Carl Reuther (entrepreneur, 1846)

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Carl Reuther, ca.1900

Carl Reuther (born October 31, 1846 in Gemmrigheim ; † June 13, 1908 in Mannheim ) was a German entrepreneur who later founded the company VAG Armaturen .

youth

Carl Reuther was the son of a carpenter . He first attended the village school in his birthplace, then the Latin school in neighboring Besigheim for two years . Then he began an apprenticeship in the mechanical workshop of the Reutlingen brother house (later: Gustav Werner Foundation ). There he was released because he did not adequately conform to the strict rules of the religious house.

Professional background

Bopp & Reuther factory premises, 1892

In 1862 he got a job as a lathe operator in Stuttgart . In 1864 his family of origin moved to live with him from Gemmrigheim, and his mother, Frederike, opened a milk business in Stuttgart , which made so much profit that she was able to pay for her son Carl to study at the Stuttgart Polytechnic in 1864 . But more than two years could not be financed. So he emigrated to the USA in 1866 and became a US citizen , but returned to Germany in 1868. From 1870 he worked in Höchst in a branch of the " Mainzer Gasapparate und Gusswerke ", where he became operations manager.

In 1872, together with the Mannheim locksmith Carl Bopp (1830-1893), he founded the company Bopp & Reuther (later: VAG-Armaturen GmbH ), which manufactured fittings for water pipes , taps , valves , pumps and gate valves . The two thus served a rapidly growing market at the time, because water supply and disposal systems were built in all the larger and rapidly growing cities of the German Empire . The company existed until 1881, when the two separated, Carl Reuther paid off his partner and he was now the sole owner of the company. Bopp & Reuther was meanwhile a leader in the field of water supply and disposal. In 1893 and again in 1905, Grand Duke Friedrich I and Grand Duchess Luise visited Carl Reuther's factory. Reuther was awarded the honorary title of Commercial Councilor.

family

In Höchst he met his wife, Marie Altenkirch, daughter of the furrier and fur trader Wilhelm Altenkirch. The couple had several children.

engagement

Carl Reuther was a member of the city ​​council of Mannheim - and probably the only one who held this office as a US citizen. It was not until 1898 that he received Baden citizenship upon his application . Several workers' settlements in Mannheim can be traced back to Reuther's initiative. In addition to this commitment, he equipped Bopp & Reuther with a number of social facilities for the workforce: company canteen , company health insurance fund and the Carl Reuther Foundation for the benefit of the workers in his factory.

literature

  • Ferdinand Werner : workers' settlements. Workers' houses in the Rhine-Neckar area. (= Contributions to Mannheim architecture and building history , Volume 8.) (with contributions by Gerold Bönnen and Ulrich Nieß ) Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 2012, ISBN 978-3-88462-330-5 .
  • Ferdinand Werner: Carl Reuther and the art of making workers' houses invisible . In: INSITU, Zeitschrift für Architekturgeschichte , 5 (1/2013), pp. 89–100.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Werner: Carl Reuther , p. 90.
  2. ↑ Alexe Altenkirch: Leben thormaehlen-stiftung.org, accessed on June 21, 2019
  3. ^ Werner: Carl Reuther , p. 99.
  4. ^ Werner: Carl Reuther , p. 90.
  5. ^ Werner: Carl Reuther , p. 90.
  6. ^ Werner: Workers' settlements , p. 362.
  7. ^ Werner: Carl Reuther , p. 91.
  8. ↑ Werner: Carl Reuther , p. 99 and note 50.
  9. ^ Werner: Carl Reuther , p. 90.
  10. ↑ Werner: Carl Reuther , p. 96 f.
  11. ^ Werner: Carl Reuther , p. 90.
  12. ^ Werner: Carl Reuther , p. 90.
  13. ↑ Werner: Workers' settlements , p. 362 ff.
  14. ↑ Werner: Carl Reuther , p. 91 ff.
  15. ^ Werner: Carl Reuther , p. 99.
personal data
SURNAME Reuther, Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Gemmrigheim
DATE OF DEATH June 13, 1908
Place of death Mannheim