university ofgroningen

groningen growth anddevelopment centre

GGDC RESEARCH MEMORANDUM 168

Craft Skills and the Transfer of Foreign Technology for German Industrialization

Rainer Fremdling

May 2017

1

Craft Skills and the Transfer of Foreign Technology for German Industrialization*

Rainer Fremdling

University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business

May 2017

Abstract

Migrant labourers constituted an important channel of diffusion for modern techniques during

early German industrialisation. Technical knowledge was inadequately comprehended in

theory, but was primarily embodied in new machinery and in those skilled foreign workers

(artisans or craftsmen) who had learned it by “on-the-job-training”. At the beginning of the

19th century, the well-paid guest-workers came from Great Britain and later from other

technically and economically advanced countries such as Belgium, France, the Netherlands

and Switzerland. In Germany, they installed new engines and machinery, acquainted Germans

with this modern equipment and new production methods. Thus foreign skilled workers

helped German industrialization to take-off.

Introduction

Technical change is an essential feature of the first industrial revolution. During the 18th

century, the Britons did not achieve their breakthroughs through applying theoretically

derived knowledge to practice. It was rather a tinkering on the job by which innovations were

introduced, diffused and improved.1 Theoretical-scientific insights lagged behind and were

hardly able to explain those techniques, which had been put into practise already

successfully.2 Furthermore, technical improvements marched less by leaps and bounds than

traditional textbooks suggest. These books rely on a hero theory of history applied to things

rather than persons. In fact, technical progress was frequently based on small stepwise

improvements achieved within a factory or workshop.3

As these craft-based advances were accomplished and taught by on-the-job training or

learning-by-doing skilled workers (artisans or craftsmen) played the chief part as agents of the

* For an extended earlier version of this article written in German, see Fremdling 1984. Available from Rainer

Fremdling on: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rainer_Fremdling

1 von Tunzelmann 1981, p. 150 f.

2 For a balanced view see Mokyr/Voth 2010, pp. 36 ff.

3 For cotton see Landes 1969, p. 87; in general Mathias 1969, pp. 136 ff.; von Tunzelmann 1981, p, 151; Harris

1976.

2

newest techniques. In early 19th century, skilled workers in Britain were considerably ahead

of their Continental counterparts in applying those techniques which were characteristic of the

industrial revolution.4 When they worked on the Continent they served as masters in training

Continental workmen and thus transferred British technology to other countries such as

Germany.5 Since the diffusion of the newest industrial techniques followed a west-east

direction, later on Belgian, French, Dutch and Swiss skilled workers took over the function of

masters in Germany. Although I hereby refer to nations, industrialization can hardly be

perceived of as an achievement of states. In its early phases, industrialization must basically

be viewed as a regional rather than a national phenomenon. In the German case, this is

evident because Germany proper did not become a nation-state before the end of the industrial

revolution. With regional and sectoral variations in timing, the German take-off into self-

sustained growth can be dated from the mid-1830s to the early 1870s. During the early phases

of industrialization, numerous regions were connected with each other by Europe-wide capital

market transactions and a Europe-wide transfer of resources. This lends a European aspect to

the otherwise regional phenomenon of industrialization.6 During the mid-decades of the 19th

century, trade barriers within Europe had gradually been cut back so that the 1860´s and

1870´s came close to the ideal of free trade. In this process of industrialization reaching

beyond state boundaries, skilled craftsmen, working abroad, played a significant role.7

My hypothesis is that the transfer of technology from technically and economically more

advanced regions into less developed areas was to a high degree due to those migrating skilled

workers. They embodied the technical progress and conveyed it personally. Thus their role

differed from the traditional journeyman in the guild-system who had to migrate in order to

acquire skills. I concentrate on skilled workers in Germany from abroad who performed

certain handicraft and industrial techniques with their own hands and omit engineers,

mechanics or technicians. Sometimes, however, these groups are difficult to tell apart. Very

often, these skilled workers came with new machines, which they installed, altered, ran,

repaired, managed and sometimes even completely reconstructed. They were meant to enable

the first generation of domestic workers to merely run the equipment. With their handicraft

skills entwined with experience in modern factory work, the foreigners taught much more

than intended: the new mode of production based on the division of labour, completely new

production processes, countless manipulations of new tools, the handling of new materials

and new equipment. Compared with the amount of the domestic workers, the number of these

4 On the quality and skills of British workers see Tranter 1981, pp. 222 ff.

5 On France see Bensimon/Whatley 2016 and Bensimon 2011.

6 Pollard 1981; Broadberry/Fremdling/Solar 2010.

7 See Oltmer (2016) and Bade (2003, pp.75 ff.) for this type of migration (“Labour migration and technology

transfer: Training migrations, business trips, industrial espionage”) within their overviews of European migration

in general. For a comprehensive treatment of “World Migration” see the collection of articles in Cohen 1995.

3

Peace Corps workers was never large. The question remains of whether or not these few

foreigners were the really indispensable multipliers in the most important branches during the

initial stages of German industrialization to label them "the yeast that caused the heavy

Germanic dough to rise"8.

Textiles

Spinning

As Jeremy pointed out in his book on "The Diffusion of Textile Technologies between Britain

and America, 1790-1830s"9 the immigrating British machine-maker was of paramount

importance to transfer Arkwright's water frame or Crompton's mule to New England. A

similar diffusion pattern can be detected in the German State of Saxony.10

As early as at the beginning of the 19th century, several machine-makers were hired by Saxon

entrepreneurs in order to set up or to modernize spinning mills by applying the newest

technology. The foreigners did not bring the complete machines with them, but they had to

build them there. This partly meant reinventing the machines. One of those highly praised

mechanics, Evans from Manchester, played a similar role as the famous Samuel Slater in New

England.

Evans and a fellow country-man, an iron worker, arrived in Saxony in 1802. The first deed

they did was to shift their employers` complete workshop close to a small river. They thus

could make use of water-power for driving the lathe and later the newly-built spinning

machines continuously. Even in the age of steam-power traditional motive power was

therefore no obstacle for modernization. The machine-maker Evans produced the blue-prints

and moulds for the pieces to be cast. Within twelve months he made all the necessary tools

and other equipment in order to build the mule-machines. His type of the mule was no exact

copy of a British type but it was modified to suit the special environment in Saxony. This too

is a parallel to a phenomenon occurring in New England where Slater and others built

modified versions of British spinning machines.

Evans and his English helper passed on parts of their skills to indigenous craftsmen such as

local blacksmiths, carpenters, iron- and wood-turners to build the spinning machines. Those

craftsmen learned to work the material with a precision previously unknown to them.

8 Cameron (1961, p. 403) quotes a French scholar.

9 Jeremy 1981.

10 On the following see Kiesewetter 1988, pp. 441 ff.; Forberger 1982, pass.; Kroker 1971, pp. 166 ff.;

Schröter/Becker 1962, pp. 120 ff.; Strauss 1960, p. 55. For France see also Bensimon/Whatley 2016, p. 141.

4

At least as important as making the machines, was to show local workers how to handle them.

