Cosmopolitan Networks in Commerce and Society 1660–1914

MONIKA POETTINGER
the courage to undertake this, since it has in its possession the
only manufactory that can be furnished with such yarn and
cloth. 41
As Bellerio suggests, Adam Kramer did not migrate alone. In
order to set up the spinning and weaving manufactories, Kramer had
‘to procure with great difficulty entire families from Switzerland’. 42
For the printing work, he took Johann Paul Hartmann as his associate.
As a family, the Hartmanns 43 were actively engaged in commercializing
Swiss products in Augsburg, which was one of the most
advanced centres for cotton printing in Continental Europe. In the
1780s they diversified by acquiring a direct share in cotton printing.
Along with Johann Michael Schöppler, Johann Gottfried Hartmann
bought the Apfel’sche Druckerei in Augsburg, 44 a printing firm successfully
managed first by Hartmann himself and then by his son-inlaw
Karl Foster. Johann Paul Hartmann decided to emigrate to Milan
instead to direct the printing in the old premises of the Rho manufactory.
He took along precious human capital: a colourist and a
designer, the most important specialized workers that a printing
manufacturer required for success.
Within a short time, migrants from economically more advanced
regions of Europe filled all positions requiring managerial or technical
skills in the newly established Kramer e Compagni. At the same
time Hartmann brought to Milan’s attention the chemistry and
41 Report by the Regio Visitatore Bellerio 16 Oct. 1783, ASM, Commercio,
parte antica, Cartella 252, my trans.
42 ‘being obliged to procure with great difficulty entire families from Switzer -
land, to rent houses in many places and instruct more than 4,000 labourers in
spin ning and weaving processes, to have more than 2,000 spindles and 125
looms with all related instruments constructed at his own cost so that even
poor people could start this kind of work.’ Promemoir of the Firm Kramer e
Compagni, 8 Apr. 1791. ASM, Commercio, parte antica, Cartella 252.
43 Johann Michael Hartmann owned a merchant house trading with Swiss
products and was the contact between Kramer and Johann Paul Hartmann.
Paul von Stetten, Beschreibung der Reichs-Stadt Augsburg (Augsburg, 1788),
133, 138.
44 Schöppler & Hartmann was one of Augsburg’s most important printers
along with the famous Schüle manufactory. ‘Handlung und Manufakturen
der Stadt Augspurg’, HandlungsZeitung (Gotha), 19 July 1788, 29.
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