Department Store Genesis: Gitel and Morris Levinson

For some Birminghamsters, the story of department stores in Birmingham begins and ends with Jacobson's, but the story doesn't start there. In 1896, two Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe changed the retail environment in Birmingham forever by opening up the first department store. Gitel and Morris Levinson weren't just retail pioneers though, they were also the first Jewish family in Birmingham and can tell us a lot about the Jewish American experience in the late 1800s and beyond.
This is our second episode in a series with the Birmingham Shopping District, where we look at the evolution of Birmingham's retail environment.
To access a full episode transcript as well as to access additional material, check out our website. To learn more about the Birmingham Shopping District and to see upcoming events, check out their website. 

For questions, concerns, corrections or episode suggestions please reach out to us at museum@bhamgov.org.

Special thanks to the Birmingham Area Cable Board for PEG grant funding that made this podcast possible. Also thanks to past and present staff of the Birmingham Museum, and our amazing volunteers.

Transcript

If you were alive before the rise of the internet and online shopping, you probably have at least one fond memory of shopping in a department store. Me, I was the jerk little kid hiding from their mom in clothing racks and pretending to be a mannequin trying to scare other shoppers. What was a fond memory for me was probably a very annoying day for my mom, now that I think about it. But how did we go from a world of small shops like E A O’Neals, as we discussed in our last podcast episode, to large department stores? For many, the story of department stores in Birmingham begins and ends with Jacobsons, but it doesn’t. The first department store in Birmingham was started by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the 1890s. This is the story of Gitel and Morris Levinson, who in addition to creating Birmingham’s first department store, were also the first Jewish family in Birmingham. This is the second episode first in a four-part series where we are exploring the evolution of Birmingham’s retail environment in partnership with the Birmingham Shopping District.

                This is Birmingham Uncovered, a podcast by the Birmingham Museum, where we are exploring the diverse and compelling lives that built Birmingham Michigan into the community that it is today. First, some background on Birmingham: we are a city of approx. 20,000 people over 4.73 square miles, approximately halfway between Detroit and Pontiac in Oakland County. This area was occupied by members of the Three Fires Confederacy of Indigenous People before white settlement in the area started in the late 1810s. Birmingham became a city in 1933 and today is known as a prosperous and multi-faceted community with a thriving cultural scene.

                Both Morris Levinson and Gitel Felhendler Levinson were immigrants from Lativia in the 1880s. They were part of a wave of immigration to the United States of Jews from Eastern Europe, particularly the area around Poland and Russia, which was at its height between the 1880s and 1914. 

                Both in the past and today, people immigrate for similar reasons-whether they be for economic opportunity or being displaced due to war, violence or oppression. And this wave of Eastern European immigration was no different. Latvia had an old Jewish community with it’s roots going back to the 1500s but in the late 1800s two things happened that put that community in peril.

                Firstly, Latvia was under Imperial Russian control and while Russia had laws that discriminated against Jews, those had been eased up from the middle of the 1800s, like allowing Jewish folks to live in larger cities, reversing the heavier tax burdens they had and allowed them to get involved in politics. This was at a time when the Russian state was transitioning from a feudal society and flirting with the idea of constitutional monarchy. And just like in many other countries at the time, progressives, socialists and communists were pushing for change and that sometimes lead to violence. Many traditionalists in Russia linked the rise of progressive groups fighting for increased rights and freedoms with the greater freedoms given to Jewish people in Imperial Russia and believed that Jews were behind these movements. 

                Secondly, the head of the imperial Russian State, Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. One of the convicted conspirators of the assassination was Jewish and one was allegedly Jewish and both opportunists and bigots drummed up the Jewish involvement and made it seem like a Jewish plot. In reality, the assassination was the work of Russian Nihilists who were hoping to spark a Revolution. 

