Schuster's, officially Ed. Schuster & Co., was a

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

chain, founded in 1883, in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...

, and it is now defunct.

Department store in Milwaukee

Schuster's opted for several neighborhood stores over a single downtown location, and Schuster's locations included 2151 N. Third St. (now Martin Luther King Jr. Drive), 12th and Vliet streets and 11th and Mitchell streets, Packard Plaza and Capitol Court.

Kirchoff & Rose Kirchhoff & Rose was an architectural firm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

. designed the Third Street store.

Gimbels Gimbel Brothers (known simply as Gimbels) was an American department store corporation that operated for over a century, from 1842 until 1987. Gimbel patriarch Adam Gimbel opened his first store in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1842. In 1887, the compa ...

bought Schuster's in 1962 and operated as Gimbels-Schuster's until 1969.

Golda Meir Golda Meir, ; ar, جولدا مائير, Jūldā Māʾīr., group=nb (born Golda Mabovitch; 3 May 1898 – 8 December 1978) was an Israeli politician, teacher, and ''kibbutznikit'' who served as the fourth prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1 ...

worked at Schuster's after graduating from high school in 1915 and before moving to Palestine in 1921. Schuster's notable marketing efforts included the first

trading stamp Trading stamps are small paper stamps given to customers by merchants in loyalty programs that predate the modern loyalty card. Like the similarly-issued retailer coupons, these stamps only had a minimal cash value of a few mils (thousandths of a ...

s, in 1891, an early version of the

charge card A charge card is a type of credit card that enables the cardholder to make purchases which are paid for by the card issuer, to whom the cardholder becomes indebted. The cardholder is obligated to repay the debt to the card issuer in full by the ...

called ''Budga-Plate'', a doll named ''Billie the Brownie'' from 1927 to 1955, Schuster's Christmas Parade, and the catch-phrase "Let's go by Schuster's where the streetcar bends the corner round."

Others

An unrelated group of furniture stores in

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

, also carrying the Schuster's name, operated for many years, with locations in

Little Rock ( The "Little Rock") , government_type = Council-manager , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_party = D , leader_title2 = Council , leader_name2 ...

and

North Little Rock North Little Rock is a city in Pulaski County, Arkansas, across the Arkansas from Little Rock in the central part of the state. The population was 64,591 at the 2020 census. In 2019 the estimated population was 65,903, making it the seventh-mo ...

, as well as a Pine Bluff store that eventually transferred briefly to Conway. There was also a restaurant called Schuster's House of Fine Foods located in

Greenville, PA Greenville is a borough with home rule status in northwestern Mercer County, Pennsylvania, United States. Located along the Shenango River, it lies roughly 80 miles from both Pittsburgh and Cleveland. It is 1.89 square miles in area, and had a ...

, between circa 1930 and circa 1945.

References

External links

Schuster's Department Store imagesSchuster's trading stamps imagesBillie the Brownie article
at Marquette University's Children in Urban America Project
Billie the Brownie video
at the Wisconsin Broadcasting Museum
Billie the Brownie Christmas Show video
originally aired December 25, 1954 Defunct department stores based in Wisconsin Companies based in Milwaukee Defunct companies based in Wisconsin Companies established in 1883 Retail companies established in 1883 Companies disestablished in 1962 {{US-retail-company-stub Retail companies disestablished in 1962