Johann Hermann Hunter

Johann Hermann Jäger (born January 31, 1845 in Gütersloh ; † January 5, 1920 in Harsewinkel ); Pseudonym: the old hunter , was a German photographer and bookbinder .

Johann Hermann Hunter

Life

origin

The old house of the Jäger family around 1890

Johann Hermann Jäger was born in Gütersloh in 1845 as the son of the bookbinder Johann Heinrich Jäger and Margerethe Münxel . He was the oldest of six children. His father Johann Heinrich Jäger, born in Marienfeld in 1813 as the son of a kötters , learned the trade of bookbinder and bookseller in Münster . After a few years of wandering, which led him to Vienna , on his return in 1843 he married Margarethe Münxel from Wadersloh .

Since Johann Heinrich Jäger did not feel comfortable in Gütersloh's milieu, which was shaped by the Ravensberg revival movement , the family moved to Harsewinkel in 1846, one year after Johann Hermann Jäger's birth , whose population was almost exclusively Catholic. In Harsewinkel, Johann Heinrich Jäger leased a house in the center of the city, in the immediate vicinity of the Catholic parish church of St. Lucia . In this he opened his shop in 1847; In 1851 he bought the house as property. Due to the low level of education of the majority of the population in Harsewinkel, the book trade and bookbindery started only moderately. In addition, there was the advancing industrialization in the following years , which increasingly weakened the peasantry of the agricultural Harsewinkel. The house weaving, which is widespread in Harsewinkel, also suffered from the use of mechanical looms in nearby Bielefeld . The result was a widespread impoverishment of the population, which also impaired the order situation of the Jäger bookbindery. In order to secure the livelihood of the family, they increasingly relied on keeping cattle and cultivating their own garden.

education

Both Johann Hermann and his brother Everhard Heinrich, born in 1849, learned their father's craft. During his apprenticeship and journeyman years at the Breimann bookbindery in Wiedenbrück , Johann Hermann received his first insights into photography , which he reported to his father in a letter. Bernhard Breimann successfully led photography as a secondary business and photographed both Johann Hermann Jäger and, a year later, his younger brother. While the brother moved back to Harsewinkel after completing his apprenticeship, one day to take over the father's business, Johann Hermann first went on a wandering tour. On this he ended up in Düsseldorf , Frankfurt am Main , Freiburg and in Switzerland to Burgdorf .

Professional career

The Jäger family in the studio around 1902

In Burgdorf in 1873 he married Elise Julie Marie Steiner, the daughter of his master, although she was Protestant Reformed , which his father expressed concerns about. In 1874 the couple moved to Lausanne on Lake Geneva . Here Johann Hermann took up a position in a bookbindery, which he later took over. He met the painter and photographer August Aloys Bauernheinz during a major commission from Princess Wittgenstein, who lived in Lausanne and where Johann Hermann restored the library . He ran a photo studio in Lausanne and imparted in-depth technical knowledge of photography to Johann Hermann. Eventually, Johann Hermann acquired the necessary chemicals and technical equipment and built the first backdrops to set up his own studio in Lausanne.

Although business in Lausanne was successful, Johann Hermann left Lausanne when his father wrote to him in 1884 asking him to return to Harsewinkel to continue his father's business and family inheritance. The younger brother, Everhard Heinrich, was seriously ill and his brother and father died just a few weeks after their return. In the winter of the same year the move took place with the heavily pregnant woman, the meanwhile five children and the technical equipment from the Lausanne store. As in Lausanne, Johann Hermann Jäger also combined the bookbinder's business with his own photo studio in Harsewinkel. He had to bury his wife Elise Jäger in 1886, two years after arriving in Harsewinkel and only a few months after the birth of the sixth child.

He later married his cousin Gertrud Jäger. There are three more children from the second marriage. Although the economy in Harsewinkel was slowly improving, the Harsewinkel business fell short of the hoped-for expectations, so that Johann Hermann decided to open a post office in order to generate further income. In the following years, the family recorded a certain prosperity for the first time, which was noticeable both in the change to the lists of the second class of voters after the three- class suffrage and in various investments in the business. In 1903 Johann Hermann had the building torn down in order to replace it with a new building with an integrated glass studio facing north. After the First World War, Johann Hermann bought the neighboring house to expand the business again. Due to a bad order situation, he stopped the bookbinding and from then on sold household items, stationery and gift items as an additional line of business. In addition to commissioned photographs, Johann Hermann Jäger was always drawn to the Harsewinkel area with his camera, where he portrayed locals in their home environment and documented Harsewinkel's cultural life with photographs of customs and festivities. Johann Hermann Jäger died on January 5th, 1920 at the age of 74.