Numerous mule spinners who had acquired their skills from Evans went to competing mills. It

was said that for a while there was no mule-spinner in Saxony who had not been directly or

indirectly trained by Evans.

Evans' influence is rather well documented, but there were undoubtedly other mechanics who

fulfilled the same function. In the 1820s, there was no longer a bottleneck for German

entrepreneurs to obtain the modern spinning machines. When travelling through textile

regions, a Prussian civil servant found factories well equipped but very often idle or working

with badly run machines. He was accompanied by the American mechanic Bannister who

spent days in some factories to teach managers, overlookers and workers how to run these

machines properly.11 There were also groups of English skilled workers hired to work directly

with the machines or as overlookers. Their names are scarcely known and their appearance is

not well documented. But still in1840, a German observer of this trade noticed a lack of

skilled workers who were trained as well as their British counterparts.

There are two cases documented of flax spinning machines being introduced into Germany.12

When entrepreneurs started large factories in Bielefeld around 1850, their Irish business

partners sent groups of Irish girls to run the machines and train German girls.13 A group of

British girls fulfilled the same function in a flax spinning mill founded in Viersen in 1864.

Some German girls learned the skills within weeks so that the last British girls could leave

Viersen after one year.14

Weaving

Like in other European countries, weaving was mechanized later and more slowly than

spinning. Until the 1870s, a considerable portion of fabrics was hand-woven in cottage-

industry. To introduce power-looms and to train indigenous workers to run them, mill owners

had to hire foreign skilled workers. Initially this was done for all the different materials to be

woven, that is cotton, wool, linen and silk.15 A typical case is a weaving mill in Lower-Silesia

11 Matschoß 1921, pp. 151 ff.

12 See the case study of flax spinning in France (“Ailly-Sur-Somme”), where in the 1840s machinery and other

equipment was imported from Scotland. Initially, Scottish workers (male hecklers, mechanics and female

spinners) were recruited. “Despite … early reservations about the quality of local labour – seven eighths of

whom … came from ´the fields` and had ´never seen a spinning mill before` - within a few months [the mill] had

managed to recruit spinners in France with some experience who quickly adapted to the Ailly plant´s

technology”. Bensimon/Whatley 2016, p. 137 and passim.

13 Ditt 1982, pp. 62 f., 105,

14 Thun 1879 (1), p. 173.

15 Henderson 1952, pp.269 ff.

5

in the 1840s. The entrepreneur recruited a group of wool-weavers from the English town of

Bradford.16 The Silesian factory worked up worsted yarn which had been imported from

Bradford. And it had bought the power-looms in England as well. This demonstrates that the

emigration of British skilled workers did not necessarily mean a loss for Britain. On the

contrary, emigration rather frequently installed or strengthened business connections. Since

the British workers applied British techniques all subsequent orders for equipment and

intermediate products, such as yarn, were directed towards British suppliers. In the

Westphalian town of Bielefeld, large-scale production started in 1852. This meant the

industrialization of this traditionally important textile region. Still in the early1860s, mills had

to rely on skilled linen weavers from Belfast in order to teach indigenous workers how to

handle power-looms. Here too, business partners from Ireland, who delivered the linen-yarn,

were mediators. Another mechanized Bielefeld weaving mill hired its manager from Belfast

who brought 30 weaving-girls over from Ireland. By their contract, they were obliged to train

German girls which they did that fast that they could return to their home-country already

after less than half a year.17

German entrepreneurs obviously gave Swiss and French girls highest credit for weaving fine-

fibred fabrics like silk.18 French design set the fashion for fabrics. In order to imitate the

master pattern or to combine different patterns to new ones French cotton-printers and

designers were employed in Elberfeld's calico-printing works. A French contemporary

sneezed at this in the following way: "They had bought fabrics, took it to pieces thread by

thread and copied it; an industrial copy however is like a literary translation, the beauty of the

original fades away. One copies the French master pattern in the same way as one speaks our

language, i.e. with a foreign accent."19

The foreign workers possessed a longer experience of working with the new machines and

frequently their standard of work in a purely physical sense was much higher than that of their

German workmates.20 Furthermore, they had been familiar for long with the new methods of

production in factories. Thus in many cases, they were also hired to destroy the indigenous

workers' fear and distaste of factory work.21 Here the traditional hand-weaver felt superior to

the ordinary mechanical weaver. Weaving was mechanized stepwise. First, only coarser cloth

was produced by power-looms whereas elaborated and complicated fabrics remained the

domain of hand-looms for a long time. The most skilled hand-weavers specialized more and

16 Sigsworth 1951, pp. 68 ff.

17 For France see Bensimon 2011, p. 157.

18 von Laer 1977, pp.145 ff.; Thun 1879 (2), pp. 192 f.; Cameron 1961, p. 371.

19 Thun 1879 (2), p. 193.

20 Thun 1879 (1), pp. 40 f.; Matschoß 1921, p. 150.

21 von Laer 1977, p. 148.

6

more on precious types of fabrics like plush and silk and could thus survive for quite a while.

For a long time, these specialists refused to work in a nearby factory because this meant a

social decline. People on the countryside being deeply rooted in agriculture were especially

reluctant to work in a factory which they considered a prison.22 Hand-weavers or cottage-

spinners with their small plot of property felt independent and avoided to send someone of

their family into the factory. Still during the middle of the 19th century, factory work was

widely regarded as a side job of secondary importance to their agricultural work.23 During

harvest time, workers left the factories in droves.24 Thus the rising factory industry had to rely

on disciplined workers from abroad. Since in textiles a lot of mainly young and unmarried

women were employed everywhere, the founding of a textile mill with its sudden surplus of

girls in town could shake the social structure of a small town heavily. Some communities

founded hospices or hostels for these "roving gangs of young factory workers". Some mills

provided special quarters for their foreigners and many non-local workers lived as night-

lodgers just in one room with their host family. The sudden influx of factory workers into

small towns forced food prices up. This compelled even the "stubborn and proud

handweavers” who stuck to their cottage industry to send at least their daughters into the

hated mill.25 There the girls had to work with the non-local workers who were treated with

hostility. Only in the next generation, that is the children of these local female workers, the

resistance against factory work was broken.

Machine-Building and Mechanical Engineering

Machine-Building in General

The German machine-building industry proper was founded in the early 19th century. Of

course, several machines had been constructed there previously. But the growing demand of

the mechanized textile industry for new types of processing machines and power engines and

the rising need for machines of all types in other economic sectors set completely new

problems. Although the required machines for various purposes differed widely, there was a

"technological convergence" in that now large pieces (mostly made of metal) had to be built

in a precision which previously had been necessary only for small equipment and instruments

(such as watches).26 At the beginning of German mechanical engineering, there were no

22 von Laer 1977, p. 257.

