Frankfurt National Assembly officially German National Assembly (1848-49) German national parliament that tried and failed to create a united German state during the liberal Revolutions of 1848. Meet¬ ing in Frankfurt am Main, it proposed a constitution that provided for uni¬ versal suffrage and a parliamentary government, with a hereditary emperor. The assembly offered the crown to Frederick William IV of Prussia, but he was too conservative to receive a German imperial crown from any hands but those of the other German princes, and he refused. Lacking support from either Prussia or Austria, the assembly was forced to disband.
Frankfurt school Group of thinkers associated with the Institut fur Sozialforschung (Institute for Social Research), founded in Frankfurt in 1923 by Felix J. Weil, Carl Griinberg, Max Horkheimer, and Friedrich Pol¬ lock. Other important members of the school are Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, and JOrgen Habermas. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Horkheimer moved the institute to Columbia University in New York City, where it functioned until 1941; it was reestablished in Frankfurt in 1950. Though the institute was originally conceived as a cen¬ tre for neo-Marxian social research, there is no doctrine common to all members of the Frankfurt school. Intellectually, the school is most indebted to the writings of G.W.F. Hegel and the Young Hegelians (see Hegelianism), Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Wilhelm Dilthey, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud. See also critical theory.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Vfraqk-fur-tor-'al-ge-.mi-no- 'tsl-tur)\ (FAZ) German "Frankfurt General Newspaper" Daily newspaper published in Frankfurt am Main, one of the most prestigious and influential in Germany. It was created after World War II by journal¬ ists who had worked on the highly respected Frankfurter Zeitung before the war. When control of the press was turned over to the new West Ger¬ man government in 1949, FAZ began publication. It was the first daily of truly national scope and quickly won a high reputation. Its editorial policy is regarded as conservative because it champions private enterprise.
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Frankfurter ► Fraser I 705
Frankfurter, Felix (b. Nov. 15, 1882, Vienna, Austria-Hungary—d. Feb. 22, 1965, Washington, D.C.,
U.S.) Austrian-born U.S. jurist and public official. Immigrating to the U.S. at the age of 12, he was edu¬ cated at the City College of New York and Harvard Law School, where he later taught (1914-39). He served as secretary of war (1911-13) under Pres. William H. Taft. He advised Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference (1919) and counseled Franklin Roosevelt on New Deal legislation (1933-39). He pro¬ moted Zionism in the U.S. and helped found the American Civil Liberties Union; his friend Louis Brandeis secretly encouraged his attacks on the Sacco-Vanzetti conviction. In 1939 he was appointed by Roosevelt to the Supreme Court of the United States, on which he served until 1962. He became a leading exponent of judicial restraint, holding that judges should adhere closely to precedent and largely disregard their personal views; his opinions evince a concern with the integrity of government, sometimes at the expense of individual liberties.
frankincense Fragrant gum resin obtained from trees of the genus Boswellia (family Burseraceae), particularly several varieties found in Somalia, Yemen, and Oman. This important incense resin was used in ancient times in religious rites and in embalming. It constituted part of the Jewish incense of the sanctuary and is frequently mentioned in the Pentateuch; it was one of the gifts of the magi to the infant Jesus. It is used today in incense and fumigants and as a fixative in perfumes.
Franklin, Aretha (Louise) (b. March 25, 1942, Memphis, Tenn., U.S.) U.S. popular singer. Franklin’s family moved from Memphis to Detroit when she was two. Her father, C.L. Franklin, was a well-known revivalist preacher; his church and home were visited by musical lumi¬ naries such as Clara Ward, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, and Dinah Wash¬ ington. Franklin made her first recording at age 12. At first she performed only gospel music, but at age 18 she switched from sacred to secular music. After struggling for a number of years to achieve crossover success, in 1967 her powerful and fervent voice took the country by storm as she began to release a string of songs including “I Never Loved a Man,” “Respect,” “Chain of Fools,” “Think,” and “Natural Woman.” Her rous¬ ing mixture of gospel and rhythm and blues defined the golden age of soul music of the 1960s. In 1987 she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
the Constitution of the U.S. He is regarded as one of the most extraordi¬ nary and brilliant public servants in U.S. history.
Franklin, John Hope (b. Jan. 2, 1915, Rentiesville, Okla., U.S.) U.S. historian. He attended Fisk Univer¬ sity and received graduate degrees from Harvard and has taught at many colleges and universities, including Howard, Chicago, and Duke. He first gained international attention with From Slavery to Freedom (1947). He helped fashion the legal brief that led to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. He was the first black president of the American His¬ torical Association (1978-79) and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995.
Franklin, Rosalind (Elsie) (b.
July 25, 1920, London, Eng.—d.
April 16, 1958, London) British biologist. After graduating from the University of Cambridge, she con¬ ducted important experimental work ~°P e Franklin, 1990
for the coal and coke industries. She ^ PIX PHOTOGRAPHY _
later produced the X-ray diffraction
pictures that allowed James D. Watson and Francis Crick to deduce that the three-dimensional form of DNA was a double helix. In studies of the tobacco mosaic virus, she helped show that its RNA is located in its pro¬ tein rather than in its central cavity and that this RNA is a single-stranded helix rather than the double helix found in the DNA of bacterial viruses and higher organisms. Her death from cancer at age 37 probably cost her a share of the 1962 Nobel Prize awarded to Watson, Crick, and Maurice Wilkins.
Franz \'frants\, Robert orig. Robert Franz Knauth (b. June 28, 1815, Halle, Saxony—d. Oct. 24, 1892, Halle, Ger.) German song com¬ poser. In 1842 he became director of the Singakademie of his native Halle and organized choral festivals there. He sent Robert Schumann a set of songs, which Schumann had published in 1843 without consulting Franz. Franz Liszt became another influential supporter and published his own book about Franz in 1872. By 1867 Franz had become almost completely deaf and was obliged to relinquish his posts, including his professorship at the University of Halle. He was mentally unstable in his later years, when honours were increasingly heaped upon him. His more than 300 songs are remarkable for their sensitive musical prosody; he is a signifi¬ cant figure in the history of the ued.
Franz Josef See Francis Joseph
Franklin, Benjamin (b. Jan. 17, 1706, Boston, Mass.—d. April 17, 1790, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, and publisher. He was apprenticed at age 12 to his brother, a local printer. He taught himself to write effectively, and in 1723 he moved to Philadel¬ phia, where he founded the Pennsylvania Gazette (1730—48) and wrote Poor Richard’s Almanack (1732-57), whose proverbs and aphorisms emphasized prudence, industry, and honesty. He became prosperous and promoted public services in Philadelphia, including a library, a fire depart¬ ment, a hospital, an insurance company, and an academy that became the University of Pennsylvania. His inventions included the Franklin stove and bifocal spectacles, and his experiments in electricity led to the invention of the lightning rod. He served as a member of the colonial legislature (1736—51). He was a delegate to the Albany Congress (1754). He repre¬ sented the colony in England in a dispute over land and taxes (1757-62); he returned there in 1764 as agent for several colonies. The issue of taxa¬ tion gradually caused him to abandon his initial support for a unified colonial government under British rule. Believing that taxation ought to be the prerogative of the representative legislatures, he opposed the Stamp Act and helped secure its repeal. He served as a delegate to the second Continental Congress and as a member of the committee to draft the Dec¬ laration of Independence. In 1776 he went to France to seek aid for the American Revolution. Lionized by the French, he negotiated a treaty that provided loans and military support for the U.S. In 1781 he helped nego¬ tiate a preliminary peace treaty with Britain. As a member of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, he was instrumental in achieving adoption of