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Tag Archives: soprano
Metal Chick of the Month – Vibeke Stene
Posted on April 2, 2015 by Gustavo Scuderi
You make my tired heart sing, Vibeke…
I guess I don't need to say that lots and lots of Gothic/Doom Metal fans got extremely excited back in June 2013, when our metal chick this month announced through her official Facebook page that she was finally coming out of her retirement to reignite her brilliant music career in Heavy Metal. I'm talking about one of the most beloved female singers of all time in heavy music, Norwegian soprano Vibeke Stene, known for her unparalleled contribution to making Norwegian Symphonic Gothic Metal band Tristania a true reference in Gothic Metal history.
Daughter of Steinar Stene and Sissel Bø Stene, Vibeke was born on August 17, 1978, in the municipality of Sokndal in Rogaland county, Norway, about 450km from the capital Oslo. Her personal life and her career seem to walk hand in hand, becoming even the same entity sometimes, as she's been fully involved with music and singing since she was a little girl. For instance, at the age of three, our diva already performed for people that were not part of her family, evidencing how much she loved music and starting to build her successful career as a singer.
It was at the age of thirteen, when she started taking singing lessons after she moved to Stavanger (about 100km from Sokndal), that she got interested in classical singing, taking lessons until the age of 23 in order to become her own teacher. By the way, not only Vibeke is the owner of a unique vocal range and an incredible charisma when she's performing live, but she also became a teacher, studying music and giving singing lessons in Stavanger, Kristiansand and Oslo.
In regards to her professional career as a singer, it's more than obvious that she left her deepest mark and became a huge heavy music idol during her years with Tristania, which was actually the very first band she joined in her life. Speaking of which, when she was 18 years old Vibeke was invited to join Tristania after attending a live concert of the band, and although she was initially supposed to be only a guest musician in their first demo, she ended up becoming a permanent member due to her incredible performance. The other members of Tristania mentioned in some interviews that Vibeke wasn't into Gothic Metal before joining the band, but a lot more into Classic Rock and Heavy Metal, which of course didn't prevent her at all from perfectly blending her voice with the band's musicality. Furthermore, her performances with Tristania were so good and so powerful it's quite impossible not to associate the band with her name even today, and it's hard to imagine Vibeke singing in a band that's not Gothic or Doom Metal.
Her awesome career as Tristania's female singer includes the demo Tristania (1997), the full-length albums Widow's Weeds (1998), Beyond the Veil (1999), World of Glass (2001), Ashes (2005) and Illumination (2007), as well as the singles Angina (1999) and Sanguine Sky (2007), two live albums, two compilations and three music videos, including the eerie official video for the excellent song Libre and the more than pleasant Equilibrium (which can be seen at the end of this text). All those albums are really good and sound very professional, but in my humble opinion the best one by far is Widow's Weeds, where Vibeke's smooth voice and Morten Veland's harsh vocals, together with a very melancholic and obscure sonority, make this album a must-have in the collection of any fan of high-quality music. Songs like Evenfall, Pale Enchantress and My Lost Lenore are those things that deserve to be included in the "never before, never again" music category.
Vibeke and Tristania always had an outstanding live performance together. For instance, they were the headliners of the 4th edition of the Metal Female Voices Fest, which happened in Wieze, Belgium, in 2006, where they shared the stage with other great bands such as Theatre of Tragedy, Delain and Xandria. I had the pleasure to see them live twice with the goddess Vibeke on vocals during their World of Glass tour in January 2002, and in March 2005 during their Ashes tour, and in both occasions it was impossible not to be impressed by her voice and moves during the entire concert.
Unfortunately for all the fans of Tristania, Vibeke left the band in February 2007 first to finish her university degree, and also because she didn't like the music direction the band was taking. And despite all the rumors about her replacing the one and only Tarja Turunen when she left Symphonic Power Metal band Nightwish, as both left their former bands almost at the same time, Vibeke was the first one to publicly confirm she was not going to be the new singer for Nightwish nor would ever be. However, we can say Tristania was not the only band in Vibeke's life: she was also a guest vocalist in three tracks (In the Realm of the Midnight Sun, My Dark Reflections of Life and Death and Under Eternal Stars) from the 2000 album Journey to the End of the Night, by Norwegian Gothic Metal band Green Carnation; guest vocalist in the interesting song Suspended Time, from the 2007 album Solar Soul by Swiss Industrial Metal band Samael; and more recently, Norwegian Electronic band Plutho released the song Queen of Broken Hearts, from their 2011 album Bob, You Don't Wanna Go There!, which features Vibeke's guest vocals. However, according to the group, this was recorded back in 1999, which means Vibeke was still officially "retired" when the song was released.
Although Vibeke still owes all her loyal and passionate fans her once promised solo album, at least we're glad she's back to the world of heavy music with her unique voice in the Extreme Metal project God of Atheists, by Norwegian musician Asgeir Mickelson, including musicians from Dimmu Borgir, Emperor, Zyklon, among others. This project is still in the making, but should be available sometime in the second half of 2015. In addition, we'll also be able to see her acting really soon, as she's making her theatre debut on stage at Kilden in Kristiansand in October, playing the title role in a play entitled "Skammens Gissel" (or "Hostage of Shame" in English).
Vibeke has mentioned more than once that her biggest influences in music do not only come from the bands and artists she enjoys listening to, but also from all the people she's been doing music together with since the beginning of her career. Besides that, among some of the greatest voices in her own opinion, we have many exceptional artists such as American diva Tori Amos, Icelandic singer and actress Björk, the unparalleled English "chameleon" David Bowie, American singer Tom Waits and American avant-garde artist Diamanda Galás. Our Gothic Metal countess also said in her interviews that she's extremely critical to whatever she's doing and she's never satisfied if the final result is not the best she can provide, and I believe this is something we can always expect from Vibeke due to her strong character and all the perfectionism that emanates from her it doesn't matter which band or project she's involved with.
Talking about her personal life, our beautiful soprano loves doing what pretty much every normal person does too, which includes reading a book, travelling, spending time with her family and friends, and enjoying a good beer. Nonetheless, despite loving doing opera, mainly because she can sing and act at the same time, she said she just hates listening to it in her free time. Maybe that's because while she's listening to opera that means she's not singing. Add to that her perfectionism, and it ends up making total sense: who can offer us a better operatic performance onstage than Vibeke, right?
If you're one of those people who have always thought Vibeke had dark brown or black hair, you might be surprised to know that she's actually a natural blond. She has however dyed her hair throughout the years, probably because dark hair has more to do with Gothic and Extreme Metal, and also because it looks like almost all blond Scandinavian girls simply love to have black hair. Finally, just as a complement to her personal profile, Vibeke is already a mother of two: she had a son in the summer of 2007, and a daughter a few years later. It's still too early to know if both kids will follow their mother's steps in life, but if they inherit at least 1% of her talent and charisma we can rest assured Norway will keep providing the world some dark and melancholic high-end heavy music.
Vibeke Stene's Official Facebook page
God of Atheists' Official Facebook page
"To sing is to be able to use and take control of your whole body to make the right sound, and not only one kind of sound, to dare to use all your weird thoughts and be able to tell something while you are singing. It's art." – Vibeke Stene
Posted in Metal Chick of the Month | Tagged asgeir mickelson, ashes, beyond the veil, doom metal, equilibrium, evenfall, extreme metal, god of atheists, gothic metal, green carnation, illumination, in the realm of the midnight sun, kilden, libre, metal female voices fest, my dark reflections of life and death, my lost lenore, norway, pale enchantress, plutho, queen of broken hearts, rogaland, samael, skammens gissel, sokndal, soprano, suspended time, symphonic gothic metal, tristania, under eternal stars, vibeke, vibeke stene, widow's weeds, world of glass | 1 Reply
Metal Chick of the Month – Dianne van Giersbergen
Posted on December 1, 2014 by Gustavo Scuderi
You will die for my love tonight!
When you think about the Netherlands, the first (if not the only) things that come to your mind are probably prostitution, drugs and those famous wooden shoes. However, you should forget about all that touristic bullshit and start admiring the true wonders of that picturesque European country: their female Heavy Metal singers. It's amazing how many talented girls can be found in such a small country, as for example Anneke van Giersbergen (Agua de Anneke, The Gathering), Sharon den Adel (Within Tempation), Charlotte Wessels (Delain), and our last Metal Chick of the year, the stunning soprano Dianne van Giersbergen, frontwoman of Dutch Progressive Metal band Ex Libris and German Symphonic Metal band Xandria.
Dianne was born on June 3, 1985 in the village of Liempde in the Netherlands, about 100km from the capital Amsterdam, but currently resides in the city of Dordrecht, close to Rotterdam, the second-largest city in the country. Her beautiful and potent voice started to be defined and polished really early in her life: when she was a kid, Dianne used to listen to many pop female singers such as Whitney Houston (R.I.P.), which developed in her a true fascination for the human voice and, at the age of four, her parents gave her as a birthday gift her first singing lessons. In the following years, she had several other music teachers and sang in different choirs.
