Behind every great man, there’s a great woman …
Traditional Jews make this case every Friday night, when the husband (typically) sings “Eshet Chayil” (A Woman of Valor) to his wife.
One of San Francisco’s valorous women in the 1870s was Mary Ann Cohen Magnin. Daughter of a Dutch rabbi, Mary Ann Cohen collected a husband in England, then sailed for the Golden Gate and created the clothier I. Magnin.
Her husband, Isaac (the “I” in I. Magnin), had little interest in retail, but Mary Ann created a landmark business that — along with the White House, Gump’s and several other stores — introduced fine clothes, furniture and other goods to a region that was still the Wild West.
“A century later, Mary Ann Magnin would have been widely recognized in the business world,” local historian Ava Kahn explains in an essay for the Jewish Women’s Archive website. “However, because of the conventions of the nineteenth century, her role in the development of the department store chain is little known.”
This column is provided to j. by the Contemporary Jewish Museum (www.thecjm.org), where “California Dreaming: Jewish Life in the Bay Area from the Gold Rush to the Present” is on view.