Andre and Edouard Michelin
Andre Michelin was born in 1853, After finishing his engineering
degree at the Paris Central School in 1877, he entered art school as
an architecture student. Andre and Edouard MichelinHe later spent five
years in the cartography department of the Ministry of the Interior,
then set up a metal framework business in Paris.
His brother, Edouard Michelin, was, born in 1859. He studied at the
Paris School of Art. In 1889, he left his arts career to manage a
company founded by his grandfather, Aristide Barbier, and his cousin
Nicolas Edouard Daubree. The company had been founded in 1832 as a
farm machinery and pump manufacturing business. They soon became
interested in the industrial possibilities of vulcanized rubber, which
they used in their factory for seals, belts, calves, and pipes.
When Edouard Michelin became manager of the company, assisted by his
older brother, he changed its name to the Michelin Company.
The popular mascot, the Michelin Man, was also created by the Michelin
brothers. During a visit to the 1894 International Fair in Lyon, they
found themselves in front of a stack of tires. The shape of the stack
reminded them of a man, and thus the mascot was born. The Michelin
Man's name is Bidenbum, by the way, and the first Bidenbum was drawn
by a poster artist named O'Galop in 1898.
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