Abraham & Straus

• 1800s - The store was founded in 1865 in Brooklyn, New York, as Wechsler & Abraham by Joseph Wechsler and Abraham Abraham. In 1893, the Straus family (including Isidor Straus and Nathan Straus), who acquired a general partnership with Macy's department stores in 1888, bought out Joseph Wechsler's interest in Wechsler & Abraham and changed the store's name to Abraham & Straus. While Abraham & Straus did not at that time become a part of Macy's, the two stores shared an overseas office and maintained close ties.
• 1900s - Federated Department Stores, Inc. was formed in 1900 as a holding company by several family-owned department stores, including Abraham & Straus, F&R Lazarus & Co. (along with its Cincinnati-based subsidiary, Shillito's), and Filene's of Boston. Corporate offices established in Columbus, Ohio, later moved to Cincinnati. In 1992, Federated Department Stores merged with Allied Stores Corporation. The A&S and Jordan Marsh divisions were consolidated, forming the A&S/Jordan Marsh division, headquartered in Brooklyn, NY. Early in the new year, Macy's files for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11. In 1994 the Federated Department Stores acquired the now bankrupt R.H. Macy & Company and combines Macy's, headquartered in New York City, with A&S/Jordan Marsh. In 1995, the name Abraham & Straus is dropped in favor of the more widely known name Macy's. In the few cases where both companies had stores in the same mall, only one building was kept as a Macy's.
• 2000s - In 2006, a historic bronze plaque honoring Isidor and Ida Straus and memorializing their deaths during the sinking of the RMS Titanic was removed during a 34th Street store renovation, and given to the Straus family.

The first Brooklyn store, at 285 Fulton Street, opened in 1865 and measured 25 feet by 90 feet. Abraham Abraham, age 22, and Joseph Wechsler each contributed $5,000 for the purchase.[1] In 1883, the firm bought the recently built Second Empire cast-iron Wheeler Building at 422 Fulton Street to be their flagship store.[2]

On April 1, 1893, Nathan Straus, Isidor Straus,[3] and Simon F. Rothschild as partners – the Straus brothers provided the financing, but Rothschild was the active partner[4] – bought out Wechsler, and the firm became Abraham & Straus. At the time, the company had 2,000 employees. Simon F. Rothschild, Abraham's son-in-law, Edward Charles Blum, and son, Lawrence Abraham, became partners in the new firm.[5]

By 1900, the company had 4,650 employees. From the 1890s to the 1920s, A&S utilized a system of catalog store agencies across Long Island to serve customers.[1]

In 1912, Isidor Straus, along with his wife Ida, perished in the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

Around 1915, after Abraham's daughter married Isidor's son Percy Selden Straus, the Straus family divided up the empire with Nathan's family running A&S and Isidor's family running Macy's.[3]

Beginning in 1928, the company embarked on a $7.8 million expansion of the Fulton Street Store, which included excavating a new basement without disturbing customers above. The renovated store opened October 10, just days before the Wall Street Crash of 1929. In 1929, the company also joined Filene's, Lazarus, and Bloomingdale's to form Federated Department Stores. To economize during the Depression, the company began scheduling employees according to hourly sales. In addition, all employees took a 10 percent pay cut. No employees were laid off.[1]

In 1937, Walter N. Rothschild led the company, and served as president and chairman until 1955. Following Rothschild, Sidney L. Solomon became the company's first non-family president. At the time, the company had 12,000 employees.

After World War II – The company grew. In 1950, the company purchased Loeser's Garden City store, and two years later, its first new branch store opened in Hempstead, New York.[1]

In the following decades, the company expanded throughout the New York metropolitan area. Among its expansions was an anchor store at Paramus Park in Paramus, New Jersey, which necessitated the building of an access road that, despite the conversion of the store to Macy's, is still today known as A&S Drive.

In the 1970s, Federated attempted to update the image of A&S and funded the construction of new, more upscale stores. A&S developed a new logo that once again branded the stores Abraham & Straus. The company opened a central distribution center which decreased the amount of non-selling space needed in each store.

In 1978, the firm opened the first of its more upscale stores at the Monmouth Mall in Eatontown, New Jersey. This was followed by stores in White Plains, New York in 1980, The Mall at Short Hills in New Jersey, in 1981, and a replacement for the chain's Babylon, Long Island store at Westfield Sunrise Mall.

In 1981 and 1982, the chain opened two stores at malls in the suburban Philadelphia market, The Court at King of Prussia and Willow Grove Park Mall. These new stores struggled to find their niche, and the two Pennsylvania stores were closed in 1987 and 1988, respectively, and the space became occupied by Philadelphia-based Strawbridge and Clothier.

The Short Hills, New Jersey store seemed out of place in the very upscale mall, and customers resisted what were seen to be the store's more rigid policies concerning check acceptance, inter-store transfers, and refunds. Eventually, A&S would stock the Short Hills location with merchandise that better befit the location.

• Logos
• 
  1893–1955
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  1955–1960s
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  late 1960s–1976
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  1976-1978
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  1978–1987