Louise Herschman Mannheimer was a Czech-American Jewish author, poet, school founder, and inventor. Born in Prague, Bohemia, childhood memories and home influence combined to arouse and maintain in her feelings of deep attachment to her people. As the wife of Professor Sigmund Mannheimer, she strongly seconded his teaching and communal work, both in Rochester, New York and in Cincinnati, Ohio. During a busy lifetime in which home life was never secondary, she found time for literary labors. She wrote poems for German and English periodicals, including the prize poem, The Harvest. She was the author of, How Joe Learned to Darn Stockings, and other juvenile stories. She translated Nahida Remy's The Jewish Woman, and was the composer of The Maiden's Song. Mannheimer worked as a director of a private school, in Prague; teacher of a Sabbath School, Congregation Berith Kodesh, in Rochester; and teacher, Mrs. Leopold Weil's School, New York City. She was a contralto at the Temple Ahawath Chesed, New York; Sabbath School teacher, Temple Shaare Emeth, St. Louis, Missouri; president German Women's Club, Rochester; founder and president, Boys' Industrial School, Cincinnati. Mannheimer invented the Pureairin Patent Ventilator. She was a speaker at 1893 World's Columbian Exposition Congress of History and Congress of Religions, in Chicago; and for Mothers' Meetings, in Cincinnati.
In 1866, she went with her parents to New York City, and three years later, married Sigmund Mannheimer. She wrote German and English poems, as well as articles and reviews for German and English periodicals. Zimmermann's Deutscli in Amerika contains some of her poems and a short biographical notice. Among her productions in English are "The Storm," a translation of one of Judah Halevi's poems, and "The Harvest," a prize poem. In 1895, she published under the title of "The Jewish Woman" a translation of Nahida Remy's "Das Ji'idische Weib". She was the author of "The Maiden's Song", and a featured speaker at the Jewish Women’s Congress on the topic of "Jewish Women of Biblical and Mediaeval Times". Mannheimer was the founder of the Cincinnati Jewish Industrial School for Boys. She held patents for several devices. She was the inventor of the "Pureairin" Patent Ventilator. Mannheimer and her husband lived in Baltimore, New York City, St. Louis, and Rochester before settling in Cincinnati where he taught at the Hebrew Union College. They had two sons, Eugene and Leo, who both became rabbis, and two daughters, the dramatist and elocutionist Jennie Mannheimer, and the elocutionist Edna B. Mannheimer. Mannheimer died in New York, December 17, 1920.
