Early Life
Munder was born on Lombard Street. His German-born father, Charles Munder, was Maryland's first preserve and candy-maker. Norman and his two brothers, Charles and Wilmer, played in the St Paul's Burying Ground at Lombard and Fremont Streets. When he was seven, an advertisement of a small printing press for sale attracted the boys' attention and they scraped enough money together to buy it. From that moment on, to all purposes, they were in the printing business and made visiting cards, delivering them by wagon and billygoat.
By that time having lost their father, their mother, Priscilla Price Munder (a woman known for her pious life and good works), took them to buy their first real printing press, which ran faithfully until it was destroyed in the Baltimore Fire of 1904. In 1878, the Munder Brothers opened their first shop on Baltimore Street, near Calvert. After school and on weekends they worked their "mule-powered" printers (not yet steam-treadled) and despite the fact that Norman's two fingers got caught and were cut off below the nails by the new printer the first day it arrived, the business thrived and began to take on seriously large orders from a North Carolina tobacco firm and the B&O Railroad, which wanted updated timetables continuously printed.
Read more about this topic: Norman T.A. Munder
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)