Anna Barbara Gignoux

Anna Barbara Gignoux , born as Anna Barbara Koppmair (also: Koppmairin) (born September 16, 1725 in Augsburg ; † September 11, 1796 ibid), referred to as a merchant and sizmaker , was the most important calico manufacturer in Augsburg in the 18th century .

Life

Anna Barbara Koppmairin, the eldest daughter of Augsburg gold- hit Andreas Koppmair and his wife Maria Barbara Gizalin , married Johann Friedrich Gignoux (1724–1760) in 1748 , the younger of the two sons of Jean François Gignoux (1691–1761), who immigrated from Geneva in 1719 Shape cutter .
In Augsburg, the established itself in the last decade 17th century the calico printing . Her father-in-law had succeeded in acquiring one of the 16 calico printer fairies, which were allotted to a total of 16 . In order to be able to work as effectively as possible, Jean François Gignoux broke through the guild barriers by employing his own master dyer in his printing shop in 1729 , thus triggering a lengthy dispute with the dyers' guild . In 1731 he was finally officially allowed to work as a master dyer. With the extension of an operation to its own dyeing and bleaching the first calico was manufaktur Augsburg. While the Augsburg merchants and Kramer had previously denied the calico printers the right to sell their calico themselves, a contract signed in 1737 meant that they were now allowed to trade in their goods themselves and to attend trade fairs. With the simultaneous granting of the ability to change, the calico printers were de facto put on an equal footing with the room-like merchants. This settlement agreement "may be viewed as the first legal sanction of the capitalist factory enterprise in Augsburg" (Dirr, p. 34). The new entrepreneurial class and the emerging manufacturing workers modified the class structure of the imperial city in the long term . The importance of the Gignoux entrepreneurial family for these economic change processes, but also the social responsibility they faced in the disputes between the calico printers and the weavers , is clearly tangible in the archival sources .

Jean François Gignoux and his two sons Anton Christoph (1721–1795) and Johann Friedrich Gignoux shared - initially against the resistance of their competitors - a printer's fairness, but each produced in their own workshops. Anna Barbara Gignoux worked extensively in the manufactory during her twelve-year marriage to Johann Friedrich and was privy to such important company secrets as the preparation of the colors. The extensive knowledge she gained in this way enabled her to continue the manufacture on her own after her husband's early death in May 1760.

However, she entered into a new marriage as early as November 1760 - a step that she more than regretted a short time later: Her second husband, Georg Christoph Gleich , a businessman from Ludwigsburg , had deceived her about his financial situation before the marriage Immediately afterwards, he tried to remove the management of the factory from her. Supported by his two business partners, the merchant and banker Johann Conrad Schwarz and Carl Heinrich Bayersdorf , Immediately in 1762 succeeded in thwarting his wife's divorce suit and forcing her to sign an 'amicable' settlement. Anna Barbara clearly had the law on her side - her deceased husband had appointed her sole manager of the factory until their son came of age, in complete accordance with Augsburg law - but a patriarchal mindset, but above all the family network of her opponents With some Augsburg officials who are important for the decision-making process, Gleich helped assert his interests.

Since Georg Christoph Gleich lacked any experience in calico printing, he still needed his wife's specialist knowledge to continue the manufacture. In addition to the calico manufactory, Gleich operated several not very successful parallel companies with various partners. In 1764/65 he had a large manufacturing building built in Augsburg's Lechviertel by master builder Leonhard Christian Mayer - against Anna Barbara's determined will . When he finally could no longer service the loans - he owed 200,000 guilders to the banker and merchant Benedikt Adam von Liebert alone - he fled the city in autumn 1770 from the consequences of his bankruptcy and left his wife with the two children from their first marriage and their daughter back.

Anna Barbara Gleich succeeded in comparing herself with the creditors and expanding the factory, which she was allowed to continue to run on behalf of her children, into one of the most successful cotton manufacturers in Augsburg. She was also able to buy back the properties that had been lost due to bankruptcy - not least the so-called Gignoux House , in which the manufactory was housed and whose preservation as a first-rate industrial monument is essential.

In 1779 Anna Barbara, who had long since been called Gignoux again, got divorced from Gleich, who after his escape stayed in Großenhain near Dresden for many years . After the son Johann Friedrich, who was appointed by the father as heir , died in 1777 at the age of only 22, Anna Barbara continued to run the manufacture until her death on September 11, 1796. In the period that followed, her daughter from her first marriage, Felicitas Barbara (1751–1814; widowed Koch, married Emmerich) , demonstrated her productivity and ran her parents' calico factory for almost a decade, despite all economic difficulties. In 1805 she finally leased the company to Johann Heinrich Schüle the Younger ; In 1815 the property was sold.