Continuation of the business

Heinrich, Fritz and Ernst Jäger around 1920

The sons Heinrich, Fritz and Ernst Jäger, who came from their first marriage, already acquired their first knowledge of photography from their father and eventually followed him professionally. The eldest son Heinrich went on a journey during his apprenticeship, on which, like his father, he reached Switzerland. In 1907 he founded his own photo studio H. Jäger in Ghent (Belgium) . Since he had acted as a war correspondent for Germany during the First World War, he was expelled from Belgium after the end of the war. He returned to Harsewinkel, where, together with his youngest brother, he looked after the continuation of his father's business until his death in 1948. The younger brothers also served as reporters during the war; Born in 1881, Fritz founded two further studios in Würzburg after the war under the name FJ Jäger and became famous as a theater and artist photographer. He also offered the children of his younger brother an education facility. He died in 1952 and, like his older brother, was unmarried.

The youngest brother Ernst, born in 1886, took over the business in Harsewinkel. He continued the photographic work of his father and documented family life and local development with numerous photos. In 1923 he married Agnes Siegeroth from Lünen . Their marriage resulted in four children. Since the only son died in 1953 during his training as a photographer in Würzburg, the youngest daughter Irene took over the family inheritance. In 1953 she married the watchmaker Paul Hüfken from Wesel and took over the management together with him in the same year. Paul Hüfken trained as a book printer and the business was expanded to include a small print shop, which was leased out in the 1960s. This was followed by a further expansion of the house and the short-term expansion of further branches of business as well as the establishment of a branch in Sassenberg. With the death of Paul Hüfken in 1995, the family closed the branch in Sassenberg again. His son, Viktor Huefken, who had taken over the business in 1987, discontinued some business units to save costs and to put the company's focus back on photography and the sale of office and school supplies. Irene Hüfken worked in the family business well into old age. She died in 2002 after the family business was finally closed the previous year.

Life facts of the management Photo JH Jäger

number	Surname	Life dates	function
1.	Johann Heinrich Hunter	* 1813 - † 1884	Founder of the business (1847), at that time still a bookbindery and book trade
2.	Johann Hermann Hunter	* 1845 - † 1920	Son of 1 .; took over the business in 1884; Bookbinder, photographer
3.	Everhard Heinrich Jäger	* 1849 - † 1883	Son of 1 .; Originally supposed to take over business
4th	Heinrich (originally: Henrie) hunter	* 1876 - † 1948	Son of 2 .; Founded business in Ghent, photographer
5.	Jean Fritz August Jäger	* 1886 - † 1952	Son of 2 .; Founded two shops in Würzburg, photographer
6th	Ernst Hermann Jäger	* 1886 - † 1963	Son of 2 .; Continued the father's business and photographic work; photographer
7th	Johann Hermann Heinrich Jäger	* 1930 - † 1953	Son of 6th; photographer - assistant; Originally supposed to take over business
8th.	Irene Hüfken, b. Hunter	* 1928 - † 2002	Daughter of 6th; took over the business in 1953 together with her husband Paul Hüfken
9.	Paul Huefken	* 1927 - † 1995	Married at 8 .; shared management with his wife
10.	Viktor Huefken	* 1965	Son of 8th and 9th; Took over the business in 1987, ceased operations in 2011.

Explanation: Since the table is not intended to represent a tree of life, the table is limited to the people relevant to the management.

Local and regional importance

The photographic work of Johann Hermann Jäger and his descendants documents the history of Harsewinkel for a period of over 100 years in more than 2000 glass plate negatives. In particular, the work records the development of Harsewinkel around 1900, so that an insight into the economic and cultural conditions of a small town at the beginning of the industrial age, which developed from a village to a small town, arises.

The majority of Jäger's work consists of commissioned photographs, but a no small part testifies to the interest of Jäger's photographers in local events.

