Jesse I. Straus

Jesse Isidor Straus (June 25, 1872 – October 4, 1936) served as the American ambassador to France from 1933 to 1936. Life and career Jesse Straus was born in Manhattan on June 25, 1872 as the eldest son of the German immigrants Isidor Straus (1845–1912) and Ida Straus (1849-1912), both of whom died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Isidor was co-owner of the department store R.H. Macy & Co., along with his uncle Nathan Straus. His uncle Oscar Solomon Straus (1850–1926) was the first Jewish United States Cabinet Secretary, serving as Secretary of Commerce and Labor from 1906 to 1909. He graduated from Harvard College in 1893. He and his brothers Percy and Herbert, both also Harvard graduates, donated funds that built Straus Hall in Harvard Yard. After college Jesse Straus was made to gain outside business experience before joining the family business. He worked as a clerk at the Manufacturers Hanover Corporation for a year and a half and then for a similar period as a department store salesman at Abraham & Straus, a Macy's rival. He married Irma Nathan in 1895. He began working at Macy's on September 3, 1896. In 1929, he purchased a piece of land on New York City's Park Avenue to construct an apartment building because he found that the better buildings in the area would not accept Jews as residents. He moved his family into the topmost two floors, a seven-bedroom duplex with terraces, a thousand-square-foot library, and a baronial stone fireplace.