Wuttge, Frank, Jr., 1901-1985

Frank Wuttge, Jr. was a writer and researcher with interests in the history of New York City, Edgar Allan Poe and poetry. His father, Frank Wuttge, Sr. was a photographer active in German-American organizations.

Frank Wuttge, Jr., son of the German photographer Frank Wuttge, was the secretary/historian of the 71st Regiment Veteran Association and president of the Civil War Memorial Committee. A member of the Mary Elizabeth Bowser Tree Dedication Committee, Wuttge led the effort to pay tribute to Bowser with a tree dedication at West Farms Soldiers Cemetery in the Bronx.

Mary Elizabeth Bowser served as a Union spy during the Civil War in the Confederate White House of President Jefferson Davis. Born into slavery on a plantation outside of Richmond, Virginia in 1839 to the Van Lew family, she was freed in 1851 by Elizabeth Van Lew, daughter of her owner John Van Lew and a Quaker abolitionist. Bowser was sent to Philadelphia by Elizabeth Van Lew where she received her education, but was summoned back to Richmond to assist Van Lew, a Northern sympathizer and Union spy. Van Lew's contacts placed Bowser in the Virginia home of Jefferson Davis, where she labored as an uneducated, domestic servant under the alias "Ellen Bond." She passed along Confederate strategic and military plans to Van Lew who in turn sent the information to Union military commanders. The collection also contains information on Arthur A. Schomburg and the Schomburg family.