Johann Rudolf Müller

Clara Müller : Portrait of her father Johann Rudolf Müller

Johann Rudolf Müller (born August 31, 1824 in Hirschthal , † May 20, 1894 in Chaco , Paraguay ) was a Swiss Reformed pastor , prison director and expedition leader .

Life

Johann Rudolf Müller attended the canton school in Aarau . This was followed by theology studies in Bern, Tübingen and Halle. The pastor's exam in 1847 was followed by vicariates in Birrwil , Reitnau and Riken . From 1853 to 1864 Müller worked as a village pastor in Densbüren . In 1864 he took over the management of the newly opened Lenzburg prison . Based on the Irish model, Müller worked out the basics of modern, gradual prison systems with the option of early conditional release. It gained importance throughout Europe. The Swiss Association for Criminal and Prisons, which is active in this sense, was founded under Müller's presidium. In 1872 Müller left Switzerland. Until 1888 he worked as a textile manufacturer and businessman in northern Italy. At the age of 64, Müller emigrated to Argentina , where he worked in Buenos Aires as a self-employed businessman and as an employee of the "Imprenta Helvetica" printing company. From 1889 he wrote regularly for the Argentinische Tageblatt printed there . Johann Rudolf Müller died in 1894 on a research expedition he led to the Paraguayan Chaco. He was married and had six children, including the painter Clara Müller .

His estate is in the Aargau State Archives .

literature

• Heinrich Richner: Johann Rudolf Müller . In: Argovia 65 : 355-359 (1953).
• Heinrich Richner: Johann Rudolf Müller (1824-1894). In: Argovia , annual journal of the Historical Society of the Canton of Aargau, Vol. 68–69, 1958, pp. 564–566 ( digitized version ).

Web links

• Beatrice Küng-Aerni: Müller, Johann Rudolf. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Archive page of the Lenzburg correctional facility