Jakob Friedrich Schöllkopf

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Jakob Friedrich Schöllkopf

Jakob Friedrich Schöllkopf , (born November 15, 1819 in Kirchheim unter Teck , † September 15, 1899 in Buffalo , USA) was an American entrepreneur . He was a pioneer of the American tar paint industry and the founder of the Niagara Falls hydropower plant .

Life

Schöllkopf Power Plant No. 3, Niagara County, NY

Jakob Friedrich Schöllkopf was born the twelfth of 15 children of the red tanner Heinrich Schöllkopf and Christina Margaretha Majer. From 1834 to 1839 he learned the red tanner trade in his father's business and also completed a commercial apprenticeship. In 1841 he emigrated to America. At first he worked in New York City , in 1844 he settled in Buffalo above the Niagara Falls . There he set up a leather business and acquired two tanneries. In 1848, additional tanneries were opened in Milwaukee and Chicago, encouraged by the military's need for cheap clothing during the American Civil War. Also in 1848 he married Christiane Dürr, the daughter of a Kirchheim master baker, in Philadelphia; the marriage had seven children. In 1857 and 1870 Schöllkopf expanded his company by buying a flour mill ("North Buffalo Flouring Mills" and "Buffalo Frontier Mills") in Buffalo. In May 1877 Schöllkopf bought the bankrupt company "Hydraulic Canal", which had run into millions, and with it the power utilization rights of the Niagara Falls and in 1879 founded the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Manufacturing Company to use the hydropower of the Niagara Falls on the American side. The inventions of electrodynamics and the light bulb favored the founding of the first power station at Niagara Falls in 1881, the Brush Electric Light and Power Company . He started his hydropower activities with $ 77,000 in start-up capital; in 1992 the value of the companies was $ 216 million. The construction of the hydropower plants at the Niagara Falls was of decisive importance for the power supply of the cities and communities as well as the industrial companies of the region and thus the economic development. In the 1990s, Schöllkopf's companies supplied half of New York State with electrical energy.

Also in 1879 he built a chemical factory and founded the Schoellkopf Aniline and Chemical Company for the manufacture of aniline dyes . In the 1880s he built branches in New York City and in 1893 in Philadelphia . After his death in 1900, the three plants were combined in the Schöllkopf, Hartford & Hanna Co. , which had capital of over US $ 3 million and was elected president of his son Jacob Frederick Schoellkopf junior .

Foundation, endowment

Jakob Schöllkopf was also involved as a benefactor, both in Buffalo and in his old hometown of Kirchheim unter Teck . Schöllkopf later visited his hometown every year. During his visit in 1891 he founded the “Schöllkopf-Vogelsche Foundation”, which was supposed to alleviate the plight of the “dignified poor of both sexes living here, regardless of religion”. In gratitude, the foundation continues to transfer USD 10,000 annually to the city of Kirchheim and USD 50,000 to the city of Stuttgart. Among other things, he provided free hospital treatment for the poor and orphans. In Kirchheim he donated the neo-Gothic cemetery chapel in the city cemetery. The city of Niagara Falls honored him for his services by naming a bridge. In Kirchheim, the Schöllkopfstrasse, the Schöllkopf-Brunnen and the Jakob-Friedrich-Schöllkopf-School remind of him.

literature

  • Jacob Frederick Schoellkopf junior . In: William Richard Cutter (Ed.): Geneological and Family History of Western New York . Vol. I. 1912, p. 394.
  • Daniel M. Dumych: Niagara Falls . 1996, p. 114 (picture; excerpt from Google Books )
  • Esslingen district (ed.) - The Esslingen district , Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1978, pp. 151–152, ISBN 3-8062-0171-4 .
  • Diane Glynn: The Schoellkopfs, 1842-1994, A family history . 1995
  • Manfred Waßner: Jakob Friedrich Schöllkopf (1819–1899). Pioneer between the old and the new world . Edited by the Association of Friends and Supporters of the Jakob-Friedrich-Schöllkopf-School. Dr. Media Verlag, Kirchheim unter Teck 2006, ISBN 3-933235-19-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jürgen Veit: The steep rise of a tanner to a millionaire , from the Stuttgarter Zeitung of January 7, 2016, p. 21
  2. ↑ Hartmut Keil:  Schöllkopf, Jakob Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 374 ( digitized version ).
  3. ^ Jacob F. Schoellkopf at: www.niagara2008.com
personal data
SURNAME Schöllkopf, Jakob Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schoellkopf, Jacob Frederick
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH November 15, 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH Kirchheim unter Teck
DATE OF DEATH September 15, 1899
Place of death Buffalo , New York , USA