by

Lee R White

    Johanna Raab was born in Altzecksdorf, Austria, on September 19, 1830. Her father passed away when she was a child of seven years. [1] She helped to support her family after her father's death, by selling crafts around their neighborhood. This early experience in the business world helped to serve her family and husband throughout her life. [2] At the age of twenty-one she married John Raab, who was a potter by trade. [3] They remained in Austria for a few more years, before they decided to move to the United States. They first settled in Philadelphia, where they remained for one year. Then they headed west and settled in Cedar Falls, after hearing about it from Ben Theimer, an Austrian immigrant who had been there. [4] 

    They purchased a home at 312 State Street, where they started up a pottery business in the front of their home. [5] Johanna had interests outside of the family business, mainly focusing on the Woman's Suffrage movement, even gaining the right to vote in two presidential elections before her death. [6] Johanna and her husband, John, ran the business together from their house until John died in 1908. She assisted him in the operation of the business as well as made delivery runs to Waterloo. [7] After her husband's death, Johanna became the sole operator. Even though she never learned how to speak English well, she became an excellent businesswoman. She ran the pottery business and continued living in the house until her death on December 29, 1930. [8] Her daughter was running the family business at the time of her mother’s death. [9] 
 
 

Footnotes

1. Cedar Falls Historical Society Archives: Series IV: Box 5: Folder 2 (Raab Clippings): Johanna
    Raab's 100th birthday celebration. 

2. Mary Logan Sweet, Stoneware in Cedar Falls (Cedar Falls: Cedar Falls Historical Society,
    1984), 11. 

3. CFHSA: Series IV: Box 5: Folder 2 (Raab Clippings): Johanna Raab obituary in Waterloo
    Tribune, December 29, 1930 

4. CFHSA: Series IV: Box 5: Folder 2 (Raab Clippings): Johanna Raab's 100th birthday
    celebration. 

5. CFHSA: Series IV: Box 5: Folder 2: Johanna Raab obituary. 

6. Sweet, 14. 

7. Sweet, 15. 

8. Herbert Hake, 101 Stories of Cedar Falls (Cedar Falls: Cedar Falls Historical Society, 1977),
    30. 

9. CFHSA: Series IV: Box 5: Folder 2: Johanna Raab obituary. 
 
 
 

                                           Bibliography 

CFHSA: Series IV: Box 5: Folder 2: Raab Clippings: Johanna Raab's 100th birthday
    celebration. 

CFHSA: Series IV: Box 5: Folder 2: Raab Clippings, Johanna Raab obituary in Waterloo
    Tribune, December 29, 1930. 

Hake, Herbert, V. 101 Stories of Cedar Falls. Cedar Falls, Iowa: Cedar Falls Historical Society,
    1977. 

Sweet, Mary Logan. Stoneware in Cedar Falls. Cedar Falls, Iowa: Cedar Falls Historical Society,
    1984.