Biography

About Arnold van Emden

Arnold van Emden was married to Truida Hakker. He and his wife had three children: Hijman, Louis Lena and one child who survived the war. Arnold van Emden and his wife both came from a family of butchers. Soon after marrying in Capelle in 1905, they moved to Rotterdam, which was then growing rapidly, and found work as a meat carver and poulteress. Arnold van Emden was very inventive and good with his hands. He managed to become a maker of wire work, generally for use with broken bones. (Plaster came into use only later.) In Amsterdam, he started a company which had a workshop in Govert Flinckstraat. Later he moved this company to Maarten Jansz Kosterstraat 15. His most successful invention, in the late 1930s, was the well-known drying rack made of metal wire that can be hung on a door. This item was marketed by Tornado, a firm in Dordrecht. He was promised ten percent of each product manufactured, for his entire life. The invention was popular from the start, but did not break through internationally until after the war. Truida van Emden-Hakker was admitted to the Israëlitisch Oudenliedengesticht (a Jewish home for the elderly) in Rotterdam in 1940. She died in the infirmary there.
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