Cosmopolitan Networks in Commerce and Society 1660–1914

MONIKA POETTINGER
contributed decisively to the establishment of polytechnics and Han -
dels hochschulen.
But education was only one of the social dimensions deeply influenced
by nineteenth-century merchants, technicians, and manufacturers.
The new economic elite also sought political recognition and
social acceptance, and its migrating members took these concerns
with them to their new places of residence all over Europe, and even
in the distant colonies. While their children were receiving an appropriate
education in Elberfeld, Adam Kramer and Heinrich Mylius
actively participated in the political life of Milan. The Napoleonic
reforms had opened up a specific space in Lombardy for representatives
of the mercantile class and the two German entrepreneurs knew
how to make good use of it. Kramer first became an elector on the
Board of Merchants, 93 and then, in 1802, a member of the town council.
94 He was Vice-President and, in 1805, President of the Chamber
of Commerce. In 1806 he was appointed by the Ministry of Justice to
the commission for the revision of the Commercial Code, and in 1812
to the General Council of Commerce, Arts, and Manufactures. 95 On 7
January 1811 he was awarded the Imperial Order of the Iron Cross. 96
In 1813 Kramer’s political career culminated in his appointment as
President of the Court of Commerce. 97
The long list of public offices Kramer held reflects the influence
which this merchant–manufacturer from Essenheim had on the conservative
and not very entrepreneurial Milanese business elite that
Jagemann had depicted at the turn of the century. He was an ‘example
of capacity and entrepreneurship’, 98 as perceived by Cattaneo.
Only a few years after his death in 1815, his sons petitioned the
restored Austrian government for the family’s ennoblement: 99 ‘for
schen Kaiserreich (1898–1919)’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Cologne, 2004), 27.
93 ‘Il professore Antonio de Kramer-Cenno Biografico’, 155.
94 Levati, La nobiltà del lavoro, 76.
95 Id., ‘Negozianti e società a Milano tra Ancien Règime e Restaurazione’,
Società e Storia, 61 (1993), 517.
96 ASM, Araldica, Parte Moderna, Cartella 228.
97 Emanuele Pagano, ‘Consiglio comunale e notabilato a Milano nell’età
napoleonica’, in Fontana and Lazzarini (eds.), Veneto e Lombardia, 545.
98 Cattaneo, Notizie culturali e civili, p. xcviii.
99 On the raising to the nobility of the Kramer family see Levati, ‘Negozianti
e società’, 523.
282