Kabo Corsets, 23-25 E. 21st St. (2004)

A Chicago-based company, The Kabo Corset Co. was owned by members of the same Florsheim family that created the well-known Florsheim Shoes. Simon Florsheim (born Germany 1837, immigrated 1854, naturalized citizen 1859), initially in the fur business, was a corset manufacturer in Chicago from around 1880. By 1902 he was in business with his son, Norman S. Florsheim (1865- ), and their company, S. Florsheim & Son, became the proprietor of the Kabo Corset Co. by 1903. The New York branch office and salesrooms of Kabo opened at 388 Broadway the same year.

This early ad for Kabo Corsets appeared in the Burr McIntosh Monthly, vol. 1, no. 2, May, 1903.

In 1906 notice appeared in The New York Times of the dissolution of the partnership of S. Florsheim & Son, trading as the Kabo Corset Co., "owing to the retirement of S. Florsheim, senior partner." Norman S. Florsheim became president of Kabo with his younger brother, Leonard S. Florsheim (1878-1964), secretary.

Kabo was located at 23-25 E. 21st St. from 1916 to 1922. Probably they did not manufacture corsets in New York after that date (see Kabo ad from 1937.), although the business continued until at least the mid-1940s (see Kabo ad from 1943). The New York Public Library's Picture Collection has a Kabo ad from 1910 available at digitalcollections.nypl.org.

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Above Kabo on this wall Quality / Skirts / M Goldman (click for image).

In 1905 M. Goldman & Co., New York, N. Y. and Cleveland, Ohio, registered a trademark with the words "Gold Quality" on an oval-shaped background for a line of women's, misses', and children's outer skirts. So this sign may say Gold Quality Skirts, although the line above "Quality" here seems to make that unlikely.

M. Goldman, Skirts, were located at 25 E. 21st St. from 1905 to 1906. Proprietors were Michael Goldman and Jacob J. Goldman. Both were born in Maryland, and likely were brothers. Michael Goldman can be found in the 1910 U. S. Census, when he was 41 years old, born Maryland. He seems to have died around 1918, and the M. Goldman & Co. business name was not used after this date. Jacob J. Goldman was the older of the two. He was 48 in the 1910 census and 69 in the 1930 census. In addition to M. Goldman & Co. both Goldmans were in business as the Goldman Costume Co. from 1909 to 1918. Jacob J. Goldman appears as proprietor of the Goldman Costume Co. from 1918 to 1928. His name appears in a news story in Fairchild's Daily News Record and Women's Wear National Directory (vol. 17, 1920): "The Associated Dress Industries of America is the first national organization ever formed in the dress industry. It was organized on Dec. 13, 1918, at the McAlpin Hotel, at which time J. J. Goldman of the Goldman Costume Co., presided..."

In the late 1910s Jay A. Einstein married Jacob Goldman's daughter, Bessie Goldman, and by the early 1920s he joined his father-in-law as an executive at the Goldman Costume Co. At the time of the 1930 U. S. Census Jacob J. Goldman lived with his son-in-law, Jay Einstein, in Mount Vernon, N. Y. Both men gave their occupations as "Mail Order House." Apparently, this was a business called Fifth Avenue Modes, which sold dresses via mail order. Fifth Avenue Modes was located at 74 5th Ave. (near 14th St.) from 1928 to 1939/40. In 1928 this was also the address of Goldman Costume Co. Inc., but Goldman Costume Co. dropped out of directory listings after this date.

This ad for the Goldman Costume Co. appeared in The American Cloak & Suit Review, Dec. 1913.

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