Tischler

 

Wood was one of the most important work materials in pre-industrial Europe. Carpenters actually were classified into a number of different skills. Until late medieval times Zimmerleute (carpenters) also made furniture, a job which was later done by a Tischler (joiner, cabinet-maker). In terms of rank, Tischler was near the top, with the highest being the Stellmacher.

 

Tischler Workbench and Tools

 

In the 1568 German Book of Trades, the joiner from Nuremberg is described thus: "makes fine varnished furniture with fancy moldings: chests, wardrobes, dressers, tables, beds, board games, etc. for all purses" (See: Jost Amman, The Book of Trades, New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1973, p. 96; translated from the German, originally published in 1658).

 

Early Image of a Tischler at Work

 

One museum site writes as follows: "The tischler would buy his wood by the foot, would fell the tree himself and would transport it home. There he would square it with his axe and stack it on two great trestles, where it was allowed to dry out for several months. He would make frames, doors, windows, sometimes carts and barrows, and also coffins. His only holiday was Sunday when he used to go into the fields to identify the trees he would buy when conditions were right. He was also often the cartwright and would make parts for ploughs, barrows and carts."

 

An account of working as a young German tischler in the early 1880s is provided by one emigrant who left for the U.S. at the age of 15. While still in Germany, he reports:

 

"School at last gratefully behind me, I became an apprentice in father’s cabinet shop. The machine age had already come in, but as far as our shop was concerned we were still in the handicraft era. Furniture was not made wholesale, but by order. Everything was done by hand and very much in the same manner and with the same tools as were used by the Egyptian joiners who dovetailed those wooden caskets for the glorification and preservation of Pharaoh and Co., which I was to see later. Wood was bought standing. Hands felled the trees. Hands loaded it on lumbering wagons and hauled it to the saw mill. More hands assisted by a slow-turning water wheel sawed it into boards and beams. Hands piled the sawed lumber in the lumber shed behind our home and shop. Hands, my own included, turned it over regularly, assuring straight and uniform seasoning.

 

"The customer selected what he wanted from drawings made by hand. Price was set by the quality of wood and workmanship. Slighting workmanship for speed was a deadly sin. The customer’s selection made, we transferred the drawing to wood, sawed out the wood by hand, dressed it, put it together, planed, shaved, sandpapered it until the last blemish had vanished, then polished it by hand and finally delivered it by wheelbarrow or pushcart, propelled by hand.

 

 

"It was slow work. I remember it took us a week to make an ordinary dresser, and two weeks or better for a fine or extra-fine one. Everything else was in proportion: a primitive way of making furniture, the same way many generations of cabinet makers had employed between Pharaoh’s and father’s time. I noticed, however, when I came to observe some of those Pharaoh’s coffins, that they were still beautifully intact. By the same token, I am certain that most of the furniture made in father’s shop is still doing duty.

 

"Father was a guild master [NOTE: See section on Guilds below]. Indeed, he was more than that. He was the master of the guild of joiners of the town. At the height of his career, father employed four journeymen and two apprentices. Master, journeymen, and apprentices shared the same roof and ate at the same table. The best went to the master. Second best to journeymen. Apprentices took what was left, paid for their tuition, and for good measure, washed dishes, ran errands, watched babies and changed diapers.

 

"When an apprentice had served his three years, he made his 'journeyman piece' in the shop of another master. If then, in the opinion of a committee of masters, he had demonstrated the proper qualifications, he was sent on the Wanderschaft journey to perfect himself in his craft in other cities and lands. The wandering journeyman was not a hobo. He was entitled to all the rights and privileges of a journeyman and future guild master. Entering a workshop of his craft he would say, 'God greet thee, masters and journeymen of my guild.' That done, and no work available, he would receive a definite, stipulated journeyman’s stipend from his fellows, double the amount from the master, and so continue his journey.

 

"In the larger towns there were Herbergen shelter homes, houses in which guild journeymen found welcome overnight. In the larger cities there were shelters for each separate guild. When the journeyman returned and passed his mastership, he was crowned master.

 

"Father's shop was also the meeting place of the remaining guild masters. In it I learned many things not found in books about the troubles caused by the changing order. The age of handicraft was fading. Discussions were often heated and highly uncomplimentary to the new dispensation. There ought to be laws prohibiting machines, the guild masters would argue. There ought to be laws to forbid people who had not served their time as apprentices, and journeymen, and made their masterpieces, from plying their particular trades. 'Free trade,' by which they meant the privilege of plying trades without having acquired the lore and sanction of the respective guilds, must be done away with. One fellow, they pointed out, with no more experience in the art and mysteries of furniture-making than a new-born babe, had already established a furniture store in town. Another one, and a despised Jew at that, was operating a furniture factory by the grace of water power and free trade. And what’s the world coming to anyhow, with unfair competition and chiselers all around? These good guild masters talked almost like General Hugh Johnson sixty years later, when the NRA was in flower, and to the same effect. The machine had come. Their breed was doomed. Work in the guild shops dwindled. The machine output was trash, of course. However, it was cheaper. People could see what they bought before they bought it. One after the other, guild masters gave up the ghost, were sucked into factories, or did home work serving the machine Moloch.

