Abraham Lincoln Neiman (July 4, 1875 — October 21, 1970) was an American businessman, who was a co-founder of department store chain

Neiman Marcus Neiman Marcus Group, Inc. is an American integrated luxury retailer headquartered in Dallas, Texas, which owns Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Horchow, and Last Call. Since September 2021, NMG has been owned by a group of investment compani ...

Biography

Neiman, born in July 1875, was raised in 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 ...

orphanage in

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. He met his first wife

Carrie Marcus Neiman Carrie Marcus Neiman (May 3, 1883 – March 6, 1953) was an American businesswoman and one of the co-founders of Neiman Marcus, a luxury department store. Early life Carrie Marcus was born in Louisville, Kentucky to German-Jewish immigrants De ...

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...

, while they were working at A. Harris & Company. They married in 1905 and then moved to

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, with Carrie's brother

Herbert Marcus Herbert Marcus (September 6, 1878 – December 11, 1950) was one of the co-founders of Neiman Marcus, and later became its chief executive officer. Biography Born to a Jewish family in Kentucky, Marcus moved to Hillsboro, Texas after dropping ou ...

and sister in law

Minnie Lichtenstein Marcus Minnie Lichtenstein Marcus (October 4, 1882 – December 5, 1979) was an American businesswoman who was CEO of department store Neiman Marcus, co-founded by her husband Herbert Marcus. Biography Born as Minnie Liechtenstein in Dallas, Texas, her ...

to do sales promotion work.

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is known as their most notable client although at the time they were not enthusiastic about its future. Therefore, they relinquished rights to sales territories of the nascent soft drink concern for $25,000 which the Neiman and Marcus families used to open Neiman Marcus in Dallas in 1907. Abraham became the broker and promoter for the specialty ready-to-wear ladies fine clothing shop. At the time most ladies of means traveled to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and even Europe for custom tailoring. He traveled widely as well to insure that Neiman Marcus could bring the best clothing money could buy to Dallas from New York and wherever else it could be found. When the store burned down in 1913 New York investors he knew helped to rebuild it. In the 1920s his nephew Stanley Marcus left

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

to work at Neiman Marcus and their personalities often clashed which added to the tensions he already felt with the large and successful Marcus family. In 1928 he admitted to ongoing infidelity to his wife Carrie so they divorced and Herbert bought out his share for $250,000 on the condition that he couldn't legally compete with Neiman Marcus in Dallas.Minding the Store – Google Books
/ref> During the remainder of his life he often lived in New York and Chicago and he worked at companies such as Henry C. Lytton's of Chicago. He married Dorothy Squire, a fashion model, in 1938 and they adopted

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

refugees Diana and Ursula Woolf after discovering they were unable to have their own children. As he aged he became ever more well known for extravagant spending habits while at the same time he developed a reputation for sloppy business practices. Dorothy died of cancer suddenly in 1962 and Abraham, now penniless, returned to Dallas. His ex-nephew Stanley visited him out of fears that few others would before his death at a Masonic home in

Arlington, Texas Arlington is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, located in Tarrant County. It forms part of the Mid-Cities region of the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan statistical area, and is a principal city of the metropolis and region. ...

, in October 1970.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Neiman, Abraham Lincoln 1875 births 1970 deaths American Jews American businesspeople in retailing Jews and Judaism in Dallas