STORIES ABOUT PEOPLE: BIOGRAPHIES

History is always made by people. Of course, this also applies to the age of the industrial revolution. Industrial history is also not only told through architectural evidence such as mines, production plants or workers' settlements. Just as important are the people of both sexes: inventors, entrepreneurs, financiers and above all the workers.
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In the following, we present more than 270 biographies of selected personalities who have influenced the industrial history of Europe, their countries, regions, cities or a branch of industry ...

Giovanni Agnelli (1921–2003)

Giovanni Agnelli inherited control of Italy’s largest motor manufacturing company at the age of 45 in 1966, and over the next 30 years ...

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Sir John Aird (1833–1911)

Sir John Aird was the head of an engineering and building company that carried out numerous important works in the United Kingdom, in the ...

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Reinhold Rücker Angerstein (1718–60)

Reinhold Rücker Angerstein was the most talented of the representatives of the Swedish Ironmasters` Association (the Jernkontoret) who ...

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Sir Richard Arkwright (1732–92)

Sir Richard Arkwright transformed the cotton industry throughout Europe. He was born at Preston, and after being apprenticed as a barber, ...

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Giorgio Armani (1934)

The career of Giorgio Armani exemplifies the power of brands in 20th- and 21st-century industry, and shows how association with popular ...

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Sir William George Armstrong (1810–1900)

William Armstrong was the principal innovator in the use of hydraulic power, which in his lifetime came to be the means of operating ...

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Paul Arzens (1903–90)

Paul Arzens was one of the foremost European industrial designers of the 20th century. He spent most of his life in Paris and was ...

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Laura Ashley (1925–85)

Laura Ashley (nee Mountney) was one of the most successful British entrepreneurs of the second half of the 20th century, whose success was ...

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Joseph Aspdin (1778–1855)

Cement is one of the most important building materials of the past two centuries, used as mortar to bind brick or stone, to cover ...

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Frank Atkinson (1924–2014)

Frank Atkinson was the founder-director of Beamish, the museum’s inspiring genius, and an influential advocate over many years for the ...

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Karl Auer von Welsbach (1858–1929)

Carl Auer von Welsbach, also known as Carl Auer, was a distinguished industrial chemist. He was born in Vienna where he father was ...

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Joseph Ritter von Baader (1763–1835)

Joseph Ritter von Baader was the son of a physician in Munich, who initially studied medicine but turned to mechanical engineer and ...

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Karl Ludwig Johannes Baedeker (1801–55)

Karl Baedeker and his successors initiated a brand, which 160 years after his death remains instantly recognisable.He was born in Essen to ...

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Leo Baekeland (1863–1944)

Leo Baekeland was a Belgian chemist whose researches did much to shape the material culture of the mid-20th century. He read chemistry at ...

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John Baildon (1772–1846)

The Scotsman John Baildon was one of the pioneers of industrial development in Upper Silesia, now in Poland but in Baildon’s lifetime part ...

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John Logie Baird (1888–1946)

The television was among the inventions that did most to change society in the twentieth century. European, American and Japanese ...

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