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{{short description|German-American businessman (1848–1931)}}
{{for|his son, the American journalist and politician|Nathan Straus Jr.}}
{{Use American English|date=October 2020}}
{{use mdy dates|date=October 2020}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Nathan Straus
| image = Nathan Straus LCCN2014710761 Crop.jpg
| caption = Straus in 1922
| office = [[Commissioner of Health of the City of New York|Commissioner of the<br />New York City Department of Health]]
| 1blankname = Mayor
| 1namedata = [[Robert Anderson Van Wyck]]
| termstart = January 1, 1898
| termend = March 3, 1898
| predecessor = [[Charles G. Wilson]]
| successor = [[Michael C. Murphy (New York politician)|Michael C. Murphy]]
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1848|1|31|mf=y}}
| birth_place = [[Otterberg]], [[Palatinate (region)|Palatinate]], [[Kingdom of Bavaria]] (now Germany)
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1931|1|11|1848|1|31|mf=y}}
| death_place = New York City, U.S.
| nationality = American
| other_names =
| party = [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]]
| occupation = Businessman, philanthropist
| years_active =
| known_for = Co-owner of [[Macy's|R. H. Macy & Company]] and [[Abraham & Straus]]
| notable_works =
| spouse = Lina Gutherz
| children = 6, including [[Nathan Straus Jr.|Nathan Jr.]]
| relatives = [[Lazarus Straus#Family|Straus family]]<br>[[Isidor Straus]] (brother)<br>[[Oscar Straus (politician)|Oscar Straus]] (brother)
}}

'''Nathan Straus''' (January 31, 1848 – January 11, 1931) was an American businessman and philanthropist who co-owned two of New York City's largest [[department store]]s, [[Macy's|R. H. Macy & Company]] and [[Abraham & Straus]].<ref name="NYT1">{{cite news| title=Nathan Straus Dies. Nation Mourns Loss of Philanthropist| url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/01/12/102206984.html?pageNumber=1| access-date=August 1, 2020| newspaper=[[The New York Times]]| date=January 12, 1931| page=1| url-access=subscription}}</ref> He was the namesake for the [[Israel|Israeli]] city of [[Netanya]].

==Biography==
[[File:Nathan Straus, portrait bust LCCN2014681046.jpg|thumb|left|Straus in his youth]]
Nathan Straus was born to a [[German Jewish]] family in [[Otterberg]] in the former [[Electoral Palatinate|Palatinate]], then ruled by the [[Kingdom of Bavaria]] (now part of present-day Germany), the third child of [[Lazarus Straus]] (1809–1898) and his second wife, Sara (1823–1876). His siblings were Hermine Straus Kohns (1846–1922), [[Isidor Straus]] (1845–1912), and [[Oscar Straus (politician)|Oscar Solomon Straus]] (1850–1926). The family moved to the U.S. state of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] in 1854. After losing everything in the [[American Civil War]] the family moved to New York City, where his father formed L. Straus & Sons, a [[crockery]] and [[glassware]] firm.<ref name="NYT1" /> The Straus family owned slaves and conducted business with other slave owners, taking several formerly enslaved people to the North with the family following the defeat of the Confederacy.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entries/isidor-straus/ |title=Isidor Straus (1845-1912) |publisher=Immigrant Entrepreneurship |accessdate=2022-05-23}}</ref>

On April 28, 1875, Straus married Lina Gutherz (1854–1930), with whom he had six children: Jerome Nathan Straus (1876–1893); Sara Gutherz Straus (1877–1878); Sara "Sissie" Straus (1879–1950), married to [[Irving Lehman]] (1876–1945), Chief Judge of the [[New York Court of Appeals]] from 1940 until his death; Roland Straus (1881–1884); State Senator [[Nathan Straus, Jr.|Nathan Straus Jr.]] (1889–1961); and Hugh Grant Straus (1890–1961).<ref name="NYT1" />

==Macy's and Abraham & Straus==
Straus and his brothers sold crockery to [[Macy's|R. H. Macy & Company]] [[department store]]. The brothers became partners in Macy's in 1888 and co-owners in 1896.

