Members of the Falk family have made significant contributions to the Pittsburgh steel industry and to philanthropy in the Pittsburgh community. Leon Falk (1869-1928) was an industrialist and philanthropist who made his fortune in Pittsburgh in the steel business. The parents of Leon, Charles and Sara (Sanders) Falk, immigrated in the 1850s from Erpol, Germany, to Allegheny (later the North Side neighborhood of Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania. Around 1868 the family moved to Irwin Station (later Greensburg), Pennsylvania, where their son Leon was born in 1869. In 1893 brother Maurice Falkestablished the Duquesne Reduction Company and the Crown Chemical Company. The two companies later merged with the Federated Metals Corporation, and Leon was the vice president and director. Fanny Edel Falk (1879-1910), daughter of Freda and Jacob Edel, was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, and raised in Richmond. She married Leon Falk in 1900. Their son Leon Falk Jr. (1901-1988) became a well known philanthropist in the Pittsburgh area and was a director of the National Steel Corporation. Falk was a trustee of the University of Pittsburgh for forty-four years, and he made large donations to various medical programs at the university, notably the Falk Clinic. Leon Falk Jr. married Katharine Sonneborn, a New Yorker, in 1926.
From the description of Falk familypapers 1900-1996 [manuscript] (Historical Society of W Pennsylvania). WorldCat record id: 608222020