In the year of 2005, this long dark-haired beauty began her studies in Classical Music at the ArtEZ School of Music with singer Elena Vink, and also became a trainee at the Nationale Reisopera. Besides her classical Music studies, in her free time our gorgeous soprano also braved the worlds of popular music and musical theatre. Finally, in May 2009, Dianne graduated from her studies with distinction, and her newly acquired Bachelor's also worked as the admission for her Master studies, when she improved her technique to have classical and metal music mixed together. Not only that, this nonstop diva also attended composition courses, wrote poems on behalf of composers, and was the chairman of the New Artez Student Association group of master students. We have to admit this is a very respectable resume, which makes me wonder if she somehow has part of the DNA from Iron Maiden's "multi-man", Mr. Bruce Dickinson.
Moving on to her career as a Heavy Metal singer, Dianne has been with Ex Libris since their beginning in 2003, and has already recorded the demos Drawn (2005) and Medea (2011), and the full-length albums Amygdala, in 2008, and Medea, now in 2014. In one of her interviews, she explained the reason for the name of the band. "An Ex Libris is used to indicate ownership of products of a craft-guild and can come in different forms like a seal, stamp or a brand. You could say that by naming the band Ex Libris we would like to brand our products as our own.", she said. In case you have never heard the voice of Dianne with Ex Libris, here are a few songs to make your day a lot more pleasant: From Birth to Bloodshed, A Mother's Lament, Love Is Thy Sin, and Dawn Of Sugars.
In October 2013, Dianne was chosen as the new frontwoman for Xandria, replacing German singer Manuela Kraller. She made her live debut with Xandria in November 2013 during a Spanish tour, and has recently recorded her first album with the band, entitled Sacrificium. You can for example check her astonishing voice beautifying Xandria's music in the very enjoyable song Dreamkeeper, from Sacrificium.
Besides that, she was a guest soprano for Polish Symphonic Power Metal band Pathfinder during their Blood Aliance Tour in 2011, and in December 2013 she was a guest vocalist during one of the concerts from Dutch Symphonic Gothic Metal band Stream Of Passion, when together with lead singer Marcela Bovio they performed the duettino Sull'aria, from Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro", and one of Stream of Passion's own songs. And, of course, you can always check all her other projects and videos on her official website and also on her official YouTube channel.
A woman so talented like that could never have a bad taste for music, and this can be easily seen on her awesome list of favorite bands and artists, which includes music icons such as Nightwish, Dream Theater, Tarja Turunen, Devin Townsend Project, Anneke van Giersbergen, Anathema, System of a Down, Dire Straits, and many more. And before you ask about it, despite having the same last name as Anneke, those two divas are not related at all. "We share the same surname but are very different in voice type and vocal techniques. I like her style though.", Dianne said during an interview. Not only that, she also listens to a lot of classical music (mostly choir pieces, songs and opera), with Wagner, Rachmaninoff, Zemlinsky, Berg and Verdi being among her favorite composers.
In terms of cinema and literature, Dianne once again showcases a splendid cultural background by mentioning among her favorite movies masterpieces such as Braveheart and Lord of the Rings (and anything from masters Quentin Tarantino and Tim Burton), great TV series like Breaking Bad and Lost, and everything from one of the greatest and most mysterious writers of all time, the unparalleled American poet Edgar Allan Poe. Add to that the fact that she loves French food and red wine, and there you have a perfect European "milady"!
Last but not least, Dianne even said once that she would love to have an alto (or contralto) voice for a day. If that doesn't mean anything to you, just for your reference the female voice can be divided into three categories: alto, mezzo-soprano and soprano, with the alto being the lowest standard female voice type (you can see a very good explanation of all types of voices HERE, including a perfect example of how an alto sounds like). But even after reading all that information about voice types you didn't really get it, don't worry: I'm pretty sure that, as long as our Dutch princess Dianne keeps singing Heavy Metal, your metal heart will keep beating delightfully.
Dianne van Giersbergen's Official Facebook page
Ex Libris' Official Facebook page
Ex Libris' Official Twitter
Xandria's Official Facebook page
Xandria's Official Twitter
"Smile and you will be rewarded." – Dianne van Giersbergen
Posted in Metal Chick of the Month | Tagged a mother's lament, amygdala, artez school of music, classical music, daughter of corinth, dawn of sugars, dianne van giersbergen, dordrecht, dreamkeeper, edgar allan poe, elena vink, ex libris, from birth to bloodshed, germany, heavy metal, liempde, love is thy sin, manuela kraller, medea, netherlands, pathfinder, progressive metal, red wine, sacrificium, soprano, stream of passion, symphonic metal, xandria | Leave a reply
Album Review – Xandria / Sacrificium (2014)
Posted on May 9, 2014 by Gustavo Scuderi
Listening to this album is far from being a sacrifice. Quite the opposite, it's a true pleasure.
Changing the lead singer of any band has always been considered a very a bold move, and when the music genre in question is Heavy Metal the impact of that change is even more significant due to the loyalty and connection all diehard fans usually have with the most "traditional" members of the band. In other words, this change can be a very welcome breath of fresh air to the band's musicality in some cases, or a complete disaster in others depending on how much the voice influences their music direction. Fortunately for German Symphonic Metal band Xandria their choice for the band's new lead singer, the very talented Dutch soprano Dianne van Giersbergen, ended up being better than anyone could have imagined, which can be verified in their excellent brand new album Sacrificium, the sixth in their career.
Dianne, who is also the frontwoman for Dutch Smyphonic Metal band Ex Libris, replaced German singer Manuela Kraller (who was with the band from 2010 to 2013) just before the recording of Sacrificium began, which made fans really apprehensive of what would happen with the band then. It's also the first with bassist Steven Wussow, and add to that "the choir of the sacrificed" by the PA'dam choir (from the Netherlands) and some narration by American singer Amanda Somerville and Mark Burnash, and the amount of changes and new elements compared to their previous records is even higher. However, as aforementioned, it's all for a very good purpose.
To begin with, if Sacrificium, the 10-minute epic track that opens the album, is not the most awesome "business card" Dianne could offer us, then I have no idea what could be. Xandria seems to be in very good hands (or voice) now based on what we can see in this song: after a symphonic intro, it turns into great and fast Power Metal, with Dianne's voice sounding gorgeous when blended with more modern riffs. Moreover, the good rhythm variations and breaks, the "movie soundtrack" chorus halfway through the song and all solos make it easy to follow the "story" being told, turning it into an instant fan favorite. Nightfall, the second track of the album, keeps the energy level up. It is definitely another top moment of the album with its choir intro, heavy riffs, beautiful vocals and chorus giving the song an epic touch, and it will sound amazing live without any doubt.
Then we have the semi-ballad Dreamkeeper, which despite its more melodic riffs and delicate lyrics ("I will send a dying rose / For you all to be close / To its scent that has never been") is not really an exciting song, and Stardust, where Dianne's voice is nicely complemented by some Progressive Metal elements; but it's the next song, The Undiscovered Land, which really helps elevate the overall quality of the album: this "medieval" ballad has some sort of "Lord of the Rings" intro that works pretty well, an awesome instrumental, and of course another brilliant vocal performance by Dianne. Sacrificium goes on with the pure Symphonic Power Metal song Betrayer, which takes the album back to a stronger and faster sonority, and Until the End, a "video-game" track that albeit not bad, sounds too generic compared to the rest of the album.
The last part of Sacrificium is composed by a sequence of shorter songs with a very traditional approach, where the goal seems to be showcasing Dianne's skills as a soprano. Come With Me is a very rhythmic Symphonic Metal tune with a chorus full of emotion, which can also be said about the next song, Little Red Relish, and Our Neverworld, a smooth ballad with heavier passages. Finally, we have the totally boring Temple of Hate, the worst song of all, and closing the album we have one last ballad, the melancholic and captivating Sweet Atonement, another lesson in singing by Dianne, who puts so much passion in her voice it's hard not to get thrilled with her performance.
In summary, Sacrificium is a highly recommended album for all types of female singers (not only Heavy Metal), or for lovers of bands with female vocals, but it might be too much sometimes for more traditional metal fans. I myself was going to give it a 3.0 mainly because it's not the most creative album in the world, but the choir, all the narrative, and especially the addition of the stunning Dianne to the band were so amazing it actually deserved a 3.5 in the end. Only time will tell if Dianne will be able to balance her career between Ex Libris and Xandria, but for now I'm impressed with her abilities as a musician. And what can I say about the album art? It's not only beautiful, but would it also be a message to their oldest fans saying the band's music has been reborn like a phoenix from the ashes? At least one thing we know for sure: listening to Sacrificium is not a sacrifice at all, but a very delightful experience.
Best moments of the album: Sacrificium, Nightfall, The Undiscovered Land and Sweet Atonement.
Worst moments of the album: Dreamkeeper, Until the End and Temple of Hate.
