John Michael Kohler

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Michael Kohler, around 1873

John Michael Kohler (born November 3, 1844 in Schnepfau , Austria ; † November 5, 1900 in Sheboygan , Wisconsin ; also John M. Kohler , maiden name Johann Michael Kohler ) from the Kohler family was a successful industrialist and mayor of Sheboygan (Wisconsin). Kohler founded what would later become known as the Kohler Company , a manufacturer of bathroom and kitchen furnishings.

Career

Youth, training and first job

Kohler was born in the Vorarlberg alpine village Schnepfau in the rear Bregenzerwald as the fourth child of the dairy farmer Johann Michael Kohler (1805-1874) and his wife Maria Anna Moosbrugger (1816-1853).
After the death of his 36-year-old wife, his father married Maria Theresia Natter in 1853 and emigrated to the United States with his large family (including the ten-year-old Johann Michael Kohler) . After 53 days by boat from Le Havre to New York , the family came to Saint Paul (Minnesota) via a stopover in Galena (Illinois ) . With the help of relatives in the Vadnais Heights area, father Kohler successfully built a dairy farm there. At that time St. Paul had 4500 inhabitants (2010: 285,000 E inhabitants) and Minneapolis (2010: 380,000 inhabitants) did not exist at all.

At the age of eleven, John Michael Kohler left home and grew up on another farm. He went to district schools and the Dyhrenfurth Commercial College in Chicago . At the age of 18 he continued his education at night schools and earned his living as a delivery driver in St. Paul, later as an employee and from 1865 to 1868 as a salesman in Chicago. He then took a position as a sales representative at a grocery wholesaler. A year later he switched to a furniture store and worked there in the same position until 1873.

In Sheboygan, Wisconsin, 56 miles north of Milwaukee on Lake Michigan , he met Lillie Vollrath (1848-1883), the daughter of the local iron and steel industrialist Jacob Vollrath (1824-1898), and married her in 1871 Jacob Vollrath was also an emigrant and came from Dörrebach near Stromberg in the Hunsrück (at that time the Prussian Rhine province on the left bank of the Rhine ), where he had learned the trade in forgeable cast iron (puddle iron).

Entrepreneur

Kohler & Silberzahn Co. (1873–1878)

Shortly after his marriage, Kohler also worked in a small machine shop and foundry called Sheboygan Union Iron and Steel Foundry , in which his father-in-law was a partner and which manufactured agricultural implements (plowshares), cast pipes, boilers, stoves and windmills.

Two years later, during the great stock market crash of 1873 , he and his partner Charles Silberzahn bought the company from his father-in-law and named it Kohler & Silberzahn . Silberzahn sold his minority stake in 1878 to two employees, Herman Hayssen and John Stehn, whereupon the Kohler, Hayssen & Stehn Manufacturing Company was founded. The Kohler factory burned to the ground in 1880. It was rebuilt elsewhere in Sheboygan and expanded to include an enamelling workshop.

In 1883 Kohler mounted ornamental feet under a cast-iron enamelled water trough ( horse trough ) and sold the construction as a bathtub. This was the first of many Kohler sanitary products. Business success forced him to keep expanding the business.

Four years later, the company with its 125 employees made more than two thirds of its business turnover with sanitary and enamel products and manufactured enamelled bathroom and kitchen furnishings in large numbers.

In 1899 Kohler acquired 21 acres of farmland four miles west of Sheboygan on the Sheboygan River and relocated his growing business to this location, known as Riverside . Shortly after the new factory was completed in 1900, John Michael Kohler died at the age of 56.

Succession

In the following year, 1901, the new system fell victim to a fire. The three sons of the late John Michael Kohler - Carl, Robert and Walter Jodok - then ran the company with Robert as the official boss. After his death in 1905, the 30-year-old Walter Jodok Kohler (1875–1940) took over the presidency and management of the company until 1937. In 1912 he officially renamed the company the Kohler Company . On the property west of the production facilities, he built the Kohler Village , a model town for his employees.

Public area

From 1880 on, John M. Kohler held several public offices in the last twenty years of his life. From 1881 to 1882 he was a member of the County Board of Supervisors and in 1891 the Common Council . In 1892 he became Mayor of Sheboygan. He was recognized as one of the most prominent men of Chair-City (Sheboygan's nickname) in the 1890s , in both corporate, political and social circles.

Family seat of John Michael Kohler; now the John Michael Kohler Arts Center

patron

John Michael Kohler transformed his large contemporary family home in Sheboygan into a cultural center with music events, a library, ethics courses and other public services. In this way, he acted as a generous patron and organizer in art and culture, helping Sheboygan to shed its reputation as a purely factory town.

Today the "John Michael Kohler Arts Center" founded in 1967 (map: ⊙ ) commemorates the co-founder of the respected American family of entrepreneurs and politicians. Located in downtown Sheboygan, the original building is the John Michael Kohler House , John Michael Kohler's restored Gilded Age residence (the gilded age of the 1870s and 1880s). Several modern buildings complement the versatile cultural center.

family

The Kohlers had six children, including Carl , Robert, and Walter , the future governor of Wisconsin. In 1887, four years after Lillie's death, John had married Lillie's sister, Wilhelmina (Minnie) Vollrath (1852–1929). Her son Herbert Kohler Vollrath (1891–1968) was the dominant force in the Kohler company for many years. Under his leadership, the company faced the longest strike in American history.

literature

  • Albrecht:  Kohler Johann Michael. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 4, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1969, p. 62.
  • Thomas C. Reeves: The Life of Wisconsin Governor Walter J. Kohler, Jr. , Marquette University Press, 2006, pp. 19-29.
  • Richard E. Blodgett: A Sense of Higher Design: The Kohler Kohlers , Greenwich Publishing Group, 2003.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Lit .: Austrian Bibliographical Lexicon: Kohler, Johann Michael
  2. ↑ a b c Sheboygan County: John M. Kohler
  3. ↑ see web link Sheboygan History: Jacob J. Vollrath
  4. ↑ see web link Wisconsin History Society: Vollrath, Jacob J. 1824–1898
  5. ↑ see web link Kohler Co: The History of Kohler Company
  6. ↑ see literature Gregory A. Fossedal: Kohler of Kohler
  7. ↑ see literature Thomas C. Reeves: The Life of Wisconsin Gouverneur Walter J. Kohler, Jr.
  8. ↑ see literature Richard E. Blodgett: A Sense of Higher Design: The Kohlers of Kohler
personal data
SURNAME Kohler, John Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kohler, Johann Michael; Kohler, John M.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American entrepreneur and local politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1844
PLACE OF BIRTH Schnepfau , Vorarlberg
DATE OF DEATH 5th November 1900
Place of death Sheboygan , Wisconsin