23 Geck 1931, p. 108.

24 For Scottish handloom weavers the same held true still in the 1840s. Bensimon/Whatley 2016, p. 139.

25 Borscheid 1978, pp. 152 ff.; Thun (1) 1879, pp. 173 f.; Thun (2) 1879, p. 143.

26 Paulinyi 1982, p. 101; Rosenberg 1976, p. 157.

7

indigenous skilled workers for those new production processes.27 In most cases, journeymen

were hired who had been trained to work with metal and wood. These were locksmiths,

blacksmiths, founders, moulders, carpenters, coopers, cabinetmakers and also clock-makers.

They were trained within the factory to become skilled machine-builders. A contemporary

German entrepreneur who was familiar with England found it "a Herculean task to convert

Franconian wine-growers into English machinists". Initially, the training of new machine-

builders was mostly done in a direct way: The workers were shown how to handle things

while working, thus by "on-the-job training". For this purpose, experienced skilled machine-

builders had to be brought in personally. They came from the centres of mechanical

engineering, that is from England and some already from Belgium, Switzerland and France.

These countries with their machine-building industries had already developed the necessary

skilled work force.

Many of the foreign workers were put into the position and function of a master. Among the

indigenous work-force in the factory, the majority were journeymen as the traditional masters

preferred to stay self-employed outside the factories. The German journeymen coming from

different crafts had to learn each new manual operation from their foreign masters. Turning

iron or brass was such a new and important skill. They also had to learn how to use rulers and

compasses and how to work according to simple technical drawings. Sometimes the foreign

masters gave theoretical lessons after working-time. And they all had to accept modifications:

Where iron constructions yet lacked the desired precision, wood instead of iron was used for

the time being. Where steam-engines seemed premature, water power was applied. Where the

construction of gears failed, the necessary experience was acquired step by step by

assembling, maintaining and later repairing foreign-built machines. Where highly complicated

pieces of equipment could not yet be built completely, the most difficult parts were bought in

England. Beyond the technical skills, the German craftsmen had to get used to the disciplined

factory work with its division of labour.

Numerous machine-building factories first employed just a few foreign workers. The large

number of German entrepreneurs who were orientated towards Britain engaged British skilled

workers or engineers, e. g. Harkort, Egestorff, MAN or the Gutehoffnungshütte. Foreign

entrepreneurs who had settled down in Germany like the French Hartmann or the Suisse

Bodmer hired many skilled workers from their home-countries. But in general, by 1870, the

employment of foreigners had dropped considerably. This was due to the fact that the German

craftsmen learned very fast from their foreign masters in spite of all the complaints about their

backwardness in the beginning. Formerly, they had not been able to do their work in the

factories but with some effort they were licked into shape. After all, the foreign teachers could

27 Fort the following see the detailed account in Fremdling 1984, pp. 15-20; furthermore see case studies in

Schröter/Becker 1962; Rupieper 1982; Matschoß 1913, 1919; Däbritz/Metzeltin 1935; Fischer 1962; Schomerus

1977; Ludwig 1980; Wagenblass 1972, 1973; Stöbe 1970; Doogs 1928; von Laer 1977.

8

base their training on already acquired craft skills which included the working with metal.

This basic knowledge and experience could be developed, extended, perfected, applied to new

problems, modified and specialized in certain fields. Until 1900, this industry relied nearly

exclusively on small-scale handicraft workshops to prepare their later machine-makers.

During the first half of the 19th century, nearly every second founder of a machine-building

factory was a skilled craftsman. And a simple carpenter like Dinnendahl built his own steam-

engine by himself.

In general, there is more indirect evidence of the already available collective knowledge and

handicraft skills in their importance for the foundation and development of Germany's

machine-building industry. The contributions of the numerous achievements of all the

anonymous groups of craftsmen who were able to retrain and extend their knowledge, are

difficult to assess. They cannot be attributed to individuals and they hardly progressed by

spectacular breakthroughs but rather by piece-meal.

So German mechanical engineering first grew up gradually taking small steps: With the help

of foreign skilled workers foreign machines were assembled, adapted to the new environment

and repaired. Many German firms moved from craftsmanship repair of imported machines to

making simple machines. In copying machines and tools from abroad, parts of machines and

iron products were gradually replaced by domestic ones. Tentative home-made design

sometimes combined traditional technology with the most modern technology borrowed from

outside. Very often this resulted in adapted technology: With water power driving modern

processing-machines, with pieces made of wood being integrated into iron constructions, with

traditionally trained journeymen turning into skilled machine-makers.

Railways

At the beginning of German railway construction around 1835, the domestic engineering and

iron industries were not capable of producing the main investment goods for the railway,

locomotives and rails in sufficient quantities at competitive prices. This incompetence was

both due to technological backwardness and the lack of capacity. Thus throughout the first

years of railway construction, foreign suppliers dominated the market and maintained a strong

position into the 1840s. On the other hand, Germany profited from "advantages of

backwardness": First, the new technology of railway itself was transplanted to Germany by

the import of locomotives and rails. Secondly, the advanced technology of building

locomotives and rolling rails was transferred to Germany step by step.28

28 Wagenblass 1973; Fremdling 1975, 1983.

9

"Wherever in Germany a line was constructed, the engineers had been sent to England

beforehand in order to study the railways there."29 Yet additional help was necessary: Still in

1841, a representative of the Welsh iron mill of Dowlais had the impression that German

"engineers are still very simple" and their navvies too inexperienced to follow the

theoretically simple instruction for rail fastenings. The German engineer of the Berlin-

Frankfurt (Oder) railway company had to ask his Welsh rail-supplier to send a drilling

machine and a "sketch of the machine used for screwing". He was quite relieved when

Dowlais announced to send an expert for supervising the laying of rails. (The rails were of

even quality all the same.)30 British navvies, however, were never employed in Germany

unlike e. g. in France31 or Belgium.

The dominant position of foreign suppliers on the German market was lastingly shaken

concerning locomotives at first. Until 1840, all efforts of German engineering works in this

field had failed.32 Until then, the imported engines even had to be driven by a foreign engine

driver. So in 1835, along with his locomotive, Stephenson had sent a mechanic who had to

drive, maintain and repair the engine of the first German railway from Nuremberg to Fürth.

Furthermore, this driver was in charge of teaching indigenous mechanics how to run a

locomotive.33

But when people learn how to repair locomotives they will also be able to build them after a

while. Egestorff, founder of the later HANOMAG, near Hanover was well aware of this. He

sent some workers into the workshops of the Brunswick-Railway-Company where mainly

English engines were being repaired.34 Already existing machine-building factories extended

their production programme to locomotives, and besides, a number of new firms were

founded after 1840 specializing on locomotives. This led to a fast substitution process:35 After

1854, all locomotives running on Prussian railways had been made by German producers.36

Initially, they copied the foreign model. Borsig in Berlin copied the locomotive built by

Norris in Philadelphia. To do so many factories engaged mechanics, engineers and some

skilled workers from Great Britain, Belgium or France. Let me name Egestorff in Hanover,

29 Schnabel 1934, p. 403.

30 Glamorgan Record Office, Dowlais lron Company, D/DG, D.H. 1841, F. 183, 187, 191, 195, 851.

31 See Bensimon 2011, p. 157 f.

32 Wagenblass 1973, p. 38.

33 Wagenblass 1973, p. 27.

34 Däbritz/Metzeltin 1935, p. 42; Wagenblass 1973, p. 95.

35 See the section in Fremdling 1985a, pp. 74-78.

36 Prussia, Statistische Nachrichten von den Preußischen Eisenbahnen, 1855-1880. Every year all newly bought

locomotives were listed in these statistics of the Prussian government.

