Mayer Amschel Rothschild's 1812 will shut his daughters and sons-in-law out of the bank; the Frankfurt house closed in 1901 for lack of a male heir

Mayer Amschel Rothschild built a banking business from the Frankfurt Jewish quarter. He had five sons and five daughters: Jeanette, Isabella, Babette, Julie and Henrietta. In 1810 he signed a partnership with his sons, and the firm became Mayer Amschel Rothschild & Söhne. Daughters and sons-in-law had no share. The Rothschild Archive says the women were kept out of the partnership so that no son-in-law could claim control. His will of September 1812 left his wife Gutle a life interest in 70,000 guilders and gave the business to the sons alone. It barred the daughters, the sons-in-law and their heirs from any share and from demanding to see the firm's accounts. Biographers report that it also forbade any official inventory of the estate^†. He died on 19 September 1812 and was buried in the old Jewish cemetery of Frankfurt. His eldest son Amschel took over the Frankfurt house. The family kept capital inside by marriage: of 58 marriages contracted by his descendants up to 1905, 29 were between first cousins. Until 1960 every partner in a Rothschild bank descended from him in the direct male line. In 1901 the Frankfurt male line ended with the death of Wilhelm Carl von Rothschild^†. The Frankfurt bank was liquidated, the Disconto-Gesellschaft took over its business, and most of its archives were destroyed that year on the family's orders.