[PRCo] Re: Boggs & Buhl train

[Fred Schneider]

If your interest in our national culture and our people, be they  
Spanish or German or Black or Presbyterian or Anglican or Muslim or  
whatever is as intriguing and interesting to you as it is to me, then  
the following might be worth reading.

Rich replied directly to me and suggested I make the decision whether  
or not to put this on line.  I found his answer interesting ... it's  
totally unrelated to trolleys but it does relate to the settlement or  
population of our cities and our history and I can make a case, I  
guess, for posting it.   Remotely at least it talks about the people  
who rode the trolleys.   His story about why he feels Jewish families  
went into merchandising (community support mechanisms, a tradition of  
finding the right unfilled niche, education above all else, and a  
desire to own property because many came from countries where they  
were forbidden to own land) makes interesting reading.   It also  
reminds me of other groups ... Mormons, Chinese, Indians who have  
also been very successful employing the same techniques.   Ambition  
is an amazing thing ... those who have it succeed, those who don't  
fail and some times groups of people seem to have adapted better than  
other groups.   Bully for them.

So pasted it is Rich's explanation:

"in part because of a tradition of commerce and professions. In part  
because many came to US from areas where they could not own land and  
therefore farming/agriculture were not options. Also, many were in  
marketable trades. My father's family were tailors, clothing  
merchants, and engravers. The culture placed a high value on skills  
and commerce. They came here and bought into "the dream". Unlike  
Irish or Italian immigrants, they didn't get into factory or  
construction work-not sure why-maybe because the Irish and Italians  
already had those jobs. Anaexception was women like my grandmother  
and her sisters who worked in the garment industry and its factories.  
My grandmother's sister witnessed the Triangle Shirt Factory fire and  
subsequently became a militant labor organizer.Further, Jewish  
culture was very get ahead oriented-if not for us then for our  
children. Doing whatever was necessary to be sure their kids could be  
educated and succeed was critical, Most had been artisans in the  
parts of Eastern Europe from which they came. I didn't distribute to  
the entire list, thinking maybe this interested only us two, but you  
may distribute.

"Oh, and another reason. There was a very well developed network for  
immigrant support in the Jewish Community with a strong ethos of  
helping one another-connecting to investors, sources of loan,  
business and word of mouth. the Jewish immigrant community cared for  
itself. My grandmother, not a woman of great means, was still the  
longtime treasurer of HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Assistance Society ) in  
Boston. It really provided a network for newcomers to get  
established, including finding potential marriagable spouses and  
financial assistance. Helping out one another, especially after  
coming from areas with such habitual oppression, was second nature."







On Apr 12, 2007, at 11:01 PM, Fred Schneider wrote:

> And so why ... and you can discuss personally if you want or leave it
> on list if you think the others are interested (we'll find out), do
> you feel that so many people of Jewish ancestry / heritage went into
> the mercantile business?
>
> On Apr 12, 2007, at 6:11 PM, Richard Allman wrote:
>
>> Philadelphia had a mix of ethnicity in its department store
>> proprietors.
>> Gimbels, Frank and Sedar, Snellenbergs', Lit Brothers owned by Jewish
>> families. John Wanamaker was a Presbyterian merchant and
>> philanthropist-very
>> interested in the Sunday School movement. He was also the
>> Postmaster General
>> in the administration of President Benjamin Harrison, another
>> Presbyterian.
>> Strawbridge and Clothier old Philadelphia Quaker families.My home
>> sits on a
>> small fragment of the old Clothier estate.Some were heroic
>> enterprises,
>> arising from pushcarts.Sadly, all of the families have vanished
>> from the
>> local scene.
>> RICH: no prejudice. Presbyterian Elder and son of Jewish father!
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
>> Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 12:50 PM
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Boggs & Buhl train
>>
>>
>>> PLEASE GENTLEMAN ... BEFORE YOU READ THIS ... SOME THINGS IN HERE  
>>> MAY
>>> SMELL OF A PREJUDICE.   I am only commenting on fact.   There is no
>>> prejudice involved in any way nor do I want there to be.
>>>
>>> They made money and they had prestiege.    Most were probably owned
>>> by local families or partnerships of local families.   I suspect  
>>> that
>>> many of them were people willing, at least for the first 20 or more
>>> years, to work 60 to 80 hours a week.   Probably a fairly large
>>> number were Jewish.
>>>
>>> Here in Lancaster we had five major department stores when I moved
>>> here in 1949.   Hagers was owned by John C. Hager III at that time.
>>> He lived in a rather secluded home in the woods on the hill behind
>>> me.   It would be more correct to say he owned one end of the
>>> hill.    Watt and Shands Department Store was the upper end.   Peter
>>> Watt got out fairly early.   He owned a huge ornate Victorian  
>>> mansion
>>> in the west end of town which still stands at Marietta and President
>>> Avenues with his name on the entrance pillars.  I'm not sure how
>>> wealthy the Shands were.   Milton T. Garvin owned the lower end
>>> department store ... he was a Unitarian Universalist and rather
>>> conservative.   The other two department stores were chains ...  
>>> J. C.
>>> Penny and Sears Roebuck and Company.
>>>
>>> And there was one other local guy who built his very first store  
>>> here
>>> and then moved on to bigger and better things. His name was Frank W.
>>> Woolworth.
>>>
>>> Derrick ...
>>>
>>> You should stop by the library at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum  
>>> on a
>>> Wednesday when the guys are working in the library and look for Dick
>>> Hutzler.   His family owned Hutzler's Department Store on Howard
>>> Street in downtown Baltimore.  My mother spent a fortune there on
>>> Saturdays in the 1950s and 1960s.   It was probably typical ...
>>> Jewish family as were most of the stores in Baltimore according to
>>> Dick.
>>>
>>> I think the money was there in retailing as long as the public  
>>> wanted
>>> and was willing to pay for service.   Once they accepted the slob in
>>> the box concept of marketing, then all the purveyor of merchandise
>>> could do is cut his margin and increase the number of stores in  
>>> order
>>> to make a living.   The family could no longer aspire to have a
>>> single store and live well off of it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Apr 11, 2007, at 6:44 PM, Derrick J Brashear wrote:
>>>
>>>> The Boggs mansion is a few blocks from Federal on North. It's a
>>>> bed&breakfast now. I was in the bar there one night a month or so
>>>> ago
>>>> after a play nearby and had a hand in stopping a fire on their
>>>> porch. In
>>>> any case, the mansion's pretty nice. I guess being a department
>>>> store
>>>> maven meant something then
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>