Stern, William, 1886-1964
Photograph collection, 1940s – 1971. (Photo Folio 96)
56 photographic prints
Biography
William Stern was born May 19, 1886 in Fargo, the son of Alex and Bertha (Kaufman) Stern. He attended two years of high school in Fargo before graduating from St. John’s Military Academy at Delafield, Wisconsin. He then began to work in his father’s store in Fargo. When his father and others organized the Dakota National Bank in 1917 William Stern became a director.
He served in the U.S. Army in World War I as an officer in the Quartermaster Corps. He served in Maryland and France. He returned to his position at the bank after the war and in 1925 became cashier and vice-president. With the death of his father in 1934, William Stern became bank president.
William Stern was very active in civic and political affairs. He was one of the organizers of Fargo’s Gilbert C. Grafton Post of the American Legion. He also served as post treasurer and commander, and as national vice-commander. In 1936 he was elected to the Board of Directors of Northwest Airlines. Other business connections included with Northwestern States Portland Cement, Stern Realty, Fargo Real Estate Company, Fowler Realty Co., and Alex Stern & Co.
His political career began in 1911 as a Republican precinct committeeman in Fargo. He was elected delegate to the state convention and to the 1928 national Republican convention that nominated Calvin Coolidge. He became national committeeman in the Hoover administration and attended many of the national Republican conventions. In 1951 he was appointed an official observer at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco.
William Stern died January 1, 1964 and is buried at Fargo.
Scope and Content
The William Stern Photograph Collection consists of items located at the time of donation at Dakota Bank and Trust and given to the Institute prior to the bnak’s merger with another bank. The images have been organized into three series: Dakota National Bank, Presidential portraits, and General portraits. Most have no specific identification on the back and many taken by Dan Olsen, Fargo photographer.
The Dakota National Bank Series consists of photographs of the new bank constructed in the early 1960s on Broadway. There are several snapshots of the older building on Broadway, and of its newer branch office on South University Drive. There are several interiors of the old building’s counter and of the new buildings, likely at the time of a grand opening. In December 1971 two buildings adjacent to the bank burned and there are views of that aftermath of the winter fire. The group photographs may not all be related to the bank and may be other groups with which Bill Stern was involved. He is featured in several, including by a Northwest Airlines airplane. There are two views of customers at an after-hours depository and another at a counter.
In 1956 Bill Stern and A.M. Eriksmoen attended the First National Bank of Chicago Conference of Bank Corespondents and there are four views of Stern, Eriksmoen and others at the conference.
The Presidential Portrait Series includes several images of Bill Stern with then Vice-president Richard M. Nixon. There is also one of Nixon playing the piano with a man and woman standing by him. There is a view of Vice-president Harry Truman swearing in U.S. Senator Milton R. Young in 1945, and a portrait of Truman at his desk with inscribed, “Best wishes to Bill Stern, Harry Truman.” There is a large hand colored portrait of Dwight D. Eisenhower, perhaps a copy, but with “Dan E. Olson Studio, Fargo, N. D.” imprinted on front.
The General Portrait Series includes portraits, some inscribed to Bill Stern, from Robert Byrd, Chiang Kai-shek and wife, Herbert Hoover, Louis Johnson, Warren G. Magnuson, Nelson Rockefeller, a printed drawing of Harold E. Stassen, Chuck Mayo, Cardinal Aloisius Meench, and an unidentified man in a cowboy hat and jeans.
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Photography 
