Barney Frank - Early Life, Education, and Early Career

Early Life, Education, and Early Career

Frank was born Barnett Frank in Bayonne, New Jersey, one of four children of Elsie (née Golush) and Samuel Frank. His family was Jewish, and his grandparents had immigrated from Poland and Russia. Frank’s father ran a Jersey City truck stop—a place Frank has described as “totally corrupt”—and served a year in prison, when Frank was 6 or 7, for refusing to testify to a grand jury against Frank’s uncle. Frank was educated at Harvard College, where he resided in Matthews Hall his first year and then in Kirkland House and Winthrop House, graduating in 1962. Frank’s undergraduate studies were interrupted by the death of his father, and Frank took a year off to help resolve the family’s affairs prior to his graduation. In 1964, he was a volunteer in Mississippi during Freedom Summer. He taught undergraduates at Harvard while studying for a PhD in Government, but left in 1968 before having completed the degree, to become Boston mayor Kevin White’s Chief Assistant, a position he held for three years. He then served for a year as Administrative Assistant to Congressman Michael J. Harrington. Frank later graduated from Harvard Law School, in 1977, where he was once a student of Henry Kissinger, while serving as Massachusetts State Representative.