Guide to the Michael Family Photographs, 1856-2000

Table of Contents

Summary Information

History

Scope and Content Notes

Administrative Information

Related Materials

Controlled Access Headings

Collection Inventory

Series I Photographs

1 Michael family and related families1875-2002

2 Louis Michael 1902-1985

3 Sol Michael 1915-2000

4 Miscellaneousc.1856-c.1980

Series II Negatives

1 Single Negatives1915-1952 and n.d.

Summary Information

Repository

Detre Library & Archives, Heinz History Center

Title

The Michael Family Photographs

Creator

The Michael Family

Collection Number

MSP#369

Date [inclusive]

1856-2000

Extent

3 linear feet (8 boxes and 5 shelf volumes)

Language of Materials

The material in this collection is in English.

Abstract

This collection includes photographs, negatives, tintypes, glass plates, and 35mm strip negatives from the Michael Family of Uniontown, Pa. Joseph was an alderman in Uniontown, Pa. His wife Flora (Fell), and later their son Sol, ran Mrs. Michael's Children's Shop. Their oldest son, Louis Michael, became an engineer, working for various firms in western Pa.; their second son, Sidney, was a veterinarian in Erie. Sol Michael served in the Army in World War II.

Return to Table of Contents »

History

Flora Fell (Fehl) and Joseph J. Michael were married in 1902. They had three sons: Louis, Sidney and Solbert. Around 1905, the couple opened a small store in Uniontown called Mrs. Michael’s Children Shop. The store featured maternity items and clothing, as well as clothing for children. Flora Michael was the primary worker in the store. In 1930, she hired Louise Novotny to help with household chores. Louise Novotny eventually came to work as a saleswoman in the store for over fifty years.

Joseph J. Michael was elected alderman in the early 1900s and had an office located on Main Street in Uniontown. The family lived in an apartment over a dairy on Fayette Street, but in 1918 moved to 55 South Gallatin Avenue, where the family lived until 2002, when Sol Michael passed away.

The oldest of the sons, Louis Michael, was born in 1902 and at the age of fourteen became a nationally known inventor, producing a booklet in 1917 titled How to Build a Caterpillar Tank. Louis attended the College of Engineering at Penn State College from 1920 to 1925 and joined the Beta Sigma Rho fraternity after the beginning of his freshman year. After graduation, Louis worked for American Sheet and Tin Plate Company in Pittsburgh, and then, until 1930, for the Duplate Corporation, a subsidiary of Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company located in Creighton, Pa. He joined the Blaw Knox Company Road Machinery Department in 1930, designing machines and equipment for power plants and road building.

Through his fraternity’s Carnegie Tech chapter, Louis met Sara Schermer, a Costume Design major who finished her education at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and established a couturier studio in Cleveland in 1929. Sara (Sally) Schermer and Louis Michael were married in 1930 and moved to Springdale, Pa.; in 1932 they returned to Uniontown when Louis lost his job because of Depression-related cutbacks at Blaw Knox. After periods without work, the couple moved to Pittsburgh, where Louis was hired by the Ruud Manufacturing Company in 1935. Another change of employment took them back to Uniontown from 1937 to 1942, when they moved to Virginia because of work that became available through the Civil Service Commission as the United States entered the World War II. Louis worked for Army Ordnance and the Army Materiel Command until his retirement. On August 6, 1945, Louis and Sara adopted their daughter Jean Laura. Louis pursued boating and oil painting as hobbies; several of his paintings now belong to the collections of Penn State University. Louis passed away in 1999.

Sidney Michael was born in 1905 in Uniontown, Pa. He became interested in farming and, at the age of fifteen, entered the National Farm School. There he was a member of the football team until his graduation in 1924. Later, he became interested in veterinary medicine and attended the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. While in school, he married Becky Feldstein. After graduation, they moved to Erie, Pa., where their daughter Elaine was born. Sidney returned to Erie at the end of WWII and continued in the reserves as a staff veterinarian until his retirement in 1965. He operated an animal hospital in Erie and died in 1995.

The youngest son, Solbert Michael (Sol), was born in 1913. He became interested in business and, at eleven years old, worked as a doorman at his Uncle Lee Fell’s clothing store. Eventually, he worked as a salesman, until the attack on Pearl Harbor, when he immediately enlisted in the Army. He was inducted into the army on January 5, 1942, and served in the war until his honorable discharge as supply staff sergeant in September, 1945. After the war, Sol worked as a salesman with the Metzler Company in Uniontown until 1946, when he took over his mother’s business. There he worked until the store’s closing on May 15, 1980, ending seventy-eight years of service. Sol passed away in 2002.

