J. Oberwalder & Co.
The company J. Oberwalder & Co. was the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire an important straw hat - factory . It was located in Domžale near Ljubljana , in what is now Slovenia .
history
The manufacture of straw hats experienced a great boom in Austria-Hungary in a relatively short time at the end of the 19th century. The Oberwalder family company was a leader in this branch of industry.
The reason for the Austrian straw hat industry was initially the peddler trade in straw hats, most of which were obtained from Italy . Several residents of the Defereggental in Tyrol, who traveled all over Austria-Hungary, dealt with this trade . This guild also belonged to Jakob Oberwalder (1829–1912), who went to Vienna in 1858 with a few hundred guilders to set up a business there. From its humble beginnings, Oberwalder soon turned into a flourishing company.
At first, the work was slow, as the hats had to be made by hand due to the lack of machines. Gradually the company expanded as the two brothers and several relatives of Jakob Oberwalder also took part. As early as 1870, the company built a factory in Domzale near Laibach. The reason for choosing this location was the steady growth of the house industry in the area around Laibach, where the so-called smooth, cross-stitched hats according to the Italian pattern had been made for several years. The local population possessed extensive necessary specialist knowledge, so the potential of this craft to shape a modern branch of industry through targeted care and training was available.
The straw hat industry experienced a complete turnaround with the invention of sewing machines, which were introduced in 1879. This was the only way the mesh of seven stems was able to come into its own and the opportunity arose to manufacture the straw hat in the factory and offer it to a wide range of customers. At that time, Chinese and Japanese braids were already coming onto the market in large numbers.
The straw wicker came to the factory as raw material, was sorted and bleached and dyed as needed. This was a procedure that required particular accuracy and skill. The mesh prepared in this way was then sewn from the machine into hats, finished, drawn onto the relevant zinc molds, after drying placed in the press and exposed to an atmospheric pressure corresponding to the type of mesh and the temperature of the metal mold. So the hat was finished except for the garnish .
In the years 1879, 1891 and 1893 the factory was made one of the most important of this branch in Austria-Hungary through large extensions and an increase in the workforce. Together with the latest facilities at the time, it had its own dyeing and bleaching plant, molding foundry, locksmith and carpentry workshop and also met all sanitary requirements through extensive sewerage and ventilation. The premises were large and light in order to create more acceptable working conditions for the workforce. However, the heavy earthquake of 1895 hit the company hard , causing significant damage to the buildings. Around 1900 the company in Domzale employed well over a hundred workers of both sexes and had major defeats in Vienna, Prague, Lemberg and Hermannstadt, some of which also operated their own production. In the course of time, exports abroad, where the Oberwalder company faced fierce competition, became increasingly important. The Oberwalder straw hats received several awards such as the progress medal at the World Exhibition in Vienna in 1873 and the gold medal at the Trieste Exhibition in 1882. Customers included not only citizens and the nobility, but also the imperial court. Due to the high quality of the products and the merits, the owners received the title of kuk court supplier and were therefore allowed to call the company the Kuk Hof-Strohhut-Fabrik .
The First World War and the collapse of the monarchy brought hard times. The traditional sales market collapsed with the fragmentation of Austria-Hungary. In addition, after the First World War, the fashion trend increasingly turned into hatlessness, which put a heavy burden on traditional companies. Domžale came to the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918 . The factories were placed under state supervision and in 1932 some ethnic German factory owners in the area were forced to give up their properties and flee.
Individual evidence
- ^ J. Oberwalder & Co., in: Die Gross-Industrie Oesterreichs. Commemoration for the glorious fiftieth anniversary of the reign of His Majesty the Emperor Franz Josef I, presented by the Austrian industrialists in 1898. Volume 4. Weiss, Vienna 1898, p. 462.
- ↑ Viktor Ladstätter: Excursion to Defreggen. Periodic absence and loss of home: Defregger migrant trade, counter-Reformation expulsion of Protestants and modern tourism. In: Hartmut Heller (Ed.): Matreier Talks on Cultural Ethology, Series of publications by the Otto Koenig Society, Vienna . Space - home - strange and familiar world: development trends in quantitative and qualitative space requirements of people and the problem of sustainability. LIT Verlag, Vienna 2006.