Mary Hegeler Carus
Engineer, zinc-company president, Open Court editor
The first woman to earn an engineering degree at the University of Michigan (B.S. Engineering, 1882). The first woman legally registered as a student at the Bergakademie Freiberg in Germany (1885-86). Took over the Matthiessen-Hegeler Zinc Company as president from 1903 to 1936 — running an industrial empire that smelted more zinc than any company in the country. Married the philosopher Paul Carus in 1888; together they ran Open Court Publishing while raising seven children in the fifty-seven-room mansion on Seventh Street.
Hegeler Carus Mansion. Her husband Paul Carus ran Open Court Publishing from the first floor for thirty-two years and brought D.T.
Matthiessen & Hegeler Zinc Works. Two twenty-one-year-old German immigrants — Frederick Matthiessen and Edward Hegeler — opened a zinc smelter on a hundred-and-sixty acres north of the Little Vermilion River in 1858.
Civic · Religion · LaSalle · 1850–1900
Hegeler Carus Mansion
Where Zen Buddhism arrived in America
1307 Seventh Street, LaSalle, IL
Industry · LaSalle · 1850–1900
Matthiessen & Hegeler Zinc Works
America's largest zinc producer — and the eight-hour workday, in 1885
Sections 10–15, T33N R1E, north of the Little Vermilion River, LaSalle, IL