The Businesses and the Innovations of Adolf Engel in the Second Half of the 19th Century

Abstract

The purpose of the study. The study is about the businesses of Adolf Engel, a local entrepreneur of Pécs in the 19th century. The study is focused on finding answers to three main questions. Firstly, in what ways did Adolf Engel’s career differ from other great entrepreneurs of Pécs, such as Zsolnay, Angster or Hamerli? Secondly, how big was Engel’s impact on the local economy and how did he tackle the charcoal crisis by establishing industrial coal mining in Komló? Finally, what kind of innovations did he use and what were their effects? Applied methods. The research is based upon a wide range of sources. A great volume of domestic and international literature and the memoirs of Adolf Engel provided the background of the study. I used statistics of the era and I read numerous articles found in the Arcanum Digitheca and Hungarian Cultural Heritage Portal databases. Furthermore, I revealed and analysed archival sources of the Regional Archives of Baranya County of the National Archives of Hungary. I composed the study in chronological order and have summed up Engel’s work. Outcomes. By the end of the study, I was able to reflect on the differences of Adolf Engel’s entrepreneurial career. He managed multiple businesses in different sectors at the same time. He successfully participated in the development of the local economy and took part in solving the energy crisis. He applied several unusual innovations, but their outcome was undoubtedly positive and successful. Engels’s efforts are clearly telling of the career of a self-made businessman.