Josef Joseph Foges

marriage record https://www.genteam.at/index.php?option=com_gesamt

http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?apm=0&aid=nfp&datum=18810218...

Ein früher Europäer (in German) by Jakob Ludwig Heller

..Josef was not a lucky man. He went into commerce at an early age, helped no doubt by Koppelmanns connections and cash injections, manufacturing leather goods and decorative glass. At first he did well, accumulating considerable capital. But, starting in 1870, after the Franco-Prussian war and German unification, the imprudent Josef began to sink every penny he had -- and all the profits from his business -- into stocks. (The raging Viennese equity markets of the early 1870's were fueled by massive French war reparations, demanded of the losing side by Germany's Bismarck, and recycled through Berlin. Vienna was awash in cheap credit, easy loans and speculative greed). When inevitably the bubble burst -- on May 9, 1873, in a calamitous collapse every bit as bad as the 1929 Wall Street crash -- Josef lost everything. Utterly ruined, he could not support his family and had to be rescued by his brother-in-law, Joseph Jeiteles. Back in 1867, in the year Jews throughout the Hapsburg lands received their full civil rights, allowing them to travel internally without special permission, Jeiteles had invested in a Viennese horn button factory so as to provide a secure income for his brother Michael. Josef Foges, a relative by marriage, now became a director of the Jeiteles family firm. Their factory unfortunately emitted terrible smells unavoidably caused by the chemical process involved in turning ox hoofs into buttons fit for fashionable Vienna. Demand was brisk, and the buttons sold well. Josef was saved! He even traveled to London to exhibit the factory's wares at the great industrial fair held there each year throughout the 19th Century, and was awarded prizes for his firm's workmanship. Later on though, Josefs fortune turned once more. Situated at the very edge of the city near the West Railway Station, the family factory was at first surrounded by green fields. However as Vienna expanded, and new housing sprung up, residential neighbors began to complain about the constant and by all accounts very unpleasant odor. Soon there were law suits, and visits from the police. Eventually the business had to be sold, no doubt at a distressingly discounted price..