Cosmopolitan Networks in Commerce and Society 1660–1914

German Entrepreneurs and the Industrialization of Milan
origin, Adam Kramer, 37 decided to move to Milan in 1782, lured by
the Austrian government’s promise to bail out the bankrupt cottonprinting
manufacturer Carlo Franco Rho e Compagni. The German
merchant, who had a passion for mechanics, was at the time working
in the Swiss merchant house, organized locally as a network of Ver -
lags system production, which supplied the Milanese printing manu -
facturer with pieces to print. The bargain struck with the Austrian
government 38 aimed not only to revive the Rho company, but also to
take the mechanical spinning of cotton to Lombardy, thanks to Adam
Kramer’s technical skills.
Carlo Bellerio, 39 Regio Visitatore, 40 summarized Kramer’s importance
to the Austrian government as follows:
You may add that no one else would profit and no one else
would be more capable of introducing and expanding the
spinning and weaving of cotton in our State than the Kramer
firm, seeing that, in order to succeed, it needs first a person
with extensive and sound knowledge of those manufactures,
which it has in the capable person of Giovanni Adamo Kramer;
second, a large amount of capital, which it possesses in abundance
particularly now that one of the major houses of
Augsburg is participating in the venture; and third, foreign
masters, both male and female, to instruct untrained local
work ers in the new manufactures, which no one can better pro -
cure from abroad than the Kramer firm. In view of the fact that
for at least the first three years the introduction of these new
manufactures will necessarily cause losses to those engaging
in them because the yarn and cloth will be made by inexperienced
hands, no one other than the Kramer firm would have
37 Adam Kramer was born in Essenheim on 2 Apr. 1751. ABT, Censimento
1811, xx, and Censimento 1835, xxviii, Rubrica del ruolo generale della
Popolazione.
38 Report of 6 Aug. 1782. Archivio di Stato di Milano (hereafter ASM),
Commercio, parte antica, Cartella 252.
39 Rosalba Canetta (ed.), I protocolli della Camera di Commercio di Milano
1786–1796, 2 vols. (Milan, 1998), i. 95.
40 On the role of the Regi Visitatori in the economic policy of the Austrian
government see Moioli, ‘L’industrializzazione in Lombardia’, 96–7.
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