Szekeres József: Ganz Ábrahám 1814-1867. A Ganz gyárak alapítójának életrajza (Budapest, 1967)

Angol nyelvű rövid életrajz

The Life of Ábrahám Ganz /1814-1867/, Founder of the Ganz Factories

It was hundred and twenty-six years ago that a modestly attired young man alighted from the Vienna mail coach bringing him from his n,ative Switzerland and,hastened directly to his would-be place of work, the Rolling Mill. On reaching the Danube, he, like so many foreign visitors, was enthralled by the panoramic scenery of the city, and, for the' first time, it occured to him that, after wandering from place to place for sixteen years, he at last had arrived in what was to be his land of adoption. The future that lay ahead of'him called for hard work, endurance, persistent exertions, famous inventions, exceptionally good co-workers and, last but not least, sheer luck to make millions out of jaothing, gold out of the products of his first and rather primitive foundry and a factory out of the gold thus earned.

It was no coincidence that the poor Swiss teacher’s Biblically named son, like Abraham of old, founded his home in a country other than his own. About a century and a quarter ago, in the age of ascending capitalism, Hungary, too, was considered a new America attracting alike fortune hunters, ambitious craftsmen and workers with specialised skills. Széchenyi’s reforming ideals had already spread through the land and the organisation of Kossuth’s Protective Society had come into being. Confidence in the bright future of the country was universal. Ganz did not come alone from Switzerland; the mill-hand Henrik Haggenmacher who was to,be the founder of a famous brewerv also arrived at the same time. In many parts of the world, these were the years of the great industri-14o