TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

Through The Glass Works, Zeiss became the dominant global distributor of precision optical glass. In 1877, when the firm was still a workshop, Zeiss employed 36 persons. By 1891, that number had risen to 500, and by 1900 it was employing over 1,000 employees. In 1917, at the height of World War I, Zeiss employed over 10,000.^[17] The workshop became a factory that encompassed not only microscopes, but “the whole field of practical optics.”^[18] By 1900, the German precision instrument industry more broadly included nearly 800 firms that collectively employed more than 13,500 workers. Among these firms, 125 were involved in glass manufacture.^[19]