Biele Business with Charles Lang Freer

Charles Lang Freer was born in Kingston, NY and made his fortune in Detroit in the railcar business.  After retiring from business he dedicated the remainder of his life to collecting art, primarily American and Asian.  Before his death, he bequeathed his collection to the Smithsonian along with one million dollars to construct the new building to house it, now know as the Freer Gallery of Art.

The reference to the correspondence can be found at the Charles Freer archive as listed in the index:

Box 3 15-16  Biele, Charles F., and Sons Company, 1917-1919.

Additional biographical information about Charles Freer can be found at the following links and attached documents:

Wikipedia article of Charles Freer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lang_Freer

Article from "Hour Detroit" (PDF File) - http://www.hourdetroit.com/Hour-Detroit/February-2008/The-Legacy-of-Charles-L-Freer/

NY Times Obituary (PDF File) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F0CE4DC123AE03ABC4E51DFBF668382609EDE