German Society for Mechanics and Optics
The German Society for Mechanics and Optics was an interest group of German manufacturers of fine mechanical and optical precision instruments .
history
The company was founded in Berlin in 1881 as the successor organization of the Berlin Mechanics and Opticians Association , which was founded in 1877 by instrument makers such as Rudolf Fuess , Carl Bamberg and Herrmann Haensch . With this step, the organization was expanded to cover the whole of Germany on the one hand, and it was also opened up to other professional groups, on the other hand, especially scientists who were dependent on precision instruments, such as mineralogists , meteorologists and chemists . The members met annually from 1889 onwards at their general meeting, the German Mechanics Day , which was held after the meeting of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors . In 1891 it was decided to form branch associations in larger cities, which initially only happened in Hamburg . In 1899, the company was expanded by joining the Association of German Glass Instrument Manufacturers as a branch in Ilmenau . It followed around 1900 Göttingen , Halle and Leipzig , later Munich and Dresden .
The first chairman was Leopold Loewenherz , who was employed by the normal calibration commission . His successor was the mechanic Rudolf Fuess.
Today's successor organization is the German Industry Association for Optical, Medical and Mechatronic Technologies eV ( SPECTARIS ) .
aims
The aim of the association was to promote the construction of precision devices in Germany. She regularly organized trade fairs that covered the entire spectrum of precision mechanics and technical optics. At large international trade fairs, for the first time at the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1888 , the company was often represented with a collective exhibition in order to enable smaller workshops that could not have raised the necessary funds to participate. A great success was the appearance at the world exhibition in Chicago in 1893 , where a number of new instruments were presented and an English-language catalog had been printed in advance in 12,000 copies. At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 , the German Society for Mechanics and Optics was represented with a very successful collective exhibition by 76 companies. She represented the interests of mechanics but also within other organizations such as the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors, where in 1889 it succeeded in founding its own section for instrument science .
A primary goal of the company was also to improve the political framework for instrument making. Negotiations were held with the government on the formulation of trade agreements and customs tariffs. Attempts were made to influence legislative initiatives, such as amendments to the trade regulations , the Accident Insurance Act of 1884, the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1891 or the Craftsmen Act .
Club magazines
The specialist organ of the society was a monthly association journal, which was called the Association Journal of the German Society for Mechanics and Optics from 1891–1897 , 1898–1916 was the German Mechanikerzeitung and 1917–1920 was called the Journal of the German Society for Mechanics and Optics . This association gazette appeared as a supplement to the Zeitschrift für Instrumentenkunde , which was not published directly by the society, but by some leading members. The first curators were the chemists Hans Heinrich Landolt , Rudolf Fuess and Leopold Loewenherz. About two-thirds of the content of the journal consisted of articles that reported on special devices and one-third of articles on the theory and fundamentals of instrument technology.
literature
- Jörg Zaun: Instruments for Science. Innovations in Berlin precision mechanics and optics 1871–1914 , Verlag für Wissenschafts- und Regionalgeschichte, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-929134-39-X
- Terry Shinn: Research-technology Instrumentation: The Place of Chemistry . In: PJT Morris (Ed.): From Classical to Modern Chemistry. The Instrumental Revolution , Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge 2002, pp. 95-110, ISBN 0854044795
Web links
Homepage of the industrial association SPECTARIS