Details
Title Traubel, Maurice H.
Alternate title Traubel, Morris
Date ca. 1822-1898
Description Maurice H. Traubel, a Philadelphia lithographer of all branches of the trade, was born in Germany in 1822, and immigrated to the United States before 1847. Employed as a lithographer in Philadelphia by the late 1840s, including drawing a plate for American Sunday School Union's "Picture Lessons..." (ca. 1849), he lived at a boarding house in the South Ward by 1850. In 1853 following work with Wagner & McGuigan and Frederick Kuhl, Traubel established M. H. Traubel & Co. with fellow German-born lithographers Edward Schnabel, John F. Finkeldey, and Theodore Leonhardt, when they purchased the "Lithographic Institute" of Kuhl (46 1/2 Walnut Street, i.e., 218 Walnut Street).
Following the dissolution of M. H. Traubel & Co. ca. 1857, Traubel managed a lithographic firm, first at 22 South Fifth Street (1857) and later 409 Chestnut Street (1858-1872). His early and latter shop produced advertisements, maps, sheet music covers, portraits, political cartoons, trade cards, and stationery, including noted works "Cooper Shop Volunteer Refreshment Saloon..." (1862) and the large format allegorical print "The Triumph" (1861). In 1860 he expanded his print services to include tobacco labels and solicited for new clients. A year later, he applied for naturalization and was a U.S. citizen by the 1870 census. Traubel, during the 1860s and 1870s, also owned a stationery, book and music store in Camden, near his residence since 1859. In 1881 after a ten year hiatus from Philadelphia city directories following his imprisonment at Eastern State Penitentiary for his counterfeiting of government stamps, he was listed with a new establishment in the city that he operated with his two lithographer sons Emile G. and Lothario Traubel at 140 South Eighth Street.
Maurice married his wife Kate S. (1831-1895), not long after he arrived in Philadelphia and moved his family to Camden. They had seven children: Alfred (b. ca. 1850), Agnes (b. ca. 1852), Emile G. (1855-1921), Augusta (b. ca. 1857), Horace L. (1858-1919), Matilda (b. ca. 1860), and Lothario (b. ca. 1862). All of their sons dabbled in the lithographic trade at one point in their lives, but while Emile and Lothario made a profession of it (New York and D.C. respectively, following Philadelphia), son Horace gained the most notoriety as the biographer of Walt Whitman, a mentor from childhood. Appointed the secretary-treasurer of the Walt Whitman Fellowship 1894-1918, he spent his life writing volumes of the poet's biography.
By the 1890s Traubel and his wife lived with their son-in-law Thomas B. Harned in Germantown, and spent much of their time transcribing German newspapers. Traubel, a widower, committed suicide by gas inhalation on May 15, 1898. He was cremated at Chelten Hills Cemetery and his ashes interred at Evergreen Cemetery in Camden, New Jersey.
Is part of Philadelphia on Stone Biographical Dictionary of Lithographers
References See Finkeldey, John F.; Kuhl, Frederick; Moras, Ferdinand; Schnabel, Edward; and Wagner & McGuigan.
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Call number Philadelphia on Stone Biographical Dictionary of Lithographers
Bibliographic citation Census 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880
Groce & Wallace, 639
Horace and Anne Montgomerie Traubel Papers, Manuscript Division, LOC
Last, 233
Library Company of Philadelphia research file
Merrill, 268-269
Pennsylvania, Vol. 152, p. 98, R.G. Dun & Co. Collection, microfilm, Hagley Museum & Library
Peters, 389
Philadelphia Business and City Directories 1852-1872; 1881-1887
Philadelphia Inquirer, February 10, 1895 and August 14, 1921
Philadelphia, 1789-1880 Naturalization Records
WWWAA, 3327
Image file LCP-Traubel-BartlettFrench-8-1322-F-19g
LCP-Traubel-BartlettFrench-9573-15
LCP-Traubel-Simons-8-1322-F-21g
HSP-Traubel-Society-Posters-Ads-PrintTrade-Traubel
HSP-Traubel-Ba61-T-693a
HSP-Traubel-Ba61-T-693c
HSP-Traubel-Ba61-T-693e
LOC-Manuscripts-TraubelCards