                The assassination of the Tsar lead to the harsh new laws hampering Jewish businesses, the rights of Jewish citizens to move freely about, their ability to participate in local or national governments and attend schools and universities. It also kicked off a wave of violence called pogroms-targeted anti-Jewish riots that targeted Jewish homes, businesses and people. In many cases, this violence was supported and encouraged by local officials. This lead to many Jewish individuals to flee, and many emigrated to the United States. In the decade of the 1880s, 200,000 Jews from Eastern Europe, primarily from Russian-controlled lands, emigrated to the United States. In the 1890s, 300,000 would come. Between 1900 and 1914, violence against Jews reached a crescendo with the publication of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, first published in 1903, and lead to an additional 1.5 million Eastern European Jews emigrating to the United States

The “protocols” are a literary forgery that popularized the idea that a shadow-y group of world Jewish leaders who were plotting to take over the world. Even after being proven a forgery in the early 1920s, the protocols were, and still are, cited by Nazis and anti-Semitc folks the world over. In the United States, this conspiracy theory gained credibility and mass distribution by Henry Ford. Yeah, the car guy. The protocols were published by him first in the Dearborn Independent Newspaper, which he owned, and later in a book called “the International Jew”, which he helped publish. Who would’ve thought that the guy who hated jazz music because it was played by black musicians and who treated his factory workers different based on their racial and ethnic backgrounds would also be anti-Semitic? Not was-forced-to-learn-square-dancing-in-elementary-school-because-Henry-Ford-hated-Black-People-and-the-music-they-created me.

And, if you were wondering, this is the “Global Elites secretly control the world” narrative that every other conspiracy theory about how a small group of people secretly control the world is based on. Nowadays, many who push these sorts of conspiracy theories like to downplay the fact that the root of it is hating Jews, but if you dig down just a little bit you’ll find it. 

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But back to our story about Gitel and Morris. They were part of the 1880s wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. Morris Levinson was born in 1872 in Latvia to Isaac and Hannah Levinson. The family, possibly because of persecution, moved between Latvia and Germany before immigrating to the US and settling in Bay City, Michigan in 1888.Why Bay City? It was a lumber town undergoing a boom which lead to great opportunities for merchants, Isaac is in the directories for Bay City as a confectioner in the decades after. Everyone, even folks in the lumber industry in the late 1800s, needs a sweet treat now and then.

 Augusta “Gitel” Felhender was born in 1872 to Mordechai and Bessie Felhender in Latvia. She immigrated to the United States alone in 1890, at the age of 14. She spoke no English and the only person she knew in the states was an older brother, Malka, who was living in Detroit. We don’t know why the rest of the family didn’t come with her. Maybe they only had enough money to send their children one at a time, or maybe there was commitments to extended family or community that held her parents back. Either way, Gitel would never see her mother or father again.

At the same time that Gitel was arriving in Detroit, Morris was also coming into the city to work. Why was Detroit a destination for both of them? In the 1850s, a sizeable Jewish community had developed in the city, centered around the Hastings Street area neighborhood (although it should be noted that the first Jewish individuals to settle in Detroit had arrived in the mid-1700s). This Jewish community was primarily composed of Jews from Germany and central Europe, but they welcomed the Eastern European newcomers. 

When given the choice, people will often choose to live to live around others who share their cultural identity and values. Familiar sights, sounds, smells and tastes are an important part of making a place feel like home. For recent Jewish immigrants, moving to an established community where they could easily procure kosher foods, find congregations to worship in and be around folks who, while they might not have spoken the same language, had familiar upbringings and ways of going about their lives would have helped them settle into their new home much faster. 

Morris and Gitel met soon after and love was in the air. Morris and Gitel married in 1893 and their wedding portrait is part of the museum’s collection and will be up on the website.

We are not sure what Malka and Gitel did for work but Morris was a peddler, a popular occupation for Jewish immigrants. Unlike opening a store, which depended on either buying land or renting a building, then hiring staff, procuring signage, getting reliable stock, etc., peddling had a fairly low start up cost: the purchase or rental of a horse and cart and a few goods to get started. Many peddlers, Morris included, would stay overnight in the houses of their customers while on the road.

We’ve talked before about the business landscape of Birmingham (check out our previous episode on EA O’Neil for a look at Birmingham’s business landscape during the 1880s) and how Birmingham was the commercial center between Pontiac and Detroit, conveniently located on the main road through Oakland County (Saginaw, now Woodward Ave.) and on the railroad. But what if you lived in the parts of Oakland County that weren’t along the railroad? Sure, you could wait until the next time you had the opportunity to journey a few hours to a place like Birmingham, but us humans have always liked convenience and having things now. And peddlers, were kinda like the Amazon Prime of their day. They would come into your village or settlement or home every few weeks with an assortment of everyday essentials like sewing supplies, medicines, spices, kitchen utensils, linens, etc. 

