TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

Carl Zeiss, the son of a toy-shop proprietor, opened a small workshop at Jena, Germany for the manufacture of optical and philosophical instruments in 1846. Based on the contacts he had made with university scientists as an intern at the university’s institute of physiology, Carl Zeiss justified his application to open a workshop in Jena.^[1] The bulk of Zeiss’ business was in selling eyeglasses and doing small repairs, and only occasionally did the workshop sell telescopes and microscopes in its early years.^[2]