Released in 2014 Napalm Records
1. Sacrificium 10:21
2. Nightfall 4:02
3. Dreamkeeper 4:36
4. Stardust 4:00
5. The Undiscovered Land 7:34
6. Betrayer 6:15
7. Until the End 5:47
8. Come With Me 3:46
9. Little Red Relish 4:39
10. Our Neverworld 3:51
11. Temple of Hate 5:59
12. Sweet Atonement 4:20
Dianne van Giersbergen – vocals
Marco Heubaum – vocals, guitar, keyboard
Philip Restemeier – guitar
Steven Wussow – bass
Gerit Lamm – drums
Posted in 2014 New Releases | Tagged amanda somerville, choir of the sacrificed, dianne van giersbergen, ex libris, gerit lamm, germany, marco heubaum, mark burnash, napalm records, netherlands, nightfall, pa'dam choir, philip restemeier, power metal, progressive metal, sacrificium, soprano, steven wussow, sweet atonement, symphonic metal, the undiscovered land, xandria | 1 Reply
Metal Chick of the Month – Jayn Maiven
Metal Chick of the Month – Adrienne Cowan


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7418 Windsor Avenue, Spring Grove, IL, 60081
Courtesy of: Baird & Warner
Richmond-burton Community High SHigh School
Address: 7418 Windsor Avenue
County: Mc Henry
City: Spring Grove
Neighborhood: Fox Lake Vista
Large Wooded Lot just over 1/2 an acre (5 1/2 Parcel lots). The additional half lot not buildable. Nestled in a residential neighborhood. (Neighboring houses values in the 200k+ Range on quarter acre lots.) Possibly Build 2 Houses. Not in a Flood Zone. At one time listed for $60,000. Close to Chain of Lakes, Fox Lake Country Club and Pillow Hill Airport. Buyer responsible for Due Diligence. (Address number is approximated). GREAT VALUE
150 Red Top Drive #101, Libertyville, IL, 60048
41 Longmeadow Road, Winnetka, IL, 60093
4707 S IL Route 47, Woodstock, IL, 60098
1720 Boulder Drive, Darien, IL, 60561
3137 Riley Road, Montgomery, IL, 60538
95 W South Drive, Lakemoor, IL, 60051
7214 S Saint Lawrence Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60619
Courtesy of: Baird & Warner Based on information submitted to the MRED as of date and time shown below. All data is obtained from various sources and has not been, and will not be, verified by broker or MRED. MRED supplied Open House information is subject to change without notice. All information should be independently reviewed and verified for accuracy. Properties may or may not be listed by the office/agent presenting the information. © 2022. http://www.mredllc.com/comms/resources/DMCA_Notice.pdf Updated: 1st February, 2023 9:48 PM (UTC)


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Bourbon Co. Auction a huge success!!
We are so grateful to live and operate in Frederick, it is truly our home for this very reason. Thank you to everyone who came out last week to participate in our Goose Island Beer Dinner. With your generosity and compassion, you raised over $600 to benefit the Hurwitz Breast Cancer Fund, a fund of Frederick Memorial Hospital. Amazing people you are, we humbly always hold a seat for you, where real people come to drink real beer, thank you Frederick!


Note: *Department of Information and Knowledge Management.
The available evidence reveals that although librarians have made good progress in adapting library Services and products to current realities, usage of libraries remains low.
This situation has been attributed partly to the poor marketing of library services to actual and potential users. Therefore, the library services delivered using shoestring budgets are barely used, occasioning great "losses" to the libraries and their communities. Social media marketing offers a unique opportunity for libraries to increase their visibility and usage by taking services and products to the platforms where their actual and potential users already "hang out." Many libraries in Africa are experimenting with diverse social media marketing tools in an ad hoc manner with mixed results. This chapter is a practical guide that libraries can use to enhance their competitive advantage through social media marketing. It offers step-by-step action plans and tips on social media marketing for African libraries.


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1. Always consider your objectives and your decisions will be made easier. What is it you want to get out of the party? Is it to reward and motivate your staff? To entertain your clients? Or to just have a good old knees up with friends?
2. Be realistic about your budget. With the purse strings a little tighter at this time of year it is better to be clear at the start of your planning on what budget you can realistically afford. This will stop you having that 'look what you could've won feeling'.
3. Select and book your venue as early as possible. Christmas is an extremely busy period and you may find that venues as well as entertainment books up pretty quickly. Book early to avoid disappoint.
4. For maximum impact and wow factor choose a theme. Whether that's going for some warmer colours or choosing a winter wonderland or enchanted forest look, it will ensure that guests get right into the festive mood.
5. Set the tone with some themed invitations. Why not set up a RSVP website and leave all the admin to someone else? We find that the replies, dietary requirements gathering etc. is the most time consuming job when it comes to organising a Christmas party, so by making it as simplistic as possible it ensures your time can be spent on other things. A teaser campaign can really get your guests exited about what might be in store for them.
6. Ask the venue/caterer for a menu tasting before the event. There is nothing more disappointing than a menu or buffet which fails to live up to expectations, which is why a taste test is so important. To save time, you could combine this with a table decor viewing ensuring the linen, table centres, chairs and props are to your liking and you get a real feel of what the event will look like before you turn up.
7. Go for the unexpected. Don't be afraid to try entertainment which is new and upcoming rather than choosing a band which has been doing the rounds for years. Get good advice on who to book, there are often show cases which you can attend to try before you buy.
8. Don't scrimp on a photographer. Once the hard work is over the photos will let the event live on for longer and be a great reference point. A bad photographer will leave only (sometimes hazy) memories of a Christmas party night.
9. Ensure you leave enough time for you. Ensuring that you look party ready is just as important as the party itself, so why not recruit an extra pair of hands to do some of the last minute party preening, leaving you with time to look after yourself?
10. ENJOY YOURSELF. That's what Christmas parties are all about – celebrating with your workmates after a busy and hopefully successful year. So make sure you let your hair down and enjoy the fruits of your hard work.
Roselle Events which has offices in Aberdeen and Edinburgh has a decade of experience in working with a range of blue chip clients organising events which includes conferences, incentive and recognition days, award dinners, dinner dances and product launches.
Most recently the firm sponsored and organised Harvey Nichols' tenth birthday party in Edinburgh.
Roselle's sister company Thirty Eleven Seventy creates extravagantly themed parties for important occasions including birthdays, anniversaries and retirements.


text:
Absolute Hits 2011 er et dansk opsamlingsalbum udgivet 7. november 2011 af EMI. Albummet er en dobbelt-cd bestående dels af nogle af de største hits fra sidste halvdel af år 2011, og dels nogle af de seneste 30 års største dansehits.

Trackliste

CD1 NYE HITS
 Rasmus Seebach / "I Mine Øjne"
 Katy Perry / "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"
 Ankerstjerne / "Nattog"
 Medina / "For Altid"
 Christopher / "Against The Odds"
 Nik & Ras / "Fugt I Fundamentet" (feat. Pharfar & Burhan G)
 Bruno Mars / "The Lazy Song"
 Malk de Koijn / "Toback To The Fromtime"
 Adele / "Set Fire To The Rain"
 Rune RK & Stanley Most / "Kom Kom"
 Flo Rida / "Good Feeling"
 Delilah / "Go" (Delilah V Balistiq)
 L.O.C. feat. U$O / "Momentet"
 Freja Loeb / "Never Stop Coming Back"
 Kidd / "Ik Lavet Penge"
 David Guetta feat. Flo Rida & Nicki Minaj / "Where Them Girls At"
 Thomas Holm / "Knep Smerten Væk"
 Eric Amarillo / "Fy Fan" (Radio Edit)
 Lady Antebellum / "Just A Kiss"
 Naja Rosa / "Take You There"

CD2 Klassiske party hits
 Cut 'N' Move / "Give It Up"
 Kleerup feat. Robyn / "With Every Heartbeat"
 L.O.C. / "XXXcouture"
 New Order / "Blue Monday"
 Gnarls Barkley / "Crazy"
 TV-2 / "De Første Kærester På Månen"
 Erasure / "A Little Respect"
 Blondie / "Heart Of Glass" (7" Version)
 David Guetta feat. Kelly Rowland / "When Love Takes Over"
 The Communards / "Never Can Say Goodbye"
 Kelis / "Milkshake"
 Everything But The Girl / "Missing" (The Todd Terry Radio Edit)
 Chic / "Le Freak"
 Nik & Jay / "Lækker"
 Billy Idol / "Craddle Of Love"
 Hot Chocolate / "You Sexy Thing" (Ben Liebrand Sexy Edit)
 Mark Morrison / "Return Of The Mack" (C&J Edit)
 Laid Back / "Sunshine Reggae" (Funkstar Deluxe Radio Mix)
 Röyksopp / "The Girl And The Robot"
 Sister Sledge / "We Are Family"

Eksterne henvisninger
 Absolute Hits 2011 Trackliste

Album fra 2011
Hits 2011

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
William A. Potthast (1862-1935)
William A. Potthast
William, Vincent, Theodore, and John Potthast, all of whom had trained as cabinetmakers in their native Germany, built up a successful Baltimore furniture company that specialized in producing replicas of eighteenth-century American furniture. Over time, the Potthast brothers established a reputation for putting Old World European craft skills to use in the manufacture of Colonial Revival pieces.