At the time, local peddlers and their customers often formed close bonds. In an isolated community, the peddler might bring local gossip, special order things for their customers and provide a vital link to the wider world. But peddlers could be found in towns and cities as well, because sometimes you just don’t want to leave your house to shop. 

Morris Levinson was young, bright and likeable. And he knew how to make use of new opportunities and new markets. The country farms around Birmingham welcomed him and so did local merchants. In a 1926 article, written to commemorate his career upon retirement, Morris recalled that Alex Purdy was one of the Birmingham residents to encourage him to settle in Birmingham and open up a business. Morris recalled that he had some difficulty getting a storefront, some believed that his store wouldn’t be in business more than three months, but in 1896 he opened up his first “economy” store on the south side of Maple, just east of Woodward. Morris was involved in Birmingham’s chapter of the Masons for his whole career in the village, fraternal organizations being the main way to keep in contact with other merchants in the area and to give back to the community.

The Levinsons were just one of the early Jewish families to settle further into Oakland County in  the 1890s and a big reason for that was the DUR, or the Detroit United Railroad sometimes referred to as the “Interurban”. This was the electric trolley cars that connected the Jewish community in Detroit with places like Pontiac and Birmingham. In the 1890s, trains between Birmingham and Detroit left about every hour and it only cost 15 cents for a one-way ride to Detroit. This made it easy and fairly inexpensive for a Jewish family to visit merchants in Detroit that specialized in kosher foods, to attend religious services and keep in contact with other members of their community. Morris would get on the DUR once a week and head into Detroit for the week’s shopping. 

The building that housed The Levinson’s Economy store had structural problems and in 1898 Morris moved it into a new building built on the NE corner of Woodward and Maple, and the store would remain there until it moved to Maple and S. Old Woodward in 1916, where Starbucks is today. In 1905, the store had five different “stores” within it and became “Levinson’s Department Store”. 

The first department stores, or a single retail establishment divided into smaller “departments” which each sold it’s own category of goods, began in the early 1800s in Europe and hit American shores in the mid-1800s, with the establishment of stores in New York and Chicago. These stores radically changed how Americans would shop for the next century and beyond.

Before the department store, a shopper would have to go to many stores to get everything they needed. Flour would be at the dry goods store. For a new hat you’d have to go to a milliner. For new shoes for the kids you’d have to find a shoe store or cobbler, etc. It took a lot of time, not to mention that it often, before car culture became part of American life, a lot of walking and being out in the elements. The department store offered convenience for the American shopper with more discretionary income than ever before. Everything you needed, and a lot of stuff you didn’t, was enticingly displayed. For women especially, who were increasingly using shopping as a recreational and social experience, the department store become a destination.

So you could save time, get a wider variety of goods and have a place to meet up with others? It was revolutionary.

Department stores could really only “work” in larger communities, with many shoppers and Birmingham was really becoming that sort of community. In the 1890s, there were about 1,000 residents but many more people passed through everyday, coming in to Birmingham to bring their goods to the railroad or to shop or go to school or visit, etc. 

A son of Morris and Gitel would say that they sold everything from groceries to furniture. And, just as we saw in the case of EA O’Neil, the demand for luxury and high-end goods in Birmingham would rise throughout the 1900s. Ads that ran in Birmingham yearbooks and newspapers in the 1920s and ‘30s would advertise everything from ready-to-wear clothing, furniture, gifts and candy.

In a 1954 article in the Birmingham Eccentric which looked back on earlier days in the village, we get a humorous story about advertising gone wrong. Morris had paid a Birmingham resident to dress up as Santa Clause and walk around the village with a sign advertising Levinson’s Department store. Unbeknownst to him and our Santa, somebody had pinned an advertisement for a rival store on Santa’s back and it took two hours before Morris spotted the prank.

And just like how the retail environment in Birmingham was expanding in the 1890s, so too was the Levinson family. Aaron was born to Morris and Gitel in 1894, David in 1896, Bess in 1898 and Hyman in 1900. Bess was born at home and the Levinson family likes to claim that she was the first and last Jewish child born in Birmingham, which might just be true because after that period the majority of children being born in hospitals. 

