1902Our ties to the Luther Factory - Fred Luther's great grand father was also Martin Christian's grandfather.
1930
The A.M. Luther Company was founded in Tallinn Estonia in 1877 and continued to manufacture wood products under different names until 1940. First it was the "A.M. Luther Company for Mechanical Woodworking" and ran advertisements like the one above in 1902. The Grand Prix of Paris had been given for the revolutionary invention of waterproof glue. A.M. Luther responded to economic changes by reorganization and alliance with other companies such as Venesta of London and became A.M. Luther Venesta. That company's logo was a purple-blue oval. There exists a very good book about the company's long history; it was written by Juri Kermik and was published in 2004.
The A.M. Luther furniture factory was created by Christian IV Wilhelm Luther (1857-1914) as a side line to the hardware store of his father, Alexander Martin Luther. Christian started the factory operations by making plywood seats for chairs. Alexander was the father of both Ferdinand Justinus, Fred Luther's grandfather, and of Christian IV. Another Alexander Martin was "Uncle" Martin; he was the big honcho in the Luther family of the 19th century. Erwin Bernhard, Margarethe Luther's uncle, was also employed by A.M. Luther. The invention of making a water proof glue from animal blood by a company chemist (Paulsen) was the entry point for the firm to international scope, as this made it possible to manufacture tea shipping containers for an English company "Venesta", which operated the tea trade between Ceylon and London. A.M. Luther went public in 1897.
Father Christian IV Wilhelm Luther (1857-1914) and son Martin Christian Luther (1883-1964) were successive directors of the plywood factory A. M. Luther in Reval/Tallinn. Christian had started the manufacture of plywood furniture in 1884 and then in 1893, after the invention of waterproof glue, began to branch out with large plywood sheets for use in buildings and trains. One of his worries was illegitimate competition in Russia. Christian founded a shareholder company Luterma which later went into a partnership with Venesta, in London, for making tea chests. In 1909 he started a plywood factory in Staraja Russa in Russia. Martin began his career at Venesta but returned to Tallinn after his father's death to run Luterma. His greatest problem was the outbreak of WWI which paralyzed the busines until 1919. He greatly expanded the factory in Tallinn by adding company housing. During his time the plywood furniture business again expanded due to Jugendstil (an artistic style that arose in Germany about the mid-1890s) enthusiasm inspired by artists like Aalto, Gropius, and Breuer. A British company called Isokon was started by Venesta in 1931 for architectural and furniture use of plywood.
O
ne of the A. M. Luther Woodworking Company's most important contributions in the development of plywood technology was the introduction of waterproof glue in 1896. This glue was developed by the Luther brothers' cousin Oskar Paulsen (b.1869), a chemical engineer who joined A.M. Luther in 1893. Paulsen's patented waterproof glue enormously widened the field of uses for plywood, and it was the main factor behind A.M.Luther' s fabulous success in the Russian and foreign markets. In addition to plywood furniture the glue was used to make plywood suitcases, hatboxes and barrels. There is an undocumented story that a senior partner, Ernest II. Archer, of a London tea import firm had decided that tea chests should be made from plywood, but found that the plywood that vendors were offering fell apart in water. He came upon the Luther waterproof plywood only by accident: he was \valking on the beach and found a piece of it still intact despite being in the water, and carrying the A.M. Luther trademark. A new company, Venesta, was eventually founded with a directing board that included two Luthers and W.F. Raban, General Director of the Darjeeling Tea Company. Venestamade lots and lots of money.