 

"Father never became a machine hand, a term which connoted something considerably lower than a mangy hound suffering from flea bites and moral turpitude. Father died with his guild boots on. Just once I can remember he came near falling from grace. The local furniture factory had received a large order for the kind of box in which artists carry their tubes, brushes, and palettes. By then the Moloch had learned almost all the operations which go into the making of artist’s boxes except the dovetailing of their four sides. We were masters at dovetailing. I heard father say, addressing an unseen machine, 'Go ahead, damn you, but dovetailing is one thing you never will learn!'

 

"I had not minded learning the furniture trade, although painting would have suited me better. There is something fascinatingly creative about helping a dead piece of wood evolve into a thing of beauty and service to man. But young as I was, I foresaw the end of the golden age of handicraft...[After getting in a fight with a local policeman]....in the opinion of its burghers and burgheresses, all but mother, I was doomed and damned. There were only two courses for young hellions like me. Gallows and hell—or America. So to America I went, partly pushed, but mostly drawn, some eight months before my sixteenth birthday, at which time I was scheduled to enter the army and toot my horn for Gott, Koenig and Vaterland. There were no tears shed at my departure, save mother’s and mine." Source: Oscar Ameringer, If You Don’t Weaken . . . The Autobiography of Oscar Ameringer (1940; reprint, Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983), 36–40.

 

 

According to the website for German Occupation Terms, the following background information gives more insight into the tischler and related workers:

• a) terms for carpenter derived from zimbar (medieval German for timber): Hauszimmermann, Temmermann, Timmerman, Zimbermann, Zimmerhauer (mainly mining carpenter), Zimmerer, Zimmerling, Zimmermeister, Zimmergeselle (apprentice carpenter), Zimmerknecht (assistant of a carpenter);

• b) other terms for carpenter: Axmann, Axthauer, Axtmann, Bendehler, Bondihler, Carpentarius, Diebler, Dielenleger, Dübler, Karpe, Lignarius, Pfettenhauer, Spanhauer, Spenhauer, Xylocopus;

• c) carpenters outside buildings: Baar, Baarer, Barer, Scepsbarer, Schopper (ship's carpenter); Zimmerhäuer, Zimmerhauer (mining carpenter)

• d) terms for joiner and cabinet-maker with a furniture in the name: Kistler, Kistenmacher, Kistmacher, Kistner, Kister, Cistarius (Kiste - box, chest); Schreiner, Schreinemacher, Schreinemaker, Schriener, Schrinner (Schrein - chest); Tischer, Tischler, Tischmacher, Tischner (Tisch - table); Stuhler, Stuhlmacher, Stuler (Stuhl - chair); Kästner (Kasten - box); Thorner (Tor- gate, door); Schrankmacher (Schrank - cupboard); Truhenmacher (Truhe = chest);

• e) other terms for joiner and cabinet-maker: Abiectarius, Arcularius, Arcarius faber, Ebenist, Mensator, Panelenmacher, Schatilger, Schnittger, Schnittker, Schnitger, Schnitker, Snitker, Scrinarius, Tafelmacher.

Role of the German Guilds in the 19th Century

 

Distinct, but comparable forms of group loyalty outside the family can also be traced in German history, from the guild memberships and the city oaths to the loyalties to the various regional identities that persist even today which bind workers, managers, consumers, and suppliers in a web of obligation.

 

In Germany during the second quarter of the 19th century, the development of large shops, staffed by highly skilled specialists trained under the old guild-enforced, small-shop tradition and working for a competitive national market, led to conflict as well as a distinctive design philosophy. This approach to woodworking stressed the combination of different decorative techniques such as carving, inlay, marquetry, and metal or ceramic mounts. As a result, artistic success was not judged by stylistic unity but by explicit celebration of lavish materials, exquisite craftsmanship, and extraordinary detail. Bombast at times reigned over stylistic coherence or restraint. When economic and political disruptions provided the catalyst for emigration after 1848, the German furniture makers leaving their homeland brought their highly developed skills and a specific craft-based sense of design with them to America.