10

Hartmann in Chemnitz (Saxony), Keßler in Karlsruhe (Baden), Maffei in Munich and

Henschel in Kassel (Hesse). And even for building simple railway-waggons, some firms

initially hired foreign workers.37

The German industries for building railway waggons and locomotives did not depend on

foreign skilled people in every respect, however. Numerous factories had acquired the

necessary skills stepwise through repairing and rebuilding foreign locomotives or through

importing some parts difficult to construct. Thus they avoided hiring larger groups of foreign

skilled workers. If necessary at all, one single English, Belgian or French constructor was

sufficient for them to start locomotive building during the 1840s.

Shipbuilding

In the 19th century, modern ship-building, that is the construction of sea going vessels, was

closely connected to machine-building. Here too, wood was replaced by iron and natural

motive power was replaced by the steam engine. From the early 19th century onwards, iron

steamers had begun to take the place of the wooden sailing vessels in Britain. During the

second half of the 19th century, German ship yards tried hard to build iron steamers.

Intermediate products, tools and blue-prints could be bought without any serious problems

from Britain at that time (until 1843, the export of British machinery had been prohibited).

But the lack of qualified workers was an enormous problem for German shipbuilders. They

hired numerous British engineers and skilled masters, among them even craftsmen who

worked with the traditional material wood.38 One British shipwright brought several frame-

benders along with him to his new employer, Blohm & Voss at Hamburg. Most of the hired

British workers there belonged to the metal trade, among them riveters. They were familiar

with riveting, a technique that had been developed in Britain around the 1850s and that

allowed the construction of large vessels. The British skilled workers ran into a considerable

resistance, however, when they tried to teach German traditional craftsmen how to build

modern iron ships. Especially at Hamburg the shipwrights stuck to working with wood and

for a long time they did not accept the abolition of the guild system from 1838. Even in the

second half of the 19th century, they tried to force their shipyard to accept the guild system

rules.39 They thus demanded 1. the same wage for everybody, 2. they refused to work together

with people who had not learned their crafts according to the rules of their guild, 3. they urged

the shipyard owners to employ solely shipwrights from Hamburg as long as there were

unemployed indigenous fellow craftsmen.

37 See case studies in Fremdling 1985b; Rupieper 1982; Hentschel 1977; Schomerus 1977; Vorsteher 1983.

38 See Hieke 1955; Prager 1977; Herms 1952; Flensburger 1962.

39 Cattaruza 1984; Hieke 1955, p. 61; Laufenberg 1911, pp. 177 ff.; Schwarz/von Halle 1902, pp. 127 ff.

11

But employing mainly domestic workers would have meant a severe obstacle to introduce the

building of iron ships: These venerable “wooden” shipwrights refused to work with metal and

they rejected the use of machines because this illicit "black work" (“swatte Arbeit”)40 was not

done by hand. Consequently, they did not touch the indispensable punching machine.

Therefore these shipwrights could only be employed in traditional fields where they worked

with wood. But even here they did not always yield satisfactory results. For deck-laying, a

traditional field of working, the English manager hired without further ado Dutch caulkers for

Blohm & Voss shipyard because they managed to caulk 400 feet a day whereas the German

shipwrights who stuck to their traditional methods could caulk but 80 feet a day.41 The

shipyard of Blohm & Voss was so successful with its foreign skilled workers in strategic

positions that in 1883 a British shipping company praised Blohm & Voss "they work like

shipyards in England".42 At the turn of the 20th century, German shipyards did not need

foreign skilled workers any more.43

Heavy Industry

Coal Mining

In Germany with her long mining tradition, coal-miners had passed for skilled craftsmen

before the German industrial revolution started. But mining techniques changed considerably

when deep mining more and more replaced tunnel mining. This modern technique was

applied in Germany for the first time at the Ruhr district in 1837.44 Before the 1850s, the

growth of coal-mining was rather modest. There were enough indigenous workers.45 The

1850s meant a turning point towards a rapid expansion of the Ruhr mining. Numerous British,

French, Belgian and Dutch capitalists invested heavy sums in coal mining.46 These

entrepreneurs brought the best-practise techniques, engineers and skilled workers from Britain

and Belgium to the Ruhr. For sinking shafts they used iron instead of wood for the tubbings.

They took steam engines to pump the water and to haul the coal. The Irishman Mulvany is the

best known of these foreign entrepreneurs. His British workers earned five to four times as

40 Hieke 1955, p. 75.

41 Prager 1977, p. 32.

42 Prager 1977, p. 27 f.

43 Schwarz/von Halle 1902, pp. 96, 101.

44 Fischer 1965, pp. 25 ff.; Holtfrerich 1973, pp. 94 f.

45 Tenfelde 1977, p. 101.

46 Henderson 1952, p. 284; Henderson 1972, pp. 156, 183 f.; Holtfrerich 1973, p. 98; Tenfelde 1974, p. 235;

Cameron 1961, pp. 376 ff.; Maréchal 1937, pp. 520 ff.; Troitzsch 1972, pp. 150 ff.; Banfield 1848, pp. 161, 240;

for the Aachen district see Schainberg 1997 and Reckendrees 2014, 2017.

12

much as a common indigenous coal-miner. On his coal-pit, Hibernia, the common language

was English rather than German. Once a week an English preacher came from Düsseldorf and

the British workers` children had their own school. Based on French-Belgian-Dutch capital

the coal mines employed large groups of Walloon workers. Walloons also worked in the

mining district of the Saar. Whereas most of the British workers left the Ruhr after some time

many Walloons settled down permanently in Germany.

It is difficult to assess how important these skilled British and Walloon workers were and

whether foreign workers were typical of the German mining at that time. Foreigners hardly

worked on German-owned mines which were founded at the same time or somewhat earlier.

Not before 1871 did large groups of Polish workers migrate to the Ruhr, but they had not yet

been trained as miners when they arrived. It seems that the German-owned mines did not

depend on the foreign skilled workers to adopt best-practise techniques from Britain and

Belgium.

Iron Industry

Blast Furnaces

The rising machine-building factories as well as the construction of railways and ships

demanded large quantities of homogeneous, precisely shaped and partly completely new

products from the iron industry. For the railway these enormous quantities should be supplied

at low prices furthermore. The traditional iron industry was incapable of meeting this demand.

At all stages of production it fuelled with charcoal the prices of which went up continuously.

