Josef Rosenthal was born on October 11, 1805, the son of Urban Veit Levi and his wife Sophie Ostheimer. Urban Levi was an embroiderer: as a middleman he imported cotton for embroidery and then delivered it back to Switzerland. After his death in 1826, his two sons Philipp and Josef took over the business under the name “Urban Rosenthal sel. Söhne” and began to dye their products as well. In 1833 they became partners in the cotton spinning mill Johann Kaspar Kopf in Götzis, then in 1838 they founded a cotton spinning mill in Dornbirn with Johann Georg Ulmer. While production had previously been organised in small-scale homework, the industrial development of Vorarlberg now began. In 1841 the Rosenthals acquired the former Count’s bath from Isak Löwengard’s widow and built their own textile factory there, the company “Gebrüder Rosenthal & Co”. Their cotton and cloth printing works, known not least for its Turkish red dyeing, experienced rapid economic growth and the Rosenthals became one of the most important employers in Hohenems. Later, production sites in Rankweil, Liechtenstein and Bohemia were added. Josef Löwenberg married Klara Löwenberg from Hohenems, with whom he had eleven children, three of whom died as children. Rosenthal was one of the founding members of the Vorarlberg State Museum Association. Together they left behind a foundation for the care of the poor, with whose funds the Jewish poorhouse in the later Jakob-Hannibalstraße could be established.