Ferdinand Adolph Lange

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Ferdinand Adolph Lange

Ferdinand Adolph Lange (born February 18, 1815 in Dresden ; † December 3, 1875 in Glashütte ) was a German watchmaker , inventor, entrepreneur and regional politician.

Life

Ferdinand Adolph Lange, baptized as "Fertinant Adolph", son of Johann Samuel Lange, in Dresden on February 25, 1815, grew up as a child with foster parents who enabled him to get a proper education. At the age of 15 he entered the Dresden Polytechnic and then learned from the Saxon court watchmaker Johann Christian Friedrich Gutkaes senior. the watchmaker's profession. From 1837 he went on the wanderings customary for craftsmen to France , Switzerland and Great Britain in order to perfect his knowledge and skills with well-known watchmakers. The famous Parisian watchmaker Joseph Thaddäus Winnerl offered him a job for life, but Lange returned to Saxony in 1841 and became a partner in the company "Gutkaes & Lange" in Dresden with Gustav Bernhard Gutkaes .

On December 7, 1845, Ferdinand Adolph Lange and his future brother-in-law, the watchmaker Friedrich August Adolf Schneider (1824–1878) - financially supported by the royal Saxon government with a repayable loan of 7,820 thalers - founded the watch manufacturer “A. Lange, Dresden ”, which was named A. Lange & Söhne from 1868 after his son Richard Lange joined the company. In 1875 the son Friedrich Emil Lange also joined the company management. The structurally weak region around Glashütte in the Eastern Ore Mountains offered above all the low wage level that was essential for the start of economic watch production. At the same time, he fulfilled his obligation to the Saxon government and began training watchmakers in Glashütte, thus laying the foundation for the watch industry that developed from it. Lange promoted their further development by encouraging qualified employees to found their own companies. Examples are the factories of Adolf Schneider and Julius Assmann .

Monument to F. Adolph Lange at the Glashütte church

In contrast to watchmaking, which was otherwise still very artisanal at that time, Lange strived for a division of labor into the production of individual parts, tried to deepen the theoretical fundamentals of precision mechanics and to use them for watchmaking. Ferdinand Adolph Lange developed, among other things, new precision tools and measuring devices, for example the tenth of a measure . These methods, as well as the technical improvements introduced by Lange in watchmaking, soon made it possible to manufacture high-quality and very precise pocket watches at acceptable prices in economical quantities.

Lange was mayor of the city of Glashütte from 1848 to 1866 and from 1857 until his death in 1875 a member of the Saxon State Parliament ( assembly of estates of the Kingdom of Saxony).

literature

  • Lange & Söhne [ed.]: In memory of Mr. Ferdinand Adolf Lange, the well-deserved founder of the Saxon pocket watch industry. In memory of the foundation and further development of the same, dedicated with grateful admiration by A. Lange & Söhne Deutsche Uhrenfabrikation. Glashütte, 1911
  • Reinhard Meis : A. Lange & Sons. A watchmaker dynasty from Dresden. 3. Edition. Callwey, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-7667-1286-1 .
  • Hans-Heinrich Schmid : "Lexicon of the German watch industry 1850 - 1980: company addresses, production program, company logos, brand names, company histories." (3rd expanded edition 2017); Editor: German Society for Chronometry eV; ISBN 978-3-941539-92-1
  • Franz Schnorr von Carolsfeld:  Lange, Ferdinand Adolf . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, p. 621 f.
  • Peter Wirth:  Lange, Adolf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 552 ( digitized version ).

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Lange, Ferdinand Adolph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lange, Ferdinand Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German watchmaker and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1815
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH December 3, 1875
Place of death Glashütte (Saxony)