Author » Randall Donaldson, Loyola University	Published: November 03, 2015 Updated: April 21, 2016
The Founding of Potthast Brothers: The Historical and Local Context
The Growth and Development of Potthast Bros., Inc.
Community and Ethnicity
William (Wilhelm) Albert Potthast was born in 1862 into a Westphalian family whose connection to the furniture-making trade stretched back more than two hundred years.[1] In June 1892, at age twenty-nine, Potthast left his native village of Borgholz and travelled to Baltimore, departing by steamship from Bremerhaven. He had set out for Baltimore at the urging of his younger brother Vincent, who had settled there almost exactly a year earlier. Vincent had been amazed by the speed with which he had found a job there (at the Knabe Piano Factory), and he had encouraged William, who, like himself, was a trained cabinetmaker, to join him in the United States. Upon his arrival, William also found a job at Knabe, a well-known German-American firm. A few months later, he and Vincent began repairing furniture in their living quarters during off-hours. Their fledgling effort soon blossomed into a joint business venture, in which they repaired used and antique furniture and also made new furniture modeled on the classic styles of well-known eighteenth-century English cabinetmakers such as Heppelwhite, Sheraton, and Chippendale. The partnership, which eventually expanded to include their younger brothers John and Theodore (who arrived in Baltimore in 1894 and 1899, respectively), became officially known as Potthast Bros., Inc.
The history of Potthast Bros. furniture can be divided into four periods, each lasting approximately twenty years. The first phase extends from William's arrival in 1892 and the founding of the business to the First World War. It was a period in which the Potthasts established a reputation for high-quality furniture restoration and began to manufacture period reproductions. The second dates from about 1914 through the start of the Great Depression. It was a period of continued growth and expansion during which the Potthasts became increasingly involved in the manufacture of Colonial Revival furniture. The third period comprises the years of the Depression through the end of the Second World War. This period saw the death of William Potthast, in 1935, and the rise of the second generation of Potthasts, who began to assume leadership roles in the company. Despite the impact of contemporary events, this phase, too, was one of prosperity and growth. The final phase includes the postwar years and extends to the retirement of John's son Theodore J. Potthast, Sr., in 1975 and the closing of the business.
Although the firm was a family affair from inception to dissolution, William Potthast is generally acknowledged as its driving force. During its eighty-three year existence, Potthast Bros. became a Baltimore institution whose name was recognized far beyond Maryland's borders. Over the years, the firm had its ups and downs, but it managed to survive – and even flourish – over decades that witnessed worldwide economic crises, two World Wars, and anti-German sentiment.[2] Today, Potthast furniture is highly regarded by collectors and fetches significant prices at auctions and estate sales.[3] Many Potthast pieces are still in use: in fact, the mahogany desk that sits in the governor's private office in the Maryland State House bears the Potthast label.[4]
The story starts at Castle Maygadessen, located in a thinly populated area at the far Eastern border of the current federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The castle and the surrounding estate lie about twenty kilometers from Borgholz, a Westphalian village within the jurisdiction of Borgentreich in the vicinity of Höxer, the current Kreisstadt, or county seat. On June 18, 1831, one Franz Potthast was born at Castle Maygadessen. Franz, who worked as a furniture maker, would ultimately marry Caroline Gertrud Gutbertlet,[5] who herself came from a family of cabinetmakers in Borgholz. Franz and Lena, as Caroline was known, had ten children, four daughters and six sons, including William, Vincent (1865-1911), John (1870-1962), and Theodore (1875-1962). The family was Catholic and the children were raised accordingly.
As a youth, William Potthast, who eventually became the unofficial leader of the Potthast Bros. firm, trained as an apprentice cabinetmaker with his father. Thereafter, he went to Berlin, where he received further training as a journeyman cabinetmaker with a prominent firm, which was largely patronized by the nobility.[6] William's younger brother Vincent (Adolph Vinzenz) trained as a cabinetmaker, as well. According to family lore, in May 1891, twenty-five-year-old Vincent found himself in a situation that would ultimately change his life path (and also those of William, John, and Theodore). As the story goes, one night, Vincent attended a party in Borgholz. The festivities got out of hand, and Vincent found himself in a fight. He knocked his opponent down. When his adversary failed to get up, Vincent assumed that he had accidently killed the man. He quickly fled the scene, hurrying some 300 kilometers up the nearby Weser River to Bremerhaven, where he boarded the first available ship, which happened to be sailing for Baltimore. As it turned out, Vincent had not killed anyone. His opponent had merely been knocked out. The man said he bore Vincent no ill will, and a messenger was dispatched to Bremerhaven to convince Vincent to return to Borgholz. However, by the time the messenger arrived, Vincent's ship had already departed.
Although the specifics of Vincent's departure from Borgholz are difficult to document, there is evidence that he arrived in Baltimore from Bremerhaven on July 2, 1891, abroad the München, a medium-sized Norddeutscher Lloyd steamship, which made round-trip voyages from Bremen to Baltimore once or twice a month. He found employment almost immediately as a cabinetmaker at the Knabe Piano Factory. Encouraged by the relative ease with which he had found work, Vincent wrote to his brothers in Germany and urged them to come to Baltimore, where he was certain they would find good jobs as well. At the time, the prospects for financial security seemed much rosier in Baltimore than on the other side of the Atlantic. William arrived in June 1892, John (Johann Anton) in November 1894[7] (on his twenty-fourth birthday), and Theodore (Theodor Joseph) finally came on September 1, 1899.[8]
On the whole, Vincent, William, and John Potthast brothers followed similar patterns in their journey to Baltimore and in their behavior once they had disembarked. (Because Theodore arrived significantly later, his experience was somewhat different.) For instance, each of the three traveled on a medium-sized Norddeutscher Lloyd steamship from Bremerhaven to Baltimore, with possible intermediate stops at Southhampton or New York. After reaching Baltimore, all three found jobs at Knabe Piano almost immediately.
Both Vincent and William Potthast married within a year or two of their arrival. Each married young women who had recently emigrated from Germany as well. Vincent married Anna Caroline "Lena" Rehrmann on August 30, 1892, a little more than a year after settling in Baltimore. The couple moved into a home at 124 W. Saratoga in Baltimore, near Park Avenue and the St. Alphonsus Catholic Church. Between 1894 and 1909, they had seven children, three sons and four daughters, at approximately two-year intervals. When William first arrived in Baltimore, he lived with Vincent and Lena. But after his own marriage, to Anna Leib (1867-1923), on September 12, 1893, he and his new wife moved two blocks away to 609 W. Mulberry. Over the next twenty years, the couple had nine children, three sons and six daughters. Three of their children died before reaching maturity. John Potthast married on May 9, 1899, almost five years after he arrived. His wife, Margaret Leib (b. 1874), was the younger sister of Anna Leib. John and Margaret lived in the seven hundred block of West Saratoga. Theodore arrived in 1899, the same year as John's marriage. He initially lived with William and Anna. He worked from the beginning in the family furniture business, which was reasonably well established by then. In 1911, Theodore married Maria Schenke, who, like himself was a first-generation German immigrant. All of the Potthasts married in the Catholic Church: Vincent was wed at St. James Roman Catholic Church; William, John, and Theodore were married at St. Alphonsus, which was located in their neighborhood.
Potthast Bros. always dated its founding as 1892, the year in which William arrived in Baltimore. Indeed, William's crucial role in the founding of the firm was highlighted in a 1904 article in Der Deutsche Correspondent [The German Correspondent], a German-language newspaper published in Baltimore from 1841 to 1918. The article identifies William as the primary founder of what was, at the time, a "modest" firm.[9]
On the surface, the 1890s would not seem a particularly propitious time to leave Germany for the United States. Economic conditions in the United States were certainly better than those in Europe, but even those with economic clout struggled during that decade. Indeed, in its day, the Depression of 1893 was the steepest financial decline ever experienced in the United States. Hundreds of banks closed, railroads were forced into bankruptcy, thousands of businesses failed, crop prices fell, and farms ceased operation. Although the statistics differ slightly from source to source, all agree that unemployment rose steadily during the 1890s, peaking at mid-decade at around fifteen percent and returning to earlier levels only in 1899.
Vincent and William Potthast arrived early enough to experience the worst of the economic downturn. Still, they were able to start and grow a business that achieved tremendous success. To be sure, the training and skill that they had acquired in Germany was a major factor in their success. At the same time, however, it must be said that the brothers benefitted from circumstances that were virtually unique to Baltimore in the last decade of the nineteenth century. Three factors, in particular, converged to benefit their company, which specialized in repairing, restoring, and reproducing antique furniture: the expansion plans of the Norddeutscher Lloyd steamship company, the growth and expansion of the Knabe Piano Company, and the geographic location of Baltimore, a port city that was at once the northernmost Southern city on the Eastern seaboard and the southernmost Northern city in the mid-Atlantic region.
