Guide to the Papers of the Frank Family, 1846-2000
- Repository
- Heinz History Center
- Title
- Papers of the Frank Family
- Creator
- Frank family
- Collection Number
- MSS 474
- Extent
- 5 linear feet (10 boxes)
- Date
- 1846-2000
- Abstract
- William and Pauline Wormser Frank were among the first Jewish families to make their permanent home in Pittsburgh. They were among the founders of the earliest Jewish religious and philanthropic institutions in Pittsburgh. The Frank Family Papers include correspondence, ledgers, legal documents, company histories, family trees, recorded interviews, and documentation of glass bottles manufactured by the Frank family glass factory.
- Language
- The material in this collection is in English.
- Publisher
- Heinz History Center
- Address
- 1212 Smallman St.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222
library@heinzhistorycenter.org
URL: https://www.heinzhistorycenter.org
History
William and Pauline Wormser Frank were among the first few Jewish families to make their permanent home in Pittsburgh. They were founders of the earliest institutions in the Pittsburgh Jewish community. William was the owner of a glass factory, and their descendants have been prominent in Pittsburgh's engineering and steel-related industries as well as in Jewish religious and philanthropic activities.
William Frank was born in Bavaria and worked as a journeyman cotton weaver in various German cities before immigrating to the United States in 1840. Working first as a peddler in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, he later operated dry goods stores in Ohio before moving to Pittsburgh in 1846. William married Pauline Wormser, also an immigrant from Germany, in 1843. Their infant son Ephraim was one of the first people buried in the Jewish cemetery in the Troy Hill neighborhood, in the burial ground owned by the Bes Almon Burial Association, the first Jewish institution in Western Pennsylvania. The Franks were among the founders of Rodef Shalom Congregation, the oldest surviving synagogue in Pittsburgh. When Rodef Shalom dedicated its first permanent building in 1862, William Frank was president of the congregation. William Frank was also a founder of the Hebrew Benevolent Society. Pauline Frank was a founder of the Jewish Ladies' Relief Association, which was active in the Sanitary Commission fairs to aid Civil War soldiers; she also served for many years on the board of the Pittsburgh Association for the Improvement of the Poor.
The Frank family lived first above their store and at two other locations in downtown Pittsburgh, and then moved to Mount Washington in 1865 and Allegheny City in 1884. Their son Isaac W. Frank, along with many other members of the Jewish community, made his home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood after the turn of the twentieth century.
William Frank and his brother-in-law Ephraim Wormser were partners, first in the dry goods business and subsequently in the manufacture of glass, which became one of Pittsburgh's major industries. Their glass factory was built in the 1850s, and the family business was run under the names Frank & Wormser and Wm. Frank & Sons until 1876, when the factory burned down and was not rebuilt. The company's principal products were bottles and flasks used for pharmaceuticals, liquor, and food products. The museum collection of the Senator John Heinz History Center contains several specimens of Frank bottles.
Isaac W. Frank, one of William and Pauline Frank's sons, was born in 1855 and educated in Pittsburgh schools and at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he received his civil engineering degree in 1876. After holding engineering positions in New York, Mississippi, Colorado, and Pittsburgh, Isaac W. Frank became involved in the manufacture of rolling mill and steel works machinery through his position as Secretary and Engineer at the Lewis Foundry and Machine Company in Pittsburgh. In 1892, he organized the Frank-Kneeland Machine Company, and later the United Engineering and Foundry Company, of which he was president until 1919. In 1915, before the United States entered World War I, Isaac W. Frank took the unusual position of refusing to manufacture arms or ammunition for nations at war.
In the course of his professional life, Isaac W. Frank served on the boards of many steel companies and related industries; he was also a trustee of the University of Pittsburgh and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, as well as serving on the boards of most of the Jewish philanthropies in Pittsburgh. Isaac W. Frank was married in 1883 to Tinnie Klee, daughter of Jacob and Lena (Hirsch) Klee, who were also founding members of Rodef Shalom Congregation and other Jewish institutions in Pittsburgh. Isaac W. Frank died in 1930.
