| May 10, 1846. A certain Carl Zeiss submits an application to the state authorities in Weimar, asking for permission to establish a mechanic's workshop. To the Grand-Ducal government this is a matter for run-of-the-mill bureaucracy and not to be handled with undue speed (there has not been much change since, it seems). Anyhow, a deed is issued on November 19, permitting the applicant to set up a workshop in Jena and to make and sell mechanical and optical instruments. Carl Zeiss does not dither about. The fact that the workshop has actually been opened two days earlier, on the 17th, speaks of the young mechanic's ambition. Some people say he started with a borrowed sum of 100 thalers. First address: Jena, Neugasse 7. |  Anticipating the Future
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 | Carl Zeiss? Who's that? Your particulars, please, Sir! Zeiss, Carl Friedrich, born in Weimar in 1816, grammar school, apprenticeship with Dr. Friedrich Körner, mechanic and supplier to the court (who has been making simple microscopes since the early forties); attendance of lectures at the Jena University (mathematics, experimental physics, anthropology, mineralogy, optics); journeyman's travels for several years; practicals at Professor Schleiden's physiological institute in Jena.
And now: new-made owner of a one-man business. With little money, just the most essential tools, working all on his own in the dim light of an oil-lamp, but, what is more important, full of ideas, energy and determination. He sells eyeglasses, magnifiers and balances, builds and repairs physical and chemical apparatus for the university. The business gets going. In 1847 Zeiss moves his workshop to a bigger site and employs his first apprentice. The same year sees the death of his former master, Dr. Körner, and Zeiss now turns to the subject that has fascinated him ever since his own apprentice years: the making of microscopes. | | |