John Jacob Bausch
| John Jacob Bausch | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
July 25, 1830 Süßen, Kingdom of Württemberg |
| Died | February 14, 1926 (aged 95) |
| Resting place |
Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Optical instrument maker, Businessman |
| Known for | Co-Founder Bausch and Lomb |
John Jacob Bausch (July 25, 1830 – February 14, 1926) was an American maker of optical instruments who co-founded Bausch & Lomb (with Henry Lomb). Over six decades he transformed his small, local optical shop into a large-scale international enterprise, pioneering the American optical industry.
Johan Jakob Bausch was born to Georg Bausch, a baker, and his wife Anna Schmid, in Groß Süßen (today part of Süßen) in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. At the age of eighteen he moved to Bern, Switzerland, where he worked as a lens grinder in an optical shop designing camera lenses. In 1850 he emigrated to the United States. Upon his arrival, he made his way to a German community in Buffalo, New York, but because of a cholera epidemic there he settled in Rochester, New York, and Anglicized his name to John Jacob.
In 1853, Bausch opened a retail optical shop in Rochester. Bausch sold spectacles, thermometers, field glasses, magnifiers and opera glasses. His friend Henry Lomb, also a German immigrant (from Burghaun, Hesse-Kassel or Hesse-Cassel), who had immigrated in 1849, invested his $60 in savings in Bausch's shop and in 1855, on a handshake, became his partner. By 1856 Bausch renamed the company the "Optical Institute of Rochester."
In the spring of 1861, Lomb enlisted and served in the American Civil War for two years. In Lomb's absence, Bausch accidentally made a fortuitous discovery: he found a piece of vulcanite rubber on a New York street. He took it home and experimented making eyeglass frames from the material. At that time wire frames were mainly made from gold, and horn-rimmed frames were made from either European deer horn or tortoise shell, so eyeglasses were considered an expensive luxury. Bausch realized he could make stronger and less expensive vulcanite eyeglass frames, but soon he struggled to keep up with demand. During the Civil War, the blockade caused the price of gold and European horn to rise dramatically. This resulted in a growing demand for the Bausch and Lomb spectacles made from vulcanite.
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