Zeitschrift fuer angewandte Chemie ; Saechsisch-Anhaltischer Bezirksverein Deutscher Ingenieure ; Bayerische Stickstoff Werke ; Bayerische Kraftwerke ; Brandenburgisches Carbidwerk ; Societa Generale per la Cianamide ; Fausto Morani ; Haeusser ; letter from Fritz Haber ; Paul Wagner ; Acetylenverein; Museumsverein fuer Beleuchtungs-Heizung ; Kuxen-Zeitung; Verein der Zellstoff ; Torfkohlengeneratorengas-Motorenanlage; Ludwig Franz, Kanisza; Die Frau in Haus und Beruf (Berlin 1912) ; Russfabrikationsanlage ; Generatorenretortenofen

Finding aid available online

The collection contains material on Adolf and Albert Frank. Most of it is connected to Adolf Frank's career as a chemist and entrepreneur. The bulk of the material is business papers of various kinds, mostly minutes of meetings and correspondence. Notebooks and patent files can also be found. Prominent is material which shows Adolf Frank's role in the German wartime industry of World War I. Although most material is connected to Adolf Frank, information about Albert Frank is also included. Both are represented in personal papers that appear in the collection

Frank's resume is catalogued separately in the memoir collection, ME 138

Adolf Frank (1834-1916) was one of the leading chemists in nineteenth-century Germany. Born in 1834 in Kloette, he began his career as an apothecary's apprentice and received his license in 1857; afterwards he studied chemistry at the University of Berlin. He then obtained a position as a chemist with a beet-sugar refinery and used the results of his work there as a basis for his dissertation, which was accepted at the University of Goettingen in 1872

In the late 1860s, Frank played a leading role in the development of Strassfurt potash deposits and their application as an agricultural fertilizer. He remained interested in the problems of German agriculture, especially its chemical aspects, for the rest of his life. After working for some years as a chemist with Charlottenburg Glaswerke, Frank resigned in 1885 to go into business for himself as an independent chemical consultant. His expertise covered many fields, with a focus on the cellulose industry in Germany and abroad

Together with his co-worker Nicodem Caro, Frank invented a process for the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen in 1895. This process, related to modern cyanamid manufacture, attracted interest in industrial circles, and with the backing of Deutsche Bank, Siemens & Halske, and Deutsche Gold und Silber Scheideanstalt the Cyanid Gesellschaft was founded in 1899 to exploit the process. At first the company was not commercially successful. It was only during and after World War I that the process was sufficiently refined to become profitable

For many years Frank was on the Board of Directors of the Charlottenburg Municipal Gas Works and of the Vereinigte Chemische Werke. He received many awards, including an honorary professorship and the title of Geheimer Regierungsrat. Although eighty years old at the outbreak of World War I, he threw himself into war work, and this occupied most of his attention until his death in 1916

Frank's son Albert (1872-1965) was also a chemist. He directed a pilot plant for the Cyanid Gesellschaft and did consulting work. In the early 1920s he became director of the Bayrische Stickstoff Werke. Albert Frank retained this position until his emigration to the USA in 1938. In America, Frank obtained a post with American Cyanamid for whom he had previously acted as German consultant. Albert Frank died in New York City in 1965

Photographs removed to Photograph Collection

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