William K. Frank, one of three children of Isaac W. and Tinnie K. Frank, was born in 1890 and was educated in Pittsburgh public schools, Shady Side Academy, and Cornell University, where he received his mechanical engineering degree in 1911. He worked for Damascus Bronze Company, a manufacturer of industrial, railroad, and rolling mill bearings, and its successor the National Bearing Division of the American Brake Shoe Co., until 1927. William K. Frank joined Copperweld Steel Company in 1927; he worked in various executive capacities there and served as member and chairman of the board, retiring in 1951. Copperweld produced alloy steels and copper-covered steel rods and wire. William K. Frank was also a director of United Engineering and Foundry Company (which had been founded by his father Isaac) and of the Apollo Steel Company.
William K. Frank was also active in the ownership and management of commercial properties, including the Webster Hall, Ruskin Apartments, and Amalgamated Realty Company, and in two car dealerships, Midtown Motors and Central Lincoln Mercury, Inc. During World War II, he served the War Production Board in several capacities, including director of the General Industrial Equipment Division, director of the Equipment Bureau, and special assistant to the director of the War Production Board. His service, as a "dollar-a-year-man," took him to Europe to study ways to bring war-torn plants back into full production.
Like other members of his family, William K. Frank was involved with many philanthropic organizations in the Jewish community and the wider community of Pittsburgh. He served on the boards of the Association for the Improvement of the Poor, the Young Men's and Women's Hebrew Association, the Emma Farm Association, the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, and the Community Chest of Allegheny County.
William K. Frank was married to Florence Kingsbacher from 1914 until her death in 1940; they had three children. Florence K. Frank was one of the founders of the Community School, which later became the Falk School at the University of Pittsburgh. After World War II, William K. Frank moved to New York, and he lived in Montauk, Long Island after his retirement. He had one child with his second wife, Mary Knabenshue. He died in New York in 1964.
James Alan Frank, the second child of William K. and Florence K. Frank, was born in 1918. Like his father, he was graduated from Shady Side Academy and Cornell University, and he worked in the family businesses Copperweld Steel and Amalgamated Realty. During World War II, James A. Frank served as a major in the Army Air Forces. In 1942 he married Ruth Ohringer, the daughter of Abraham and Helen (Stern) Ohringer. Abraham (Abe) Ohringer, who was 87 years old when he died in 1975, was the founder, with his wife, of Ohringer Home Furniture Company in Braddock, PA. Helen Ohringer (1881-1983) was a founding member of Ein Karem Chapter of Hadassah. Both Ohringers were noted philanthropists in the Jewish community. James and Ruth Frank had four children.
In the 1950s, James A. Frank started his own company, American Air Surveys, which made aerial topographical maps for businesses; later he worked as a business consultant. He continued the family tradition of community service, chairing the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Jewish Committee and serving on the boards of the Pittsburgh YMCA, Urban League, and United Way. Because of his interest in his own family history and the early history of the Jewish community in Pittsburgh, he became one of the founders of what is now the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Senator John Heinz History Center.
Scope and Content Notes
The Frank Family Papers are housed in ten archival boxes and are arranged in four series. Series have been designated for Isaac W. Frank, William K. Frank, James A. Frank, and Helen and Abe Ohringer. Because James A. Frank undertook extensive genealogical and family business history research, many secondary materials about other members of the family, including Isaac W. and William K. Frank, will be found in the series designated for James A. Frank. The papers include correspondence, ledgers, legal documents, company histories, family trees, and documentation of glass bottles manufactured by the Frank family glass factory. They provide information about members of the Frank family and about their professional and community activities.
Series I: Isaac W. Frank (1855-1930)
This series contains primarily information relating to Isaac W. Frank's professional life as an engineer, including an early sketchbook of machine drawings and a copybook of correspondence from the last years of his life. Included also are detailed notebooks of Isaac W. Frank's personal financial records. A folder of the contents of a leather portfolio embossed with Isaac W. Frank's name includes business records and correspondence and currency from Portugal, Ireland, the United States and the Bank of Pittsburgh.
Series II: William K. Frank (1890-1964)
This series contains materials ranging from a bound book of mechanical engineering laboratory reports from William K. Frank's student days at Cornell University to an embellished tribute book presented to him by United Engineering and Foundry Company toward the end of his life. Of particular interest are reports of the work he did for the War Production Board during and after World War II and a series of personal letters to his family during trips he took to Europe for the War Production Board during the final two years of the war. There is a book, In Blood and Ink, inscribed to W. K. Frank by the author, Maury Maverick, a colleague on the War Production Board. There is one folder of documentation of loans of a painting owned by William F. Frank, "Mrs. O'Doud's Grocery Store," by Jasper Holman Lawman, a noted nineteenth-century Pittsburgh painter.
