BUSINESS

JEWISH ROOTS

Detroit has been a thriving place for Jewish businesses
since the early 1900s. By Alan Hitsky, Associate Editor

NV

B10

hen Bob
Carnick
came to the
United
States
around the turn of the cen-
tury, Detroit was a long way
from the stereotypes.
Despite its later legacy, De-
troit at the time was an anti-
union town. The romantic
pictures associated with New
York's Lower East Side did
not pertain to Michigan's
9,000 Jewish citizens — very
few were selling vegetables
from pushcarts or horse-
drawn wagons.
One study of the 1900 fed-
eral census concluded that 30
percent of the city's Russian
Jews were in white-collar
professions. And the 1907 De-
troit Yiddish Director), found
only 334 peddlers among
2,300 Jewish males of work-
ing age.
Robert A. Rockaway, in his
Jews of Detroit: From the Be-
ginning, 1762-1914, attrib-
utes the emigres' success
here to "a centuries-old Jew-
ish tradition of focusing on
commerce, trade, industry
and scholarship; prior expe-
rience in urban environ-
ments; and the possession of
the middle- class values of lit-
eracy, thrift, preparing for
the future and moderation."
Detroit had the reputation
of being the graveyard of
union organizers, says Dr.
Rockaway, a former Detroi-
ter now on the faculty of Tel
Aviv University. It was only
after the great sitdown strike
at General Motors in Flint
and the famous Battle of the
Overpass at Ford's in 1937
that the unions began mak-
ing headway here.
The city also had strong
anti-Semitic overtones. Long
before the rise of Henry

Ford's Dearborn Independent
in the 1920s and radio priest
Father Charles Coughlin in
the 1930s, Jewish men orga-
nized to combat attacks by
young ruffians. The Jewish
Peddlers Protective Union,
formed in 1900 because of the
ineffectiveness of the police,
had 300 members by 1903.
Despite the problems,
there were many successes.
Albert Kahn, the famous ar-
chitect, started out as a
restaurant busboy. Fired
from his job in 1883, he was
hired by a sympathetic Julius
Melchers, launching a career
which included the design of
Detroit's largest auto plants,
including Ford Rouge, the
General Motors and Fisher
buildings in the New Center
area, and the Detroit News
and Free Press buildings on
Lafayette.
Mr. Kahn was the son of a
poor German rabbi who
made his living as a peddler
on Detroit's streets.
Bob Carnick came from
Russian roots. Before the
turn of the century he made,
and lost, a fortune estimated
at $1 million. But he started
again, earned enough to
bring his parents and seven
brothers and sisters to this
country and developed Cop-
co Steel into a major area pro-
ducer.
According to Sidney
Bolkosky in his Harmony
and Dissonance: Voices of
Jewish Identity in Detroit,
1914-1967, Jewish Detroiters
by 1925 had progressed to
prominence in the dry goods,
clothing and linen business-
es.
These included the Krolik
family's Alaska Knitting
Mills, Edwin A. Wolf's Re-
public Knitting Mills, Abe
Srere's Acme Mills and Tex-

Left: B. Siegel & Co.,
W000dward at State,
1914.

Below: Joe Dorfman at
Dorfman Drugs, Joy and
Quincy, 1935.

Right (clockwise from
top): Dexter-Davison
and other stores.
Wyoming, and Curtis,
1950s; Himelhoch's
downtown, 1950s; Mor-
ris Lesser's Fit-Well
Shoes, Michigan Avenue,
1921; Ruda's Dry
Goods, 634 Hastings St.,
1914; People's Outfit-
n_ Ling, Michigan and Shel-
by.

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