Lazarus Straus

Lazarus Straus (April 25, 1809 – January 14, 1898) was a German-American trader and entrepreneur.

Family
Lazarus Straus was the eldest of fourteen children of Isaac Straus, who in 1806 commissioned Napoleon Bonaparte to develop a concept for the emancipation of Jews in Bavaria on the left bank of the Rhine, and his wife Johanette. Isaac Straus took the surname Straus in 1808 following a Napoleonic decree.

His first marriage to his cousin, Davora Fanni Levi ( died 1843 ), resulted in the birth of his daughter in 1838. After the death of his first wife, he married her sister Sara Levi (1823–1876) in 1844, with whom he had four sons and a daughter; including the entrepreneur and US Congressman (serving in the United States House of Representatives), Isidor Straus (1845–1912), who died with his wife Ida Straus in the sinking of the Titanic, entrepreneur Nathan Straus (1848–1931), and US ambassador to Turkey, Oscar Solomon Straus (1850–1926). His fourth son, Jakob Otto Straus (1849–1851), tragically died as a baby at just one and a half years old.

In the Bavarian Palatinate
Lazarus Straus was born on April 25, 1809, in Otterberg. He owned land in Schallodenbach and Mehlbach in what is now Rhineland-Palatinate (then under the French flag) and was a grain trader. He did not take an active part in the revolution of 1848, but was liberal and sympathized with it. Straus felt threatened by discrimination, suspicion and an impending court case in Zweibrücken, in which he was supposed to answer for his financial support of the revolution. Since his hope for full citizenship for people of Jewish faith was not fulfilled due to the suppression of the revolution, he emigrated to the United States, where he arrived in Philadelphia in 1852, which at that time was the center for German Jews in the United States.

In Georgia
Straus followed a recommendation that he would find better opportunities in the south and headed to the state of Georgia, where he initially worked as a peddler in Oglethorpe. He used a wheelbarrow to deliver goods to plantation owners and their families and also delivered messages. Straus soon used the profits from the sale of his property in Germany to open a general store in the small town of Talbotton, and in 1854 he had his wife and sons join him. Daughter Karoline from his first marriage stayed in Germany. The Straus family was the only Jewish family in town.

Although he owned slaves himself, Lazarus Straus was an opponent of slavery in the United States. When the Southern states united in the Confederacy seceded from the Northern states (Union States) that remained in the Union, he refused to vote for secession. During the American Civil War, supplies became scarce and prices rose. A grand jury in Talbotton found that the high prices were the fault of the Jewish traders and condemned them for their “vicious and unpatriotic conduct.”

Although he was never expelled from the town, Straus was so unpopular with the anti-Semitic residents of the town whose tempers were so heated due to the war, that he fled Talbotton with his family in 1863 and went to Columbus. Straus did not want to continue living in a community that had cast such a shadow over his character. Some of Talbotton's citizens had tried to persuade Straus to stay. He left the control of the family house to his son Nathan, who ultimately exchanged the house for a horse.

In Columbus, his company, Georgia Importing and Exporting Company, traded in everyday goods from Europe, bypassing the blockade of the northern states. At the end of the Civil War, the cavalry under General James Harrison Wilson stormed and pillaged the town. Straus then predicted that the South would take several decades to recover, which is why he left Georgia in 1865 and moved to New York City. He disposed of the remainder of his cotton stock, which was his most important asset, and paid off debts in New York and Philadelphia. With the $25,000 that was left to him and his good credit rating, he wanted to make a new start here.

In New York
Together with his son Isidor, Lazarus Straus founded a glassware and tableware business at 165 Chambers Street With the entry of his other two sons into the company, it operated as L. Straus & Sons. Expensive foreign porcelain, clocks, vases and bronzes were soon added to the range of consumer goods. In 1873, the Straus family opened their own department in the basement of Rowland H. Macy 's department store on 14th Street. In 1882 he founded the New York and Rudolstadt Pottery Co. Inc, which produced high-quality porcelain ware in Rudolstadt and imported it to America. After Macy's death in 1877, Straus first acquired shares in Macy's store in 1884, then the entire department store in 1895/1896, which the family developed into the largest department store in the United States. In 1895, Straus' company operated two other European factories in addition to Rudolfstadt in Karlovy Vary and Limoges.

Macy 's was just one of the Straus family's many forays into retail and department stores. In 1876, the year of Philadelphia's Centennial Exhibition, they opened a wholesale showroom and a retail store there. Following the exhibition, Straus entered into a contract with John Wanamaker to house the company's inventory in Wanamaker's department store in Philadelphia. In the 1880s and 1890s, L. Straus & Sons maintained sizeable departments in major department stores such as Boston (RH White Co. and Jordan March & Co.), Chicago (JH Walker & Co. and Mandel Bros.), Baltimore (Joel Gutman & Co.), Philadelphia (Strawbridge & Clothier, after a contract dispute with Wanamaker), Washington, DC (Woodward & Lothrop) and Brooklyn (Wechsel & Abraham, later Abraham & Straus). In addition, Straus maintained branches in London, Paris, Bohemia and elsewhere.

The philanthropist Lazarus Straus supported, among other things, scientific projects and educational institutions, such as Meyer Kayserling's research project on the history of the Sephardic Jews on the Iberian Peninsula. He was a member of the Beth Elohim Congregation and was considered to have deep roots in New York's Jewish community; Henry Hall called him "a prominent Hebrew" in his book America's Successful Men of Affairs: The city of New York; the House of Bavarian History described him as the “Patriarch of German Jewry in New York”. He contributed donations to the maintenance of the Mount Sinai Hospital and the Montefiore Home for Chronic Disease. Three of his sons “achieved considerable reputation in society in important positions”.

Lazarus Straus died on January 14, 1898, at the age of 88 at his residence at 23 West 56th Street in Manhattan, New York City. The cause of death was determined to be aortic valve insufficiency, liver cirrhosis, shrunken kidney and heart failure. He was involved in the company's business until the last weeks of his life.

His written legacy is stored in the New York Public Library.

Reception
Leon Harris wrote in his 1979 book Merchant Princes : “The only Jewish merchant family in America comparable to the Rothschilds of Europe is the Straus family. “It is the only family, other than the Rosenwalds, to have amassed a great fortune and created a lifestyle as remarkable in luxury, lavishness and service as that of the Rothschilds.”

In his book on Jewish Boston History Sites, Michael A. Ross called the Straus family a “titan among American department store operators.”