 

Rüdiger Hachtmann writes: "Most German states had already eliminated guilds (Zünfte) as compulsory organizations in the course of the introduction of freedom of trade before the 1848 revolution, Prussia in 1810-11, most central German states during the pre-March era, but Austria only in 1859. Although guilds in a legal sense were thereby no more than private associations, most states allotted new competencies to the former guilds (now designated merely as corporations 'Innungen') that resembled the mandatory regulations of the old guild statutes. Among their principal tasks were the training and the scrutiny of apprentices' competency; their members continued to turn to the guilds for support during an illness and other difficult times. Prussia and other states limited the possibilities for the erection of a non-guild shop beyond the influence of the guilds, which gradually deprived the independent tradesman of his legal sanction. Certainly the importance of the guilds varied greatly in the sundry branches of trade and occupational groups in the mid-1840s. While a great majority of the masters in well situated industries like foodstuffs usually remained organized in guilds, the proletarianized mass crafts included a relatively large number of non-guild 'bunglers'. Frequent economic crises during the two years previous to the revolution further diminished the influence of guilds, since their support funds were depleted under the weight of progressive pauperization of great number of artisans; in addition many unemployed journeymen set themselves up as autonomous non-guild masters, the so-called 'flight into independence.'

 

Tischler Guild Banner and Symbol

 

"During the revolutionary year the guilds more openly that hitherto were interest organs for masters, a development clearly reflected in their conflicts with journeymen. Guilds formed the framework in which the masters on the local level articulated their demands. Already in the revolutionary year, against a backdrop of social conflict with the journeymen and the anxiety for a second, social revolution, the guilds exhibited an increasingly conservative tendency. The guilds' petitions had a very noticeable tendency; their clear objective was an extensive retreat from freedom of occupation, a reintroduction of the guilds' traditional controls that they had formerly enjoyed, as well as a return to political law and order. In particular at the end of the revolution the Prussian state received these wishes favorably, amending the old guild order in February 9, 1849. The new regimen laid aside the unhindered right of an person of good character to exercise a trade independently and required a proof of ability in the trade given by the guild or a the state's examining commission; the successful candidate simultaneously was made a member of the guild. Non-guild masters were given the choice of either joining the guild within a fixed period or giving up exercise of their trade. In addition the guilds' competency extended to regulation of apprentices and journeymen's training. The guilds in 1849 also took over the 'care of the common spirit' and 'strengthening pride of rank' (Standesehre), formulations the Prussian lawgiver consciously linked up to many masters' idealized old guild order. The amended Prussian trade regulation resulted in a rejuvenation and strengthening of the guilds; as a result of the increasingly difficult master examination for admission into the artisans' guild, the guild members were noticeably relieved. The state once more bound the guilds and their organized masters to it by a partial retreat from freedom of trade, thus making them an important carrier of political conservatism."

 

Stellmacher

 

Stellmacher is a skilled form of carpentry linked to manufacturing and repairing vehicles and agricultural implements, etc. The English translation is often as a wheelwright for someone who makes and mends wheels, but the work was more complex in that entire vehicles were created. German Occupation Terms reports the development of the words for coach builder (and wheel maker, wheelwright) mainly derive from wagen (coach) or a part of it. A "wagen" refers to any equipment with which something or someone can be moved. The main terms are Stellmacher (in East and Central Germany, where Bublitz is located), Radmacher (in Northwest Germany), and Wagner (High German: in South Germany, Switzerland and Austria).

A Stellmacher/Wagner Making Wheels

The picture above shows a wagon maker (wagenmaker) boring the hole for the axle of a wagon, coach or cart. Doing this he is being a wheelwright (radermaker), a sub-trade of wagon making. Both trades were considered as skilled.

 

Well into the 20th century, most goods were carried by horse and cart. Carts and wagons had large wooden wheels. Even when railways were built to the village, the farmers still used their wooden carts to carry goods around the farm and to take produce to the railway station to be loaded onto the trains.

 

 

Made of wood and bound with iron, the wheels of the carriages, wagons, and riding chairs that navigated what passed for roads had to be strong and tight, but first of all round.

 

Producing them required strength and ingenuity, a combination of the talents of the carpenter and the blacksmith (schmied). Good measuring skills were also needed.

Starting with a hub fashioned on a lathe from a properly aged wood like elm, a tapered reamer opened the center to receive a metal bearing, and the chisel created rectangular holes to take the spokes around the circumference. Carved from woods like ash, the spokes radiated to meet a rim of mortised wooden arches called fellies that joined to form a perfect circle.

The blacksmith supplied a big hoop of an iron tire precisely matched to the distance around the fellies. The wheelwright heated the tire, which expanded just enough to be coaxed on with a heavy hammer. He then doused the wheel with water so that the tire would shrink to bind the assembly.
 

As noted above, besides manufacturing carts, carriages, coaches and agricultural devices, the stellmacher was skilled at repairs. The reason why often only parts of a coach are mentioned in occupational terms is that the farmers to save money built most of their "wagen" themselves and only bought the most difficult parts from the skilled manual worker. But while sometimes a vehicle chassis (wagengestell) could be manufactured by a less well trained carpentry worker, wheel production required a specialist. Handling the rim circle or boring the wheel hub with the hub drill was something for only the most learned. As a result, the stellmacher and the schmied were generally the two most important craftsmen in the village and had to often closely work with one another.