Adolphus Busch
Adolphus Busch (born July 10, 1839 in Kastel near Mainz , † October 10, 1913 in Lindschied ) was a German-American entrepreneur , brewer and co-founder of the Anheuser-Busch brewery dynasty in the United States .
Family background
Adolphus Busch was born as the youngest of twenty-one children in Kastel across from Mainz . His father Ulrich Busch was a hop trader and landowner. The Mainz high school student Adolphus graduated from the Darmstadt Academy and attended a university in Brussels . As early as 1857, at the age of 18, he was seized with the travel bug and decided to emigrate . While most of his siblings stayed in Germany, some of them decided to seek their fortune in the New World. Among them were the brothers
- Johann, who built a brewery in Washington , Missouri ,
- Ulrich, who - like Adolphus - married a daughter of Eberhard Anheuser, lived with her in Chicago and went about his business with brewery supplies, and
- Anton, a hops trader who later returned to Mainz .
First successes in America
Adolphus Busch settled in St. Louis , Missouri . He was employed by William Hainrichshofen wholesalers there and learned this profession. As a soldier , he was a member of the Union Army of the Northern States for three months and was involved in fights with horse thieves and Shoshone Indians . In 1859 he resigned from the army. With the parental inheritance paid off, Busch joined Ernst Wattenberg's wholesaling company in St. Louis. In 1865 he bought out his partner and continued the company as a wholesaler for brewery supplies "Adolphus Busch & Co.". His customers also included the “Bavarian Brewery” in St. Louis, which - after it had run into financial difficulties - was taken over by Eberhard Anheuser , who emigrated from Bad Kreuznach , Germany in 1840 . The young bush made the acquaintance of Anheuser's daughter Lilly. On March 7, 1861, Adolphus Busch married the 17-year-old Lilly Anheuser. Anheuser had already made it into a wealthy soap manufacturer in the States. But in the brewery trade he lacked the knowledge of the specialist, so he decided to hire a specialist. In 1864 Anheuser motivated his son-in-law to transfer to the management of the brewery "Anheuser & Co.". Busch ran both companies at the same time until 1869, then sold his stake in the flourishing wholesaler and took over half of the Anheuser brewery from William O'Dench.
beers
On trips to Europe in the early 1870s, Busch heard about Louis Pasteur's success in killing microorganisms by briefly heating them. After returning home, he began to experiment and was the first to apply the pasteurization method to beer. This enabled the Anheuser brewery to deliver beer of constant quality throughout the country.
Busch took care of new markets, presented technical innovations and modernized the business processes. In 1879 the company was renamed the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association in recognition of his enormous services . When Anheuser died the following year, Busch became president of what is now the largest brewery in the United States and remained so until his death.
The beer brewed by Busch under the name Budweiser later temporarily became the best-selling beer in the world. In 1891, Busch bought the trade mark and the name Budweiser from Carl Conrad , after Busch's brewery had been marketing beer under this label since 1883. In the same year, the Adolphus Busch Glass Manufacturing Company started producing beer bottles. In 1901, Anheuser-Busch's beer output exceeded one million barrels for the first time in a year .
With a daily production of 4,250 tons of ice, Busch operated what was then the largest ice machine in the world. In addition, he acquired some coal mines in western Illinois, which supplied his brewery with fuel via a specially designed railway line. The rail network in and around St. Louis goes back largely to Busch.
Big entrepreneur Busch and his industrial empire
Busch served as president of several banking houses and owned large estates in Arkansas . In 1912 he had the Adolphus Hotels built in Chicago and Dallas . The Adolphus was the tallest building in Texas at the time, at a height of 95 meters .
During his visits to Germany he came across the diesel engine , which was presented to the public in 1893. Busch immediately recognized its importance and in 1897 acquired the manufacturing rights for the United States. Just one year later, as President of the Diesel Motor Company of America , Busch had the first diesel engine constructed in the United States built. In 1912 he founded the Busch-Sulzer-Brothers Diesel Engine Company with the Swiss engineer Sulzer in St. Louis .
philanthropist
The success of the brewery made its owner independent and allowed him to act both philanthropically and as a promoter of German culture in the States.
His new hometown gave Adolphus Busch the title of “First Citizen”, thereby recognizing the services of the German immigrant to the economic and cultural life, not only of St. Louis, but of the entire United States.
Adolphus Busch never let the contacts with Germany break off. When a Rhine flood also affected Kastel in 1882 , the overseas patron donated a lot of money to those affected at home to alleviate the worst misery. In 1902, the source of the ox fountain in his hometown was surrounded by an impressive vault.
The millionaire was later able to afford to use his own railroad saloon car when traveling, which was also taken on ship trips. He enjoyed spending the summers with his wife in Germany.
Honors
- Honorary membership in the experimental and training institute for breweries in Berlin
death
Adolphus Busch died on October 10, 1913 in the Villa Lilly in Lindschied im Taunus, named after his wife . Since 1906 he suffered from edema , a swelling of the tissue due to the accumulation of fluid from the vascular system. His coffin with the remains was transported by train and ship to St. Louis in 1915 and then buried in the Busch Mausoleum in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.
The brewery was by his son August Anheuser Busch, Sr. continued.
Familys
Ulrich Busch (* December 12, 1779 Mainz-Kastel ; † July 1852 Mainz-Kastel), trader, innkeeper, landowner, the father of Adolphus, was married twice:
- ⚭ I. 1805 with Catharina Ankermüller († 1815), with this wife he had seven children:
- Kasper Busch (* 1806)
- Mathias Busch (* 1806)
- Georg Busch (* 1808)
- Balthasar Busch (* 1810; † childhood)
- Catharina Busch (* 1812)
- Balthasar Busch (* 1813)
- Barbara Busch (* 1815)
- ⚭ May 3rd, 1816 in Mainz-Kastel , with Barbara Pfeifer (* 1797; † March 12, 1844) he had 16 children.