Return to Table of Contents »

Scope and Content Notes

The Michael Family Photographs and negatives are housed in eight boxes and five wrapped shelf volumes and are arranged in two series. Two boxes contain photographs, four contain single negatives, one contains tintypes and glass plates, and one contains 35mm strip negatives. The wrapped volumes are photo albums/scrapbooks or loose scrapbook pages, containing primarily photographs. Series have been designated for photographs and for negatives. The photographs series includes four sub-series: the Michael family and related families; Louis Michael; Sol Michael; and miscellaneous photographs. The negatives series includes sub-series for single negatives, tintypes, glass plates, and 35mm strip negatives. The negatives for many of the printed photographs, both loose in folders and in albums, may be found in the negatives series. The bulk of the collection consists of images taken by Louis and Sol Michael.

Series I: Photographs (c.1856-2000)

Sub-Series 1: Michael family and related families (1863-1997)

This sub-series includes photographs of the Michael family and of the following related families, arranged alphabetically: Fell, Miller, Nussbaum, and Schermer. Also included is Hattie Nussbaum’s photograph album, which contains news clippings and memorabilia as well as photographs of the Fell, Michael, Miller, and Nussbaum families.

Sub-Series 2: Louis Michael (1902-1985)

The Louis Michael sub-series contains photographs taken of him, including photographs from his early life and from his High School reunions. This sub-series also contains photographs taken by Louis Michael. These include family portraits and snapshots of family members and friends; trips; work-related images; and nature photographs. Locations include Uniontown, State College, New Kensington, Pittsburgh, and New York. Of special note are images dating from Lou’s employment in 1935 as a social worker for the Fayette County Relief Board. These photographs, primarily in one of the three scrapbooks of photographs taken by Lou Michael (the first listed in the container list), show poverty-stricken families living in thatched-roof huts and in abandoned beehive coke-ovens. Also included are photographs of oil and pastel portraits Michael Family Photographs, painted by Louis Michael. There are also photographs of the 1936 St. Patrick’s Day Flood in Pittsburgh. The photographs are arranged in roughly chronological order, with scrapbooks following. The first of the scrapbooks contains photographs that are for the most part identified and dated. The other two are not dated and the photographs are not identified.

Sub-Series 3: Sol Michael (1923-2000)

This sub-series emphasizes the Army service of Sol Michael from 1942-1945, including photographs of his duty stations in Virginia, North Africa, Corsica, and various locations in Italy; fellow soldiers in the 437th Signal Battalion; tourist photographs taken on leave, mostly in Italy; his return to the United States aboard the Liberty Ship William C. Blount; and reunions of the 437th Signal Battalion. Loose photographs in folders duplicate many of the images in Sol’s home-made wartime photograph album. Also included are photographs of Sol Michael from his childhood and his Army service, photographs he took of fishing trips in the 1940s-1960s, and photographs of reunions of the Uniontown High School Class of 1931. The photographs are arranged in roughly chronological order, with the album following. Sol made the album from old file folders and developed the small prints in the commissary tent.

Sub-Series 4: Miscellaneous (c.1856-c.1980)

This sub-series includes photographs of the Michael family store and other locations in Uniontown; individuals who were not members of the extended Michaels family, including Louise Novotny, Katie Simpson, and Rabbi Henry E. Kagan; various locations in New York and Pennsylvania, including two images of cleanup after the St. Patrick’s Day Flood in Pittsburgh in 1936; and unidentified photographs. Some of these photographs were taken by Louis Michael; other photographers cannot be identified. These photographs are arranged in no particular order.

Series II: Negatives

Sub-Series 1: Single Negatives (1915-1952 and n.d.)

Boxes 3 through 6 contain single negatives, most likely taken primarily by Louis Michael or Sol Michael. The single negatives are arranged chronologically, using information written on the original containers, generally by Lou Michael. Titles in quotation marks are taken directly from these original notations. Note that the titles given do not in all cases match exactly or describe fully the contents of each set of negatives. Box 6 contains only undated single negatives. Each box contains a variety of negatives, including images of family members and events. In Box 4 are negatives of the coke ovens and mud huts used for housing during the Great Depression (set 54, no. 1-13). There are also negatives taken by Louis Michael during the 1936 flood in Pittsburgh (Set 64, no. 1-11). Box 5 contains negatives of Sol’s service in the army (set 112, no. 1, set 113, no. 1-30). Prints made from many of these negatives may be found in Boxes 1 and 2 of this collection and in four of the wrapped albums.

