Peter Lowentraut

Page Index:

Peter Lowentraut – Inventor & Manufacturer

SOURCE: Peter Lowentraut – Biographical Encyclopedia Successful Men of New Jersey, Vol 1, 1895

Peter Lowentraut – New Jersey Tool Maker

The following article was written by the Brace Whisperer and published in the newsletter titled The Tool Shed published by CRAFTS of New Jersey in the June 2017 issue.

SOURCE: Collectors of Rare and Familiar Tools Society of New Jersey, (CRAFTS of NJ), 2017, The Tool Shed, No. 188, June 2017, Pages 1, 3-5, craftsofnj.org, Accessed on 01 August 2019, <https://www.craftsofnj.org/images/sitemedia/toolshed/Tool%20Shed%20No188-201706.pdf>

Newark and Its Leading Business Men

SOURCE: Williams, J. Austin, [from old catalog]. 1891, Newark and its leading business men: embracing also, those of Harrison, Kearny, Belleville and Roseville. Newark, N.J.: Mercantile publishing company, Page 134, Accessed 19 March 2020, <https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t8df6zt0t&view=1up&seq=142>

Peter Lowentraut – Successful Men Of New Jersey

SOURCE: Biographical Encyclopedia Successful Men of New Jersey, Vol. 1, 1895, Page 199

Frederick Lowentrout – Biographical Sketch

Frederick Lowentrout was a brother to Peter Lowentrout. This biographical sketch includes information about their parents and their immigration to the United States.

SOURCE: Chapman brothers, 1887, Portrait and Biographical Album of McLean County, Ill: Containing Full Page Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens of the County, Together with Portraits and Biographies of All the Governors of Illinois, and of the Presidents of the United States, 1887, Page 1137, Google Books, Accessed on 01 August 2019, <https://books.google.com/books?id=BducGzdBQj0C&pg=PA1137&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false>

Peter Lowentraut – Newark Home, 396 Bergen St, Circa 1900

SOURCE: Scanned copy from the collection of Wm. Lowentraut Gutmann Denk, Great Falls, VA,

P. Lowentraut Mfg. Co. – Making Skates

The following article was published in the The Virginia Enterprise, Virginia, Saint Louis, Minnesota, issued on January 8, 1897, Page 2

Making Skates

It is in Newark, N. J., that modern skates were devised, invented, manufactured, and it is in Newark that the best improved skates are turned out now, 2500 pairs or more every day.

Steel strips, a little thicker than a skate blade, some three inches wide and twelve or fifteen feet long, are the raw material for the most important part of the skate. But it doesn’t take any blacksmith with an anvil to shape them. A steam hammer stamps runners out from the steel strips as easy as Dinah makes seed cookies.

Because the rolled and welded steel has a grain the blades are cut with a straight edge. One thump of the next hammer corrects that, and the blade has the slight curve from end to end that has been ground most elegant and expedient. Twenty seconds against a big, wet grindstone is enough to reduce it to the right thickness.

Another grindstone gives the hollow edge and makes it sharp in a few seconds. The blade is put to soak in a bath of hot lead until it is cherry red, and then dipped in salt water, to keep its temper.

After that nothing hurts it. Emery dust on a hard wheel gives it a polished surface, if it is to stay steel. The more elegant blades are electroplated with nickel, and then buffed till they shine beautifully.

Mechanical processes have been introduced all the way through, most of them within the last five years. Mr. Lowentraut and Henry Goodman, who is his son-in-law, and superintendent of the factory, have been the first to find ways of using machinery at several stages.

One of those steel cookie stamps bites foot plates out of a strip of steel, another heel plates; another chews out clamps; another nonchalantly punches washers. It takes a drop of the hammer to make one flat piece into the sort of shoe, with two wings, that holds the heel. One stroke cuts out the lever; another binds it into shape.

The main screw has a nut in the middle for a thumb screw. It used to be one solid piece with the screw, which had to be turned down; now the nut is slipped over the screw, and two gentle strokes of the hammer swudge it on as tight as if it grew there. Most of these things are done by boys.

One of the neatest things is the lathe that turns the main screw. It rounds the end while you wink. It runs the thread while you count ten. It cuts a neck and shapes the head and then it saws off the finished screw and begins on the next.

The small parts are tumbled in revolving barrels down cellar to smooth off the rough edges. For the best skates the foot plates and the inside of the blades are chambered, that is, a neat slice is cut off the edges.

In the slack months the small parts are accumulated and put together. When the busy season begins there are tons of them, enough for 100,000 pairs. This at the beginning of the fall. By this time the first rush is over and the stock piles are drawn down. The foot plates need only to be tacked to the blade. This is the only hand process left. Mr. Goodman says the machine-riveted skates have a way of falling to pieces, and theirs are all clinched together by hand. In January the busy season is over. Then they begin working up stock for next year, and move more men to the tool department. But they are making skates the year round. – Newark Daily Advertiser.

SOURCE: W. E Hannaford, 1897, The Virginia Enterprise, Virginia, Saint Louis, Minnesota, USA, January 8, 1897, Page 2, These U.S. historical newspapers originate from the Chronicling America project — a production by the National Digital Newspaper Program in partnership with the Library of Congress and National Endowment for the Humanities to digitize historic American newspapers , Accessed 01 August 2019, <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059180/1897-01-08/ed-1/seq-2/>

Lowentraut Mfg. Co. – Inside View of One Area

SOURCE: Progressive Age Publishing Co., 1909, Progressive Age, Gas Electric Water, Volume 27, Number 7, 280 Broadway, New York City, April 1, 1909, Page 290, Accessed 16 March 2020, <https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433057626537&view=1up&seq=324>

Peter Lowentraut (center) with Friends

SOURCE: Scanned copy from the collection of Wm. Lowentraut Gutmann Denk, Great Falls, VA,

Peter Lowentraut’s Obituary

SOURCE: Scanned copy from the collection of Wm. Lowentraut Gutmann Denk, Great Falls, VA,

Research & Sources

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