Leather goods and leather processing
In 1776, the bookbinder Joseph Anton Mönch, who had already come to Offenbach from Stuttgart in 1764 and was in the service of the prince, founded his own "case and souvenir factory". Further Offenbach "portefeuille factories" were founded by the end of the century. These employed bookbinders, portefeuiller, gallantry saddlers and Riemer, creating a highly qualified trade.
Within the leather goods industry, homeworking became particularly important with the production of small leather goods. Such wage labor, which would have been too expensive in Offenbach itself, provided employment in the rural suburbs and in the vicinity of the city - for example in Mühlheim, Bieber and Obertshausen.
The leather goods industry of the 19th century was characterized by an ever-increasing variety of products: wallets, letter and business card cases, ladies' bags, jewelry boxes, suitcases, accessories for home and travel, photography albums and shoe manufacturing, to name but a few. Specialist companies developed that pressed, embossed, dyed and gilded leather, for example.
By the beginning of the 20th century, Offenbach had become a world-famous German leather city. No other city in the empire processed as much leather as here. Three quarters of all members of the Reich-wide "Verband der Portefeuiller und Ledergalanteriearbeiter" came from the district.
The Offenbach company J. Mayer & Sohn was important in leather production, i.e. tanning and dyeing, as it used a special process to process the hides. Over 10,000 people worked in the leather industry. The industry was at its peak.