Historian of Technology N. K. Laman: Surprising Discoveries in the History of the “Elektroprovod” Plant

Abstract

The future historian of technology N. K. Laman became a graduate student at the Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1954 after he graduated from M. I. Kalinin Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals and Gold and worked at the “Elektroprovod” (“Electric wire”) plant in Moscow for three years. The history of this plant became a theme of a number of Laman’s research works. The Elektroprovod plant emerged from its predecessor, a gold thread factory that belonged to the Alekseev family of merchants and manufactured products that enjoyed a ready market both in Russia and internationally. A young K. S. Alekseev, who years later won renown as a theater practitioner and reformer K. S. Stanislavsky (also spelled Stanislavski), began to work at this factory in 1882. Alekseev / Stanislavsky’s engineering and organizational efforts in the field of gold thread manufacturing were described by Laman in a monograph and several articles. In 1892, Alekseev visited a number of plants in Western Europe to study international practices, after which he made a significant contribution to the reorganization of gold thread production at the Moscow factory. When he became the principal director and manager of the Moscow Art Theater in 1898, he was relieved from the responsibilities of directly supervising the work at the factory but retained his position of the chairman of the board of directors of the Gold Thread Factories Company (“Tovarishchestvo”). The article analyzes Laman’s studies on the history of the Alekseevs’ factory / Elektroprovod plant and, first and foremost, his monograph “The History of the Elektroprovod Plant”, coauthored with Yu. I. Krechetnikova (1967).