Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-03-13
THE kRUPP OF ESSEN.

Something About a Town Built Up by q
Kind Hearted Capitalist.
The last number of the Annals of the
American Academy of Political and So
cial Science gives an admirable sum-
mary of the work done at the Krupp
foundries for the men employed there
and their families. The writer, says the
Philadelphia Ledger, Mr.. S. M. Lindsay,
furnishes an object lesson that may well
be commended to employers of labor In
this country. The Krupp works employ
$4,000 men, and with their families,
numbering over 10000, constituting the
bulk of the population of the town OF
Essen, while over 5000 are located at
various branch works, and the total
nun Der benefited by their numerous
charitable and philanthropic enterprises
is estimated at %, 200 worlzmen, and
with their families 81, 900 persons.
The Krupp works were started in a
very humble way in 1910, and it was not
until the fifties that cast steel, their spe-
cial product, attained such universal
use and the works began their rapid
growth and steady increase. The Krupps
themselves say that their numerous in
families are based first on their own
business interests. Would there were
more such employers whose selfshness
took the same directionl
Their successful efforts to raise the
condition of their workmen have been
made in various ways-the building of
dwellings, rented at fair rates and sold
on easy terms; cooperative stores; &C
commodations for boarding and lodging
unmarried wOrkmen; their treatment in
sickness and the prevention of disease;
insurance against accident and sickness
and pension funds, in anticipation and
largely in excess of the severe require
ments of recent German legislation on
the subject; savings banks, common and
industrial schools, the education of ap
prentices, the training of young girls in
housekeeping, humanitarian rules in fac
tory work, liberal help for religious
teaching and charity.
The Krupps have built over 1900
houses-from frame dwellings Of two
rooms. renting at fifteen dollars year,
up to six room houses, renting at eighty
dollars year. They have expended
over So. eco 600 on them, earning about 2
per cent on the investment, but this with
much more. has been spent in beneiting
the working classes in other ways.
The cooperative stores managed by
the Krupps at their own risk include
fifteen retail grocery stores, nine branch
stores. with one main store for general
merchandise, a shoe factory with three
stores, a hardware store. mill and bak-
cry with six bread stores, a slaughter
house with seven retail meat stores, two
clothing establishments. seven restau-
rants. wine store, an ice company. a
coffee house. brush factory, a laundry,
q weekly market for fresh vegetables,
coffee roasting establishment-in them
nearly 500 persons were employed. wild
ovvs. or daughters of wOrkmen.
There is a boarding house for the I'M
married wOrkmen, where lodging and
food are supplied at twenty cents day.
In 1870 Alfred Krupp built hospital
for sick and wounded soldiers. and since
tie Eranco-German war it has been used
for their workmen and their families
they are cared for at the price of thirty
eight cents day for men, thirty cents a
day for women and twenty-five cents
for children. There is large bath lg
6sCaUIiSnInellI, where o,OUU Tree DaLAS
were given last year, and bath tickets
are sold for q cents apiece. The insur-
ance funds against accident and death
and for pensions have been largely sup
pIemented by the Krupps in addition TO
the strict requirements of the German
laws. Primary and advanced and tech
meal schools are maintained, and the
churches of al denominations are large
ly supported by the Krupps.