Arthur Sigmund Newman (1893 - 1950)

Born 29 Aug 1893 in Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Ohio, United States

Ancestors

Died 11 May 1950 at age 56 in Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Ohio, United States

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Biography

Arthur Newman has Slovak Roots.

Arthur Newman has Jewish Roots.

Arthur Sigmund Newman was born on August 29, 1893 in Cleveland Ohio. Soon afterward the family was altered forever. By the time of his second birthday, his father had died. Art, as he was always known, would be raised by his sisters and brothers. They were all still living at home as late as 1900. Hannah ran Newman’s Millinery in the bustling Jewish commercial district on Cleveland’s West Twenty-sixth Street. Like Joe, who was only two years older, Art attended Central High School; like Aaron, he was drawn into newspaper work. Not long after high school he founded, published, wrote, and solicited ads for a local business circular, the Home Advertiser. He parlayed that into a job in the advertising and news departments of the Cleveland Press, which proved unlucky in 1915. He phoned into the newsroom to report a scoop regarding a contentious strike at the Mechanical Rubber Company, he was inadvertently connected to the rival.

He married Theresa (née Fetzer or Fetsko; Slovak: Terézia Fecková) and they had a son Paul Newman born January 26, 1925.

Arthur Sigmund Newman eventually ran a profitable sporting goods store. The NEWMAN-STERN CO. was one of the nation's largest and best known sporting goods stores. The company began as the Electro-Set Co., organized in 1915 by brothers Arthur S. and Joseph S. Newman and Arnold L. Stern. The company specialized in radio parts and electrical toys for boys. The store was located in a small store on E. 4th St.. The company soon became Cleveland's first supplier of radio parts and began a national mail-order parts business. The firm changed its name to the Newman-Stern Co. in 1917, and after the federal government banned the manufacture and sale of wireless equipment during World War I, the company turned to sporting goods to bolster dwindling electronics sales.

With sporting goods its major business after the war, the company briefly occupied quarters in the Leader Bldg. at E. 6th St. and Superior Ave., before moving into the new Newman-Stern building at E. 12th St. and Walnut Ave. in 1921. With Arthur Newman's death in 1950, Joseph Newman sold his family's interest in the firm to department store owners Nathan Marcus and Allan Kramer. Under new management, Newman-Stern opened two suburban branches. By 1965, however, the store located in the Southgate Shopping Center remained the only branch store. In 1963, Gateway Sporting Goods Co. of Kansas City acquired the company and 4 years later, moved Newman-Stern's downtown store to 634 Euclid Ave. When Gateway encountered serious financial problems in the spring of 1973, it closed the remaining downtown and Southgate stores. In the meantime, the Newman family had organized the Newman-Adler Co., in 1967, to sell camping and outdoor equipment. By 2004, the camping equipment business, known as InterGreen Outfitters, operated a single location in Chagrin Falls, and was still owned by the Newman family.

Sources

• http://www.geni.com/people/Joseph-Newman/6000000002956652917

Ohio Deaths 1908-1953(family search)Father's name Simon Newman, mother's name Hannah Cohn.https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/X657-6M6