Wilhelm Gauss

Wilhelm Gauss.

Wilhelm Gauß , American Charles William Gauss (born October 23, 1813 in Göttingen , † August 23, 1879 in St. Louis , Missouri ), was a German-American entrepreneur. He was a son of Carl Friedrich Gauß and emigrated to Missouri in the USA as a young man because he could not find a suitable job in Germany as an economist with no assets. He was a farmer at St. Charles , a department store owner in Glasgow, a farmer in Brunswick and from 1856 a shoe wholesaler in St. Louis.

Life

origin

Wilhelm August Carl Matthias Gauß was born on October 23, 1813 in Göttingen. He was the fifth child of the mathematician and astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauß and the second child from his second marriage to Minna Waldeck, the daughter of the professor of law Johann Peter Waldeck and his wife Charlotte Wyneken. On the day Wilhelm was born, Father Gauss proudly noted in his (Latin) mathematical diary:

"We finally happily discovered the basis of a general theory of biquadratic remnants, which had been sought for almost seven years with the greatest effort but always in vain, on the same day that a son was born to us."

In his first marriage, Carl Friedrich Gauß was married from 1805 to 1809 to Johanna Osthoff (1780–1809), the daughter of a master white tanner. The children Joseph , Minna and a son who died in infancy resulted from the marriage. Joseph was 7 and Minna 5½ years older than Wilhelm. The siblings from Gauß 'second marriage were his 2 years older brother Eugen Gauß and the 3 years younger sister Therese , the youngest child of the Gauß family. The family lived in Göttingen on the first floor of a large half-timbered house at Kurzen Strasse 15 before moving to the newly built Göttingen observatory in October 1816 , which was headed by Gauss.

After the birth of their three children, Gauß 'wife Minna began to be ailing in 1818. She was sick with consumption and a terrible period of suffering began for her until her death in 1831. The housewife's long illness resulted in a domestic strain that Gauss and the entire family suffered. The younger sons Eugen and Wilhelm and the youngest daughter Therese lacked the security of a safe and caring home in the crucial years of their youth. The lack of maternal affection meant that Eugen and his younger brother Wilhelm developed a problematic way. The Gauss researcher Theo Gerardy judged the children of Gauß and Minna:

“The different mental legacies of the mothers can be seen in the children. Josef and Minna, Johanna's children, are warm-hearted, uncomplicated and capable of life. In addition to many advantages, Minna's children also have clear characteristics of maternal imbalance. Eugene is reckless, violent and unbridled; Wilhelm is easily offended, thoughtless and unreasonable; Therese seems strange, closed and exalted. "

Kurz Strasse 15, Göttingen.

View from the north of the Göttingen observatory. Gauss lived with his family in the right wing.

school

Latin School Celle.

Wilhelm Gauß received private tuition in his childhood, and possibly attended school from the age of 12. Because of the illness of his mother, Gauß gave his 14-year-old son Eugen to the humanistic high school in Celle in the care of the director Ludwig Hüpeden, two years later his son Wilhelm, who was also 14 years old, was taken care of. The brothers lived in the family of the strict director, who was unable to replace the missing home for them.

After three years of schooling, Eugen passed his school leaving examination in 1829, and his brother Wilhelm also left school after only one year. When he left, Director Hüpeden wrote a damning verdict on the adolescent Wilhelm in the register book. From the beginning he had shown no great inclination to learn, “he had more of a practical sense.” “But I rarely saw greater defiance and more indomitable stubbornness . It was lucky that he went off, otherwise I would probably have at least had to expel him from the house . "

job

Germany

Wilhelm's original career aspiration to become a soldier or, alternatively, a forester, was not approved by his parents. He therefore decided on the profession of economist (estate manager) without knowing much about this profession, the main thing for him was that the life of an economist took place mainly outdoors. The following table gives an overview of the 7 positions in Lower Saxony and Brandenburg that Wilhelm accepted in eight years without being given the position of property manager.

Luise Gauß b. Fallenstein.

time	place	employer
1829 to 1830	Wienhausen	Pastor Albrecht Heinrich Baring
1830 to 1832	Poggenhagen	Chamber Commissioner Franz Ihssen
1832 to 1833	Oberbehme	Landowner Carl von Laer
1833 to 1834	Diedersen	Administrator Ihssen
May to June 1834	Tax forest	Bailiff Wilhelm Joseph Pfingsthorn
July to August 1834	Goettingen	unemployed, stay with Gauss
1834 to 1835	Kunersdorf	Countess Itzenplitz
1835 to 1837	Potsdam	Ferdinand Crudelius

His fortune, which he had inherited from his mother, was insufficient to lease or buy a property, and he was unable to get a job as a clerk because of his young age. The hopelessness in his chosen profession nourished the idea of ​​emigrating to America early on, for which he prepared himself by reading relevant books by Gottfried Duden and Heinrich von Martels and by talking to emigrants and those willing to emigrate. In 1837 his father agreed to declare him of legal age at the age of 24 (one year before coming of age). On August 21, 1837, Wilhelm married Luise Fallenstein (1813–1883), who was of the same age, a pastor's daughter who had no fortune and who wanted to emigrate to America with him.

