Perthes Gotha Collection

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The Perthes Gotha Collection is a cultural and historical collection of great importance. a. Traditions from Gothaer Verlag Justus Perthes preserved.

The publication of the " Gotha Genealogical Court Calendar " - known to this day as "Der Gotha" - and the v. a. Atlases and maps published since 1817 (1st edition of “Stieler's Handatlas”) gave Justus Perthes and Gotha's international reputation. Justus Perthes Verlag determined the last phase of the age of discovery with cartographic publications such as “Stieler's Handatlas” and “ Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen ”, in which the non-European continents and the polar regions were explored. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the publishing house was one of the dominant protagonists in the collection, evaluation and dissemination of geographical knowledge.

Extensive evidence of the publishing house production, which are preserved in the publishing house archive, as well as a map collection and specialist library as former editorial work holdings have remained from the publishing history of around 225 years. Today's Perthes Gotha Collection has been an important part of the Erfurt / Gotha University and Research Library since 2003 . It has been part of the Gotha Research Library since 2018 .

Hermann Berghaus' world map in star projection , 1880

History

Foundation of the Justus Perthes publishing house - "Der Gotha"

Johann Georg Justus Perthes , who came from Rudolstadt, went into business for himself as a publisher in Gotha in 1785. He took over from Carl Wilhelm Ettinger , the leading publisher in Thuringia at the time, the publication of the " Gothaischen Genealogical Court Calendar " / "Almanach de Gotha". This periodical, which appealed to a wide audience with its mixture of useful and enjoyable, was the start of a typically educational program with which the publisher entered the book market in the first 30 years of its existence. All that remained of this was the court calendar, which until 1945 was called “Der Gotha”, one of the cornerstones of Justus Perthes Verlag.

On the way to the geographical institute

The collaboration between Justus Perthes and the Gotha court official Adolf Stieler was the beginning of a new profile. Stieler recommended Perthes to publish a “hand atlas covering all parts of the world”, the first edition of which appeared in 1817–1823. This was the hour of birth of one of the most important topographical atlases of modern times. The “Stieler”, unmatched in its information density, precision and topicality, has seen more than ten editions. At the side of the "Stieler" came two atlases that made the publishing house the pacemaker of thematic cartography within a decade: from 1838 the "Physical Atlas" conceived by Heinrich Berghaus appeared as a cartographic visualization of Alexander von Humboldt's "Kosmos". The atlas first ordered the fields of a future thematic geography and introduced distribution maps, diagrams and statistics as their forms of representation. The "Historisch-Geographische Hand-Atlas" by Karl Spruner (1837-1852) completed the triumvirate of the early Perthes world atlases. Additional editions, partial prints and the revision by Theodor Menke made the “Spruner-Menke” the leading historical world atlas by the end of the 19th century. These three atlases established the rise of the publisher, which was almost unrivaled as a map publisher as early as 1850. The spectrum of his constantly expanding program included world atlases, school, pocket and special atlases, wall and single maps as well as geographic-cartographic teaching aids.

"World Center of Geography" - The Age of Petermann

The scientific quality of the "Stieler" was based u. a. on the fact that he identified those geographical gaps in knowledge that became the impetus for exploring the still unknown regions of the world. With August Petermann , who came to Gotha in 1854, it was Justus Perthes Verlag itself who turned these “blank spots” into a program of discovery and exploration of the earth. In a novel form of science management, he organized the discovery, exploration and mapping of Africa , Australia and the polar sea. From Gotha, companies were financed and promoted, the protagonists of which are now considered to be among the most important explorers and researchers of the 19th century: Heinrich Barth , Theodor von Heuglin , Werner Munzinger , Gustav Nachtigal , Wilhelm Junker , Karl Mauch , Gerhard Rohlfs , Georg, who traveled to Africa Schweinfurth , Emin Bey Pascha, Oskar Baumann and the polar drivers Carl Koldewey , Julius von Payer , Carl Weyprecht and Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld . In the early 20th century, the popular and controversial Asian researcher Sven Hedin was to be added. The platform for these efforts was the journal “Mittheilungen aus Justus Perthes' Geographischer Anstalt”, published by Petermann since 1855. " Petermanns Mitteilungen " were both a journal that met the reading and knowledge needs of a broad public and a scientific specialist organ in which maps summarized and graphically illustrated the end result of new geographic research. The raw material for the maps was the route recordings, measurements, diary entries and map drafts made on site, which were compared and critically evaluated at the desk of the Gotha cartographers with all known source material. These maps were in turn the basis for the permanent updating of all other cartographic-geographical publications of the publisher, above all the "Stieler". In the "Petermann Era", Justus Perthes Verlag became the engine of scientific geography and cartography, and its maps developed worldwide charisma and appeal. His principle of card production led to the accumulation of the unique holdings that make up the Perthes Gotha Collection today.

