The German mechanic and entrepreneur called in the middle of the 19th Century, in Jena, a small factory for the production of microscopes in life. Within a few decades, Carl Zeiss developed his company into the world’s leading producers of optical and precision devices. The company Carl Zeiss Jena could be based on its expansion on the participation of recognized scientists such as Ernst Abbe and Otto Schott …
Frederick Carl Zeiss was on 11 Born September 1816 in Weimar.
Zeiss attended high school in Weimar and was interested in the technological achievements of the time, so he studied as an auditor and at the Grand Ducal trade school. In the years 1834 to 1838 Zeiss completed an apprenticeship as a mechanic. The subsequent wanderings led him to 1845 in Stuttgart, Vienna, Berlin and Darmstadt. 1845, wrote a Zeiss for chemistry and arithmetic at the University of Jena. At the same time he called there 1846, a workshop for precision mechanics and optical forgery to life.
A year later he had developed the first microscopes, which have now been produced in the workshop. Zeiss 1848 married Bertha shadower, with whom he had one child. His wife died in 1850 at the birth of his son. In 1853 he married his second wife Ottilie Trinkler, with whom he had three more children. The workshop has expanded steadily and in 1857 could yield the first composite Zeiss microscopes. Thanks to its excellent contacts with the University of Jena Zeiss could promote experienced and excellent researchers for the development of its optical devices.
In October 1860 was summoned to the university mechanic Zeiss. The number of employees rose in his workshop in 1875 to 60 employees. He could now win the physicist and mathematician Ernst Abbe a partner, the new methods of production developed microscope. Zeiss 1880 was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Jena. 1882 still went to the chemist Otto Schott as a business partner, whose later works Mainz glass as its main supplier of Zeiss Jena works were. 1886 at the Zeiss 10,000. Zeiss microscope manufactured.
In jump 1888, the manufactured goods range expanded to contain photographic equipment.
Carl Zeiss died on 3 December 1888 in Jena. His operations were now already 327 people.
