Central Swiss Geographical-Commercial Society
The Mittelschweizerische Geographisch-Commercielle Gesellschaft was a geographical society that existed between 1884 and 1905 and was based in Aarau . Under the presidium of the then head of the Aargau Cantonal Library , Hermann Brunnhofer , she brought together various merchants and entrepreneurs in the Aarau region interested in non-European trade. Among the founding members of the company were the industrialist Carl Franz Bally and the owner of the Sauerländer Verlag , Remigius Sauerländer.
According to its statutes, the overarching goals of the society were, on the one hand, to enhance the scientific study of geography , and, on the other, to promote trade and the export industry. In order to achieve these goals, the statutes provided for the establishment of an ethnological trade museum in addition to the establishment of a specialist geographic library . Such a museum was opened by the Society in Aarau in 1886. The young businessman Karl Bührer became the conservator . In addition to commercial products, works of art and antiquities, photographs have become the preferred collectibles of society. The images came from both private contributors and commercial photographers, such as Giorgio Sommer . In 1888, on the basis of this collection, a «Photographic Museum» was set up in Aarau, which as such can claim pioneering status.
After finding serious deficiencies in the management, the company reorganized in 1889. Brunnhofer was deposed as President and replaced by the doctor Alfred Stähelin. The photo museum was merged with the cantonal collection of samples and models. In 1892 the collection found a place in the former Villa Feer , which was expanded into the Cantonal Trade Museum in the following years.
In 1897 the company ran into financial difficulties, whereupon all of its holdings were transferred to the collection of the trade museum. In 1905, the Central Switzerland Geographical-Commercial Society finally dissolved. When the various collections were moved out of the original trade museum after 1958, the sample and model collection and with it the holdings of the photo museum were moved to the attic of the government building. In 2005 these holdings were taken over by the Aargau State Archives . Today the ethnographic objects belong to the historical collection of the Museum Aargau .
literature
- TV viewing. Yearbook of the Central Swiss Geographical and Commercial Society in Aarau (1886–1894).
- Thomas Hapke: From the “Small World Exhibition” to the “Living Textbook”: Educational Components of Early Approaches by World Libraries around 1900 (PDF; 150 kB) In: Rainer Koschke u. a. (Ed.): Computer Science 2007: Computer Science Meets Logistics. Gesellschaft für Informatik, Bonn, 2007. pp. 485–490.
- Peter Jud: The geographic societies of Switzerland In: Cartographica Helvetica 2 (1995) pp. 69–72.
- Markus Schürpf (Ed.): Fernschau. Global. A photo museum explains the world (1885-1905) . here + now, Baden, 2006.
Web link
- Aargau State Archives: F.MG Mittelschweizerische Geographisch-Commercielle Gesellschaft, 1885-1910 (inventory)