The Levinson kids grew up in Birmingham but the family seems to have retained their connections to Detroit, two of the Levinson kids went to high school in Detroit, rather than Birmingham High and the family relocated to Detroit in 1920 (but Morris continued running the store in Birmingham until 1926 and the store itself would continue until 1938).

David Levinson, however, remained in Birmingham and graduated from Birmingham High in 1913 in a class of less than 20 students. He also bucked another trend-he married outside of his faith. He and Martha Nye were high school sweethearts. There was just one problem-Martha was a Christian. Gitel was initially vehemently opposed to the union but eventually came around when David and Martha’s son Bernard was born in 1927. David and Martha, with their son, continued to live in Birmingham.

Gitel and Morris’ oldest son, Aaron, became a lawyer and Hy owned the Farmington Enterprise Newspaper and was a radio pioneer. 

 Gitel and Morris’ only daughter, Bess, graduated from Birmingham High in 1914 and continued the tradition set by her three brothers by attending the University of Michigan (this was still a period of time when going on to pursue a college education wasn’t super common and it was even more uncommon for a woman to go to college). She taught English to international students and got involved in the  in Metropolitan Detroit Chapter of Hadassah, a Jewish women’s organization founded in 1917 which sought to provide healthcare to people living in what was then Palestine.

Bess also did something that I think is so smart if you live in a time period where you are expected to take your husband’s last name upon marriage-she found a man with a name very, very close to hers. In this case the man’s name was Saul Levin, another community-minded individual and attorney. So, all she had to do was shave off the “-son” part of her last name, which probably shaved a few milliseconds off the time it took her to spell her name. Easy and efficient.

And if you are from the Metro Detroit area and politically aware, or a fan of politics in general, the last name Levin might be ringing some bells. Bess and Saul had three children- Hannah, Sander and Carl. All three got involved in state and national politics. Hannah worked for Michigan Gov. James Blanchard and was appointed to Social Justice Committee in Lansing by Govs. Blanchard and Engler. Carl served in the US Senate from 1979-2014 and Sander served in the US Congress from 1983-2018. 

The name Levinson can still be seen around Birmingham today, the Levinson Realty Company is currently operated by David and Martha Levinson’s grandson, David, and the family still owns the Quarton building in downtown Birmingham.

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The next time you are downtown and need a pick-me-up, stop by the Starbucks at the corner of Maple and Old Woodward and take a look at the building and try to imagine the excitement of walking into a department store for the first time and having everything you need and could ever dream of right in front of you under one roof. Today, we take that for granted, after all, who amongst us has not run into a Target or Walmart and grabbed some underwear, roofing nails, iced coffee and chapstick in one trip? But in the 1880s it was a truly transformative experience, not just for the retail environment in Birmingham or nationally, but also in how people would live their lives for the next century or more. 

In the 1950s, another department store would move into the niche left behind when Levinson’s closed and change Birmingham forever, but that’s a story for the next podcast episode.

Today, in downtown Birmingham, the pendulum has swung away from big department stores and has gone back to smaller, local retailers specializing in one area category. It’s sort of an inverse of someone in the 1880s, used to shopping in several specialized stores going into a big department store for the first time- folks today are so used to shopping in big department stores that we crave a smaller, boutique experience. Everything old eventually becomes new and time is just a timey-wimey jerimy berimy sort of thing anyways.

Join us next time for another story from the development of Birmingham’s retail scene as we look at Jacobson’s department store and the man responsible for Birmingham’s parking decks.

For a full transcript of this episode and to see photos and other documents relating to Levinson’s Department store and the family check out our website, the link is in the shownotes. For questions, comments or episode suggestions please feel free to reach us at museum@bhamgov.org. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review as that makes it easier for other folks to find us. 

For more info on the Birmingham Shopping District and to see their upcoming events, check out their website allinBirmingham.com, the link will also be in our shownotes.

I’m Caitlin Donnelly and thank you for joining us for this episode of “Birmingham Uncovered”. Special thanks to the Birmingham Area Cable Board for PEG grant funding that made this podcast possible. Also thanks to past and present staff of the Birmingham Museum, and our amazing volunteers.