Scattered along riversides, small blast furnaces still used charcoal to smelt pig iron from iron

ore.47

But in Great Britain there had been a long widespread experience in fuelling with pit or

mineral coal. As early as the late 18th century the mineral-fuel techniques for smelting and

refining iron were nearly exclusively applied in Britain.48 From the beginning of the 19th

century onwards, they spread to Continental countries.49 In Germany as well, some blast

furnaces began to use coke instead of charcoal. There were a few in Upper Silesia already at

the end of the 18th century. The later famous Ruhr district in the west of Germany, however,

had to wait until the 1850s for coke-blast furnaces to be erected on a massive scale. Coke

blast furnaces were different in size and had to be handled in a rather sophisticated manner.

Without describing the various manual operations of smelters at the two types of furnaces an

47 Fremdling 1986, pp. 117 ff. and pp. 307 ff.

48 Evans 2005; Hyde 1977.

49 Fremdling 2000, 2005 and the contributions in Evans/Rydén 2005.

13

indirect evidence might make the difference obvious: In 1850, a contemporary observer listed

the tools a smelter needed on 50 lines for a modern furnace and on just six lines for a

traditional furnace.50 The chemical and physical properties of the new mineral fuel, namely

coke, were different from charcoal which had been used for centuries. But scholars had not

analysed them yet. That is why only experience guaranteed a more or less smooth smelting

process. In order to exploit the experience workers had accumulated somewhere else, newly

built smelting works in Germany hired skilled workers from countries where coke blast

furnaces had been in use for some time. The new German iron mills were frequently founded

by Belgian and French capitalists. In the 1850s, thousands of Belgian workers mostly from

Liѐge and Charleroi went into the Ruhr district and settled there in colonies. Often these

colonies were large enough to have a church and a school of their own. From there some

foreign workers migrated into other iron production regions in Germany.51 The Belgians had

already adapted the British technology to their Walloon environment by adjusting it to the

properties of Walloon ore and coal resources. Since these properties were similar to the raw

material in the Ruhr district, Belgian workers were especially well suited for introducing the

blast furnace technology here. Thus in the 1850s, west German blast furnaces were erected

after the Belgian model. Belgian technicians and skilled workers were hired to build blast

furnaces and to first operate them. These were brick-makers, bricklayers, coke-oven operators

and above all smelters.

The high tide of this Belgian emigration to Germany was the time from the 1850s to the early

1860s. In the 1870s, however, most blast furnace works employed but two Belgian

technicians, one for the coking plant and the other for the blast furnaces. Still at the beginning

of the 20th century, German workers used some French terminology handed down to them

from the Walloons of previous generations.

Puddling Furnaces and Rolling Mills52

The largest portion of pig iron was worked up to wrought iron. Wrought iron was later called

steel. To convert the solidified, hence hard and brittle pig iron into a malleable form it had to

be refined. This meant, the reheated metal was decarbonized and purified from other

accompanying elements. The modern iron industry refined the iron in puddling furnaces fired

by pit-coal. Henry Cort's puddling and the subsequent rolling process dates back to 1783/84.

It took another 40 years, however, before the German Remy Brothers succeeded in running a

puddling furnace continually.53 For puddling, a new type of furnace was needed. It had to be

dimensioned differently everywhere to suit the materials put in. This meant a laborious

50 Valerius 1851, pp. 363 ff.

51 Troitzsch 1972, pp. 150, 158; Seeling 1972, pp. 35 f., 71.

52 On this section see Fremdling 1991.

53 Banken 2005, p. 59 and Beck 1911.

14

tinkering on the job. Particularly in its experimental phase, puddling was a challenge for the

master puddler. As it was hardly possible to retrain traditional refiners, puddling became a

new skill.

During the puddling process, lumps of pig iron were melted down and finally the puddler had

to ball the then malleable iron into blooms. Numerous manual operations were necessary to

control the refining process, during which the puddler had to stir the pool (or puddle) of

molten iron for as long as fifty minutes without interruption. Besides an immense permanent

physical strength the puddler needed craft skills, experience and the highest concentration to

respond well to the processes in the furnace. Colour, consistency, volume and sweep of the

molten iron as well as the flames gave signals for the next step to be taken. This could not be

learned theoretically or remote from the puddling furnace. Consequently, the first puddlers

came from abroad to teach the Germans how to puddle.54 In 1824, Britons mostly from South-

Wales puddled and trained puddlers at Remy's in Neuwied, at Hoesch's in Lendersdorf, at

Remy's in Alf and at Harkort's in Wetter. During the 1840s, Walloons puddled in Rhineland-

Westphalia, in Saxony and Bavaria and French puddlers went to the Saar and Southern

Germany. Still in the 1840s, the following gloomy prognosis was believed in: "German

workers will never acquire those skills which are necessary to produce fine quality iron." But

as soon as ten years later, puddlers and rollers from the Rhineland went into other German

regions to perform their trade as skilled workers. At the same time, Walloons still immigrated

to the Rhineland where they worked in newly founded iron works of Belgian entrepreneurs,

e.g. at Düsseldorf or Duisburg.

When the foreign puddlers had trained domestic workers to the point where the latter could

puddle independently, they were likewise employed as master puddlers. But the puddlers

from abroad generally still earned considerably more.55 The higher wages paid to foreigners

had the following reasons:

1. In the beginning, they were indispensable for both puddling and teaching how to puddle

and for helping to build the furnaces as well.

2. Experienced puddlers were scarce on the Continent until the 1840s, hence only high wages

could attract these foreigners.

3. Foreign puddlers had a far higher daily output of puddled iron: For a given amount of

puddled iron they used less fuel and pig iron. And they produced refined iron of better quality,

that is, their blooms were more homogenous and did not crumble when they were hit by the

hammer.

54 The same in France, Bensimon 2011, pp. 156 f.

55 Beck 1911, pp. 105 f.; von Borries 1929, p. 61; Reichs-Enquete 1878, pp. 159 ff. The same in France, see

Hardach 1969, p.99; for France see Bensimom 2011, p. 158

15

In 1878, a vivid comparison of German and foreign puddlers (in this case workers in

neighbouring Belgium) was made by the director of the Bismarck Forge in Upper Silesia,

himself a former puddler having worked in Middlesbrough and in Belgium:56 "I simply was

not able to have only two people work the furnaces. I promised the two workers I intended to

put on the puddling team the same money I would have paid three, and they were good men,

but they just could not manage. Such an extremely big and strong Walloon from the district of

Liѐge, or a worker of Cockerill can turn blooms weighing 2 to 3 Ctr. [100 to 150 kg] with one

hand. Our workers just are not capable of that."

The first (British) puddlers of almost every German iron work were known by name and still

are. This indicates how much they rose out of the rest of the labouring masses in the eyes of

their contemporaries. Iron masters like the Remys carefully took notes when the puddlers

explained the practical "knacks" of their trade and they put most of the puddlers' suggestions

into practise. Some puddlers were even celebrated as international stars: One of the Remys'

British puddlers enthused about a fellow-worker of his as "the great", being "the most famous

puddler in England". In general, the puddler, this "aristocrat of the workingmen", was admired

as a sort of Hercules, but he was also maligned for his propensity to drink, his lack of

discipline and his arrogance.57

Foreign craftsmen repeatedly aroused the animosity of the local population.58 The (British)

puddlers were not at all inclined to make themselves agreeable to their surroundings. "They

came to Germany as masters of a craft and were fully conscious of their worth. Their pay was

many times that of other workers" and they were not willing to learn the local language. They

rationalized their demanding higher wages merely on the grounds that they had special rights

and special claims as foreigners: "... no Englishman could live on that!" It is therefore not

surprising that very few German workers' families, in whose quarters the British gentlemen

were supposed to find their lodgings, wanted these fastidious and costly boarders.

