OPINION — Life was a struggle for Nathan Straus from the very start. In 1854, his Jewish family immigrated from Germany when he was 6. Told that business opportunities were good in the South, the family settled here.
The small store and trading company they established did well until the tragedy that was the Civil War wiped it out. Convinced it would be decades before the South recovered, the family moved yet again. This time to New York.
L. Straus & Sons followed, quickly becoming a leading importer and wholesaler of glassware and crockery. At long last, fortune was finally smiling on the Straus family. Nathan married in 1875 and soon had six children.
