Alfred Dolge
Alfred Dolge ( born December 22, 1848 in Chemnitz, † January 5, 1922 in Milan ) was an agent working in New York City and Dolgeville piano builder and industrialist, inventor and author.
He was originally an importer and manufacturer of piano materials and later became a manufacturer of felt products. 1874 Alfred Dolge went to Brockett 's Bridge, Fulton County, New York, in search of suitable spruce wood for the construction of soundboards. 1887 asked the citizens of the place, the authorities of Washington, to change the name of Brockett 's Bridge to Dolgeville.
Curriculum vitae
Alfred Dolge was born on December 22, 1858 in Chemnitz in Saxony. He went to school in Leipzig and entered the age of 17 as an apprentice in his father's company a, A. Dolge and Co., pianos. He graduated from high school at the Freemasons in Leipzig and received his degree. He first came to the United States when he was 17 years old. He stayed until 1868 and worked in piano from New York City.
He came the first time in 1874 after Brockett 's Bridge, which is now called by his name Dolgeville, in search of a manufacturing site for felt products. In April 1875 he began to manufacture in the old building of the company Brockett, which he had bought. For this complex later Dolge factory complex was created. Within a few years the city grew from 325 residents to more than 2,000, many of them had emigrated German, which he had been recruited by means of advertisements and through agents. Dolge built Filzmühlen, manufactured Felt, Autoharps (zither -like instruments), piano case, soundboard, piano hammers, he operated a lumberyard and contributed to the local infrastructure and the training of residents in. Alfred Dolge ultimately had to file for bankruptcy and left Dolgeville in May 1899. He then lived in California and started to build a new business there. He died in Milan, Italy, on 5 January 1922 on a world tour. He is buried in the cemetery of Dolgeville.
Philosophy
Inspired by earlier reading of Karl Liebknecht, Karl Marx, Mill and Adam Smith founded Alfred Dolge in Dolgeville a form of what is now called social security, an attempt of an idealistic society or a social Utopia. To 1876, when his new company was first well established, Dolge began to set up a pension plan, the remaining virtually unchanged over its term. The plan was very generous, he secured pensions of 50 percent of earned income after the onset of severe disability up to 100 percent after 25 years of service to.
Later he added a system of life insurance whose premiums the company paid. He also established a program to share in corporate earnings, in which an employee was pay full price then what intellectual contribution he made in the form of improvements or inventions, in which he was judged by the value of his work. These shares were not paid out but remained as an investment in the company. To the pension plan for employees need not be paid. The company paid for everything. When the company went bankrupt in 1899 Dolge, but only a few of the pre- thought of him benefits had been paid, but his ideas proved to be very durable and gained worldwide attention. The Government of the German Empire officially asked his plans and put them under changing some details to. 1889 asked the French government after to detailed data. The insurance, pension and other social benefits in Dolgeville been copied and implemented by railway companies and many other companies in the United States. 1896 brought a book of 243 pages Dolge entitled " The Practical Applications of Economic Theories in the Factories of Alfred Dolge and Son" ( Practical applications of economics theories in the factories of Alfred Dolge and son) " out.
Legacy
Due to the activity Dolges there was in Dolgeville:
- From 1876, the first Social Security,
- In 1876 the first public garden in the area of Dolgeville,
- From 1879, the second electric water power plant (the first was from Edison )
- From 1881 the first felt slippers and Felt American made,
- In 1889 the first kindergarten in New York State, and
- In 1891 the first electric street lighting system in Dolgeville.