A patron?

Was Anna Barbara Gignoux "a patron of the painter Joh. Esaias Nilson, the writer Christian D. Schubart and the Mozart", as today attached to the Gignouxhaus plaque expressed? In addition to Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is said to have been one of her friends; Recently, Giacomo Casanova , who was in Augsburg in the summer of 1761 - and thus in the first phase of the violent internal marital dispute over the management of the manufactory - was placed at her side. Although it is quite understandable that the connection between these important names and that of the Gignoux has established itself in the city's culture of remembrance, such 'patronage' can no more be scientifically proven than real friendships or closer connections with the people mentioned. This does not necessarily mean that she had no contact with any of them - her brother-in-law Anton Christoph Gignoux, for example, as head of the collegium musicum, used to deal with Leopold Mozart , so that Anna Barbara could also have known him. But can one justifiably infer a role as a patron or even a friendship with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who is so many years younger and who also only stayed three brief times in Augsburg? In particular, the portrayal of a close relationship with Schubart, which is derived from a falsely attributed homage to Anna Barbara Gignoux, does not stand up to historical-critical analysis. We simply do not know whether she knew him anyway and possibly received him in her house.

Anna Barbara Gignoux's life's work will be more appropriately recognized by acknowledging her important role as a calico manufacturer than by classifying it as a patron , which cannot be proven by sources . In any case, their self-portrayal was clearly aimed at their economic drive. She self-confidently emphasized her craftsmanship and resolutely opposed the delusion as if the women = people were not in a position to head a Cotton = Fabrique .
Paul von Stetten the Elder J., the great Augsburg historiographer and contemporary of Anna Barbaras, noted in his history of art, trade and craftsmanship that the Friedrich Gignoux factory, which was run by a woman, Mrs. Anna Barbara Gleich, widow of blessed Friedrich Gignoux, with many Honor is continued , the famous Schüle'schen manufactory was very little or nothing inferior (Stetten, p. 257).

swell

1. ↑ Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Handwerkerakten, Weberhaus, Fasz. 113, No. 33, March 1, 1762

Web links

• Portrait of the women's history circle Augsburg

literature

• Adolf Buff : An episode from the history of art and industry in the 2nd half of the 18th century. In: Der Collector , Heft 122, Munich 1900, pp. 2-4.
• Claus-Peter Clasen: Textile Manufacture in Augsburg in the Early Modern Era , Vol. 2: Textile finishing, Augsburg 1995.
• Pius Dirr : Augsburger Textilindustrie in the 18th century , in: Journal of the Historisches Verein für Schwaben and Neuburg 37 (1911), pp. 1–106.
• Peter Fassl: The Augsburg calico manufacturer Anna Barbara Gignoux (1725–1796) , in: Rainer A. Müller (ed.), Entrepreneur - employee. Pictures of life from the early days of industrialization in Bavaria , Munich 1985, pp. 153–159.
• Paul von Stetten: Art, trade and craft history of the imperial city of Augsburg , Augsburg 1779.
• Christine Werkstetter: Anna Barbara Gignoux (1725–1796), a patron? In search of evidence , in: Zeitschrift des Historisches Verein für Schwaben 86 (1993), pp. 235–267.
• Christine Werkstetter: Anna Barbara Gignoux (1725–1796), calico manufacturer or patron? On the creation of an Augsburg legend. In: Johannes Burkhardt (Ed.): Augsburg trading houses in the course of historical judgment (Colloquia Augustana 3), Berlin 1996, pp. 381–399.
• Christine Werkstetter: ... excellent of my Cotton-Fabrique and only secundario of my personal son . The failed marriage of the Augsburg entrepreneur Anna Barbara Gignoux (1725–1796) as reflected in the divorce files, in: Wolfgang EJ Weber - Regina Dauser (ed.), Fascinating Early Modern Age. Reich, Frieden, Kultur und Kommunikation 1500–1800 , Berlin 2008, pp. 185–217.
• Christine Werkstetter: Women in the Augsburg guild trade. Work, industrial relations and gender relations in the 18th century (Colloquia Augustana 14), Berlin 2001.
• Wolfgang Zorn : Trade and Industrial History of Bavarian Swabia 1648–1870. Economic, social and cultural history of Swabian entrepreneurship (publications by the Swabian Research Association at the Commission for Bavarian State History. Series 1, Studies on the History of Bavarian Swabia 6), Augsburg 1961.