He attended public school in Leipzig until he was 17 when he entered his father's business, the A. Dolge and Co., Piano Manufacturers, as an apprentice.

[2] In 1874 Dolge went to Brockett's Bridge, Fulton County, New York, prospecting for spruce wood to be used for piano sounding boards.

[2] He purchased the old Herkimer County Tannery and in April 1875, he began manufacturing felt in it, later known as the Dolge Company Factory Complex.

Within a few years Brockett's Bridge grew from 325 to over 2,000 inhabitants, many of whom were German immigrants, whom he had interested in the area by advertisements and agents.

In 1887 the citizens unanimously petitioned the authorities at Washington to change the name of the place from Brockett's Bridge to Dolgeville, New York.

[2] Inspired by his early readings of Liebknecht, Marx, Mill, and Adam Smith, Dolge instituted at Dolgeville a form of what we now call social security in his attempt to create an idealistic socialistic utopia.

[2] In 1896, he printed a 243-page paperbound book entitled The Practical Applications of Economic Theories in the Factories of Alfred Dolge and Son.