In 1893, he and Isidor bought Joseph Wechsler's interest in the Abraham and Wechsler dry-goods store in [[Brooklyn, New York]], which they renamed as [[Abraham & Straus]].<ref name="NYT1" /><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.information-engineer.com/straus/nstraus.htm |title=Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Straus |website=Strauss Family Website |access-date=August 1, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929094557/http://www.information-engineer.com/straus/nstraus.htm |archive-date=September 29, 2007 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Public service and philanthropy==
[[File:F.D. Roosevelt & Nathan Straus LCCN2014717406.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|Straus with [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] at the [[1924 Democratic National Convention]]]]
In the late 1880s, Straus began a period of philanthropy and public service in New York City. He served as a member of the [[New York City Panel for Educational Policy|Board of Education]] from 1889 to 1891,<ref>{{cite news |title=Nathan Straus appointed |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/78696365/?match=1&terms=%22nathan%20straus%22 |access-date=5 April 2025 |work=[[The Evening World]] |date=12 December 1889 |location=New York}}</ref> as a parks commissioner from 1890 to 1894,<ref>{{cite web |title=New York City Parks Commissioners |url=https://www.nycgovparks.org/about/history/commissioners |website=nycgovparks.org |publisher=New York City Department of Parks & Recreation |access-date=5 April 2025}}</ref> and as president of the Board of Health and [[Commissioner of Health of the City of New York|commissioner of the Department of Health]] in 1898.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://archives.nypl.org/mss/2906| website=New York Public Library| title=Nathan Straus papers| access-date=August 1, 2020}}</ref> In [[1894 New York City mayoral election|1894]] he was selected by [[Tammany Hall]] to run for [[Mayor of New York City|Mayor]] on the Democratic ticket, but withdrew from the race when his friends in society threatened to [[ostracism|shun]] him if he did.<ref>{{cite gotham}}, pp. 1192–1194</ref>

In 1892, he and his wife privately funded the Nathan Straus Pasteurized Milk Laboratory to provide [[pasteurized]] milk to children to combat infant mortality and [[tuberculosis]]. In his battles with the disease he opened the [[Tuberculosis Preventorium for Children]] at [[Lakewood Township, New Jersey]] (later it was moved to [[Farmingdale, New Jersey]]) in 1909. Their book, ''Disease in Milk: The Remedy Pasteurization: The Life Work of Nathan Straus'' records that unclean, unpasteurized milk fed to infants was the chief cause of tuberculosis, typhoid, scarlet fever, diphtheria and other diseases that were the main cause of a 25% infant mortality rate in the U.S. in 1890, 15% in 1903 (but 7% in New York in 1900, where pasteurized milk had already become the norm) (it is now below 1% in the U.S.). Straus is credited as the leading proponent of the pasteurization movement, which eliminated the hundreds of thousands of deaths per year then due to disease-bearing milk.<ref name="NYT1" />

During the economic [[panic of 1893]], Straus used his milk stations to sell coal at the very low price of 5 cents for 25 pounds to those who could pay. Those who could not received coal free. He also opened [[homeless shelters]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Johnson |first=Steven |authorlink=Steven Johnson (author) |title=Extra Life |publisher=[[Riverhead Books]] |year=2021 |isbn=978-0-525-53885-1 |edition=1st |pages=110 |language=en}}</ref> for 64,000 people, who could get a bed and breakfast for 5 cents, and he funded 50,000 meals for one cent each. He also gave away thousands of turkeys anonymously. At Abraham & Straus he noticed that two of his employees were starving themselves to save their wages to feed their families, so he established what may have been the first subsidized company cafeteria.{{cn|date=May 2022}}

In 1898, during the [[Spanish–American War]], Straus donated an ice plant to [[Santiago, Cuba|Santiago]], Cuba.<ref name="NYT1" /> He was appointed by President [[William Taft]] as the sole United States delegate to the International Congress for Protection of Infants, in Berlin 1911, also delegate to the Tuberculosis Congress, in Rome, Italy, 1912.<ref name="ea">{{Cite Americana|wstitle=Straus, Nathan}}</ref>

Straus retired in 1914 to devote his time to charity. During the winter of 1914–15, he served 1,135,731 penny meals for the unemployed from his milk depots in New York City.<ref name="ea" /> In 1916, as [[American entry into World War I]] loomed, he sold his yacht ''Sisilina'' to the Coast Guard, and used the proceeds to feed war orphans. Later he fed returning American servicemen at [[Battery Park]].<ref name="NYT1" />