The town of Baltimore was originally laid out in 1730. The original "Baltimoretowne" consisted of sixty lots of approximately one acre each rising from a riverbank in the south (today's Inner Harbor) to high bluffs in the north and to the marshes adjacent to Jones Falls in the east. At the midpoint of the eighteenth century, Baltimore was "a mere village of twenty-five houses,"[10] although growth accelerated during the 1760s. On the eve of the Revolutionary War, there were almost 600 houses built on approximately 200 acres.[11] The little town was clearly expanding, both in area and population, but it was no rival to New York or Philadelphia. Although Maryland was a proprietary colony that was tolerant of diverse peoples and faiths, particularly Roman Catholics, it was too small and too ill-served by the various shipping companies to attract the earliest groups of German immigrants, such as the Palatines. Those German-speaking immigrants who settled in Maryland in the early days came largely over land from Pennsylvania.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Baltimore had grown to more than 40,000 residents and had an export trade volume of more than $15,000,000 in merchandise per year ($15 million in 1800 is equal to approximately $227 million in 2011[12]). By 1815, the long series of wars in Europe had come to an end, but crop failures all over Northern and Central Europe in 1816 and 1817 meant that, despite the peace, many people saw little improvement in their everyday lives. Some 60,000 Germans, mainly from Swabia and the Rhineland left home. In the years following the Congress of Vienna (1815/16), Baltimore became a gateway for those and other German emigrants. By 1820, thanks in part to this emigration wave, Baltimore had become both the third largest port and the third largest city in the United States, officially surpassing Philadelphia in the period 1830 to 1860.[13]
In the 1820s, German shipping lines grew and prospered due to the profitability of bringing German emigrants to American shores. (For the return journey, the vessels could be loaded with hogsheads of tobacco or other American staple products.) While relatively few German ships had come to America in the earlier days, the Hanseatic seaports made great strides in regaining their one-time importance. The growth of transatlantic trade from the ports of Bremen and Hamburg coincided almost precisely with the expansion of the port of Baltimore, and a close relationship ensued, especially between Bremen and Baltimore.
Baltimore was particularly well situated to accommodate incoming trade from Europe, because it lay in the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay with easy access to inland shipping along river waterways like the Susquehanna. However, the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825 and created a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean at the Port of New York to the Great Lakes, gave New York City an edge. In fact, New York eclipsed Philadelphia in importance after the opening of the canal. Business leaders in Baltimore were concerned and came up with a strategy: the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was chartered, incorporated, and organized in 1827. Although the B & O was not the first rail company in the United States, it was the first to offer regular passenger and freight service between major American cities, making Baltimore an attractive port city through which to access significant markets all over the United States. By 1857, through the building of its own rail lines and a series of strategic mergers and acquisitions, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad offered service as far as St. Louis, effectively connecting the Eastern seaboard with the Mississippi River.
The American Civil War interrupted transatlantic trade mid-century, but during Reconstruction and thereafter, as the economy recovered and industrialization brought increased demand for the type of cheap labor often supplied by immigrants, Baltimore was well positioned to accommodate the growing numbers of German immigrants who arrived in search of homes and jobs. The Library of Congress identifies 1882 as the year in which the largest number of immigrants from German-speaking areas entered the United States. One-quarter million individuals entered in that year alone, with 1.5 million arriving over the course of the whole decade. According to records in the Enoch Pratt Free Public Library, 41,739 of the approximately 250,000 German-speaking immigrants who arrived in 1882, or a little more than one-sixth, entered through the port of Baltimore.[14]
By 1880, Baltimore was the seventh largest city in the United States in terms of population with slightly more than one-third of a million inhabitants. Almost twenty-five percent of Baltimoreans were immigrants from German-speaking areas or the children of those immigrants. If it wasn't already, Baltimore was rapidly becoming an attractive destination for immigrants from German-speaking areas of Europe. In his definitive work The Maryland Germans, Dieter Cunz notes that:
On March 30, 1868, a bill became law: 'Every public general law …shall immediately after its passage be published, at the expense of the state, daily for one week in two daily newspapers of the city of Baltimore, one of which shall be printed in the German language….' This law remained in existence for more than seventy years; it was abolished only during the second World War [sic].[15]
As Baltimore became a more popular destination for emigrants from the German Empire, it also became a more attractive site for business. On February 20, 1857, the same year that the B & O extended its service as far as St. Louis, the Nordeutscher Lloyd Steamship Company was founded. Ten years later, on January 21, 1867, Norddeutscher Lloyd contracted with the B & O to combine services and permit passengers embarking in Bremen to purchase a single ticket for passage via steamship and then rail from the Baltic through to Chicago or other Midwestern destinations, thus further enhancing Baltimore's attractiveness for German emigrants. In 1888, Norddeutscher Lloyd commissioned the first of eight medium-sized steamers dubbed the "city class" [Städte-klasse].[16] As each was launched, it was put into service on a number of routes, but almost invariably the run from Bremerhaven to Baltimore (often with intermediate stops in Southhampton and New York) was among the itineraries. The wisdom of that decision and the popularity of the route is, in fact, born out by the experience of the Potthast brothers. Vincent Potthast arrived on the München, William and John on the Stuttgart, but two years apart, and Theodore on the Mainz. For virtually any emigrant departing from Westphalia, a voyage to the United States almost necessarily ended in Baltimore.
In the meantime, the economy was improving across the United States, and Baltimore, primarily because of its geographic location, benefitted in a number of ways. For the future well-being of the Potthast brothers, the most important development was the Knabe Piano Company's decision to renovate and expand its facilities in Baltimore. Knabe had been founded in 1839 by first-generation German immigrant William Knabe. Thirty years later, the company, now run by his sons William Jr. and Ernest, decided to construct bigger quarters. In 1869, Knabe built a new factory on the corner of West and Eutaw, where the home stadium of the Baltimore Ravens is currently situated. The building was immense, filling approximately the same space occupied by the stadium complex today. Knabe had its own railway spur to deliver lumber and employed over 200 men in its new five-story, L-shaped building, which was crowned on the Eutaw Street side by a huge and distinctive cupola that eventually came to function as an unofficial company emblem. Business was thriving, and the company was in desperate need of qualified skilled labor. Knabe carried out every step of the piano-building process within the new facility. By 1890, the company employed over 300 men and produced as many as seventy pianos a week. The situation was made-to-order for a skilled cabinetmaker from Europe, and it is hardly surprising that William, Vincent, and John Potthast found work so quickly.
If Baltimore's standing as one of the leading port cities in the United States during the nineteenth century was important for German immigrants like the Potthast brothers, then its location midway along the Atlantic seaboard between the industrial Northeast and the agricultural South was just as critical for the development of Potthast Bros., Inc. During the American Civil War, Maryland remained in the Union, but sentiment for the Southern cause was rife throughout the state. The war itself ultimately destroyed an established way of life and left devastation in its wake. Many a Southern gentleman or gentlewoman found him- or herself impoverished and destitute. The trappings and accoutrements of a former way of life – including eighteenth-century mahogany furniture handcrafted in Britain and transported to the New World by early colonists in Virginia and the Carolinas – fell into disuse and disrepair. For two enterprising young Baltimore cabinetmakers, the opportunity to establish themselves in the business of repairing and restoring antique furniture lay just to the south in Virginia. Baltimore was a gateway to the South, but it was fortunate in that it had suffered less under the vicissitudes of war. Wealthy, older residents were largely able to maintain their previous lifestyles. There were immigrants and freed blacks to help rebuild, and the city was connected by rail not only to the developing West but also to the markets of the North, particularly New York City.
Shortly after William arrived in Baltimore, he and Vincent began repairing furniture in their living quarters during the evenings. Much of the work was solicited locally, but from the beginning they also sought out commissions further afield. The rundown estates and manor houses of the South were among their best customers, and those jobs paid double dividends, so to speak. If a customer wanted a piece repaired, for instance, the brothers would pick it up, carry out the repair, and return it to its owner. While the item was in their possession, they would also make sketches, or even wax impressions of the piece, which they would then use as the basis for later replicas. Years earlier, during his apprenticeship in Berlin, William had trained as a graphic artist, and he put those drawing skills to good use on behalf of the new firm. In addition to sketching pieces that had been taken in for repair, William also visited museums, where he sketched antique furniture that was on display. Sometimes, when the guards weren't looking, he even backed up to the carved leg of a table or chair while palming a ball of modeling clay – all in an effort to secure an impression that could prove useful later.
When a Potthast Bros. client received his or her piece back, it was restored to its original condition and included a label that listed the firm's business addresses (factory and showroom). The label attested to the quality of the repair, but also served as a marketing device insofar as it included contact information. Thus, repair work proved beneficial to the firm not only as a source of income, but also as a marketing strategy and as source of information. Eventually, the information that the brothers obtained during repairs enabled them to create brand new replicas, which they would then sell with yet other labels (here, ones attesting to the quality of the product rather than the repair). Over time, they built a reputation both for their expert restorations and their reproductions.
