of Sanssouci near Potsdam, a statue which the author has seen a great many times.
Stoves, as first produced and marketed by the Lauchhammer Works were later also made by some of its competitors; see Vom Ursprung und Werden der Buderusschen Eisenwerke [zu] Wetzlar (München, 1938), I, 262, 263.
25 The technical process used in the period has been described as follows: with the help of a fine sieve powdered enamel was brought on the red-hot object which was then put into the furnace again, a process which was repeated several times. Only the inside of the utensils was enameled while the edges and the outside were blackened with soot, graphite or mineral color.
26 For the preceding, see F., 25; F. of 1925, 20, 21, and the plate after p. 20; Beck, op. cit., III, 903; IV, 246; Bertuch, op. cit., 372. The University of Würzburg (unprinted) thesis of 1922 by Bellino, Das Deutsche Kunst- und Gebrauchsemaillier gewerbe, seine Entwicklung und seine volkswirtschaftliche Bedeutung is not available in America. But Frau Hermann Kellenbenz, Dietramszell, very kindly copied those sections of the thesis which deal with our subject. They are technical in character and the description in footnote 25 of the process of production has been taken therefrom. Frau Kellenbenz's kindness has been much appreciated.
27 Lampadius, op. cit., 315.
28 When crude iron is produced with charcoal there is no clear dividing line between such crude iron as is used for casting and such as goes to the forges. This is generally known, and on top of that the report of 1782 of a high Prussian mining official expressly stated that the Lauchhammer Works did not differentiate be tween iron for casting and forging. Consequently we should be sure that the item “foundry iron” contains only such crude iron as was used in casting and that those quantities which were sent to the forges were deducted from the total of crude iron. But it is not certain whether in our source the terms foundry (cast) iron and crude iron were actually kept consistently separate.
29 See Elsas, Moritz, Umriss einer Geschichte der Preise und Löhne in Deutschland, II (Leiden, 1940), 12.Google Scholar
30 It seems to have been typical of seventeenth and eighteenth-century accounting, as practiced on estates, that depreciation was not considered; see Brunner, Otto, Adeliges Landleben und Europäischer Geist… (Salzburg, 1949), 301.Google Scholar
31 The figures for total production in the Löwendal era, given by Trautscholdt on page 11, tally with those given on page 46, but the tabulation on pages 45–46, besides containing a bad misprint, does not make sense without knowing Trautscholdt's terminology in all detail. But there is no clue to that terminology which in some respects appears inconsistent; this is not surprising for a businessman.
a In the eighteenth-century English Kirkstall forge all workers got “two drinkings” per day; see [Butler, Rodney], The History of the Kirkstall Forge through Seven Centuries, 1200–1945 A. D. (Kirkstall, 1945), 18.Google Scholar
32 Stahl und Eisen, XXV (1905), 1231, 1232.
33 For this estimate, see Beck, op. cit., III, 393, 397.
34 This slag also contained some limestone; 5–8 pounds of limestone were added to a centner of crude iron in the process of refining it.
35 Lampadius, op. cit., 313, 314.
36 Lampadius' table (op. cit., 302, 303) is not clear. I think his percentages refer to ferric oxide.
37 Lampadius, op. cit., 312; Beck, op. cit., Ill, 904.
38 Ibid., III, 681.
39 It is hardly possible to give in America the exact counterpart of this figure expressed in cords of 128 cubic feet. Eighteenth-century measures varied from locality to locality. The Klafter, for example, varied between 80, 126, 144, and 150 cubic feet; 144 cubic feet was the usual size of the Klafter.
40 Lampadius, op. cit., 303.
41 This paragraph is based to a certain extent on the competent presentation in F. of 1925, page 15, but I think the ratio for 1804 was 1.65:1.