Shortly after World War I, Straus traveled to [[Asheville, North Carolina]], to lay a wreath at the Confederate [[Vance Monument]] as a "debt of gratitude" for [[Zebulon Baird Vance]]'s opposition to [[Antisemitism in the United States|antisemitism]]. Straus paid for a "suitable fence" to be built around the monument.<ref name=":61">{{cite journal |first=Selig |last=Adler |date=August 1941 |title=Zebulon B. Vance and the 'Scattered Nation' |journal=The Journal of Southern History |volume=7 |number=3 |pages=357–377 |doi=10.2307/2191527 |jstor=2191527 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2191527 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Straus donated money to the [[New York Public Library]], specifically targeting young people. The Young People's Collection at the [[Donnell Library Center]] is named for him. He also helped the city's poorer inhabitants by building a recreational pier, the first of many on the city's waterfront.<ref>The Philanthropy Hall of Fame, [http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/hall_of_fame/nathan_straus Nathan Straus] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160317182045/http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/hall_of_fame/nathan_straus |date=March 17, 2016 }}</ref>

===Visits to Palestine===
[[File:Nathan Strayss health center, late twenties.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.2|A hall in Nathan Straus Health Center in the late 1920s]]
Upon touring the Mediterranean with Lina in 1904, the couple stopped over in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]], expecting it to be but one stop of many. He wrote, "On reaching Jerusalem, we changed our plans. All that we saw in the Holy Land made such a deep impression on us that we gave up the idea of going to other places. Visiting the holy sights of which one hears and reads since childhood, watching the scenes in life as pictured in the Bible, was most soul-stirring. From that time on we felt a strange and intense desire to return to the land." Nathan and Lina became staunch Zionists. He built soup kitchens for the aged and the blind and the physically defective from 1912-1917. He supported workrooms so that unskilled laborers could find employment. He built health stations that ministered to the victims of [[malaria]] and [[trachoma]]. He believed strongly in palliative care. He provided $250,000 for the establishment of the Jerusalem Health Center and made possible the founding of a Pasteur Institute. He lent moral and material support to the farmers and colonists of Israel and labored in the interests of the Hebrew University.<ref>{{cite journal| title=Straus Square Rededication Ceremony, June 18th, 1998| url=http://www.straushistoricalsociety.org/uploads/1/1/8/1/11810298/____________nwsltr898_2.pdf| journal=Wholedamfam| date=August 1998| volume=6| number=2| access-date=August 1, 2020}}</ref>

Straus broke his leg on a 1912 visit to Palestine and was unable to join his brother, Isidor, on the [[RMS Titanic]]. Isidor died in the sinking.

The Israeli city of [[Netanya]] (Hebrew: ''Natan'', for Nathan), founded in 1927, was named in his honor. The city's founders had hoped that he would contribute towards the development of the city, but Straus didn't have anything to give, having contributed his money elsewhere.<ref>Benzaquen, John. [https://www.jpost.com/metro/lifestyle/neighborhood-watch-looking-east "Neighborhood Watch: Looking east"], ''[[Jerusalem Post]]'', May 31, 2012. Accessed August 5, 2023. "Netanya was named for Straus in the hope that he would donate money to the Bnei Binyamin association. Unfortunately for the association, by the time it asked him for financial help, it was too late, as he and his wife had already donated most of their personal fortune to charities in Palestine and the US."</ref> Rehov Straus ([[Straus Street]]) in Jerusalem, which was Chancellor Avenue during the British Mandate, was also named for him.

Nathan Straus died on January 11, 1931, in Manhattan, New York City. Twenty years earlier, at a dinner in his honor, he had given what could have been his own eulogy.

<blockquote>I often think of the old saying, "The world is my country, to do good is my religion. ... This has often been an inspiration to me. I might say, "Humanity is my kin, to save babies is my religion." It is a religion I hope will have thousands of followers.</blockquote>

He is interred at Beth El Cemetery, also called New Union Field Cemetery, in [[Ridgewood, Queens]].

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{MacysInc}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Straus, Nathan}}
[[Category:1848 births]]
[[Category:1931 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century German Jews]]
[[Category:American businesspeople in retailing]]
[[Category:American expatriates in Israel]]
[[Category:Expatriate businesspeople in Israel]]
[[Category:19th-century American merchants]]
[[Category:American people of German-Jewish descent]]
[[Category:19th-century American philanthropists]]
[[Category:American Zionists]]
[[Category:Emigrants from Bavaria to the United States]]
[[Category:Commissioners of health of the City of New York]]
[[Category:Macy's]]
[[Category:Ottoman Palestine]]
[[Category:People from Kaiserslautern (district)]]
[[Category:People from the Kingdom of Bavaria]]
[[Category:Straus family|Nathan]]
[[Category:Jews from Georgia (U.S. state)]]

Nathan Straus - Revision history

imported>Ken Gallager: cat sort