By 1895, Vincent and William Potthast were living on Howard Street, which is known to this day as Antique Row. For a number of years, one or the other lived over the shop at 321 North Howard. By 1899, the firm relocated to 507 North Howard Street; by then, the Potthast brothers (John and Theodore had since joined them) themselves lived elsewhere but none of the four was more than five minutes on foot from the business. In 1903, they decided to separate the sales and manufacturing sides of the business. In 1904, five years after moving into 507 North Howard, Potthast Bros. acquired additional space at 506-508 North Tyson Street. At that point, the Howard Street address became a showroom, and the Tyson Street location became the new workshop. The opening of the workshop in the spring of 1904 was greeted with enthusiasm by Baltimore's German-language press. On April 29, 1904, the Deutsche Correspondent, which was full of praise for the new three-story workshop (and the business as a whole), noted that within a month, the facility would be in "full operation," providing jobs for numerous cabinetmakers. While their praise may have been slightly partisan, it was not unwarranted: over the course of their first decade in operation, the Potthast brothers had built up a solid book of business, and the enterprise was on excellent footing. Moreover, the business was lucky enough to have survived the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, which had occurred only two months earlier. Neither the showroom nor the factory suffered damage, as both were located north of the affected area.[17]
By that time, Potthast Bros. had already acquired such an excellent reputation for their restorations that many American museums were sending them antiques in need of repair. Likewise, important collectors relied on them as well. The brothers' clients, for example, included Baltimore physician William Crim, who was one of America's foremost collectors of antiques. Some years earlier, Dr. Crim had acquired a Chippendale chair, which he sent to the Potthasts for repair. According to descendent Georg Potthast, while the chair was in the brothers' possession, William made Plaster of Paris molds of it.[18] Apparently, William also took measurements and made drawings of this and other pieces in Crim's famous collection.[19]
Crim died in 1902 and his entire antique collection was sold at auction in Baltimore in 1903. The enormous auction and its record-setting prices drew much public notice, and the brothers decided to capitalize on what they rightly viewed as a significant sales opportunity. They went back to the drawings and casts and made reproductions of several items in the auction catalog, including the Chippendale chair. In light of the increased public interest and demand, these items became best sellers.[20] The reproduction of the Chippendale chair, known as the "Crim chair," proved the most popular and profitable item. According to Potthast scholar Catherine Rogers Arthur, this "best-selling model" continues to remain popular today.[21]
The success of the Crim series must be viewed within the context of the contemporary vogue for reproductions and period furniture. At the turn of the century, a range of publications – from art books to women's magazines to interior decorating guides – helped spark a national interest in American antique furniture. Moreover, the influential interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe, a Potthast client, emphasized the merits of reproductions, which she deemed preferable to rare antiques for everyday use.[22] The Potthasts benefitted enormously from this historical context, and their enterprise grew accordingly.
To be sure, growth was not without its difficulties. The year 1907 is a case in point. By that time, Potthast Bros. had both an excellent reputation for Colonial Revival furniture and a sizable inventory of reproductions. The firm lent seventy-nine pieces to the Jamestown Exhibition in Norfolk, Virginia, a world's fair celebrating the three-hundredth anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. The fair ran from April through November 1907, and the Potthasts took part in the exhibition with the intention of bringing their work to a wider audience and ultimately selling some pieces after the fair's conclusion. Although participation in the event likely enhanced the company's reputation, it did not yield the expected financial return. To make matters worse, in October 1907, just as the exhibition was winding down, a failed attempt to gain control of the United Copper Company led to a run on the New York Stock Exchange and the imminent threat of a nationwide bank collapse. At the time, there was no Federal Reserve system to shore up failing banks, and, in the end, J. P. Morgan himself almost singlehandedly restored financial order by pledging his own funds to rescue the banks and by encouraging his very wealthy friends to do the same. A crisis was ultimately averted, but after that few businesses had an appetite for speculative or unnecessary purchases. Contemporary correspondence between Potthast Bros. and Tiffany Studios in New York (with whom the Potthast brothers had already had numerous business dealings) shows that the Potthasts had hoped to negotiate a bulk purchase of the inventory from the exhibition in Norfolk. Unfortunately, in the wake of the financial panic, nothing came of their efforts.
Despite this and other setbacks, Potthast Bros. furniture found a way to continue thriving. Payroll and sales records dating from around 1905 point to an increase in both staff and sales. On the whole, documentation of this sort is helpful insofar as it can reveal the specifics of customer relations and chart the ebb and flow of the business cycle. It is more difficult, however, to reconstruct the thinking that informed the brothers' business strategy. It would appear that their business decisions were practical and pragmatic, and based largely on the tastes and desires of their clientele.
Here, company letterbooks, which go back further than the payroll and sales records, constitute a rich source of information. The letterbook for 1914, for instance, includes a letter to Baltimore socialite and art collector Etta Cone concerning additional pieces for a bedroom suite already purchased for her sister-in-law, Mrs. Ceasar Cone.[23] The typewritten letter provides the specifics of the order and includes a careful drawing of one of the pieces. In their time, Etta Cone and her sister Claribel were part of Baltimore's intellectual and cultural elite. Today, the sisters are remembered fondly in Baltimore, because they ultimately willed their extensive collection of modern European art to the Baltimore Museum of Art, effectively assuring the museum's role as a premier venue for the art of the classical Modern period. The Cone Collection includes major works by Henri Matisse and many of his contemporaries such as Pablo Picasso, Paul Gaugin, and Paul Cézanne. Etta Cone was a long-time customer of Potthast Bros. Although perhaps not a typical customer, she was the type of client – e.g. wealthy and cultured – that the firm cultivated as its reputation for fine furniture grew. The brothers believed that these sorts of clients would be interested in learning about their pieces, and that this education would lead them to value the pieces even more. Thus, as Catherine Rogers Arthur has argued, the Potthasts sought to "mentor" their customers and "positioned themselves as arbiters of taste to their well-established, predominantly upper-class clientele."[24]
Like the Potthast brothers, the Cone sisters were German-Americans and were heavily involved in Baltimore's German community, particularly within German-Jewish circles. Their father, Herman Cone, had emigrated from Bavaria as an eighteen-year-old in 1846. He eventually settled in Baltimore, where he operated a successful dry goods business. Etta and Claribel's two brothers, Moses and Ceasar, founded a phenomenally successful cotton mill in North Carolina. Although wealthy German-Americans, such as the Cones, provided the Potthasts with substantial business, the brothers' clientele extended well beyond the city's German-American community. Their aim was to sell to all of high society, regardless of ethnicity. This may be one of the reasons why they never explicitly traded on their German heritage.
Regardless of the reason, this strategy proved wise after the outbreak of World War I in Europe. With Germany widely perceived as the aggressor, the war caused anti-German sentiment to flare on both sides of the Atlantic. For many German-American businessmen, especially brewers, the war years brought hardship, declining sales, and even bankruptcy. This was not the case, however, for the Potthast brothers. The year 1914, which witnessed the start of hostilities in Europe, marked the beginning of the second phase of the firm's history. That year, they moved their showroom north on Howard Street to larger quarters; it was the first in a series of relocations and expansions that occurred during this prosperous phase. In 1921, the brothers purchased property in southwest Baltimore (less than a mile to the west of the Knabe Piano factory) and built their own factory at 1438 Wicomico Street, replacing the Tyson Street location. The final phrase of the expansion came in 1925, when the showroom was moved to 924 North Charles Street, where it remained until the closing of the business. During the 1920s, when the business was at its peak, the firm employed about eighty men. The three brothers, William, John, and Theodore (Vincent had died in 1911 at age forty-five), drew about twelve dollars a week in pay, the equivalent of about $150 today. In lean times or when cash was short, they each took less pay, always being sure to meet payroll and pay off their debts.
The brothers' success during the war years and in the immediate postwar period was surely attributable to the quality craftsmanship for which they had become known. They may have also been helped by wartime restrictions on European exports, which gave American manufacturers a boost. It is also possible that the very focus of their firm, which by that time specialized in Colonial Revival furniture, helped them survive, and even prosper, during the war years. The Colonial Revival, for instance, offered consumers a connection with a heroic moment in America's past, and such associations may have been particularly welcome during wartime. As Catherine Rogers Arthur has noted, "the colonial revival and its material culture satisfied the needs of native-born Americans who wished to maintain and assert their heritage." At the same time, she notes, the style also satisfied the needs of immigrants, who, like the Potthasts "endeavored to be more like" their native-born peers.[25] Thus, the brother's focus on Colonial Revival furniture may have enhanced their "American" credentials, and served as a boon to business, especially during times that were difficult for many of their German compatriots. Interestingly, when President Woodrow Wilson left the White House in 1921, having seen America through World War I and the first few years of a difficult peace, he ordered a dining room suite from Potthast Bros. for his own private use.[26]
During the 1920s, the second generation of Potthasts, all of whom had been born in America, entered the business. They included William's sons, Frank J. (1894-1942) and George J. (1895-1988); John's sons, William A. (1902-1971) and Theodore J. (1905-1998); and Theodore's sons Michael Potthast (1911-1973) and Berthold (1913-1981). All six studied architectural drawing at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and started their careers with apprenticeships at the firm. None of Vincent's sons joined the firm, perhaps because Vincent himself died in 1911, when his three boys – John (1896-1971), Joseph (1907-1938), and Charles (1909-1987) – were still very young.