Rolling was a really uprooting innovation. For centuries, blooms had been hammered into the

desired shape. Instead of that most arduous procedure now a pair of rolls seized the prepared

hot iron to be shaped into homogeneous iron bars or rails in a self-acting way. In the

beginning, very often the roller himself had to mould the rolls and to connect the rolling train

to water power or the steam engine. Just as the puddlers (and frequently together with them)

the first rollers came from abroad to work in the newly founded German puddling and rolling

mills. In the 1820s, most rollers working in German mills were of British origin but they had

previously worked in France or Belgium.59 They migrated in groups together with other iron

56 Reichs-Enquete 1878, pp. 347 f.

57 Beck 1911, pp. 106 ff.; Henderson 1952, p. 275; Matschoß 1919, pp. 24 f.; Bensimon 2011, p. 165.

58 Matschoß 1919, p. 25; Beck 1911, pp. 105 ff.; similarly in France, see Bensimon 2011, pp. 161 ff.

59 Beck 1919, pp. 106 ff. and passim on the following.

16

workers and passed their practical skills on to indigenous workers. Not every newly founded

forge, however, hired an entire team consisting of puddlers, shinglers, welders or rollers at

once; they often employed merely one or two puddlers and then, some months later, possibly

a roller. As a result, groups were temporarily split up, yet the international elite of craftsmen

maintained close ties with each other. They changed letters, visited each other, went back to

their former firms, where German entrepreneurs systematically pumped them.

The diffusion of the newest and best-fitted methods must have been accelerated powerfully by

the way in which these teams were formed and formed anew. If the teams had moved from

one ironwork to the next in static formation they would have passed on only one and the same

method everywhere they went. As it turned out, workers contributed what they had learned

through their manifold experience in different ironworks, regions and countries to every new

group they helped to form. The ironmasters used the experience for their new equipment and

quickly got an overview on the various methods used in the most important European

ironworks. When establishing new puddling and rolling mills, many ironmasters relied on the

craftsmen they had already hired to recruit other specialists.

As all Continental ironworks endeavoured to employ the expensive foreign elite craftsmen for

the shortest time possible, most of these itinerant groups broke up around the middle of the

century, and many of the foreigners sought employment in their native countries. Once

puddling and rolling had become common practice with a sufficient number of indigenous

workers having been trained, the former instructors, the very masters of the trade, were no

longer in demand and hence could not earn more abroad than at home.

Conclusion

For some important branches I have tried to assess the role foreign skilled craftsmen played in

transferring new techniques to Germany. I assume that on balance the influences of the higher

developed western countries were favourable for the course and timing of the German

industrialization. Especially, the necessary technical change that induced economic growth

was heavily stimulated by the transfer of new process innovations directly (that is by more or

less imitating them) and indirectly (by developing adapted techniques). The migrating skilled

craftsmen were not the only channel for the transfer of technology, though. Others were for

example the importation of machines and products. Within the complex of transfer channels

the worker embodied those techniques which could only be taught and learned through

immediate processes, through learning by doing or on-the-job training.

To what extent the transfer of new techniques can be attributed to migrating foreign craftsmen

depends on three conditions: First, on the technological requirements in a specific sector;

second, on the possibilities that sector had to replace the foreign skilled worker by other

transfer channels and third, on the gap between the skills of foreign and indigenous workers.

17

This gap determined the period of the learning process. German iron manufactures obviously

could hardly do without British and Belgian puddlers and smelters. In coal mining, however,

merely a few foreign specialists were needed, as indigenous miners possessed sufficient skills

in general. The bulk of the foreign miners just were taken in tow by foreign direct investment

in Germany. In machine building the traditional training in handicraft skills had ambivalent

effects: Where workers clung to traditions such as the rules of the guild-system, any flexibility

was crippled. Trudging on in the same old way meant hostility to innovation and reluctance to

learn anew. On the other hand, traditional apprenticeship could lay the foundation to learn

additional skills. Thus numerous machine-building firms managed without foreign skilled

workers and just hired single foreign mechanics or engineers.60

In textiles, large groups of foreign workers were employed. Their high number suggests that

here truly new skills had to be transferred; the brief stay of those groups in Germany,

however, indicates that these new skills were simple enough to be learned quickly.

As the need for foreign skilled workers differed widely from sector to sector and even from

firm to firm it is very difficult to assess the necessity and effect of these craftsmen in general.

For those entrepreneurs who wanted a complete and fast transfer of a foreign technology,

hiring foreign workers was surely indispensable; whereas other entrepreneurs, even in the

same branch, found ways without relying on them. The importance of foreign workers for the

German industrialization in general is indirectly indicated by the high wages paid to them.

High wages corroborate that foreign workers possessed skills which were scarce in Germany

at the beginning of industrialization. Hiring the skilled foreigners reduced this scarcity.

Let me conclude by answering the introductory question: How important were foreign

workers for the German industrialization? I do not think that they were "the yeast that caused

the heavy Germanic dough to rise". They did not produce the same effects as the completely

different and indispensable active substance yeast that transubstantiates the simple mixture of

flour and water into dough. No, the skilled foreign workers surely did not initiate the German

industrialization, however, they might well have speeded it up. But the mere temporal

dimension is important enough for history to label a factor “important” that speeds up the

coming of a new age even though it is not indispensable.

60 The longer lasting importance of British engineers during the entire 19th century is stressed by

Bensimon/Whatley (2016, p. 147). The number of British professional engineers abroad “grew from about 1,000

in 1850 to some 40,000 in 1914. … This diffusion of British technology and engineering know-how was

instrumental in the expansion of Britain´s formal and informal empires.”

18

Sources and Literature

Archival material:

Cardiff: Glamorgan Record Office, Dowlais lron Company.

Statistical compilation:

Prussia, Ministerium für Handel, Gewerbe und öffentliche Arbeiten, Statistische Nachrichten

von den Preußischen Eisenbahnen. Vol. 1-27, Berlin 1855-1880.

Literature:

Bade, Klaus J., Migration in European History, Oxford: Blackwell 2003.

Banfield, T. C., Industry of the Rhine, Series II, Manufactures, London 1848.

Banken, Ralf, The Diffusion of Coke Smelting and Puddling in Germany, in: Evans, Chris

and Rydén, Göran (eds.), The Industrial Revolution in Iron, The Impact of British Coal

Technology in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Aldershot: Ashgate 2005, 55-73.

