First German industrial exhibition
The First German Industry Exhibition was opened in Mainz on September 12, 1842 and lasted until October 16, 1842. It can be seen as a landmark in German economic history.
In 1841 the Grand Ducal Trade Association of Hesse decided to hold an exhibition of domestic trade products. The show was initially only intended for the Grand Duchy of Hesse . In the course of the planning, the target area was projected for the Rhineland and ultimately for all states of the German Customs Union . Ludwig II of Hesse and the Rhine made his grand ducal palace in the provincial capital Mainz available for this purpose. The leather manufacturer Carl Deninger was appointed director.
About 270 exhibitors took part. More than 75,000 visitors were counted during the four-week event. It was the first major event during Nikolaus Nack's tenure as Lord Mayor of Mainz .
Franz Reuleaux , judge and Reich Commissioner at the world exhibitions of 1862 (London) , 1867 (Paris) , 1873 (Vienna) , 1873 (Dublin) and 1876 (Philadelphia) , described the character of the industrial exhibitions as follows:
- "In contrast to the traditional markets and trade fairs, the competition for the commercial exhibitions was no longer about the buyer's favor, but about the awards from the jury."
The importance of this first industrial exhibition for the whole of Germany lies in its character as a milestone in Germany's economic rise after the reorganization of the Congress of Vienna. An economic and geographical novelty was the display of industrial products from various sovereign states in an exhibition. The event is considered to be the climax of early liberal economic sentiment. For the first time, those involved were not linked by constitution and government, but by ancestry and language.
The direct consequence of the exhibition was a national impulse that it triggered and which Friedrich List benefited from as the protagonist of the future railway network. List personally campaigned for the construction of a railway from Mainz to Worms . The grand ducal government in Darmstadt , however, stuck to its negative stance, especially since a state railway system was established by law in 1842. As a result of the impetus from the exhibition, some supporters of the railroad were found in the government at the beginning of 1845, and the initiators began to take heart. On August 15, 1845, a Mainz-Ludwigshafen railway company was granted the license. The company was later renamed the Hessische-Ludwigs-Eisenbahngesellschaft .
In the period that followed, other industrial and commercial exhibitions were held in the German-speaking area at short intervals, which were then much larger: the General German Commercial Exhibition in 1844 in the Berlin Zeughaus with 3,040 exhibitors and 260,000 visitors, the exhibitions in Vienna in 1850 with 2000 and in the same year in Leipzig with at least 1414 exhibitors, as well as the great First General German Industrial Exhibition in Munich in 1854 with 6588 exhibitors.
literature
- Gewerbeblatt for the Grand Duchy of Hesse: The first general German industrial exhibition in Mainz in 1842 , Mainzer Tagblatt No. 184
- Friedrich Schütz: Site of the first German industrial exhibition. ; State Parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate - The first address in the State of Rhineland-Palatinate. Mainz 1990
- Dieter Wurdak: landmark of German economic history. MAINZ - quarterly issues for culture, politics, economy, history; Ed .: City of Mainz; Issue 4/1992
- Gabriele Rauch: The first German industrial exhibition in Mainz in 1842 ; Thesis historical seminar at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 2001
Web links
- List of items delivered to the General German Industrial Exhibition in Mainz . Mainz 1842. Last accessed January 5, 2019.