Dorchester Illustration no. 2473 Meisel Press Manufacturing Company
Francis Meisel, born in 1846, was the son of August Meisel, a lithographer. The family emigrated from Germany, and Francis became a US citizen in 1880. Francis Meisel organized the Meisel Press and Manufacturing Co. in 1903 for the manufacturing of machinery for the printing industry and erected the building soon thereafter. The building appears in the 1904 Bromley atlas. The building, which is located at the corner of Dorchester Avenue and Crescent Avenue, is now known as the DNA lofts, a condominium complex of 59 units.. The Society recently received a gift of a plan and elevation from 1913 of the building from attorney Stuart Schrier on behalf of the Raimondi family.
The company manufactured machinery for making paper, slitting and rewinding and for lithography printing.
Francis lived at 10 Upland Avenue from 1903 until his death in 1917..
The following is from
Inland Printer , Volume 58, October 1916 to March 1917. (Chicago, 1917), 818
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=8QchAQAAMAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA45
Francis Meisel, 1846-1917.
In the death of Francis Meisel, president of the Meisel Press Manufacturing Company of Boston, Masachusetts, the printing world has lost one of its most prominent men. Mr. Meisel was born in Baden German, on January 10, 1846, being one of eight children. His father was the owner of a flour-mill, and at the age of seventeen the young Meisel, upon the death of his father, took up the business, conducting it until1865, when he went to Munich, where he served an apprenticeship was a millwright. In 1870, when twenty-four years old, he came to America and settled in Boston, his first employment being with B. F. Sturtevant, the founder of the Sturtevant Blower Works, who was then in business in a small way on Sudbury street, Boston. The next year he started in business on First Street, Boston, and there began to build machinery for the lithographic trade and Kidder presses by contract.
In 1884, Mr. Meisel consolidated with the Kidder Press Company, then located in Roxbury. For a few years he was superintendent, after holding the office of president and general manager. It was while associated with this company that he began making inventions for specialty printing. He was especially interest in color-work and designed the press which printed the first high-class colored supplement, issued by the Boston Herald on May 30, 1896. In 1903 he organized the Meisel Press Manufacturing Company and erected the present factory building in Dorchester. With the assistance of his nephew, Charles A. Meisel, and his son, Otto C. F. Meisel, a business was developed which is known the world over. These two young men have carried the burden of the company’s affairs during the past few years and will continue the business under the same firm-name.