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Industrial heritage
The Société industrielle de Mulhouse (SIM) recruited its members among manufacturers from the Haut-Rhin département. Its membership increased during the Second French Empire, so much so that the society boasted 600 members in the early 1900s. This collection from the SIM academic library (BUSIM) gathers some 300 portraits of industrialists – mostly photographs of men – from the Mulhouse area all through the 19th century, with a few from the early 20th century.
The Société industrielle de Mulhouse (founded 1826) became a prominent think thank on socio-economic development, training, and scientific & technological research, whose influence extended far beyond Alsace all through the 19th century.
These portraits are accompanied by a short bibliographical entry to put forward the diversity of roles (head of company, administrator, factory manager, engineer, researcher, technician, physician, etc.) and sectors (chemistry, metalwork, textile, railway, etc.), as well as family estate legacies that were commonplace in the 1800s.
You will also find portraits of teachers, artists, scholars and experts from various fields. A significant part of SIM members also comes from outside Alsace. If portraits of industrialists'... wifes are rare, they do exist. All in all, this collection makes for a collective portrait of a society gathering part of the French elite around a common conception of economic and social progress.
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