With the photographs from the JH Jäger archive, the LWL Museum Office and the LWL Media Center presented an exhibition in 2013 under the title: Turning of the times: Aspects of Westphalian photography around 1900 - The Jäger studio in Harsewinkel and its pictures These wandered through all of Westphalia for two years. In connection with the exhibition, the LWL media center carried out extensive conservation and restoration work on the Jäger Collection. The illustrated book Zeitenwende with 152 images from the Jäger photo archive was published to accompany the exhibition . This is now out of print.

Today, part of the Jäger estate is in the LWL media center, while a part, mainly more recent, is in the Harsewinkel city archive.

More information

• The Jäger'sche Haus in Harsewinkel was demolished in 2012. A new building now stands in its place.

• In 1962 Ernst Jäger was awarded the Heimatorden for his services to his hometown and to clubs.

gallery

• 

  The old Schnieder-Moer , 1884

• 

  The old Meyer around 1900

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  Fire ruins on Kirchplatz, 1884

• 

  Topping-out ceremony of the parish church of St. Lucia , 1903

• 

  Fire in the monastery church in Marienfeld , 1915

literature

• Henning Bolte: The art of photography found its way into JH Jäger Harsewinkel at an early stage. In: Heimatjahrbuch Kreis Gütersloh 1998 , Flottmann Verlag, Gütersloh 1997, ISBN 3-87231-077-1 .
• Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe: Turn of times: Aspects of Westphalian photography in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In: Westfälische Bildsammlungen Vol. 6, Kettler Verlag, Bönen 2012, ISBN 978-3-86206-202-7 , (out of print).
• Walter Werland, City of Harsewinkel (Ed.): 1000 years of Harsewinkel - On the local history of the city on the Ems. Aschendorff'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Münster 1965.
• Eckhard Möller: Harsewinkel 1900–1960. Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2002, ISBN 3-89702-405-5 , (out of print).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Harsewinkel City Archives, MA 2, 179.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Volker Jakob: "... show what is and what will soon no longer be." Westphalian photography at the end of the 19th century and the Johann Hermann Jäger studio in Harsewinkel. In: Zeitwende: Aspects of Westphalian photography in the late 19th century and early 20th century , Westfälische Bildsammlungen No. 6, 2012, p. 10.
3. ↑ Volker Jakob: "... show what is and what will soon no longer be." Westphalian photography at the end of the 19th century and the Johann Hermann Jäger studio in Harsewinkel. In: Zeitwende: Aspects of Westphalian photography in the late 19th century and early 20th century , Westfälische Bildsammlungen No. 6, 2012, pp. 10–12.
4. ↑ Harsewinkel City Archives, MA2, 179.
5. ↑ Henning Bolte: The art of photography found its way into JH Jäger Harsewinkel early. In: Heimatjahrbuch Kreis Gütersloh 1998 , 1997, p. 93.
6. ↑ Volker Jakob: "... show what is and what will soon no longer be." Westphalian photography at the end of the 19th century and the Johann Hermann Jäger studio in Harsewinkel. In: Zeitwende: Aspects of Westphalian photography in the late 19th and early 20th centuries , Westfälische Bildsammlungen No. 6, 2012, pp. 12–13.
7. ↑ Stadtarchiv Harsewinkel, Coll. 16, Die Glocke from October 23, 2001.
8. ↑ Volker Jakob: "... show what is and what will soon no longer be." Westphalian photography at the end of the 19th century and the Johann Hermann Jäger studio in Harsewinkel. In: Turn of Time: Aspects of Westphalian Photography in the Late 19th Century and Early 20th Century , Westfälische Bildsammlungen No. 6, 2012, p. 13.
9. ↑ Stephan Sagurna:: Mercury, gun cotton and potato starch: Photographic materiality and image creation process in the Jäger image collection. In: Zeitwende: Aspects of Westphalian photography in the late 19th century and early 20th century , Westfälische Bildsammlungen No. 6, 2012, pp. 27–30.
10. ↑ Volker Jakob: "... show what is and what will soon no longer be." Westphalian photography at the end of the 19th century and the Johann Hermann Jäger studio in Harsewinkel. In: Turn of Time: Aspects of Westphalian Photography in the Late 19th Century and Early 20th Century , Westfälische Bildsammlungen No. 6, 2012, p. 13.
11. ^ Henning Bolte: The art of photography found its way into JH Jäger Harsewinkel at an early stage In: Heimatjahrbuch Kreis Gütersloh 1998 , 1997, p. 92.