The variety of maps and atlases

Around 1880 the publishing house experienced a profound change. With the end of the Age of Discovery, Perthes cartography lost its innovative strength. New actors emerged - geographical societies, university-educated geographers, and new map publishers who competed with Perthes with cheaper products. Perthes met these challenges with determination and a willingness to renew. The publishing house was restructured into an industrial company with more than 150 employees. Innovations in card production, such as electroplating and transfer printing processes, have modernized the appearance of all products and secured the future of the market economy without renouncing previous quality standards. In the 1920s, the book artist Hugo Steiner-Prag objectified the corporate design and created a new signet. New topographical and thematic atlases and maps were added to the side of the tried and tested, renewed products, so that the “Justus Perthe's main catalog 1785–1935”, published in the 150th anniversary year of the publisher, recorded more than 3,500 publications. Among these were Carl Vogel's “Map of the German Empire”, Richard Lepsius ' “Geological Map of the German Empire”, Bruno Hassenstein's “Japan Atlas” and Hermann habenicht's “Special Map of Africa”. Hermann Berghaus ' "Chart of the World", a fascinating testimony to the rapidly increasing global economy and infrastructure in the industrial age, was a bestseller for the publishing house from 1863 to 1924. A series of pocket atlases that exhausted and exploited the investments made in the “Stieler” became the best-selling publisher's product. At the same time, Perthes was drawn deeply into the contemporary history of the 19th and 20th centuries, when the publisher's maps also became instruments for the intellectual mobilization of the German people. It starts with the “Colonial Atlas” by the German-ethnic, anti-Semitic cartographer Paul Langhans . This was followed by maps designed by Hermann Haack around 1930, such as the "Geopolitical Types Atlas" and the "Saar Atlas", which visualized the claims for revision of the results of the First World War and prepared the warlike reorganization of Europe, to which Perthes as "National Socialist model company" with military cards should participate.

Innovations in school geography

School geography was one of the publisher's most economically profitable areas. The “Kleine Stieler”, published in parallel to “Stieler's Handatlas” since 1821, became one of the most successful school atlases of the 19th century. Emil von Sydow broke through the principle of pure recycling of the "Stieler" . As an employee of the Justus Perthes Verlag, he developed a comprehensive school geography program from 1855 to 1860 based on the needs of teaching. A "methodical hand atlas", a school atlas, exercise atlases and wall maps made Sydow the founder of methodical school geography. Sydow's school atlas from 1847, which Hermann Wagner fundamentally revised in 1888, became a long-seller. By 1944 it appeared in 62 editions and was still fundamental to post-war school geography. Sydow's wall maps were also constitutive for the establishment of geography as a subject, because the unmistakable face of a (physical) school wall map goes back to Sydow . After school geography only played a subordinate role in the "Petermann era", it was Hermann Haack , who had been working for Perthes since 1897 , who re-profiled the publishing house's school geography. As one of the leading employees of the first half of the 20th century, Haack created forums for the transfer of knowledge and exchange for school geography. The "Geographischer Anzeiger" under his direction became the organ of the " Association of German School Geographers" in 1912 . Alongside numerous school atlases designed by him, a series of globes and, above all, a 135 wall map comprehensive school map series, which represents Haack's most important achievement, appeared for the first time for Justus Perthes Verlag. With Haack's school wall maps, Justus Perthes Verlag had a solid foundation, from which two publishers in East and West drew on from 1953. The Gotha Haack student Werner Painke made the Geographische Verlagsanstalt Justus Perthes Darmstadt the leading manufacturer of wall maps in the Federal Republic of Germany. In the VEB Hermann Haack Geographisch-Kartographische Anstalt Gotha, wall maps took up one fifth of the publisher's production.