February 2015 addition: Series II material on William K. Frank also includes an audiocassette recording of an interview conducted with WKF on George S. Kaufman by Howard Teichmann circa 1962, as well as an interview on audiocassette conducted with Rudolph Stanish about WKF in 1995.
Series III: James A. Frank (1918-2004)
This series contains both papers of James A. Frank and records of his extensive genealogical and family business history research. It has been divided into four subseries.
February 2015 addition: Series III also contains an audiocassette recording of an oral history interview conducted with James A. Frank in 1975.
Subseries I: Personal
There are five folders of biographical information on James A. Frank and one folder of documentation of prints he owned of Pittsburgh industrial and landscape scenes. Of note are three folders recording his military service during World War II, including identification cards and reports of his participation in engineering-related military assignments in the United States.
Subseries II: Family history
This subseries consists of the records of James A. Frank's extensive research into the history of the Franks and related families. It includes the transcript and translation of the autobiography of William Frank. It also includes biographical information about Pauline Wormser Frank and their sons Himan Frank, Samuel Frank, Abraham Frank, and Isaac W. Frank and about Isaac W. Frank's children Bessie Klee Frank Anathan and William K. Frank and his daughter-in-law Florence Kingsbacher Frank. The material on Isaac W. Frank includes James A. Frank's correspondence with Corinne Azen Krause, author of the biography Isaac W. Frank, Industrialist and Civic Leader, 1855-1930. Also included are family trees and/or related materials for the Frank, Klee, Wormser and Kingsbaker (Kingsbacher, Königsbacher) families and extensive correspondence with Elizabeth Plaut, a distant cousin with whom James A. Frank shared detailed genealogical information over a period of thirty years. The series also includes one folder of information about The Community School, a forerunner of the Falk School, of which Florence K. Frank was one of the founders; and a folder of information collected by James A. Frank tracing the Frank family's moves from downtown to Mount Washington to Allegheny City to Squirrel Hill. Of note are copies of Of Thee I Sing and Let 'em Eat Cake, by Pulitzer-Prize-winning Pittsburgh playwright George S. Kaufman, inscribed with personal messages to Florence K. Frank.
Subseries III: Business history
This subseries consists of materials collected by James A. Frank during his research into the history of companies with which Frank family members were associated. It includes primarily James A. Frank's significant correspondence with scholars and collectors regarding the bottles manufactured by William Frank & Sons. A small amount of material on other Frank family related companies is also included.
Subseries IV: Jewish history projects
James A. Frank was involved, both as a financial supporter and as a provider of artifacts and documentary information, in projects to raise awareness of the history of the Jewish community in Pittsburgh. This subseries includes material related to the exhibit Roots and Branches: Pittsburgh's Jewish History, organized by Corinne Azen Krause, and to the book The Jewish Experience in Western Pennsylvania: A History 1755-1945, by Jacob Feldman.
Series IV: Abraham (Abe) Ohringer (1888-1975) and Helen Ohringer (1881-1983)
Abe and Helen Ohringer founded the Ohringer Home Furniture Company in Braddock in 1912, expanding the business to McKeesport and Greensburg; the company was sold in 1957. The Ohringers supported Jewish causes in Pittsburgh; for example, they made a major gift for the expansion of Hillel Academy in 1964, and Helen Ohringer was a founding member and long-time fundraiser for the Ein Karem Chapter of Hadassah. This series contains materials related to their philanthropic activities, not to their business.
Conditions Governing Access
No Restrictions.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
These materials came in two accessions and were combined into one body in 2008, two other accessions were added in 2013.
Acc#2006.0219, Acc#2007.0262, and Acc# 2009.0197. Gifts of Ruth O. Frank, widow of James A. Frank. Acc #1991.0145 was a gift of James A. Frank.
Audiocassettes containing two interviews of unknown provenance were added to Series II in February 2015. The first contains an interview with William K. Frank about George S. Kaufman. The interview was conducted by Kaufman biographer Howard Teichmann. The second contains an interview about William K. Frank with Frank's longtime friend Rudolph Stanish. Audiocassettes containing an oral history conducted with James A. Frank in 1975 were added to Series III in February 2015.
