Beginning in 1919, Frank lived in Baltimore, Maryland, where she would reside for the majority of her life, serving also as a Visiting Professor of Romance Philology at Johns Hopkins University in that city.
[1] A specialist in French medieval theatre and poetry, Frank produced numerous critical editions and over 40 scholarly articles in the field.
[3] Her influence on her field was such that a 2005 essay claimed that "it seem[ed] almost impossible to read an article or a book on the subject of medieval French drama without finding a reference to her scholarship.
[5][6] In 1902, she graduated from Drexel Institute, and matriculated to the University of Chicago, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in December 1906.
[7] Her first published work was during this period, an English translation from German of Hermann Sudermann's Roses, four one-act plays in 1909.
[1][9] In the mid-1920s, Frank and her husband conducted research in Tunisia, studying Roman ruins near Tunis, Carthage, Medjez-el-Bab, Sfax and Sousse.
[1] However, beginning in 1919, Tenney Frank was made professor of Latin at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, which required the couple to relocate there.
[9] As a result, for the next 25 years, Grace Frank commuted weekly from the couple's home in Baltimore to the campus of Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania.
Her edition of Le Livre de la Passion, Poème narratif du XIVe siècle (1930), analyzed five 15th-century manuscripts based on a 14th-century narrative.
[24] After the United States joined the war, Frank served as a civilian volunteer with the Army Air Forces Aircraft Warning Service in Baltimore.
[32] Frank valued her adopted home of Baltimore, but criticized what she saw as the city's neglect of funding for the arts in favor of "throughways and skyscrapers alone.
[2] The text continues to be a relevant survey of the subject in 21st century English and French-language scholarship,[39][40][41][42] that, in the words of one contemporary scholar, "remains today an authoritative reference work, admired and appreciated by all who use it.