Frederick L.G. Straubel, inventor, founder of the Automatic File and Index Company, and amateur photographer, was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on May 25, 1861, the son of Ernest F. and Christine Liebman Straubel. After attending area schools, at age 19 he took his first job as bookkeeper and clerk for the Delaport Hardware Company. He then worked for the Alonzo Kimball Hardware Company and the Weise-Hollman Company, a wholesale and retail crockery firm.
Straubel's practical experience with the filing equipment used by those firms led him to see the advantage of a file cabinet in which the contents opened automatically for easier filing as the drawer was opened. In 1901 Straubel secured a patent for such a file cabinet and with his brother Otto and 1,000 dollars in capital organized the Automatic File and Index Company. The invention first appeared on the market in 1903.
In conjunction with his brother, who worked as factory superintendent, and his son Clarence W. Straubel, who joined the firm as sales manager, Straubel continued to make improvements on filing equipment. By 1928, when the company was sold, the firm was utilizing over 32 patents in its product line. This line included not only filing cabinets but also a wide range of office equipment. Although the company originally manufactured only wooden equipment, by the mid-1920s they had changed to wood and steel construction.
At its peak the Automatic File and Index Company employed over 100 workers in its Green Bay factory. It marketed its line through a number of retailers and by direct mail. The Automatic Company was well known for the quality of its product. AFICO wrote in its advertising literature, for example, that in 1918 the University of Wisconsin purchased only Automatic cabinets.
In 1928 Straubel sold his controlling interest to L.E. Houston, who moved the corporate offices to Chicago. Straubel and his son remained at the factory in Green Bay, the elder Straubel as vice president, director, and industrial engineer, and C.W. Straubel as factory manager. Gradually, however, Straubel became disillusioned with the new ownership, and within a year he had relinquished all salaried relations with the company, although the family maintained its minority stock ownership. Straubel continued, however, to work on his inventions, and he used his control of some of his patents to which AFICO had shop rights to attempt to manage corporate affairs. When this failed to bring about the desired results, in 1932 he licensed those AFICO patents which he controlled and those which he invented after leaving the company to General Fireproofing Company of Youngstown, Ohio, the world's largest manufacturer of office equipment. General Fireproofing marketed Straubel's inventions as part of their Superfiler line. At about the same time Clarence Straubel became the head of General Fireproofing's office equipment division.
Frederick Straubel married Amanda Weise in 1889, and they had three children, Clarence, Marjorie, and Dorothy Wittig. Straubel was greatly interested in music and was an accomplished amateur photographer.
In 1933 Frederick Straubel experienced a heart attack from which he never completely recovered. He died March 16, 1938.
