Conrad Poppenhusen

Conrad Poppenhusen (born April 1, 1818 in Hamburg ; † December 21, 1883 in College Point on Long Island ) was a German entrepreneur .

Live and act

Bust on Long Island

Conrad Poppenhusen was born in Hamburg as the only son of the businessman Heinrich Conrad Poppenhusen, who died in 1829. At the age of 14, he began vocational training. He ended his employment after five years of legal disputes with his teacher due to outstanding salary payments. The industrialist Heinrich Christian Meyer , also known as "Stockmeyer", who was one of his father's friends, introduced him to his company HC Meyer jr. on. Poppenhusen traveled to many countries for the company, including England. In 1841 he married Henriette Kärker, whose father worked as an accountant at HC Meyer jr. worked.

The Hamburg fire prepared both Poppenhusen and HC Meyer jr. Problems. Heinrich Christian Meyer then offered Poppenhusen shares in his company and sent him to New York City with his eldest son Heinrich Adolph Meyer . In 1842 they founded the whalebone factory Meyer & Poppenhusen , in which Poppenhusen held shares from 1843. In 1844 Heinrich Adolph Meyer returned to Germany. Poppenhusen, whose family had meanwhile followed to the USA, now managed the company alone. Heinrich Christian Meyer visited him there in 1847/48, who once wanted to travel to the USA when he was old and marked by illness. In the meantime he thought about settling down here and expanding the whalebone factory.

Poppenhusen had a relationship with Charles Goodyear for many years , who introduced vulcanization in 1851 . The brother Nelson Goodyear had done corresponding preparatory work since 1847 with the invention of hard rubber . Poppenhusen had conflicts with Heinrich Adolph Meyer, but remained loyal to the company. He acquired patents from Nelson Goodyear and founded India Rubber Comb in 1852, controlled by Meyer & Poppenhusen . He was initially allowed to produce "artificial whalebone" and from 1853 combs made of hard rubber. The company was the first hard rubber factory in the world. As the company grew rapidly, Poppenhusen moved to a new location on Long Island in 1855. The company traded here as College Point and should employ 600 to 1000 people. Poppenhusen separated from Heinrich Adolph Meyer and continued the business together with the Rhinelander Friedrich König.

In 1856 Poppenhusen and König bought a license for a patent from L. Otto P. Meyers, who was a stepbrother of Heinrich Christian Meyers. L. Otto P. Meyer had researched in the laboratories of the Goodyear company and found a way to press metal foil in series and vulcanize it in a liquid bath. The company Poppenhusen & König developed into a quasi-monopoly through the patents over the decades. In 1858 the entrepreneurs acquired the Beacon Dam Company , also known as the American Hard Rubber Co. of Conn. was known. They moved the company headquarters to College Point. After several years of legal disputes, they received official approval for this in 1865.

Poppenhusen's first wife died in 1858. In his second marriage he married Caroline Hütterott, whose father was an industrialist from Bremen . The couple had several children, including Friedrich Poppenhusen . The entrepreneur moved from renting an apartment in Brooklyn to his own villa in College Point. He visited Europe repeatedly. During the Civil War , from which he profited in business, he supported volunteer fighters. Based on his experience during the Hamburg fire, he co-founded several insurance companies. He also acquired several properties in Brooklyn and two ore mines. From 1868 to 1870, he and his sons Adolph and Hermann participated in more than 80 real estate projects. He also increasingly invested in the expansion of the railway; the Flushing and North Side Railroad , which he founded , later became part of the Long Island Rail Road .

Poppenhusen Institute in Collegepoint (2009)

On the occasion of his 50th birthday, he donated College Point the Poppenhusen Institute . The educational institution should improve the morale, education and social standards of workers. In addition, one of the first kindergartens in the USA was to be found here.

Since his wife had health problems, Poppenhusen moved to Europe with her and their children in 1870. The sons from their first marriage stayed in the United States, where they continued to run the company. As they found Bremen too provincial, the family moved from there to Hamburg. At first they lived at Grindelhof and in 1873 they moved into a villa on Klopstockstraße, built according to plans by Martin Haller . The building had a "wine propagation house & bowling alley". Poppenhusen was also active here as a businessman: after a large donation in January 1871 in College Point, he founded the New York Hamburger Gummi-Waaren Compagnie in Hamburg in October of the same year . One of the co-shareholders was Johann Hinrich Wilhelm Maurien, who worked as commercial director of the Gummi-Kamm Co. in Harburg until 1869 and had a falling out there, and Poppenhusen's son Adolph. The well-known business partner Friedrich König from the USA and Bernhard Arnold from Hamburg, with whom Poppenhusen were friends, also took part. Father and son Poppenhusen owned a third of the shares, Conrad Poppenhusen took over the chairmanship of the board of directors. The company in Barmbek grew rapidly and successfully participated in the 1873 World Exhibition .

While business in Hamburg was flourishing, the sons of Poppenhusen drove the company into bankruptcy in the USA because of railroad deals that they hid from their father. Poppenhusen visited the USA in 1877, but could only liquidate the company, losing all of his fortune. He had to sell the villa in Hamburg. He considered moving to Bremen, but stayed in Hamburg, where he was debt-free, and hoped that rumors circulating about him would quickly fall silent. As he successfully negotiated and litigated, but also thanks to his wife, he was soon able to acquire a new villa on the Uhlenhorst . He also started a new business at College Point, but it turned in little profits. As an entrepreneur, he made a large fortune in the years that followed.

Poppenhusen traveled to the USA well into old age. In 1880 he attended the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the India Rubber Comb , in which he had no more shares since bankruptcy. In 1877 he had left the New York Hamburger Gummi-Waaren Compagnie . Poppenhusen died during one of the stays in the USA. The body was transferred to Hamburg and buried in the Ohlsdorf cemetery. Poppenhusen, whom the architect Martin Haller regarded as an "honorable upstart" and described him as "cautious" but extremely "self-confident", left behind his wife, who outlived him by twenty years, two companies that existed on both sides of the Atlantic for a long time . Until after the First World War , the two companies were linked by a "gentlemen's agreement", for which no further details are documented.

In the area of ​​the former factory premises in Barmbek, Poppenhusenstrasse has been named after the entrepreneur since 1910 . The Museum der Arbeit also shows a telescope that Poppenhusen received from his employees at College Point in 1859 on the occasion of his marriage in Bremen.

literature

• Jürgen Ellermeyer: Poppenhusen, Conrad . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 6 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8353-1025-4 , p. 252-254 .