Fred R. Lazarus Jr. (October 29, 1884 – May 27, 1973) was an American founder of

Federated Department Stores Macy's, Inc. (originally Federated Department Stores, Inc.) is an American conglomerate holding company. Upon its establishment, Federated held ownership of the regional department store chains Abraham & Straus, Lazarus, Filene's, and Shilli ...

, which became

Macy's, Inc Macy's, Inc. (originally Federated Department Stores, Inc.) is an American conglomerate holding company. Upon its establishment, Federated held ownership of the regional department store chains Abraham & Straus, Lazarus, Filene's, and Shillito ...

Early life

Fred Lazarus Jr. was born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family on October 29, 1884, the son of Rose (née Eichberg) and Fred Lazarus. He was the second of four brothers, Simon Sr. (August 19, 1882 – December 21, 1947), Robert Sr. (September 20, 1890 – February 4, 1973), and Jeffrey Sr. (June 20, 1894 – 1975). He grew up working in his family's store, F. & R. Lazarus, founded by his grandfather Simon Lazarus, an immigrant retailer. He briefly attended

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best pu ...

, but dropped out at the age of 18 to work full-time in the store.

Businessman career

In 1928, the company purchased The John Shillito Company department store in Cincinnati. In the summer of 1929, months before the

Wall Street Crash of 1929 The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange coll ...

, Lazarus met with Walter N. Rothschild from

Abraham & Straus Abraham & Straus, commonly shortened to A&S, was a major New York City department store, based in Brooklyn. Founded in 1865, it became part of Federated Department Stores in 1929. Shortly after Federated's 1994 acquisition of R.H. Macy & Company ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Kings County is the most populous Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county in the State of New York, ...

and

Edward Filene Edward Albert Filene (September 3, 1860 – September 26, 1937) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He is best known for building the Filene's department store chain and for his decisive role in pioneering credit unions across the U ...

from

Filene's Filene's (formally William Filene & Sons Co.) was an American department store chain; it was founded by William Filene in 1881. The success of the original full-line store in Boston, Massachusetts, was supplemented by the foundation of its off-p ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

on Rothschild's yacht in Long Island Sound. The three businessmen agreed to merge their stores and form Federated Department Stores, of which "Mr. Fred" was the chairman.

Bloomingdale's Bloomingdale's Inc. is an American luxury department store chain; it was founded in New York City by Joseph B. and Lyman G. Bloomingdale in 1861. A third brother, Emanuel Watson Bloomingdale, was also involved in the business. It became a divi ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

joined in 1930. Under his leadership, Federated eventually became the largest department store company in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. Lazarus himself exerted enormous financial, social, and political clout; he is credited with convincing President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

in 1939 to move

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden ...

a week earlier, to the fourth Thursday in November instead of the last Thursday in November, in order to make the

Christmas shopping season The Christmas season or the festive season (also known in some countries as the holiday season or the holidays) is an annually recurring period recognized in many Western and other countries that is generally considered to run from late November ...

longer in those years on which November had 5 Thursdays. The Lazarus family pioneered many shopping firsts such as the concept of "one low price" (in which no

bargaining In the social sciences, bargaining or haggling is a type of negotiation in which the buyer and seller of a good or service debate the price or nature of a transaction. If the bargaining produces agreement on terms, the transaction takes p ...

was required); theirs was also the first department store with

escalator An escalator is a moving staircase which carries people between floors of a building or structure. It consists of a motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the step tread horiz ...

s and the first

air conditioned Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C or AC, is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior environment (sometimes referred to as 'comfort cooling') and in some cases also strictly controlling ...

store in the country.

Personal life

Lazarus married twice. In 1911, he married Meta Marx; she died in 1932. They had 4 children: Fred Lazarus III, Ralph Lazarus, Maurice Lazarus, and Ann Lazarus. In 1935, he married Celia Kahn Rosenthal. Fred Lazarus Jr. is interred in the Lazarus Family Mausoleum in Greenlawn Cemetery, Columbus, Ohio.

References

External links

Federated Department Stores Chronology
* Mentions Thanksgiving story. * 1884 births 1973 deaths American businesspeople in retailing American Jews Businesspeople from Columbus, Ohio Lazarus, Fred Jr. American retail chief executives 20th-century American businesspeople {{US-business-bio-1880s-stub