Sub-Series 2: Glass Plate Negatives (c. 1870-1932)

Box 7 contains glass plate negatives taken by Louis Michael. The photograph of glass plates #2-3 (of Sara Schermer Michael) may be found in Box 2 of this collection.

Sub-Series 3: Tintypes (c.1880)

The tintypes are in two sets. The first is of the Fell family and the second is from outside of Joseph Michael’s office. Photographer is unknown.

Sub-Series 4: 35mm Strip Negatives (c. 1915-1970 and n.d.)

Box 8 contains 35mm strip negatives taken by Louis Michael, Sol Michael, and possibly other unidentified photographers. These date from circa 1915 to 1970. Prints made from these negatives may be found in the photographs series. Of note is a negative strip taken by Louis Michael while working on safety glass productions. It shows the bullet holes in the glass while trying to construct bullet proof glass (Roll 21, no. 1). A paperweight made from this bulletproof glass may be found in the Museum Collections.

Descriptive titles for these negatives were derived partly from notations on the original containers and partly from observation of the negatives themselves. In some cases, strips of positive prints are included along with the corresponding negatives. Some of the negatives have been damaged. The strip negatives are arranged chronologically, with undated materials at the end.

Return to Table of Contents »

Administrative Information

Publication Information

Rauh Jewish Archives Senator John Heinz History Center, November 2008

Restrictions on Access

No Restrictions.

Restrictions on 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.

Acquisition Information

These materials came in four accessions, gifts of Jean Michael Crawford, the daughter of Louis and Sara (Schermer) Michael.

Processing Information

December, 2003; Papers arranged and inventory written by  Alexis Storch; additions and revisions by  Martha L. Berg, June 16, 2004.

Return to Table of Contents »

Related Materials

Separated Materials

To the Photographic Collection: five photo albums and eight boxes of photographs and negatives have been catalogued as MSP# 369.

To the Museum Division: 1) cigarette holder, clothes hanger from Lee Fell’s store, bulletproof glass paperweight, framed alderman piece, deputy constable badge, BPOE medal, spelling medal, merit medal, wooden butter paddles (Museum accession #2004.31); 2) “crazy quilt” pillow, four Battenburg doilies, net-work bedspread and pillow sham, handkerchief, stockings, and hand-made shawl (Museum accession # 93.85).

To the Oversized Collection: one diploma, honorable discharge document, and map, all of which belonged to Sol Michael, catalogued as MSO# 369.

To the Library Collection:

Benjamin Franklin: The First Civilized American (Given to Louis S. Michael for his bar mitzvah)

The form of daily prayers: prayers for every day of the year, according to the custom of the German and Polish Jews (belonged to the Schermer family of Sharon, Pa., and lists yahrzeits for Herman Schermer 1918, Rose Lurie Schermer 1907, and Clara, sister of William and Sara Schermer. She died at about 11 or 12 years of age.)

I Remember When- (Louis S. Michael’s autobiography)

Meditations and prayers for every situation & occasion in life. (Belonged to Sara Schermer)

The World War

Maroon and White Uniontown High School yearbook for 1920, with autographs from 1970 50th reunion

Return to Table of Contents »

Controlled Access Headings

Corporate Name(s)

• Mrs. Michael's Children's Shop (Uniontown, Pa.)
• Pennsylvania State University (State College, Pa.)
• Uniontown High School (Uniontown, Pa.)
• United States. Army. 437th Signal Battalion
• Fayette County Relief Board (Pa.)

Personal Name(s)

• Michael family
• Fell family
• Miller family
• Nussbaum family
• Schermer family
• Michael, Joseph
• Michael, Flora Fell
• Michael, Louis (1902-1999)
• Michael, Solbert (1913-2002)
• Michael, Sidney (1905-1995)
• Michael, Sara Schermer

Subject(s)

• World War--1939-1945--Europe
• Depressions--Pennsylvania--1929
• Jews--Pennsylvania--Uniontown
• Jews--Pennsylvania--New Kensington
• Floods--Pennsylvania--Pittsburgh--1936
• Coke-ovens--Pennsylvania--Fayette County

Return to Table of Contents »

Collection Inventory