The original Potthast brothers in America – Vincent, William, Theodore, and John – were demanding of themselves, and they expected the same discipline and work ethic from their sons and nephews, who were carefully schooled in all aspects of the business, including the production of drawings. Company letterbooks provide at least a glimpse into the nature of that training. For example, one unsigned, undated note to a son or a nephew contains some stern but not unkind words about the unevenness of the young man's dedication to his studies.[27] On the whole, the determination to provide a quality product at a fair price seems to have governed everything they did. Certainly that spirit pervades the record of interactions with customers as preserved in other letterbooks. Most quotes on potential jobs included the phrase "guaranteed to be first class in every respect," a sentiment that was later incorporated into the certification label attached to every reproduction that left the shop.
In October 1929, when the U.S. stock market crashed, Potthast Bros., Inc., entered its third phase, which lasted through the end of the Second World War. The stock market crash ushered in a ten-year depression, during which businesses across the country floundered and closed. The Potthast brothers, however, weathered the 1930s extremely well, mostly because of prescient decisions and skillful advertising. In the late 1920s, the company decided to partner with various museums to manufacture handcrafted reproductions of pieces from certain historically significant museum collections, mostly antiques from the eighteenth century. The most popular of those collections was the Mount Vernon series (and within that collection, the Mount Vernon sideboard became one of the company's best-known pieces). The company also created furniture series based on collections from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Henry Ford's Greenfield Village. In a stroke of marketing genius in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Potthast brothers developed an advertising campaign featuring a series of brochures devoted to reproductions of pieces from these important museum collections. The campaign was an immense success. The Potthast brothers' reproductions of famous eighteenth-century pieces accorded with the zeitgeist, specifically with Americans' revived interest in their national heritage, and their furniture appealed to the tastes of wealthy and influential citizens. The decision to reproduce famous period pieces helped the brothers survive, and even prosper, during the years of the Great Depression. In fact, in the mid-1930s, when most businesses struggled, the Potthast brothers purchased additional space at 926 North Charles Street and set up showrooms in the adjoining buildings.[28]
In 1935, firm founder William Potthast died. By that time, the second generation of Potthasts was ready to assume leadership roles within the company. By the late 1930s, William's son Frank J. was secretary-treasurer; his other son, George J., was general manager of the cabinet shops. John's sons, William A. and Theodore J., were the assistant secretary-treasurer and manager of the shops, respectively. Theodore's son Michael was office manager; his other son Berthold was assistant manager in the shops. Like their fathers and uncles, these younger Potthasts made pragmatic decisions when it came to the internal functioning of the company. Even during the Second World War, they managed to recalibrate their output and adjust to wartime demands. During the war, the firm manufactured cases for sensitive equipment and completed various defense-work projects for the U.S. government.[29] That Potthast Bros., Inc., was chosen as a defense contractor during the Second World War shows the extent to which it was perceived as an American – not a German-American – firm, at least in that particular instance.
The end of the war in 1945 marked the beginning of the fourth, and final, phase of the company's history. Whereas the firm had prospered during the 1920s and 1930s, it struggled during the postwar period for various reasons, not least on account of changes in the industry and shifts in consumer tastes. One major problem was that Cuban mahogany, which had long been the standard for furniture-grade mahogany, had become increasingly scarce since the late 1920s. By the postwar period, it had been all but replaced by Honduran mahogany, which was itself expensive and often hard to obtain. Moreover, the shortage of skilled craftsmen, which had first become evident during the war, continued to worsen, and the Potthast brothers found it increasingly difficult to hire the type of highly skilled cabinetmakers capable of producing intricate handcrafted pieces. The number of people Potthast Bros., Inc., employed dropped from a high of eighty to around twenty.
Changes in consumer tastes also slowed the demand for period furniture. In the postwar period, younger consumers wanted lighter, more modernist designs, and Colonial Revival furniture seemed out of place in living rooms that now accommodated – or even featured – television sets, radios, and record players. Moreover, the Potthasts' intricate, hand-carved furniture was ill-suited to the demands of mass consumption. But it was not just society that was changing: the Potthast family was changing as well. The third generation of Potthasts, the grandchildren of the founding generation, included eight young men, none of whom was interested in taking up a career in furniture making. In the 1970s, as the remaining members of the second generation passed away or retired, the business, which had always been a family concern, inevitably wound down. In 1975, when Theodore J. Potthast, Sr., (John's son) decided to retire from the presidency of Potthast Bros., Inc., at age seventy, there was very little choice but to close the business. The company factory in the 1400 block of Wicomico Street and the retail store at 924 North Charles Street were sold. The Charles Street store became the Brass Elephant Restaurant, which itself closed in August 2009.
The brothers spent their entire adult lives in an area of West Baltimore that was no larger than about two square miles. As they became older and presumably more financially secure, they moved a few blocks further west, still within the city limits but a little closer to the more suburban developments that would become Catonsville. At the time, the area from Charles Street (which still functions as the central axis of the downtown business district and the dividing line between east and west) to Bentalou Street was a mix of heterogeneous neighborhoods. The blocks nearer Charles Street had been developed in the 1830s as the city began to expand dramatically. By the 1890s, many of the buildings had been divided up so that multiple families often occupied a single dwelling. Even those who owned their own homes frequently took in lodgers. The area was home to numerous immigrants, the majority of whom were Irish or German. Indeed, the area had a distinctively German character, as was noted by one of its best known residents, the journalist and satirist Henry Louis Mencken, who spent most of his life in a house on Union Square, the geographical center of the area, and who was also a customer of the Potthast brothers.
As mentioned previously, all four Potthast brothers married recent immigrants from Germany. Thus, it is presumable that German was spoken in their homes and that their children learned the language as well. In fact, at the time that the brothers settled in Baltimore, one could speak German virtually exclusively (with very little English) and still live a full life, both personally and professionally. This would have been true at least until the First World War. Despite becoming American citizens,[30] the brothers remained loyal to their German roots throughout their lives. Their training in cabinet making, of course, was very much in the Old World tradition, and they continued to work in this tradition even after arriving in the United States. That being the case, the Potthast brothers often sponsored skilled young craftsmen from abroad. In many instances, they even made arrangements to bring specific individuals from Borgholz, or elsewhere, to work in the shop. There is also evidence that they recruited within Baltimore's German-American community. The August 21, 1899, edition of the Deutsche Correspondent includes a German-language job listing by the Potthast brothers, who were looking to hire "numerous carpenters" to work on "fine furniture." In another listing, from the April 22, 1901, edition, they expressed interest in hiring a "first-rate carpenter" for a permanent position. Since the Potthast brothers advertised in a German-language newspaper, it is presumable that they wanted to hire immigrants who, like themselves, had been trained in Germany.
After the Potthasts achieved a measure of success in America, they began making return trips to Germany to visit friends and relatives back home. In May 1909, for instance, William Potthast applied for a U.S. passport, which was issued on June 1 of that year. He sailed to Bremen from Baltimore on June 16,[31] and returned to the United States from Cuxhaven, Germany, in September 1909.[32] At the time, the Potthast brothers still had three sisters living in Germany: Mrs. Anna Marx, Mrs. Mary Epping, and Miss Josephine Potthast.[33] Three years later, John Potthast made a return trip as well. According to Der Deutsche Correspondent, John was one of the "many prominent Baltimore Germans" to return to "the old homeland" on the steamship Rhein, which departed from Baltimore on June 15, 1912.[34]
Travel to Germany would have been difficult during World War I (1914-1918), and also during the first years of peace. In the mid-1920s, the Potthast brothers started travelling to Germany again. In April 1924, Theodore applied for a U.S. passport to travel to Holland and Germany. On his passport application, he listed the purpose of the trip as "visit relatives" and "sightseeing."[35] In 1925, William made another trip back to Germany, presumably to visit with family members.[36] Apparently, the Potthast family tradition of trips to Germany still continues to this day, with family members travelling from Baltimore to Borgholz and other destinations in the Federal Republic.
