Maison Blanche Department Stores

On October 30, 1897, S.J. Shwartz, Gus Schullhoefer, and Hartwig D. Newman--with financial backing from banker Isidore Newman--opened the Maison Blanche at the corner of Canal Street and Rue Dauphine in New Orleans. Converting Shwartz's dry goods store into the city's first department store, the trio created a retail brand whose name lasted over a century. In 1908, Shwartz tore his store down and built what was the city's largest building--13 stories, with his Maison Blanche occupying the first five floors. The MB Building became, and still is, a New Orleans icon, and Maison Blanche was a retail leader in the city, attracting some of the best and brightest people in the business. One of those employees, display manager Emile Alline, created the store's second icon, the Christmas character "Mr. Bingle," in 1947. Mr. Bingle continues to spark the imagination of New Orleans children of all ages. Even though Maison Blanche has become part of New Orleans's past, the landmark Canal Street store lives on as the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

The words "Goudchaux's/Maison Blanche" conjure up a wealth of fond memories for local shoppers. At this landmark Louisiana department store, clerks greeted you by name; children received a nickel to buy a Coke and for every report-card A; families anticipated the holiday arrival of the beloved puppet Mr. Bingle almost as much as Santa; teenagers applied for their first job; and customers enjoyed interest-free charge accounts and personal assistance selecting attire and gifts for the most significant occasions in life -- baptisms, funerals, and everything in between. While most former patrons have a favorite story to tell about Goudchaux's/Maison Blanche, not many know the personal tale behind this beloved institution. In We Were Merchants, Hans Sternberg provides a captivating account of how his parents, Erich and Lea, fled from Nazi Germany to the United States, embraced their new home, and together with their children built Goudchaux's into a Baton Rouge legend that eventually became Goudchaux's/Maison Blanche -- an independent retail force during the golden era of the department store and, by 1989, the largest family-owned department store in America. With a mercantile line extending back five generations to a small shop in eighteenth-century Germany, the Sternbergs were born to be shopkeepers. In 1936, as Nazi harassment of Jews intensified, Erich smuggled $24,000 out of Germany and settled in Baton Rouge. His wife and three children joined him a year later, and in 1939, Erich bought Goudchaux's and set about transforming it from a nondescript apparel shop into a true department store. He made buying trips to New York for quality fashions and furs, introduced imaginative sales promotions, and coached his staff in impeccable customer service, while also training his children to follow in his footsteps. Hans details the manifold challenges of operating the store -- from planning financial strategies and creating marketing campaigns to implementing desegregation and accommodating the repeal of blue laws. Through many transforming events -- Erich's death in 1965, expansion into suburban shopping malls, the purchase in the 1980s of New Orleans retail icon Maison Blanche -- the Sternbergs successfully maintained the company's core values: quality merchandise, employee loyalty, and superior customer service. At its height, Goudchaux's/Maison Blanche operated twenty-four stores in Louisiana and Florida and employed more than 8,000 people. With the economic downturn of the early 1990s, Hans made the difficult decision to sell the business, thus bringing to an end the Sternbergs' centuries-long mercantile tradition. Supplementing the fascinating narrative are the recollections of former customers and employees, a wealth of pertinent photos, and even Hans's tried-and-true guidelines for negotiating a business transaction. At once a family, business, and community story, We Were Merchants richly recalls a bygone era when department stores were near-magical wonderlands and family businesses commanded the retail landscape.

Facets of the Fifties. A reference guide to an iconic Decade of Movie Palaces, Television, Classic Cars, Sports, Department Stores, Trains, Music, Food, Fashion and more

Once known as the "Wanamaker of the South," Cohen Brothers department store captured the hearts of thousands of Jacksonville residents. Metro Jacksonville writers Ennis Davis and Sarah Gojekian take a wonderful trip through the store, from its beginnings as a dry goods enterprise in a small log cabin to its growth into a trend-setting retail institution and the final poignant closing of its doors. Davis and Gojekian brilliantly combine interviews with former employees, stories from the vibrant atmosphere the store created and memories from longtime residents to bring readers back to the bright glow and elegance of one of the South's most distinctive enterprises.

A nostalgic look at Christmas in the mid-twentieth century.

After more than three hundred years, New Orleans style is not just sartorial but also venerable. A melting pot of cultures gives rise to the diverse fashion influences of French sophistication, Spanish exuberance and deep Creole roots. Classic trends like jazz style, the ebullient irreverence of Mardi Gras' festive fashion and seersucker's cool lines are quintessentially New Orleans. The local aesthetic established by the keen eyes at Maison Blanche and D.H. Holmes, master haberdashers at Rubensteins, milliners like Yvonne LaFleur and perfumers Hove Parfumeur formed a foundation on which the city's rising stars reinvigorate and build a new fashion capital. Join author and designer Andi Eaton and discover the Big Easy's stylish legacy and a new side of New Orleans.

It was a decade of flappers, Prohibition, and unprecedented prosperity that abruptly ended with the crash of '29. In New Orleans, steamships lined the wharves, vaudeville gave way to "talkies," and William Faulkner's Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles was the first book produced by a new publisher called Pelican Publishing Company. Mary Lou Widmer's fourth retrospect of the city reminisces about how New Orleans welcomed the economic growth of the postwar twenties in its own special way. The Crescent City celebrated this prosperity, giving birth to jazz halls in the Vieux Carrand launching the careers of musicians like Louis Armstrong. It was the most progressive era in the city's history since before the Civil War. From politics to homelife there is hardly an aspect of life in the twenties Widmer does not touch upon. A full chapter is devoted to how the city known for Bourbon Street and Mardi Gras reacted to Prohibition. Indoor plumbing and electric lights became the standard in homes throughout the city. Transportation opened up new neighborhoods as cars became status symbols and the streetcar system took riders to every neighborhood in the city. Mary Lou Widmer, a native of New Orleans, is former president of the South Louisiana Chapter of Romance Writers of America. She has written several novels set in New Orleans. A certified descendant of settlers in the area prior to the Louisiana Purchase, she is a member of the Louisiana Colonials and the Daughters of 1812. She is also the author of New Orleans in the Thirties, New Orleans in the Forties, and New Orleans in the Fifties, all published by Pelican.