Theodor Beck

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Theodor Beck (born June 3, 1839 in Darmstadt ; † July 30, 1917 there ) was a German technology historian and entrepreneur.

Life

Beck attended the Höhere Gewerbeschule in Darmstadt from 1854 to 1856, studied for a year with a master locksmith in Darmstadt and studied at the Polytechnic in Karlsruhe from 1857 to 1859 under Ferdinand Redtenbacher and Wilhelm Eisenlohr, among others . He then worked in the company Klett & Co. in Nuremberg (1859), 1860/61 in the machine works and iron foundry Darmstadt, 1861/62 at the Main-Weser-Bahn in Gießen, 1962 to 1864 in machine works in London and Glasgow and 1865 / 66 as a designer at the machine manufacturer Carl Hoppe in Berlin. From 1857 he was a partner in his own machine factory Kleyer & Beck in Darmstadt (later Beck & Rosenbaum ).

In 1885 he gave up his industrial career and dealt with the history of technology and especially the history of mechanical engineering, where he also completed his habilitation at the TH Darmstadt in 1886, where he was a private lecturer and professor from 1900 to 1908. From 1886 to 1896 he published historical notes in Civilingenieur , which he published as a book in 1899. The publication of the book was supported by the VDI . Beck also published 1901 to 1908 in the magazine of the VDI, 1900 to 1903 in the magazine for architecture and engineering and 1909 to 1911 in the articles on the history of technology and industry.

Beck has published about Pappos , Vitruv , Sextus Julius Frontinus , Heron of Alexandria , Philon of Byzantium , Cato the Elder , Leonardo da Vinci and his machines, Vannoccio Biringuccio , Agostino Ramelli , Buonaiuto Lorini , Georgius Agricola , Marin Mersenne , Heinrich Zeising , Vittorio Zonca , Jacques Besson , Gerolamo Cardano , Salomon de Caus , Jacob de Strada , Giambattista della Porta , Faustus Verantius , Giovanni Branca , Georg Philipp Harstörffer , Juanelo Torriano , Evangelista Torricelli , Jean Leurechon , Domenico Fontana , Caspar Schott , James Watt , James Brindley , Isambard Kingdom Brunel , John Rennie Sr. , John Smeaton , Thomas Telford, and antique guns. He drew primary sources for his investigations and made use of his philological knowledge. He is considered to be one of the first to deal scientifically and according to the sources with the history of mechanical engineering and he is credited with rediscovering and indexing the classic machine books. Beck was very interested in whether the machines depicted worked as described.

He was married to Sophie Baer and had two daughters. His brother Ludwig Beck was also an industrialist and technical historian (author of a standard work on the history of iron) and the father of General Ludwig Beck .

In 1909 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the TH Karlsruhe for his contributions to the history of technology. Also in 1909 he became a member for life in the committee of the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

The technology historian Franz Maria Feldhaus was a guest student at Beck in Darmstadt and Beck gave him his legacy on the history of technology.

Fonts

  • Contributions to the history of mechanical engineering, Springer 1899, 2nd edition 1900, Archives , Reprint Hildesheim: Olms 1970 (with foreword by KH Manegold)

literature

  • Obituary in: Journal of the Association of German Engineers, Volume 61, 1917, pp. 772f
  • FM Feldhaus, obituary in: History sheets for technology, industry and trade, Volume IV, 1917, pp. 161f
  • F. Meisel: Beck, Theodor , in: Deutsches Biographisches Jahrbuch, transition volume II, 1917–1920, Berlin 1928, pp. 18–21
  • RJ Gleitsmann: Theodor Beck, in: U. Troitzsch , G. Wohlauf (Ed.), Technology History. Historical contributions and more recent approaches, Frankfurt am Main 1980, pp. 71–80
  • Carl Graf von Klinckowstroem :  Beck, Theodor. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 699 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

  • DMG Lib (biography with digital copies of some essays)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmut Lackner: From the history of technology to the history of technology: The first half of the 20th century, in: Wolfgang König, Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.), The technical history research in Germany from 1800 to the present, Kassel University Press 2007, p. 39f
personal data
SURNAME Beck, Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German technical historian and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH June 3, 1839
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt
DATE OF DEATH July 30, 1917
Place of death Darmstadt