The most famous children from the marriage with Barbara were:
- Apollonia Busch (* 1824 Mainz-Kastel ; † 1918), ⚭ I. Peter Rock (* Heidenrod-Laufenselden; † December 1853), district architect; ⚭ II. Franz Reisinger († 1890), owner of the Mittelrheinische Zeitung; ⚭ III. Hugo Reisinger (* 1856 Wiesbaden; † 1914), businessman, art collector ( Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard University , Cambridge ).
- Hans / John Busch (* 1832 Mainz-Kastel ; † 1922), built a brewery in Washington (Missouri) .
- Ulrich Busch, jr. (* 1833 Mainz-Kastel ; † 1923), traded in brewery supplies in St. Louis ⚭ March 7, 1861 Anna Anheuser († April 8, 1916)
- Edward Busch (* 1862)
- Alfred Busch (* 1866)
- Lillia Busch (* 1870)
- Otto Busch (* 1871)
- Franz Busch (* 1874)
- Paula Busch (* 1877)
- Anton Baptist Busch (born December 19, 1836 Mainz-Kastel : † 1904), hop trader, returned to Mainz from the USA
- Adolphus Busch ⚭ March 7, 1861 Lilly Anheuser (* August 12, 1844 - † February 25, 1928 St. Louis , Missouri). She was the daughter of Eberhard Anheuser . Adolphus and Lilly had 15 children:
- Gustav Busch (* 1861)
- Nelli Busch (* 1863; † 1934)
- Edward Busch (* 1864; † 1879)
- August Busch, I. (* December 29, 1865; † February 10, 1934 St. Louis ) ⚭ Alice Edna Ziesemann (* 1866; † May 1958). August took over the brewery from his father Adolphus. August and Alice had five children:
- Adolphus Busch, III. (* February 10, 1891 - † Aug. 29, 1946). He took over the Anheuser-Busch Companies brewery . ⚭ Sept. I, 1930, ⚭ June 21, 1913 Catherine Milliken (born June 3, 1881 - † Dec. 25, 1961 St. Louis)
- Marie Busch (* 1892; † 1963) ⚭ I. Constantin Dantes, ⚭ II. Drummond Jones († January 1, 1946), ⚭ III. Feb. 7, 1947 Andrew P. Szombati
- Clara Busch (* 1895; † 1957) ⚭ Percy Orthwein (* 1888; † 1957)
- August ("Gussi") Busch, II. (* March 28, 1899; † September 29, 1989 St. Louis) ⚭ April 17, 1918 Marie Christy Church (* June 22, 1896; † Jan 27, 1918) 1930 St. Louis), ⚭ II. 1933 Elizabeth Overton Dozier, ⚭ III. Margaret Rohde Snyder, ⚭ IV. March 23, 1952 Gertrude Buholzer (* February 17, 1927)
- Alice Busch (* 1904)
- Adolphus Busch, II. (July 10, 1868 - April 15, 1898 St. Louis )
- Alexis Busch (* 1869; † 1869)
- Peter Busch (* 1869)
- Emilee Busch (* 1870; † 1870)
- Edmee Busch (* 1871; † 1955)
- Peter Busch (born January 7, 1872 - May 21, 1905 St. Louis )
- Martha Busch (* 1873; † 1873)
- Anna Louise Busch (* February 7, 1875 - † April 16, 1936 St. Louis )
- Clara Busch (born May 16, 1876; † June 26, 1959 St. Louis ) ⚭ Paul von Gontard (1868–1941), general director of the German arms and ammunition factories
- Carl Busch (* 1879–1882; † April 8, 1915)
- Wilhelmina Busch (born Jan. 10, 1884 - † Nov. 23, 1952 in Munich), built Höhenried Castle in Bernried on Lake Starnberg from 1937 to 1939 .
Because of family ties between Anheuser and Busch, further details can be found in Eberhard Anheuser and there in daughter Lilly ⚭ Adolphus Busch.
literature
- James N. Primm; Wolfgang Zorn : Busch, Adolphus. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 58 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Helmut Schmahl: Rheinhessische Brauer in Milwaukee in: Planted, but not uprooted : The emigration from Hessen-Darmstadt (province of Rheinhessen) to Wisconsin in the 19th century. Frankfurt / Main (a.o.) 2000 (Mainz Studies on Modern History, 1)
- Ernst & Doris Probst: Adolphus Busch. The life of the beer king. Amazon Distribution GmbH, Leipzig 2019, ISBN 978-1-79335-872-1 (324 pages).
Web links
- Busch relatives - Busch - Family History and Genealogy (English)
- Busch, Ulrich Jr. & Anheuser, Anna
- Timeline from Anheuser-Busch (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Fritz Kurrek in "THEN" - Journal of historical knowledge, Issue 4 / April 1983, p 356th
- ↑ Fritz Kurrek in "THEN" - Journal of historical knowledge, Issue 4 / April 1983, p 357th
- ↑ Adolphus Busch Dies in Prussia (pdf). In: The New York Times , October 11, 1913. Retrieved April 23, 2013.
- ↑ Der Bierkönig and his summer freshness in FAZ of October 10, 2013, page 44.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bush, Adolphus |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-American brewery owner |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 10, 1839 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kastel |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 10, 1913 |
| Place of death | Langenschwalbach |