The Carl von Rothschild Library, Frankfurt

A foundation to establish a free public library in Frankfurt was established by Hannah Louisa von Rothschild (1850-1892) in 1887. Named in memory of her father, Mayer Carl von Rothschild, the library was modelled on the free public library system in England. The librarian was Dr. Carl Berghoeffer, a future biographer of Mayer Amschel Rothschild. The library's first home was on Bethmannstrasse, but in 1907 the library took over 15 Untermainkai, the former Rothschild residence in which the Frankfurt Jewish Museum was established in 1988. The library specialised in archaeology, art history, German, French and English philology, Jewish theology, trade and music, subjects with which the Rothschilds themselves were not unfamiliar. In the 1930s, the entire stock of the library - over 93,000 volumes - was absorbed by the Frankfurt City and University Library.

The Rothschild Collection (press cuttings collected by the Carl von Rothschild Library, Frankfurt)

The Rothschild Library (Freiherrlich Carl von Rothschild'sche öffentliche Bibliothek) was founded in 1887 by Hannah Louise von Rothschild (1850-1892) in the memory of her father Mayer Carl von Rothschild. The Foundation was taken over in 1928 by the City of Frankfurt am Main and is today part of the University of Frankfurt Library. The Rothschild Library maintained an extensive collection of press cuttings, and The Rothschild Collection contains two archives of newspaper clippings:

• 20,000 articles concerning the Rothschild family and business, from the national and international press from the years 1886-1916 and bound together into 31 volumes;
• articles concerning the history of the former Rothschild Library taken mainly from the Frankfurt press from the years 1890-1928.

The collection has been digitised and may be found here »