William Frank (1819 - 1891)

Born 1 Apr 1819 in Burgpreppach, Bavaria, Germany

Husband of Pauline (Wormser) Frank — married 18 Oct 1848 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA

Descendants

Died 22 Sep 1891 at age 72 in Pittsburgh, Allegheny, PA, USA

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Biography

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 emigrating 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.

Sources

• Heinz History Centre
• "Pedigree Resource File," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.2.1/93LB-8HP : accessed 2014-03-08), entry for William Frank, submitted by aguggenheim2733156.