Jakob Karlen

Jakob Karlen (born March 25, 1809 in Erlenbach im Simmental , † August 8, 1870 there ) was a Swiss politician and entrepreneur . From 1851 to 1857 and from 1859 to 1863 he was a member of the National Council.

biography

The son of an innkeeper and younger brother of Johann Karlen rose to become a wealthy entrepreneur. Karlen traded in cheese , worked as a cattle breeder and was a landowner in Erlenbach. In 1858 he acquired the match factory in «Brodhüsi» near Wimmis, which had been founded eight years earlier . In 1865, when the factory with 80 workers produced 200,000 matches a year, he passed the business on to his son. The company existed until 1938. Karlen was considered a leader of the radical liberals in the Bernese Oberland and held a strong personal position of power , especially in the Lower Simmental . He served several times as mayor of Erlenbach, from 1846 to 1850 also as governor of the district of Niedersimmental .

In 1839 Karlen was elected to the Grand Council of the Canton of Bern . He belonged to this until 1846, also in the years 1850/51, from 1858 to 1862 and finally from 1866 to 1870. He was a consistent supporter of Jakob Stämpfli and ceaselessly criticized the conservative cantonal government, which was in power from 1850 to 1854 . Karlen ran in the National Council elections in 1851 and was elected in the Oberland constituency. After he had been voted out of office in 1857, he succeeded two years later in a by-election to return to the National Council. In the National Council elections in 1863 he was clearly defeated by his cousin Johann Jakob Karlen in the second ballot .

Web links

• Peter Stettler: Karlen, Jakob. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Match factories in the canton of Bern. Swiss Match Museum, accessed on December 23, 2014 .