Beck, Ludwig, Die Einführung des englischen Flammofenfrischens in Deutschland durch

Heinrich Wilhelm Remy & Co. auf dem Rasselstein bei Neuwied, in: Matschoß, Conrad (ed.),

Beiträge zur Geschichte der Technik und Industrie, Vol. 3 (1911), 86-130.

Bensimon, Fabrice and Whatley, Christopher A., The Thread of Migration: A Scottish-French

Linen and Jute Works and its Workers in France, c. 1845-c. 1870, in: Journal of Migration

History, Vol. 2 (2016), 120-147.

Bensimon, Fabrice, British Workers in France, in: Past and Present, no. 213 (2011), 147-189.

von Borries, Kara, Das Pudddverfahren in Rheinland und Westfalen volkswirtschaftlich

betrachtet, Düsseldorf 1929.

Borscheid, Peter, Textilarbeiterschaft in der Industrialisierung. Soziale Lage und Mobilität in

Württemberg (19. Jahrhundert), Stuttgart 1978.

Broadberry, Stephen, Fremdling, Rainer and Solar, Peter, Industry, in: Broadberry, Stephen

and O´Rourke, Kevin H. (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe, vol. 1,

Cambridge: CUP 2010, 164-186.

Cameron, Rondo E., France and the Economic Development of Europe, 1800-1914,

Princeton: PUP 1961.

Cattaruza Marina, Handwerker und Fabriksystem: Die Hamburger und Bremer

Schiffszimmerer in den Anfängen der großbetrieblichen Werftindustrie, in: Engelhardt, Ulrich

(ed.), Handwerker und Industrialisierung, Stuttgart 1984, pp. 603-626.

Cohen, Robin (ed.), The Cambridge Survey of World Migration, Cambridge: CUP 1995.

19

Däbritz, Walther and Metzeltin, Erich, Hundert Jahre HANOMAG. Geschichte der

Hannoverschen Maschinenbau-Aktien-Gesellschaft, vormals Georg Egestorff in Hannover

1835 bis 1935, Düsseldorf 1935.

Ditt, Karl Industrialisierung, Arbeiterschaft und Arbeiterbewegung in Bielefeld 1850-1914,

Dortmund: Ardey 1982.

Doogs, K., Die Berliner Maschinen-Industrie und ihre Produktionsbedingungen seit ihrer

Entstehung, Berlin 1928.

Evans, Chris, The Industrial Revolution in Iron in the British Isles, in: Evans, Chris and

Rydén, Göran (eds.), The Industrial Revolution in Iron, The Impact of British Coal

Technology in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Aldershot: Ashgate 2005, 15-27.

Evans, Chris and Rydén, Göran (eds.), The Industrial Revolution in Iron, The Impact of

British Coal Technology in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Aldershot: Ashgate 2005.

Fischer, Wolfram, Die Anfänge der Fabrik von St. Blasien (1809-1848) - Ein Beitrag zur

Frühgeschichte der Industrialisierung, in: Tradition, Vol. 7 (1962).

Wolfram Fischer, Herz des Reviers, Essen 1965.

Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, Neunzig Jahre im Dienste des Schiffbaus, Festschrift

Flensburg1962.

Forberger, Rudolf, Die Industrielle Revolution in Sachsen 1800-1861, Vol. 1, Berlin:

Akademie-Verlag 1982.

Fremdling, Rainer, Eisenbahnen und deutsches Wirtschaftswachstum, 1840-1879. Ein Beitrag

zur Entwicklungstheorie und zur Theorie der Infrastruktur (Untersuchungen zur Wirtschafts-,

Sozial- und Technikgeschichte, Bd. 2), Dortmund: Gesellschaft für Westfälische

Wirtschaftsgeschichte 1975, 19852.

Fremdling, Rainer, Germany, in: P.K. O'Brien (Hg.), Railways and the Economic

Development of Western Europe, 1830-1914, London/Oxford: Macmillan 1983, pp. 121-147.

Fremdling, Rainer, Die Rolle ausländischer Facharbeiter bei der Einführung neuer Techniken

im Deutschland des 19. Jahrhunderts (Textilindustrie, Maschinenbau, Schwerindustrie), in:

Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, Vol. 24 (1984), 1-45.

Fremdling, Rainer (1985b), Pioniere, Porträts deutscher Lokomotivenhersteller, in: Zug der

Zeit - Zeit der Züge, Deutsche Eisenbahn 1835-1985, Berlin; Siedler 1985, pp. 134-149.

Fremdling, Rainer, Technologischer Wandel und internationaler Handel im 18. und 19.

Jahrhundert. - Die Eisenindustrien in Großbritannien, Belgien, Frankreich und Deutschland,

Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 1986.

20

Fremdling, Rainer, The Puddler - A Craftsman's Skill and the Spread of a New Technology in

Belgium, France and Germany, in: Journal of European Economic History, Vol. 20, (1991),

529-567.

Fremdling, Rainer, Transfer Patterns of British Technology to the Continent. The Case of the

Iron Industry, in: European Review of Economic History, Vol. 4 (2000), S. 197-220.

Fremdling, Rainer, Foreign Trade – Transfer - Adaptation: The British Iron Making

Technology on the Continent (Belgium and France), in: Ch. Evans und G. Ryden (eds.),

British Coal Technology and European Iron and Steel-Making in the nineteenth Century,

Aldershot: Ashgate 2005, S. 29-53.

Geck, L. H. Ad., Die sozialen Arbeitsverhältnisse im Wandel der Zeit. Eine geschichtliche

Einführung in die Betriebssoziologie, Berlin 193l.

Hardach, Gerd, Der soziale Status des Arbeiters in der Frühindustrialisierung. Eine

Untersuchung über die Arbeitnehmer in der französischen eisenschaffenden Industrie

zwischen 1800 und 1870, Berlin 1969.

Harris, J. R., Skills, Coal and British Industry in thc Eighteenth Century, in: History, Vol. 61

(1976).

Henderson, W. O., England und die Industrialisierung Deutschlands, in: Zeitschrift für die

gesamte Staatswissenschaft, Vol. 108 (1952), 264-294.

Henderson, W. O., Britain and Industrial Europe 1750-1870, Leicester: LUP 1972.

Hentschel, Volker, Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Maschinenfabrik Esslingen AG 1846-1918,

Stuttgart 1977.

Herms, Doris, Die Anfänge der bremischen Industrie vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zum

Zollanschluß (1888), Bremen 1952.

Hieke, Ernst, H. C. Stülcken Sohn. Ein deutsches Werftschicksal, Hamburg 1955.

Holtfrerich, Carl-Ludwig, Quantitative Geschichte des Ruhrkohlenbergbaus im 19.

Jahrhundert, Dortmund: Ardey 1973.

Hyde, Charles K., Technological Change and the British Iron Industry, 1700-1870, Princeton:

PUP 1977.

Jeremy, David J., Transatlantic Industrial Revolution: The Diffusion of Textile Technologies

between Britain and America, 1790-1830s, Oxford: Blackwell 1981.

Kiesewetter, Hubert, Industrialisierung und Landwirtschaft, Sachsens Stellung im regionalen

Industrialisierungsprozeß Deutschland im 19. Jahrhundert, Köln: Böhlau 1988.