Between the past and the future

The Justus Perthes Verlag existed almost uninterruptedly as a family company for seven generations from 1785 to 1992. In the post-war period after 1945, the publishing house experienced the deepest break in its history. The expropriation of the publisher family without compensation , which had to flee from the GDR at the end of 1952 because of increasing repression, extreme taxation (the so-called "cold expropriation") and the forced cooperation with the state publisher "Volk und Wissen", led to the division of the publishing house into the "Justus Perthes Geographische Verlagsanstalt Darmstadt" continued as a sole proprietorship in Darmstadt from 1954 and the Gotha parent company, which was nationalized into a state- owned company and renamed in October 1955 to "VEB Hermann Haack Geographisch-Kartographische Anstalt Gotha". In the decades that followed, the two publishers nonetheless maintained a continuous business relationship. Selected Gotha school wall maps (also in partial editions) were taken over by the Darmstädter Verlag and distributed in Germany and abroad. Shortly before the fall of the Wall, Gothaer VEB Haack took over wall maps from Justus Perthes Darmstadt for the first time for distribution in the GDR and in socialist countries after Stephan Justus Perthes had visited the Gotha headquarters for the first time in the spring of 1986 (after the expropriation in 1953). The fall of the Wall in November 1989 brought another profound turning point for the Gotha VEB Hermann Haack, initially through an aggressive takeover attempt by the then managing director of the Braunschweig-based Westermann- Verlag, who u. a. publicly denied the Perthesian expropriation at the time, without compensation; from mid-1990 (on a new legal basis) with the extremely difficult and lengthy reprivatisation of Gothaer Verlag by the Treuhandanstalt (July 1990 to March 1992), combined with large job losses, and the subsequent takeover of both publishers in Gotha and Darmstadt by Ernst Klett Schulbuchverlag who carried the name (Justus) Perthes in the Gotha company until 2008. The Darmstädter Verlag was dissolved in 1994 and the Gothaer Verlag or z. Partly integrated at Klett Stuttgart. The three previous cartographic and geographic editorial offices in Darmstadt, Stuttgart and Gotha were concentrated in Gotha. Together with the publisher, the rightful heir, Stephan Justus Perthes, was transferred back the historical collections, of which he sold the publisher's archive as part of the Gothaer Verlag to Ernst Klett Verlag. After around ten years of efforts, in particular by Michael Klett and Stephan Justus Perthes, to preserve and hold together the publisher's archive, library and map collection could not be realized, v. a. With the aim of the "Förderverein Perthes-Stiftung Museum der Erde Gotha eV", founded in 1996, to transfer the collections into a "Museum der Erde Gotha" (envisaged as a private public partnership), the Free State of Thuringia acquired on January 1, 2003 with significant support the Kulturstiftung der Länder map collection and library by Stephan Justus Perthes, as well as the publishing archive (1785 to 1992) by Klett Stuttgart. Under the title “Perthes Gotha Collection”, the three parts of the inventory were integrated into the University and Research Library Erfurt / Gotha . The Gotha Research Library aims to make the potential of this internationally outstanding collection available to science and the public. Because the collection, in its traditional form as a working tool of a publishing house, could not withstand today's scientific and public usage requirements (after decades of neglect, especially during the GDR). Comprehensive, innovative conservation projects and library indexing projects for the individual parts of the collection have been implemented since 2006.