Preferred Citation
Papers of the Frank Family, 1846-2000, MSS#474, Rauh Jewish Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center Audiocassettes of an oral history conducted with James A. Frank in 1975 located in Series III were previously cited as MFC 474.General
Audiocassettes of an oral history conducted with James A. Frank in 1975 located in Series III were previously cited as MFC 474.
Processing Information
This collection was processed by Martha L. Berg on June 30, 2008; additions and revisions by Martha L. Berg on July 22, 2013. Further additions and revisions were completed by Carly Lough on February 5, 2015
Conditions Governing Use
Property rights reside with the Senator John Heinz History Center. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. For permission to reproduce or publish, please contact the Library and Archives of the Senator John Heinz History Center.
Related Materials
The Rodef Shalom Congregation Archives (http://rodefshalom.org/who/history/) contains records relating to the Frank family, and its art collection includes oil portraits of William and Pauline Frank. The American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, Ohio (www.huc.edu/aja) has a small amount of material on the Frank family.
Photographs of Florence Kingsbacher Frank and William K. Frank can be found in the Sunstein Family Papers and Photographs, MSS 1037.
Portraits of William and Pauline Wormser Frank, as well as papers relating to their sons Isaac and Abraham Frank, and the descendants of Abraham Frank, can be found in the Buck and Frank Family Papers and Photographs, MSS 531 and MSP 531.
Separated Materials
Two boxes (1 linear foot) of photographs have been separated and described as MSP#474.
One corrugated enclosure containing oversize materials has been separated and described as MSO#474.
One folder of oral history cassette tapes has been separated and described as MFC#474.
The following books and publications have been separately catalogued in the Library:
A Pittsburgh Album, Revised for Bicentennial, compiled, written & edited by Roy Stryker and Mel Seidenberg (1959 & 1975, Pittsburgh Post- Gazette), pages loose.
"The Founding of Columbian Council," by Ida Cohen Selavan, reprinted from American Jewish Archives, vol. 30, no. 1, April 1978.
"Story of Religion in the Pittsburgh Area," compiled and written by O.M. Walton, for the Bicentennial of the city of Pittsburgh, 1958.
"Jews Connected with the History of Pittsburgh 1749-1865," Master's Thesis by Julia Miller, University of Pittsburgh, 1930.
"The Early Migration and Settlement of Jews in Pittsburgh 1754-1894," by Jacob S. Feldman, UJF, 1959.
"United Engineering and Foundry Company," by G. G. Beard, American Newcomen Society in North America, 1961.
"United for Fifty Years," by John E. Pfeiffer, United Engineering and Foundry Company, 1951.
"United Effort," published by the employees of United Engineering & Foundry Company, July, 1926, vol. 6, no. 7.
"The Pioneers of a Community: Regional Diversity Among the Jews of Pittsburgh, 1845-1861," By Jacob S. Feldman, reprint from American Jewish Archives, vol. 32, no. 2, Nov. 1980.
Post card of Schenley Hotel, © 1910, J.C. Bradgon, Pittsburg/ Fort Pitt Publishing Co.
Three items have been separately catalogued in the Museum Division.
Subjects
- Wm. Frank & Sons (Pittsburgh, PA)
- Lewis Foundry Machine Co. (Pittsburgh, PA)
- Frank-Kneeland Machine Co. (Pittsburgh, PA)
- Copperweld Steel Co. (Pittsburgh, PA)
- United Engineering and Foundry Company (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
- War Production Board (Washington, DC)
- Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
- State of Israel Bonds (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
- Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania--Rauh Jewish Archives (Pittsburgh, PA)
- Frank family
- Frank, William, 1819-1891
- Frank, Pauline Wormser, 1815-1910
- Frank, Isaac W., 1855-1930
- Frank, William K., 1890-1964
- Frank, James A., 1918-2004
- Ohringer, Abraham, 1888-1975
- Ohringer, Helen, 1881-1983
- Lawman, Jasper Holman
- Krause, Corinne
- Kaufman, George S., 1889-1961
- Maverick, Maury, 1895-1954
- Glass manufacture--Pittsburgh, PA
- Glass factories--Pittsburgh, PA
- Engineering--Pittsburgh, PA
- Rolling-mill machinery--Pittsburgh, PA
- Jewish soldiers--Pittsburgh, PA
- World War, 1939-1945
- Philanthropy--Pittsburgh, PA
- Jews--Pittsburgh, PA