Niels Poulson

Background

He was born on February 27, 1843 in Horsens, Denmark, the son of a day-laborer named Poulsen. (The son's name was Anglicized after he came to America. ) He spent his boyhood stripping tobacco leaves.

Education

He attended school every other working day; at fourteen he was apprenticed to a mason, and at sixteen transferred his apprenticeship to Copenhagen, where he received his theoretical mechanical training in the evening sessions of the local technical school. Here he also learned model drawing from the sculptor Herman Vilhelm Bissen.

A journeyman at eighteen, he continued his studies in the technical institution until he was twenty-one, when he left for America.

Career

In New York Poulson immediately secured employment as a bricklayer, but since the contractor wanted quantity rather than quality, he was soon discharged for lack of speed. He then accepted a job as a hod-carrier, but thought, observation, and self-education soon brought him consciousness of greater ability, and after two years in New York as an architectural draftsman he received an appointment in the government office of the supervising architect in Washington. While here he visualized the possibilities for iron and steel construction in the United States.

He returned to New York after two years and was employed by the Architectural Iron Works until 1876, when the plant was closed. This marked the turning point in Poulson's career. With great confidence and determination he built up within eight years, in partnership with Charles Michael Eger, a Norwegian of training and experience like his own, the firm known at first as Poulson & Eger, after 1897 as the Hecla Architectural Iron Works, which in its Brooklyn plant employed a thousand men. Among the employees were many artists and scientific metallurgists. The construction and ornamental details of the Grand Central and Pennsylvania railroad stations in New York were made in the Hecla Works, and models of designs were demanded in technical schools from Berlin to Tokio.

Poulson's own house in Brooklyn, once a showplace, was constructed almost entirely of steel and copper. The plans for this house had been drawn by his wife. Eventually he began to wonder how he should dispose of his fortune.

During his later years Poulson traveled extensively abroad. He died in Brooklyn, at the age of sixty-eight.

Achievements

• Niels Poulson was a public-spirited pioneer in American iron construction, bur his improvements of method were seldom patented. The Congressional Library received from him gratuitously plans of construction which were widely copied in large institutions. He was the inventor of several mechanical devices, such as fireproof stairs and library bookstacks; he labored zealously to relieve the traffic congestion in New York. Besides, he was a co-founder of the Hecla Architectural Iron Works, where emphasis was placed on original design and modeling. He established in his factory a technical evening school where employees might obtain free training. He left the bulk of his estate, about half a million dollars, to endow the American-Scandinavian Foundation for the purpose of fostering closer understanding between the United States and the Scandinavian countries. For such gifts as he made for the same purpose while living he was honored by the King of Denmark with the Order of Dannebrog.

Views

He was an ardent believer in popular education. He believed thoroughly that nobody with a real education could ever fail.

Personality

He exhibited exceptional fairness and honesty in business; and he proved a model employer of men.

Connections

He married Lizzie (Brown) Clausen, of English extraction, the widow of a Danish consul in Washington. She died soon after their house she had planned was finished, leaving her husband without an heir.

Spouse:

Lizzie (Brown) Clausen

Partner:

Charles Michael Eger

teacher:

Herman Vilhelm Bissen