The historical collections of the Justus Perthes publishing house

The historical collections of the Justus Perthes publishing house have been preserved in an impressive completeness and cohesion. The 185,000-sheet map collection contains mainly topographic maps, but also school wall maps and 12,000 nautical maps . The collection includes the international card production from the late 18th to the 20th century, which was evaluated for the production of its own cards, the cards from the Justus Perthes publishing house in all stages of production from the draft to the printed card as well as numerous basic material for the construction of the cards. The library, which comprises 120,000 volumes, contains the private libraries of Adolf Stieler and August Petermann, and above all the monographs, journals and atlases reviewed in “Petermanns Mitteilungen”. In keeping with the profile of a modern map publisher, current German and foreign-language cartographics and geographics were acquired on a large scale, so that the library is now a top-class geographical and cartographic special library. The archive amounts to 800 linear meters. It unites the archives of the publisher's, company and family history, including the editing of “Petermanns Mitteilungen” and the correspondence of employees and friends of the publisher. A specimen copy collection provides an overview of the publisher's product range. The 1,650 copper plates are unique evidence of the copper engraving used by Justus Perthes Verlag as a reproduction process up into the 20th century . Further extensive archive material comes from the 40 years of activity of "Justus Perthes Geographische Verlagsanstalt Darmstadt" (1954–1994), which the last owner and managing director Stephan Justus Perthes left in 2004 to the Perthes Gotha Collection on the basis of the contractual agreements made in 2002 were.

The historic buildings of the Justus Perthes publishing house, founded in 1785, at Justus-Perthes-Straße 3–9 were converted into the Perthes Forum between 2012 and 2014 . The construction measures with a volume of around 11,000 m² (€ 18.2 million) were completed in November 2014. Since 2015, the Perthes Forum has been taking on extensive holdings from the Gotha Research Library, including the Perthes Gotha Collection , as well as the restorers' storage rooms and workshops that were previously housed in Schloss Friedenstein , the library and the archive, supplemented by a reading room and the Thuringian State Archive in Gotha.

meaning

The exceptional position of this collection for exploring and mapping the earth is only shown by comparisons. As one of the few surviving German publishing archives, the Perthes Collection is the most important remnant of the German-language cartographic publishing tradition. From a European perspective, she finds a rare counterpart in the archives of Bartholomew & Son , which are kept in the National Library of Scotland . Their cartographic and geographic holdings are in line with those of the Library of Congress in Washington, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and the British Library in London.

literature

  • Weigel, Petra: The Perthes Gotha map collection. Conservation treatment and initial library cataloging of a mass-produced paper stock. In: Zeitschrift für Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie 1 (2012), pp. 42–50.
  • Weigel, Petra: The Perthes Gotha Collection (= Patrimonia, 254). Berlin, Kulturstiftung der Länder 2011, 102 pages.
  • Felsch, Philipp: How August Petermann invented the North Pole. Munich 2010, 270 pages.
  • Schelhaas, Bruno: The "return of the question mark on the map". Gotha card production in the 19th century. In: Geographische Zeitschrift 97 (2009), Issue 4, pp. 227–242.
  • Brogiato, Heinz Peter: Gotha as a knowledge space. In: Lentz, Sebastian & Ormeling, Ferjan (Hrsg.): The spatialization of the world image. Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen between “exploratory geography” and the “presumptuousness” of European spatial fantasies, Stuttgart 2008, pp. 15–29.
  • Wardenga, Ute: Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen, Geographische Zeitschrift and Geographischer Anzeiger. A comparative analysis of magazines in geography 1855–1945. In: Lentz, Sebastian & Ormeling, Ferjan (Hrsg.): The spatialization of the world image. Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen between “explorative geography” and the “presumptuousness” of European spatial fantasies, Stuttgart 2008, pp. 31–44.
  • Demhardt, Imre Josef: Giving the earth a face. Petermann's geographical communications and the beginnings of modern geography in Germany. Catalog for the exhibition of the University and Research Library Erfurt / Gotha in the hall of mirrors at Schloss Friedenstein in Gotha, June 23 to October 9, 2005 (= publications of the Gotha Research Library 42). Gotha 2006, 127 pages.
  • Schaab, Rupert: White spots, black fingers. Preserving the Gotha map treasure. In: Arsprototo . The magazine of the Kulturstiftung der Länder 2005, issue 1, pp. 38–42.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Article in the Gotha magazine ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gotha-info.de