The Potthasts' engagement in Baltimore's German-American community is reflected in Der Deutsche Correspondent, which frequently featured advertisements for the firm. The brothers' names (and those of their wives and children) also found mention in the paper's society columns, which reported, for instance, on their attendance at various social events within the German-American community, including lavish anniversary parties. According to an obituary published in The Report, the journal of the Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland, William Potthast "was interested in all matters concerning his fellow racials [sic] and German-American organizations."[37] He was a long-time member of the city's German Society, and he supported Baltimore's German Aged People's Home. Additionally, he served as treasurer of the Schley Unit of the Steuben Society. Within the broader community, he served as director of St. Joseph's Hospital and as a director of St. Anthony's Orphan Asylum. Though he died relatively young, Vincent Potthast was also an active member of the German-American community: he was a member of the Seventy German Brothers' Association and, according to his obituary, "took an active interest in the work of St. Alphonsus' Catholic Church."[38] Once described as the "German cathedral," St. Alphonsus served the German Catholic community in Baltimore.[39] By all appearances, all four Potthast brothers remained true to their German Catholic upbringing throughout the duration of their lives. The same could likely be said of the members of the second generation of Potthasts in America. For example, Theodore J. Potthast (1905-1998), the last president of Potthast Bros., Inc., was a member of St. Pius X Roman Catholic Church in Baltimore and the German Society of Maryland.[40]
In certain respects, the Potthast brothers and the company they founded and managed were not exceptional. The work was hard, and the economic conditions often difficult. No one became extraordinarily rich or famous; there are no monumental achievements to celebrate. Nonetheless, the story of Potthast Bros., Inc., is remarkable, not so much because it is the story of William Potthast and his three brothers, but because together they brought the company through prosperous times and lean times, from the boom years of the early twentieth century, when Baltimore was a decidedly German city, through the anti-German hysteria of the First World War, the Great Depression, yet another world war, and finally the postwar period. Over time, Potthast Bros. furniture did, of course, become famous, or at least extremely well known and valued in certain circles. Their customer list doubles as a directory of presidents, governors, and artists; among their clients were the social elite of Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, not to mention the abundantly wealthy across the United States and overseas. Yet, it was always the furniture that was the star. The names of the individual brothers or other family members were hardly ever mentioned. Virtually all correspondence, every drawing or invoice was produced and issued in the name of Potthast Bros., Inc. In this respect, with its collective emphasis, the company operated along the lines of an Old World guild. In the final analysis, the company always had a remarkably clear sense of itself. It dealt with each customer with respect, yet was always guided by a sense of fairness that brooked no nonsense when anyone demanded the impossible or offered lame excuses for shortcomings.
Certainly there was some element of serendipity in the long-term success of the firm. As it turned out, Baltimore was a good place for a young German cabinetmaker like William Potthast to land, and the artistic movements of the era placed valued on Old World craftsmanship. Yet, it took perseverance, ingenuity, skill, and certain flair for marketing to make Potthast Bros.' furniture a household name in Baltimore and beyond. To achieve success, the brothers combined traditional European craft training and a certain German frugality with American ingenuity and savvy; in the end, Potthast Bros, Inc., was a German-American entrepreneurial undertaking that looked back to the Old World and ahead to the New. The company's slogan, "The True Antiques of Tomorrow," which the brothers adopted in 1931, was thus well chosen.
[1] "Rites Tomorrow for W. A. Potthast," The Baltimore Sun, August 4, 1935, 17.
[2] The summary will include findings gathered from the manuscript collections of the Maryland Historical Society, the private archives of the German Society of Maryland, and the family records and recollections of the Potthast family.
[3] In fact, an Internet search will yield a number Potthast pieces on offer for prices rivalling those of most fine antiques, with the exception of the eighteenth-century British masterpieces after which they were modeled.
[4] The firm also made a desk for Governor Theodore McKeldin (1900-1974) from a large branch that fell from the Wye Oak, then the state tree. McKeldin was governor of Maryland from 1951 to 1959 and served as mayor of Baltimore twice (1943-1947 and 1963-1967). McKeldin took the desk when he left the governorship and went back to City Hall as mayor of Baltimore for the second time.
[5] Or Gutbertlett, the spelling varies as is often the case in older documents.
[6] "In Memoriam: William Potthast," The Report of the Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland, vol. 24 (1939): 62.
[7] In John's case, surviving documentation provides additional details on his voyage. According to a passenger list, he arrived in Baltimore in November 1894, on the Stuttgart. He was identified on the manifest as a twenty-three-year old "joiner" who had last resided in Hamburg. His passage was apparently paid for by his "brother" (the manifest does not specify whether it was Vincent or William), and he arrived with twenty-four dollars. Johannes Potthast, Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1820-1964. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, DC; Records of the US Customs Service, RG36; Series: T844; Roll: 6. Accessed through Ancestry.com.
[8] Family records and a few other sources mention the year 1899 and the steamer Rhine. Even Theodore himself mentions alternative dates on other documents, but the passenger manifest for the SS Mainz for September 1, 1900, is clear: Theodor Potthast of Elberfeld (a municipal subdivision of Wuppertal), Westphalia, arrived in Baltimore on September 1, 1900, with twenty dollars to his name, headed to the home of his brother William in Baltimore.
[9] "Eine neue Möbelfabrik," Der Deutsche Correspondent, April 29, 1904. At the time of Vincent Potthast's death in 1911, that same paper would identify him as only a "junior member" of the Potthast Bros. firm. See Der Deutsche Correspondent, August 13, 1911, 7.
[10] Sherry H. Olson, Baltimore, the Building of an American City (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 1.
[11] Olson states that there were 564 buildings by 1774; Ibid., 10.
[12] All current values (in 2011 USD) are based on Samuel H. Williamson, "Seven Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount, 1774 to present," MeasuringWorth, using the Consumer Price Index.
[13] The claim is based on census records, which somewhat misstate the situation. Until 1860 census figures for Philadelphia did not include the area known then and now as Northern Liberties, which had both a sizable population and a large number of German immigrants. The German Society of Pennsylvania is still housed today on Spring Garden Street in Northern Liberties.
[14] In a vertical file marked "Emigration and Immigration," as cited in Dean R. Esslinger, "Immigration through the Port of Baltimore," in Forgotten Doors: The Other Ports of Entry to the United States, ed. M. Mark Stolarik (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1988), 70.
[15] Dieter Cunz, The Maryland Germans: A History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948), 321.
[16] Arnold Kludas, Die Seeschiffe des Norddeutschen Lloyd 1857 bis 1970 (Augsburg: Weltbild [Bechtermünz imprint], 1998), 6.
[17] See "William Albert Potthast," Geneology.net Last accessed August 18, 2015.
[19] Catherine Rogers Arthur, "'The True Antiques of Tomorrow': Furniture by the Potthast Brothers of Baltimore, 1892–1975," in American Furniture 2000, ed. Luke Beckerdite (Milwaukee, WI: Chipstone Foundation, 2000), 31-58. [available online]
[23] Maryland Historical Society Manuscript Collections, item MS 2183: Letterbooks, 1908-32. Potthast Brothers, Inc. 1892-1975. Box 1: Book One, page 96, December 1914, Miss Etta Cone, Marlborough Apts.
[24] Arthur, "'The True Antiques of Tomorrow.'"
[27] Maryland Historical Society Manuscript Collections, item MS 2659, Correspondence, 1933-34, n.d. Potthast Brothers, Inc.
[30] Over time, all of the brothers became naturalized American citizens. Naturalization records can be located for three out of the four: William became a naturalized citizen in 1899, John in 1900, and Theodore in 1906.
[31] See "Ueber's Meer," Der Deutsche Correspondent (Baltimore), June 16, 1909, p. 3.
[32] See William Potthast, in the New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957. Year: 1909; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 1337; Line:18; Page Number: 66. Accessed through Ancestry.com.
[33] The sisters' names appeared in Vincent Potthast's 1911 obituary. At the time of his death, Anna resided in Barman, Prussia; Mary in Cologne; and Josephine lived in Terporten, Prussia, where she apparently served as the long-time housekeeper to a Count von Loe. See "Dies from Brain Abscess," Baltimore Sun, August 12, 1911, 9.
[34] "Zur alten Heimath," Der Deutsche Correspondent, June 15, 1912, 5.
[35] Theodore Potthast, in U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; NARA Series: Passport Applications, January 2, 1906 - March 31, 1925; Roll #:2467; Volume #: Roll 2467 - Certificates: 390850-391349, 09 Apr 1924-10 Apr 1924. Accessed through Ancestry.com.
[36] See William Potthast, in the New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957. Year: 1925; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 3738; Line: 1; Page Number: 135. Accessed through Ancestry.com.
[37] "In Memoriam: William Potthast," 62.
[38] "Dies from Brain Abscess," 9.
[39] "St. Alphonsus Church," GermanMarylanders.org Last accessed August 18, 2015.
[40] "Theodore Potthast Sr., 93, furniture maker at family firm," The Baltimore Sun, October 19, 1998.
"William A. Potthast." (2020) In Immigrant Entrepreneurship, Retrieved January 22, 2020, from Immigrant Entrepreneurship: http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=254
Donaldson, Randall. "William A. Potthast." In Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present, vol. 3, edited by Giles R. Hoyt. German Historical Institute. Last modified April 21, 2016. http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=254
"William A. Potthast," Immigrant Entrepreneurship, 2020, Immigrant Entrepreneurship. 22 Jan 2020 <http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=254>
Four Potthast Brothers, ca. 1903
Craft and Artisanal Industries


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