The Nordwolle or more correctly the Nordwolle

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

or the ''Nordwestdeutsche Museum für IndustrieKultur'' is situated in and around the engine house of the former ''Norddeutsche Wollkämmerei & Kammgarnspinnerei'' in

Delmenhorst Delmenhorst (; Northern Low Saxon: ''Demost'') is an urban district (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in Lower Saxony, Germany. It has a population of 74,500 and is located west of downtown Bremen with which it forms a contiguous urban area, whereas the ...

. Nordwolle was a dominant company that processed

wool Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. As ...

and

worsted Worsted ( or ) is a high-quality type of wool yarn, the fabric made from this yarn, and a yarn weight category. The name derives from Worstead, a village in the English county of Norfolk. That village, together with North Walsham and Aylsham, for ...

, it closed between 1981 and 1984. The building and the factory housing is listed as a Denkmalschutz The museum is an Anchor point on the

European Route of Industrial Heritage The European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH) is a tourist route of the most important industrial heritage sites in Europe. This is a tourism industry information initiative to present a network of industrial heritage sites across Europe. The a ...

History

In 1884, Christian Lahusen, a textile manufacturer from

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

, set up the ''Norddeutsche Wollkämmerei & Kammgarnspinnerei'' (North German Wool Combing and Worsted Spinning Mill) next to the railway line in Delmenhorst, which brought wool from Bremen docks. The family business expanded into a major concern producing a quarter of all the world's rough yarn and employed almost 4,500 workers in the complex. Labour came from Eastern Europe. Between 1885 and 1905 the population of Delmenhorst tripled causing a chronic lack of housing. The firm responded by building ever more

company housing A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of people, whether natural, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specific, declared go ...

on the “Nordwolle” site. Under his son, Carl Lahusen, and his English born wife Armine Matthias, the

factory town A mill town, also known as factory town or mill village, is typically a settlement that developed around one or more mills or factories, usually cotton mills or factories producing textiles. Europe Italy * ''Crespi d'Adda'', UNESCO World Her ...

provided cooperative stores, canteens and baths, a hospital, a kindergarten and a library. The world slump and mismanagement bankrupted Lahusen's firm in 1931: though it continued in a smaller scale until 1981.

Museum

The Nordwolle Factory Museum opened in 1996 in the turbine hall and adjacent sheds. A year later the Municipal Museum open in the “Lichtstation”, the first engine room of the disused textile works.

Collections

The museum shows the production processes involved in worsted spinning and the social conditions of the young immigrant workers.

References

;Notes ;Footnotes

History

Museum

Collections

References

External links