Isidor Straus

• Born: February 6, 1845
• Birthplace: Otterberg, Kaiserlauten, Bavaria (now in Germany)
• Died: April 15, 1912
• Place of death: Aboard the Titanic, North Altantic Ocean

German-born entrepreneur, philanthropist, and politician

A canny businessman, Straus made major contributions to the development of department stores and to New York’s shopping district, and he played an important role in the Jewish American community.

Early Life

Isidor Straus (IHS-ih-dor strows) was born in Otterberg, Bavaria, on February 6, 1845, to Lazarus and Sara Straus. The eldest of five children, Isidor Straus had one sister, Hermione, and three brothers, Nathan, Oscar Solomon, and Jakob Otto, who died in infancy. Straus’s father was a landowner and a successful merchant; however, because of unfavorable political conditions after the German revolution of 1848, Straus’s father immigrated to the United States in 1852. In 1854, when Straus was nine years old, the family joined his father in Talbotton, Georgia, where he had opened a general store.

With plans to attend West Point, Straus attended the Southern Military College at Collingsworth. Then with the beginning of the Civil War, his father’s partner was called into service, and Straus took a position at the store. Wounded in the fighting, the partner returned, and Straus went to Marietta to enroll in the Georgia Military Academy. Finding the students frivolous and preoccupied with playing practical jokes as a means of hazing new students, Straus decided not to attend. In 1863, Straus made a trip to England as secretary to Lloyd G. Bowers to sell Confederate bonds and cotton acceptances (shares) to raise money for the war effort. In addition to his work for Bowers, Straus bought and sold cotton shares on his own, and he amassed approximately twelve thousand dollars.

Life’s Work

At the close of the Civil War, Straus returned to New York City, where he met his father. The family had suffered financially during the war, and his father believed the family needed to move to the North to start a new business. Using Straus’s money and obtaining credit for the rest of the purchase, the Strauses bought almost fifty thousand dollars’ worth of imported china, porcelain, glassware, and crockery from the wholesaler Bliss and Company. They opened a small store, L. Straus and Son, in the loft of a building at 116 Chamber Street, and, on June 1, 1866, they made their first sale.

The new business proved to be successful. In a matter of weeks, they expanded to the ground floor and the basement of the building. The next year Straus’s brother Nathan joined them. He worked in sales, and Straus was responsible for general management and bookkeeping. In 1871, Straus married Rosalie Ida Blun, with whom he had seven children: four sons, one of whom died in infancy, and three daughters. In 1873, Nathan arranged with Rowland Hussey Macy, the owner of Macy’s department store, for the Strauses to have a shop in the basement of the store. Again, the venture was highly successful; by 1874, their sales accounted for ten percent of Macy’s sales. The Strauses opened similar shops in department stores in major cities, such as Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia.

In 1888, Straus and Nathan bought a partnership in R. H. Macy and Company. In 1893, the Straus brothers, in partnership with Simon F. Rothschild, purchased Joseph Wechsler’s interest in the department store Wechsler and Abraham, located in Brooklyn. They changed the store’s name to Abraham and Straus. In 1896, they acquired full control of R. H. Macy and Company. Once Straus and his brother were the sole owners of Macy’s, Straus began reorganizing the store and implementing innovative ideas and merchandising techniques. Straus believed that advertising was a key element of building a successful retail business. He also believed that advertisements needed to catch the attention of potential shoppers. To do this, he used odd prices and concentrated on underselling the competition. Although Abraham and Straus never became a part of the Macy’s firm, Straus did take advantage of the benefits of buying jointly for both stores. In 1902, the Strauses moved the store to Herald Square, where they had built a large modern building to house the firm. Straus headed operations at the new store, as he had done at the old location.

An astute and successful businessman, Straus also took an active interest in politics. He was a close friend of President Grover Cleveland and influenced him significantly in his support of the gold standard. Straus served in the House of Representatives from 1893 to 1895, and when he was offered renomination he refused it. Straus also declined to accept appointment as postmaster general. Straus and his family amassed a considerable fortune from their ownership of Macy’s. All of the Strauses aided and established philanthropic organizations. Straus contributed to the Montefiore Home, a residential care facility for elderly Jews. From 1893 to 1912, he served as president of the Educational Alliance, a settlement house for newly arrived Jewish immigrants. He established the endowment for the Jewish Theological Seminary. He was a member of the Jewish American Committee, founded in 1906 with the objective of defending the rights of Jews everywhere in the world.

In his personal and business life, Straus placed a high value on family unity and reciprocal respect and tolerance. Business was a family endeavor for him. With his father and brother Nathan, he created Macy’s on Herald Square. His sons Jesse, Percy, and Herbert pursued careers at Macy’s. On February 6, 1892, Straus wrote a letter, referred to as the “ethical will,” to his children, in which he admonished them to preserve the unity of the family through cooperative effort, mutual respect, forgiveness, and tolerance. He stated that it was this unity that had brought the family the wealth and the happiness that its members enjoyed. The letter was to be read after his death.

Straus and his wife shared this unity. They were apart rarely, and when he had to travel alone on business, they wrote to each other every day. In 1912, Straus and his wife were returning to the United States from Germany on the Titanic. On April 15, 1912, they both died when the ship struck an iceberg and sank. Because of his advanced age, Straus had been offered the opportunity to enter a lifeboat, but he refused because women and children were still on the ship, and his wife would not leave him. Their selflessness and devotion to each other remain part of the Titanic legacy.

Significance

Straus exerted a significant influence on the mercantile and economic life of New York City and of the United States. Through his astute ability to organize and manage a retail firm, Straus made a major contribution to the development of the techniques and traditions of selling goods, and he played a vital role in creating the American department store. By moving Macy’s to Herald Square in 1902, he initiated the move uptown of New York’s business district. Through his success in business and his philanthropic aid to new Jewish immigrants, Straus worked to make the Jewish community an integral part of the United States.

Bibliography

Grippo, Robert M. Macy’s: The Store, the Star, the Story. Garden City Park, N.Y.: Square One, 2009. Comprehensive history of Macy’s. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss Macy’s under the ownership of Isidor and Nathan Straus.

Harris, Leon A. Merchant Princes: An Intimate History of Jewish Families Who Built Great Department Stores. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Good for comparison of Straus with other merchant Jewish immigrants.

Hower, Ralph M. History of Macy’s New York, 1858-1919: Chapters in the Evolution of the Department Store. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1943. Hower refers extensively to Straus’s privately published autobiography (1955), which provides a look at Straus’s own depiction of his career.

Hungerford, Edward. The Romance of a Great Store. 1920. Reprint. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010. Excellent for details about the Straus family and its importance in developing the department store.