Franklin "Frank" Albert Steele was born on September 2, 1928 in Pittsburgh, PA, the son of Harry and Ruth Steele. He graduated from the University of Virginia's School of Law but beyond serving as a United States Air Force attorney from 1953 to 1956, he never practiced. Instead, Steele held a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and later in life was involved in financial and strategic consulting in Philadelphia.

Margaret "Peggy" Steele, née Wright, attended Arcadia University, graduating with a degree in Business Administration in 1980. In 1976, Frank and Peggy were married; the same year, they met artist, Dick Perez, and opened the Perez-Steele Galleries with Peggy serving as the president of the Galleries from 1979 through 2005. The Galleries served as consultants to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the Philadelphia Phillies, and the Leaf-Donruss Company. The Galleries produce artwork and limited edition cards of baseball's elite players and, with Leaf-Donruss, endowed the art gallery at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Frank and Peggy Steele began collecting baseball memorabilia in 1975. Their collecting was broad-based and encompassed all types of baseball items, including over 350 individual pieces of sheet music, one of the largest private collections ever assembled. They searched antique stores, flea markets, used book stores and nearly anywhere across the country that might have baseball sheet music for sale, equating it to a "treasure hunt," finding baseball items where others would not think to look. As the collectibles market changed, they found increased prices and competition for individual pieces and ultimately donated the collection to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

The Steeles were active in all aspects of the printed ephemera world, joining the Ephemera Society in 1980 and writing the section on sheet music in Bert Sugar's Sports Collectors Bible.

In June 2000, Frank passed away due to the effects of pulmonary fibrosis. In 2001, the Frank and Peggy Steele Internship Program for Youth Leadership Development was born in honor of Frank's memory, an annual program at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.