Manufacturing

Solomon Karpen founded S. Karpen & Bros. in Chicago in 1880. By 1899, it had become the largest upholstered furniture manufacturing company in the world.

Wilhelm Johann Diedrich Keuffel was one of the founding partners of Keuffel & Esser Company (K&E), a scientific instrument manufacturing firm founded in New York City in 1867. Best known for its popularization of the slide rule, Keuffel & Esser was the first American company to specialize in the manufacture and sale of drafting and surveying tools. By the early twentieth century, it was one of the largest manufacturers of scientific instruments in the world.

Together with his wife Florence, a prominent interior designer, German-born immigrant Hans Knoll played a significant role in introducing modernist design into the market for high-end residential and office furniture through his firm Knoll Associates.