Jablonec nad Nisou is a town in the Liberec Region that has been known since the 18th century for the production of glass and costume jewellery.
Jablonec nad Nisou is a town in the Liberec Region on the river Nisa, which became well known for the production of glass and costume jewellery. According to the town's official website, the first written record of a settlement called Jablonec dates from 1356, but throughout the Middle Ages the place never reached the importance of settlements in the more fertile regions of the kingdom.[1]
From the destruction of the settlement to growth
In August 1469 the settlement was burned down by the troops of the Lusatian opponents of King George of Poděbrady and ceased to exist. In the 1530s and 1540s, when the economy of the Malá Skála estate was reorganised under the administration of the Vartenberk family, the remaining Czech inhabitants were replaced by German settlers, above all glassmaking specialists from the Nový Bor area and the Ore Mountains, who made use of a region rich in wood, sand and water.[1]
During the Thirty Years' War the town was burned down for a second time, on 2 May 1643, and many Protestants went into exile. The larger part of the Jablonec region was acquired by the Counts Des Fours. With the development of glassmaking in the second half of the 17th century Jablonec began to prosper rapidly, which was reflected in the building of a new stone church of St Anne in the 1680s.[1]
Glass and costume jewellery
In the middle of the 18th century the range of goods made by local producers, enriched by the first costume jewellery alongside traditional Jizera glass, became an object of interest in the surrounding regions. The first exporters appeared, for example Jan František Schwann, who spread local goods across Europe and beyond.[1] In the 19th century the town had trade links with the whole world, even though it was cut off from its surroundings in terms of transport. It was helped by the road from Liberec through Jablonec to Trutnov, built at the end of the 1840s. The railway from Pardubice to Liberec, opened in 1859, did not take its interests into account, yet the designation "Jablonec goods" became established in the world.[1]
Promotion and growth
An imperial decision of 21 April 1808 raised the village to a market town with the right to two annual fairs and one weekly market. Emperor Franz Joseph I raised Jablonec to a town on 28 March 1866. In 1868 it became the seat of a district captain, and the new political district consisted of the court districts of Tanvald and Jablonec.[1]
The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871 eliminated the largest competitors in glassmaking and costume jewellery, and Jablonec entrepreneurs came to dominate foreign markets. Economic and demographic development was accompanied by building activity. By the First World War most of the prestigious buildings had been erected, and the town had gained a railway connection to Tanvald and Liberec as well as a tram linking the south and north of the region.[1]