Abstract
What made Heinrich Caro such a successful and prolific inventor? This is the principal question that we tried to answer as we followed his career, especially during the 1870s and early 1880s. Because of Caro’s artistic inclinations, we might with considerable justification describe this as his second most fertile period, when, as development chemist and then research director at BASF, he became the most important inventor of synthetic dyestuffs in the 19th century. Despite the surviving personal journals, diaries, and correspondence, and even self-congratulatory accounts, this is, however, one part of Caro’s life for which source material is thin, at least from his own perspective. Accordingly, other approaches to verisimilitude must be sought out. There is, fortunately, an important insight into Caro’s working style at that time. This derives from a retrospective and somewhat one-sided account written by his main professional rival at BASF, Carl Andreas Glaser, who joined the firm in 1869.
Caro could not delegate to others, and was really interested only in his own brilliant discoveries, except when, as with Adolph von Baeyer, he was the sole line between the B.A.S.F. and the University.
Herbert Levinstein, 1949.1
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References
Herbert Levinstein, “Proceedings of the Society. The First George Douglas Lecture: George Douglas, His Times, and Some Thoughts on the Future,” Journal of the Society of Dyers and Colourists 65 (1949): 271.
Ernest F. Ehrhardt, “Reminiscences of Dr. Caro,” Chemistry and Industry 43 (1924): 561–65, on 563.
Carl Glaser, “Erlebnisse und Erinnerungen nach meinem Eintritt in die Badische Anilin- & Soda-Fabrik im Jahre 1869,” unpublished typescript, Heidelberg, 1921, held at BASF Archives, W 1 Glaser (hereafter cited as “Glaser”). All quotations are translations from the German, and are taken from 29–34.
“Glaser,” 30.
“Glaser,” 30.
“Glaser,” 30.
“Glaser,” 30.
“Glaser,” 31. Ernst Homburg in his “The Emergence of Research Laboratories in the Dyestuffs Industry, 1870–1900,” British Journal for the History of Science 25 (1992): 91–111, has suggested that the relationship accorded with Engelhorn’s view of “science more as a lucrative gamble than a necessary element in company management” (on 99). Glaser, moreover, pointed out that Engelhorn’s single passion was for making money; see “Glaser,” 29.
“Glaser,” 31.
“Glaser,” 31.
“Glaser,” 31.
“Glaser,” 31.
“Glaser,” 32.
“Glaser,” 32.
“Glaser,” 32.
“Glaser,” 32.
“Glaser,” 32.
“Glaser,” 32–33.
“Glaser,” 33.
“Glaser,” 33.
“Glaser,” 33.
“Glaser,” 33.
“Glaser,” 34.
Ehrhardt, “Reminiscences of Dr. Caro,” 561.
Heinrich Caro, “Ueber die Entwickelung der Theerfarben-Industrie,” Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft 25 (1892): 955–1105.
Amalie Caro, “Erinnerungen an Dr. Heinrich Caro,” (hereafter Erinnerungen), vol. 1, 158–60. DM NL93/10/1.
See obituary of Caro in Journal of the Society of Dyers and Colourists 29 (1910): 246.
“Erinnerungen,” vol. 1, 3, DM NL93 / 10/ 1.
“Erinnerungen,” vol. 1, 50–51, DM NL93/10/1.
They had six more children, daughters Edith, Louise, and Fanny, born in 1869, 1871, and 1875, respectively; and sons Heinrich, Alfred, and Victor Adolf, born in 1870, 1873, and 1880. Edith married Joseph Rheinboldt, and their son Heinrich became a chemist and professor at the University of Bonn. He emigrated to Brazil shortly after the Nazis came to power, where he joined the University of Saõ Paulo. Other members of the Caro family moved to Australia. For this family information we thank Chava Agmon, of Tel Aviv. We can assume that no expense was spared in the education of the children, since Fanny went to a finishing school at Morges, Lake Geneva, as recommended to Caro by Hofmann. See Caro to H. E. Armstrong, 29 April 1893, letter no. 102, Imperial College Archives, London. Through Carl Duisberg’s intervention, Caro’s youngest son Victor Adolf joined Bayer’s legal department on 2 January 1909, though Duisberg stated that he would be critical, and judge him impartially. Adolf worked under the supervision of the lawyer Doermer. Caro to Duisberg, 30 December 1908, and Duisberg to Caro, 20 January 1909, Duisberg Papers, Bayer Archives. Nikodemus Caro (1871–1935), who was engaged in nitrogen fixation studies early in the 1900s, was a distant family relative. Sources of information on the Caro family will be found in David S. Zubatsky and Irwin M. Bernet, Sourcebook for Jewish Genealogies and Family Histories (Teaneck, N.J.: Avotaynu, Inc., 1996), 67.
“Erinnerungen,” vol. 1, 158–60, DM NL93/ 10/ 1.
“Erinnerungen,” vol. 1, 158–60, DM NL93/ 10/ 1.
Otto von Bismarck, in his memoirs, trans. and quoted by Fritz Stern, Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire (Peregrine/Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1987), 14.
Caro to Ivan Levinstein, 4 February 1890, DM HS 3671, and 22 February 1890, DM NL93.
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Reinhardt, C., Travis, A.S. (2000). Ambitious and Glory Hunting ... Impractical and Fantastic. In: Heinrich Caro and the Creation of Modern Chemical Industry. Chemists and Chemistry, vol 19. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9353-3_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9353-3_10
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