Strouss

Last updated
Strouss
IndustryRetail Department Store
FateMerged by the May Company with Kaufmann's
Successor Kaufmann's (1986-2005)
Macy's (2006-present)
Defunct1986
Headquarters Youngstown, Ohio
Key people
C.J. Strouss
ProductsClothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products and housewares
Parent May Company

Strouss was a department store serving the U.S. states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

History

The company was founded as Strouss-Hirshberg Co. by Isaac Strouss and Bernard Hirshberg, two young Americans of Jewish descent. [1] It was long the leading department store in the greater Youngstown, Ohio along with the Shenango and Mahoning Valley in Pennsylvania. Under the ownership of May Department Stores, which purchased Strouss in 1947, its name was shortened to Strouss and was expanded throughout northern Ohio and western Pennsylvania under the leadership of C.J. Strouss, then president of Strouss. In 1986, May Company made a corporate decision to consolidate the Strouss division into Kaufmann's. May promptly shut down many of its former locations in 1987 in part due to the depressed economy of the Youngstown-Warren, Ohio/Sharon, Pennsylvania regional metropolitan area and a strategic decision by May Company to focus on mall-only retail locations within the Kaufmann's division.

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References

  1. "In the horse-car days Isaac Strouss and Bernard Hirshberg of this city were struggling with a little one-room store here. Today their business has succeeded and has been enlarged a hundredfold". Jewish Telegraph Agency. April 10, 1934. Fifty-nine years ago this week when Youngstown had only a 7,000 population and a four-mile-long horse car, the two young Jewish boys opened their store.