J. William Frey Collection on the Soviet Union

John William Frey (1916-1989) joined the F & M faculty in 1944, retiring in 1980. He was chairman of the German and Russian Department from 1949 until 1966. He earned an A.B. from Dickinson College in 1937, and his M.A. and Ph. D. from the University of Illinois in 1939 and 1941, respectively. Early in his career, Frey was very interested in Pennsylvania German language and culture and was one of the co-founders, with Alfred Shoemaker and Donald Yoder, of the Pennsylvania Dutch Folklore Center at F & M. He published a number of books on the Pennsylvania Germans, including A simple grammar of Pennsylvania Dutch, 1942 and 1985; Pennsylvania Dutch Grammar, 1950; and, Folksongs of the Pennsylvania Dutch, nd. Later in his career, Frey became interested primarily in the Russian language and the Soviet Union, traveling there in the 1960s and 1970s.