Missouri

Wilhelm Gauß's house on his farm near St. Charles, sketch by Wilhelm Gauß, 1839. - Description: Click on the picture.

Floor plan of the store by Wilhelm Gauß and Carl Fallenstein in Glasgow, sketch by Wilhelm Gauß, 1840. - Description: click on the picture.

Wilhelm Gauß, his wife Luise and their brother Carl Fallenstein embarked on an almost three-month voyage by ship via New Orleans to St. Louis in Missouri on October 29, 1837, where they arrived in early January 1838. They had chosen the midwest state of Missouri as their new home because many Germans had already successfully settled there as farmers. Wilhelm spent the rest of his life in Missouri without ever seeing his homeland again. The four places in which he settled were near the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, which were the only means of transporting goods before railroads were built. The following table gives an overview of Wilhelm's professional life.

time	place	job
1838 to 1840	St. Charles	farmer
1840 to 1844	Glasgow	Department store owner
1844 to 1855	Brunswick	farmer
1856 to 1879	St. Louis	Shoe wholesaler

After arriving in the United States, Carl Fallenstein found a job as an accountant, and Wilhelm and his wife settled at St. Charles, where he first leased a farm and then ran his own farm. However, since he and his wife were repeatedly afflicted by serious illnesses and suffered high financial losses, Wilhelm decided in 1840 to give up the farm. He and Carl Fallenstein opened a store (department store) 300 kilometers further west in Glasgow. In three years, both made an average of about $ 2,000 per year each, so that Wilhelm's fortune at the end of 1843 was over $ 11,000. But since his passion was agriculture and he only ran the shop to make money, he decided to become a farmer again in 1844. He bought a farm 30 kilometers northwest in Brunswick. Unlike in St. Charles, he only worked on the farm for his pleasure, he had the real work done by "Negro slaves" (in 1855 he employed 15 black workers).

On February 23, 1855, Wilhelm's father, Carl Friedrich Gauß, whom he had not seen since his emigration, died and left his four children still alive with a rich inheritance. Even before his father died, Wilhelm had decided to give up his farm and start something new. Together with his brother-in-law Carl Fallenstein, he took over a shoe wholesaler in St. Louis, which initially had sales of $ 300,000 and a 10% return. When his brother-in-law left the business in 1860 and returned to Germany, Wilhelm became the sole owner of the company. Although he still did not like the business life, he kept the business until his death. In 1866 he bought a piece of land with a large garden in a quieter part of the city and built on it as a family residence “a very nice and comfortable house” with “most of the newer conveniences”.

Retirement

Wilhelm and his wife were born between 1838 and 1855, two daughters and six sons, one of whom died in infancy. The eldest son Charles Frederick (1838–1913) ran a very successful hat wholesale business together with various partners. The second eldest son Oscar William (1842-1918) became a doctor and later a preacher of the Presbyterian Church. Three other sons were in business, and one became a preacher in the Presbyterian Church. With the exception of a son and a daughter, all children were married.

Wilhelm Gauß died on August 23, 1879 in St. Louis at the age of almost 66. His wife Luise, who was the same age, survived him by four years. She died in St. Louis at the age of 70 on September 15, 1883. The couple is buried in the Gauss family graveyard at Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.

Wilhelm died as the penultimate of the Gauss children. His brother Eugen was almost 20 years older than him. From the marriages of the two “American” Gauss sons Wilhelm and Eugen, a total of 15 children emerged, to whom a widely ramified offspring can be traced back. Gauss 'daughters remained childless and died of consumption in 1840 and 1864, like Gauss' wife Minna. Gauss' favorite son Joseph, who had remained in Germany, died in 1873 as senior construction officer of the Hanover Railway Directorate and left behind a son, the only Gauss offspring in Germany.

• 

  Grave of Wilhelm Gauss.

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  Grave of Luise Gauß b. Fallenstein.

Parental inheritance

Maternal inheritance

Wilhelm's mother Minna Gauß suffered from consumption, which was still fatal in her day, and the last nine years up to her death on September 12, 1831 were marked by terrible suffering and hopelessness. In the year of her death, she wrote her will on January 20th. She left her son Wilhelm 6,800 Reichstaler. After deducting advance payments that had already been made, Wilhelm received 4800 Reichstaler with the final account in 1837, which he used as the basis for setting up a business in the USA.

Paternal inheritance

Joseph Gauß: Bill of exchange (remittance) to Wilhelm Gauß to compensate for the paternal share of the inheritance, 3rd column from the right: cumulative amount in Reichstalers.

Gauss was the highest-earning professor at the University of Göttingen. He invested his money in government bonds and loans and used his mathematical genius and high level of expertise to constantly increase his fortune. Because of his poor origins, Gauss suffered from the constant fear of losing everything and suddenly being left without wealth. His children were often embarrassed by his stinginess at a time when they needed their father's support. When Gauss died, according to today's standards, he was a multiple euro millionaire, based on the values ​​of the Deutsche Bundesbank.

