Anna Margaretha "Greta" Donner, née ''Lyhtberg'' (11 February 1726 – 24 September 1774) was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

business person. She was known as ''Donner Mum'', ''Madam Donner'', and "Madam Herr Donner" (''Mr Madame Donner'').

Life

Born in

Visby Visby () is an urban area in Sweden and the seat of Gotland Municipality in Gotland County on the island of Gotland with 24,330 inhabitants . Visby is also the episcopal see for the Diocese of Visby. The Hanseatic city of Visby is arguably th ...

, Sweden to merchants Mathias Lythberg and Johanna Wihadi, she was given a good education, and was active as her father's business assistant. In 1744, she married the German merchant Jürgen Hinrich Donner from

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the state ...

. They settled in

on Gotland in 1746, and had four children. They bought a building in Visby where they founded an empire of import and export with Germany and

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. The building is now known as ”The Donner House”, and the

square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90- degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length a ...

by which the building is located was to be known as: ”Donner's place”. Margaretha was the company's accountant. When she became a widow in 1751, she took sole control over the business as director. She made herself responsible for the export, and created a merchant fleet with twenty ships. She also founded a factory on Gotland. She was appreciated by her employees, and called ”Donner Mum” by some, and ”Madam Donner” by others: some of her German business-partners could not imagine a woman as head of such a big business empire, and by them she was sometimes called "Madam Herr Donner" (''Mr Madame Donner''). She helped her two sons to start their own business, but she did not allow them any influence in her own affairs, and she did not acquaint them with the main business until after she acquired

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...

, of which she died at Visby in 1774. The Donner empire expanded under her sons, both of whom included their wives in their work. The business eventually went bankrupt in 1845.

References

Herr Madam Donner - Uppsats

Donnerska huset i Visby
* Boken om Gotland - Andra delen, 1945, AB Sylve Norrbys Bokhandel * Gotland 1500-1900, ett särtryck ur Den svenska historien, Gotlands Fornsal * Lingegård Ingeborg, 1985, Gotländska föregångskvinnor, Taurus förlag * Svahnström Gunnar, 1984, Visby under tusen år, Almqvist & Wiksell Förlag AB * Öhman Roger, 1994, Vägen till Gotlands historia, Visby, Gotlands Fornsal/Gotlands Läromedelscentral

Life

See also

References

Further reading