BIOGRAPHY: George A. BAUER, Cambria County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Lynne Canterbury and Diann Olsen. Portions of this book were transcribed by Clark Creery, Martha Humenik, Betty Mirovich and Sharon Ringler. USGENWEB ARCHIVES (tm) NOTICE All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information are included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cambria/ ____________________________________________________________ From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 243-4 ____________________________________________________________ GEORGE A. BAUER, editor of the Johnstown Freie Presse, one of the leading German Democratic papers of Pennsylvania, is a son of Gottlob and Dorothea (Traut) Bauer, and was born June 30, 1863, at Eisfeld, in the dukedom of Saxe-Meiningen, now one of the twenty-six states of the German empire. His parents are natives, and have been life-long residents of Saxony, where they have witnessed many stirring events in the unification of Germany, and the growth of the present great German empire. Gottlob Bauer was born in 1816, and is a tailor by trade. His wife was born in 1832, and they are both consistent members of the Evangelical Lutheran church, in whose faith and teachings they were reared and have lived. George A. Bauer passed his boyhood days at his native place, where he received his early education in the citizens' schools then prevalent in Saxony, and all the other states of Germany. At fourteen years of age he left his native land and came to the United States, finding a situation in a printing office in Steubenville, Ohio, where he learned the "art preservation of all arts." After the close of his apprenticeship he worked in printing offices at various places until April, 1880, when he came to Johnstown and remained six months. He then went to Philadelphia, and after working in some of the principal printing offices of that city, made a trip through northern New Jersey, working in Trenton and Newark, and reached New York city, where he remained until 1886. In that year he returned to Philadelphia, and four years later, in November, 1890, came to Johnstown to assume charge of the Freie Presse, of which he has been editor and manager ever since. Mr. Bauer is unmarried. He is a member of Johnstown Lodge, No. 175, Order of Elke, and Barbarossa Castle, No. 85, Ancient Order of Knights of the Mystic Chain. He is a pleasant gentleman and a practical printer, and keeps up with the times in everything that regards newspaper work, from the sanctum to the composing room. The Johnstown Freie Presse is a German Democratic paper. It is a folio, twenty-seven by forty inches, and issued on Wednesday of each week. Under Mr. Bauer's management, the paper has attained a wide circulation. The Freie Presse is always bright and reliable. Every number is an epitome of all the interesting and important news of Johnstown and Cambria county, while foreign affairs and current events receive due mention, and the farm, garden and shop are not neglected. Mr. Bauer has made the paper unwaveringly Democratic in politics. He gives a candid and cordial support to the true principles of the Democratic party, as taught by Jefferson and enforced by Jackson. Prominently associated as he is with public affairs, Mr. Bauer is unobtrusive in demeanor, and has always aimed to be useful to the full extent of his opportunities.