Juan Kaiser

Juan Emperor in Guadalajara

Juan Kaiser (born February 17, 1859 in Leuzigen , † February 3, 1916 Guadalajara ) was a Swiss businessman and publisher in Guadalajara, Mexico .

Biographical

Juan Kaiser grew up with four brothers in a family of veterinarians and farmers in Leuzigen . At the age of 20, he left his parents' house and his fiancée Anna Simmen in 1880 and emigrated to South America . He lived in Peru for about three years , where he dissolved the business of his uncle Wilhelm Kaiser - the founder of the Kaiser department store in Bern - in Arequipa . Here he made the acquaintance of photography by printing postcards from his own photos and sending them to his relatives in Switzerland. Health reasons induced him to leave Peru. He wanted to live in a country with a climate that was conducive to him. Therefore, in 1882 he moved to Mexico, where he lived until his death. He first lived in Mexico City and worked there in the La Helvetia papeterie . In San Luis Potosi in 1887 he bought the Al Libro Major stationery shop from the widow of the French immigrant Charles Danne .

Publishing and business

The Al Libro Major stationery

In 1891 he brought his youngest brother Arnold to Mexico and founded a postcard publishing company with him. The two bought traveling photographers (including from Charles Burlingame Waite, approx. 1860 - approx. 1929, Alfred Saint Ange Briquet, 1833–1923 and Winfield Scott) pictures that they had printed in Germany by the Metz brothers in Tübingen . On the one hand, the subjects were simple Mexican children, women and men in their mostly rural surroundings. On the other hand, they documented the modern and emerging Mexico of the era of Porfirio Díaz with representative buildings and streets in Guadalajara and San Luis Potosi . In addition to the postcards, Juan Kaiser sold blank accounting books, school books and stationery from Europe. He imported the bookbinding machines from Germany and Switzerland. At that time, San Luis Potosi had 34,000 inhabitants and was the seventh largest city in Mexico and Al libro Mayor one of the most important shops of its kind in northwestern Mexico. To the present day, the postcards are important documents and contemporary witnesses for science and the population in Mexico. A collectors' congress is held every year.

Family history

In 1909, Juan Kaiser traveled to Switzerland to divorce his wife Marie Wilhemine Kaiser, née Simmen, Anna Simmen's sister. He had been married to her since November 13, 1893. The marriage was divorced by the court in Büren an der Aare on December 23, 1909. Maire Wilhelmine Simmern was his second wife. She gave birth to a son who died of diphtheria at six months old . Shortly after the divorce from Marie Wilhelmine Simmen, he married Bertha Peter from Bern in 1910. She gave birth to his second child Hans Paul on June 27, 1912 in Guadalajara at the age of 40. The last four years in the life of Juan Kaiser were also to be the happiest, despite the revolution in Mexico. Shortly before his death, he took his young family on an adventurous trip to the World's Fair in San Diego . On February 13, 1916, Juan Kaiser died after a brief illness in his home in Guadalajara. His widow Bertha Kaiser continued the Al Libro de Caja business together with the managing director Emil Keller, a Swiss from the canton of Thurgau. They sold the Al libro Major in San Luis Potosi to Arnoldo Kaiser. She married Emil Keller on October 24, 1917. In 1932 they liquidated their business in Guadalajara and returned to Switzerland with their son Hans Paul Kaiser. Bertha Kaiser died in Bern in 1948.

Postcards (selection)

Campesina
Pelea de gallos
Calle san francisco
Teatro degollado
Cazador en Chiapas
Aguadoras

literature

Alpenhorn Calendar 2014, pp. 129–146, Langnau, edited by Markus F. Rubli
The Kaiser family of veterinarians in Leuzigen , copy of an article from the Sunday supplement of the Emmenthaler Blatt, year unknown, archived in the Leuzigen village museum.
Juan y Arnoldo Kaiser, editores y cronistas de su tiempo, Guillermo Kaiser Schlittler, Antonio Meave, Juan Manuel Hernández Almazán; Instituto nacional de Antropología e historia, 2010
Bertha Kaiser-Peter’s diary for her son Hans Paul Kaiser, 2012, (self-published by Verena and Hans-Martin Kaiser, Gerzensee, Switzerland)
«Tipología provisional de las tarjetas postales de los hermanos Juan y Arnoldo Kaiser con vistas de Jalisco y el sureste de México», lecture by Ignacio de Jesús Sánchez Montes.

Exhibitions

2007: Postcards from the brothers Juan and Arnoldo Kaiser, San Luis Potosi Regional Museum
2014: "La Guadalajara de Juan Kaiser", Casa ITESO Clavigero, Guadalajara

Web links

Commons : Juan Kaiser - Collection of images, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Emperor, Juan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Swiss businessman and publisher in Guadalajara, Mexico
DATE OF BIRTH	February 3, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH	Leuzigen
DATE OF DEATH	February 13, 1916
Place of death	Guadalajara (Mexico)