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 († 1843) in 1838 resulted in a daughter. After the death of his first wife, he married her sister Sara Levi (1823–1876) for the second time in 1844, with whom he had four sons and a daughter, including the entrepreneur and MP Isidor Straus (1845–1912, who died with his wife in the sinking the Titanic ), the entrepreneur Nathan Straus (1848–1931) and the US ambassador to Turkey, Oscar Solomon Straus (1850–1926). The fourth son, Jakob Otto Straus (1849–1851), died as a toddler at the age of one and a half.
Life and work
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 was.
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 pulled. 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.