Johann Jacob Schweppe (March 16, 1740 – November 18, 1821) was a German-born naturalised Swiss watchmaker and amateur scientist who developed the first practical process to manufacture carbonated mineral water, based on a process discovered by Joseph Priestley in 1770. read more…
The Rothschild family is a wealthy family descending from Mayer Amschel Rothschild, a court Jew to the German Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel, in the Free City of Frankfurt, who established his banking business in the 1760s in Judengasse. Unlike most previous court Jews, Rothschild managed to bequeath his wealth and established an international banking family through his five sons, who established themselves in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna, and Naples. During the 19th century, the Rothschild family possessed the largest private fortune in the world, as well as the largest private fortune in modern world history. The family’s wealth was divided among various descendants. Today, Rothschild business encompass a diverse range of fields, including financial services, real estate, mining, energy, mixed farming, wine and charities. The name of Rothschild became synonymous with extravagance and great wealth; and, the family was renowned for its art collecting, for its palaces, as well as for its philanthropy. By the end of the century, the family owned, or had built, at the lowest estimates, over 41 palaces (Le Goût Rothschild), of a scale and luxury perhaps unparalleled even by the richest royal families. The British Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd George claimed, in 1909, that Lord Nathan Rothschild was the most powerful man in Britain. read more…
Henry John Heinz was an American businessman who founded the H. J. Heinz Company. Heinz Field, which is the home of the Pittsburgh Steelers NFL team, is named in his honor. Heinz was born October 11, 1844 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of John Henry Heinz (1811–1891), of Kallstadt, Kingdom of Bavaria, Germany, and Anna Margaretha Schmidt (1822–1899), of Haunetal-Kruspis in Hesse. His father emigrated to America in 1840, his mother in 1843. They were married December 4, 1843 in Birmingham, Pennsylvania on the south side of Pittsburgh, where they first met. Heinz was married to Sarah Sloan Young Heinz, a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, on September 3, 1869 and had four children that survived to adulthood. Heinz died at his home May 14, 1919 after contracting pneumonia. His funeral was at East Liberty Presbyterian Church and he was buried at Homewood Cemetery in Pittsburgh, in the Heinz Family Mausoleum. A bronze statue of Heinz by Emil Fuchs was dedicated on October 11, 1924 at the Heinz Company building in Pittsburgh. read more…
Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway, is an American and German piano company, founded in 1853 in Manhattan, New York City, by German immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company’s growth led to the opening of a factory in Queens, New York City, and a factory in Hamburg, Germany. The factory in Queens supplies the Americas and the factory in Hamburg supplies the rest of the world. Steinway has been described as a prominent piano company, known for making pianos of high quality and for inventions within the area of piano development. Steinway has been granted 126 patents in piano making; the first in 1857. The company’s share of the high-end grand piano market consistently exceeds 80 percent. The company’s dominant position in the high-end piano market has been criticized, with some musicians and writers arguing that it has blocked innovation and led to a homogenization of the sound favored by pianists. read more…
The Astor family is a family known for its prominence in business, society, and politics in the United States and the United Kingdom during the 19th and 20th centuries. The Astor family is of German origin, appearing in North America during the eighteenth century with John Jacob Astor. read more…
William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet, and the “Bard of Avon”. His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. read more…
The Rockefeller family is an American industrial, political, and banking family that made one of the world’s largest fortunes in the oil business during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with John D. Rockefeller and his brother William Rockefeller primarily through Standard Oil. Their economic rise coincides with the so-called Gilded Age. The family is also known for its long association with and control of Chase Manhattan Bank. They are considered to be one of the most powerful families, if not the most powerful family, in the history of the United States. The first documented ancestor of the Rockefeller’s is Goddard Rockenfeller from Neuwied, Germany. His grandson Johann Peter and grandgrandson Johann Thiel migrated with their families from New Jersey and New York City, where they called themselves Rockefeller. read more…
The Fugger family is a German family that was a historically prominent group of European bankers, members of the fifteenth and sixteenth-century mercantile patriciate of Augsburg, international mercantile bankers, and venture capitalists. Alongside the Welser family, the family controlled much of the European economy in the sixteenth century and accumulated enormous wealth. This banking family replaced the de’ Medici family, who influenced all of Europe during the Renaissance. The Fuggers took over many of the Medicis’ assets and their political power and influence. read more…
Georges-Eugène Haussmann, commonly known as Baron Haussmann, 27 March 1809 – 11 January 1891), was the Prefect of the Seine Department in France, who was chosen by the Emperor Napoleon III to carry out a massive program of new boulevards, parks and public works in Paris, commonly called Haussmann’s renovation of Paris. Critics forced his resignation for extravagance, but his vision of the city still dominates Central Paris. Haussmann was born in Paris on 27 March 1809, at 55 rue du Faubourg-du-Roule, in the neighborhood called Beaujon, in a house which he later demolished during his renovation of the city. Haussmann’s family originated from Alsace. He was the son of Nicolas-Valentin Haussmann (1787–1876), a senior official in the military establishment of Napoleon Bonaparte, and of Ève-Marie-Henriette-Caroline Dentzel, the daughter of a general and a deputy of French National Convention, Georges Frédéric Dentzel, a baron of Napoleon’s First Empire. He was the grandson of Nicolas Haussmann (1759–1847), a deputy of the Legislative Assembly and of the National Convention, an administrator of the Department of Seine-et-Oise, and a commissioner to the army. read more…