In the history of enterprise, Louisa Catharina Harkort is one of the names that keeps returning.
The record lists Louisa Catharina Harkort as German entrepreneur (1718-1795).
Louisa Catharina Harkort was born at Hattingen in 1718. Her recorded nationality is Germany.
This was the age of chartered companies and long-distance trade, when a single voyage could make or ruin a house.
She worked as entrepreneur.
Business reputations are unusually sensitive to the decade in which they were made.
That the business was built from Germany shaped it: capital, regulation and market size differ by country, and they decide what is even attemptable.
Louisa Catharina Harkort died in 1795, aged 77. What remains is the enterprise and its consequences, which is the only durable measure of a commercial life.