When Gauss died in 1855, four of his children were still alive, Joseph, Eugen, Wilhelm and Therese, who shared in the inheritance. Gauss had entrusted the execution of the division to his eldest son Joseph in a will in 1854. Since Gauss' estate consisted largely of securities, these had to be liquidated in a labor-intensive process. Correspondence with his brothers living in America and the sending of the cash proceeds in the form of bills of exchange also required a great deal of effort. Wilhelm's share in his father's inheritance amounted to almost 39,000 Reichstaler at the final settlement, which corresponds to an amount between 900,000 and one million euros according to the value approach of the Deutsche Bundesbank.

literature

German literature

• Menso Folkerts : CF Gauß and his sons. Gauß 'sons (Joseph, 1806–1873; Eugen, 1811–1896; Wilhelm, 1813–1879). Lecture at the opening of the Gauss exhibition 2005 in the Landesmuseum Braunschweig, manuscript. Braunschweig, 2005.
• Theo Gerardy: CF Gauß and his sons. In: Mitteilungen der Gauß-Gesellschaft Göttingen, Volume 3, 1966, pages 25–35.
• Heinrich Mack (editor): Carl Friedrich Gauß and his family. Festschrift for his 150th birthday. Braunschweig: Appelhans, 1927, page 106–120, 125, panel XI, illustration.
• Horst Michling: Carl Friedrich Gauss. Episodes from the life of the Princeps mathematicorum. Göttingen: Göttinger Tageblatt, 2005, pages 115–122.
• Joseph Weinberger: Carl Friedrich Gauß 1777–1855 and his descendants. In: Archives for kin research and all related areas, year 43/44, 1977/1978, issue 66, pages 73-98.

American literature

• Florian Cajori : Carl Friedrich Gauss and his children. In: Science, New Series, Volume 9, 1899, pp. 697-704.
• Susan Chambless: Gauss, Charles William (1813–1879). In: Gauss' Children .
• G. Waldo Dunnington : Carl Friedrich Gauss. Titan of Science. A study of his life and work. New York: Exposition Press, 1955, pp. 372-373, 102, 156, 194, 204-205, 236, 356-357.
• William B. Fawcett, Jr .: A History of the Fawcetts and Related Families in America, Chapter 4: Biographies of Relatives. Part 1 (AG), online .
• Letter from Robert Gauss to Felix Klein, Denver, Colorado, September 3, 1912, via Eugen and Wilhelm Gauß, online .
• Obituaries for members of the Gauss family, 2003, online .

Others

• Gottfried Duden : Report on a trip to the western states of North America and a stay of several years on the Missouri (in the years 1824, 25, 26 and 1827), with regard to emigration and overpopulation, or: life in the interior of the United States and its significance for the domestic and political situation of Europeans. Elberfeld 1829.
• Carl Friedrich Gauß: Estate account for Wilhelm Gauß, Göttingen, August 17, 1837, handwriting: Braunschweig, Stadtarchiv, G IX 21: 4, Waldeck inheritance matters, No. 11.
• Carl Friedrich Gauß, Testamentary Order, Göttingen, December 1854, copy: Braunschweig City Archives, G IX 21: 23 No. 4.
• Carl Friedrich Gauß: Mathematical diary 1796-1814 by Carl Friedrich Gauß. Leipzig: Academic Publishing Company Geest and Portig, 1976.
• Heinrich von Martels: Letters on the western parts of the United States of North America. Osnabrück 1834.

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Gauß  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

1. ↑ # Gauß 1976 , page 81.
2. ↑ # Mack 1927a .
3. ↑ # Gerardy 1966 , pp. 26-27.
4. ↑ # Gerardy 1966 , p. 26.
5. ↑ Old Latin School in Kalandstrasse 5. Eugene lived with the director at Kalandstrasse 6.
6. ^ Directory of the pupils of the high school in Celle, Celle city archive, L13,730.
7. ↑ #Duden 1829 , #Martels 1834 .
8. ^ When Wilhelm arrived in the United States, he had an initial fortune of $ 4,000 from his mother's inheritance. When he left the farm in St. Charles, his fortune had shrunk by $ 1,000. A gift from his father and sister Minna and the partial repayment of a deposit brought him an increase of $ 1,500 in his fortune in 1841. On top of that $ 5,300 fortune came $ 6,000 net proceeds from three years of business.
9. ^ Letters from Wilhelm Gauß to Carl Friedrich Gauß, Gauß letter database .
10. ^ Gauss' Children .
11. ^ Gauss' Children .
12. ^ Find a grave, Wilhelm Gauß , Find a grave, Luise Gauß .
13. ↑ # Gauss 1837 .
14. ↑ # Gauss 1854 .
15. ^ # Gauß 1856 , Deutsche Bundesbank, purchasing power equivalents of historical amounts in German currencies .