21

Kroker, Werner, Wege zur Verbreitung technologischer Kenntnisse zwischen England und

Deutschland in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 1971.

von Laer, Hermann, Industrialisierung und Qualität der Arbeit. Eine bildungsökonomische

Untersuchung für das 19. Jahrhundert, New York: Arno 1977.

Landes, David, The Unbound Prometheus, Cambridge: CUP 1969.

Laufenberg, Heinrich, Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung in Hamburg, Altona und Umgegend,

Vol. l, Hamburg 1911 (Reprint Berlin/Bonn 1977).

Ludwig, Kurt, Zu Problemen der Konstituierung des Proletariats in Chemnitz um die Mitte

des 19. Jahrhunderts, dargestellt am Beispiel der Maschinenfabrik Richard Hartmann, in:

Beiträge zur Heimatgeschichte von Karl-Marx-Stadt, H. 24 (1980).

Maréchal, Jean R., La contribution des Belges et des Français à l'essor de la grande industrie

allemande, in: Revue universelle des mines, Vol. 13, 1937.

Mathias, Peter, The First Industrial Nation, London: Methuen 1969.

Matschoß, Conrad, Ein Jahrhundert deutscher Maschinenbau. Von der mechanischen

Werkstätte bis zur deutschen Maschinenfabrik 1819-1919, Berlin 1919.

Matschoß, Conrad, Preußens Gewerbeförderung und ihre großen Männer, Berlin 1921.

Matschoß, Conrad, Geschichte der Maschinenfabrik Nürnberg. Die Begründung und

Entwicklung der Werke Nürnberg und Gustavsburg der Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-München

(M.AN.), in: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Technik und Industrie. Jahrbuch des Vereines

deutscher Ingenieure, Vol. 5 (1913).

Mokyr, Joel and Voth, Hans-Joachim, Understanding Growth in Europe, 1700-1870: Theory

and Evidence, in: Broadberry, Stephen and O´Rourke, Kevin H. (eds.), The Cambridge

Economic History of Modern Europe, Vol. 1, Cambridge: CUP 2010, 7-42.

Oltmer, Jochen, Europäische und deutsche Migrationsverhältnisse im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert,

in: Brinkmann, Heinz Ulrich and Sauer, Martina (eds.), Einwanderungsgesellschaft

Deutschland, Wiesbaden: Springer 2016.

Paulinyi, Ákos, Der Technologietransfer für die Metallbearbeitung und die preußische

Gewerbeförderung (1820-1850), in: Fritz Blaich (ed.), Die Rolle des Staates für die

wirtschaftliche Entwicklung, Berlin 1982.

Pollard, S., Peaceful Conquest: The Industrialization of Europe, 1760-1970, Oxford: OUP

1981.

22

Prager, Hans Georg, Blohm + Voss. Schiffe und Maschinen für die Welt, Herford 1977.

Reckendrees, Alfred, Dynamics of Overlapping Clusters: Industrial and Institutional

Revolution in the Industrial District of Aachen, 1800‐1860, Working paper: Copenhagen

Business School 2014.

Reckendrees, Alfred, Dynamics of Overlapping Clusters: Industrial and Institutional

Revolution in the Industrial District of Aachen, 1800-1860, in: Revista De Historia Industrial,

Vol. 66, (2017), 37-75.

German Empire, Reichs-Enquete für die Eisenindustrie 1878 (n. l., n. d.).

Rosenberg, Nathan, Perspectives on Technology, Cambridge 1976.

Rupieper, Hermann-Josef, Arbeiter und Angestellte im Zeitalter der Industrialisierung. Eine

sozialgeschichtliche Studie am Beispiel der Maschinenfabriken Augsburg und Nürnberg

(MAN) 1837-1914, Frankfurt 1982.

Schainberg, Hartmut, Die belgische Beeinflussung der Frühindustrialisierung im

Aachener Raum, ca. 1820-1860, unpublished PhD-thesis Trier 1997.

Schnabel, Franz, Deutsche Geschichte im 19. Jahrhundert, Vol. 3, Freiburg i. Br. 1934.

Schomerus, Heilwig, Die Arbeiter der Maschinenfabrik Esslingen. Forschungen zur Lage der

Arbeiterschaft im 19. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart 1977.

Schröter, Alfred and Becker, Walter, Die deutsche Maschinenbauindustrie in der industriellen

Revolution, Berlin 1962.

Schwarz, Tjard and von Halle, Ernst, Die Schiffbauindustrie in Deutschland und im Auslande,

Zweiter Theil, Berlin 1902.

Seeling, Hans, Die Eisenhütten in Heerdt und Mülheim am Rhein, Köln 1972.

Sigsworth, Eric M., Fosters of Queensbury and Geyer of Lodz, 1848-1862, in: Yorkshire

Bulletin of Economic and Social Research, Vol. 3 (1951).

Stöbe, Herbert, Die Entwicklung des Chemnitzer Maschinenbaus während der beiden ersten

Etappen der industriellen Revolution (bis 1848/49), Masch. Diss. Bergakademie Freiberg

1970.

Strauss, Rudolph, Die Lage und die Bewegung der Chemnitzer Arbeiter in der ersten Hälfte

des 19. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 1960.

Tenfelde, Klaus, Sozialgeschichte der Bergarbeiterschaft an der Ruhr im 19. Jahrhundert,

Bonn­Bad Godesberg 1977.

23

Thun, Alphons, Die Industrie am Niederrhein und ihre Arbeiter. Erster Theil: Die

linksrheinische Textilindustrie, Zweiter Theil: Die Industrie des bergischen Landes (Solingen,

Remscheid und Elberfeld-Barmen), Leipzig 1879.

Tranter, N. L., The Labour Supply, in: Floud, Roderick and McCloskey, Donald (eds.), The

Economic History of Britain since 1700, Vol. 1, Cambridge: CUP 1981, 204-226.

Troitzsch, Ulrich, Belgien als Vermittler technischer Neuerungen beim Aufbau der

eisenschaffenden Industrie im Ruhrgebiet um 1850, in: Technikgeschichte, Vol. 39, 1972.

von Tunzelmann, G. N., Technical Progress during the Industrial Revolution, in: Floud,

Roderick and McCloskey, Donald (eds.), The Economic History of Britain since 1700, Vol. 1,

Cambridge: CUP 1981, 143-163.

Valerius, Benoit, Theoretisch-praktisches Handbuch der Roheisen-Fabrikation, (German

translation and editing by Carl Hartman), Freiberg 1851.

Vorsteher, Dieter, Borsig, Eisengießerei und Maschinenbauanstalt zu Berlin, Berlin 1983.

Wagenblass, Horst, Der Eisenbahnbau und das Wachstum der deutschen Eisen- und

Maschinenbauindustrie 1835 bis 1860, Stuttgart 1973.

Wagenblass, Horst, Die Deutsche Eisenbahnschienen­Companie und ihr Gründer Carl Joseph

Meyer, in: Tradition, Vol. 17 (1972).