Bloom Brothers Department Stores
Encyclopedia
Bloom Brothers Department Stores were located at sites in Franklin
and Fulton County
, Pennsylvania
, and Baltimore, Maryland, from the company's founding in 1897 as the Old Reliable Conn and Bloom Dry Goods Store until the closing of the last store in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
, in 1944.
The Old Reliable Conn and Bloom Dry Goods Store opened on April 24, 1897, at 84 South Main Street in downtown Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
. First cousins Simon Conn (1860-1932) and Benjamin Bloom (1861-1904), whose immediate ancestors had first emigrated from western Lithuania
to the US states of Louisiana
and Kansas
beginning in the 1830s, opened the store after spending their youths peddling goods from farm to farm in southcentral Pennsylvania
and northern Maryland
. A second store in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania
, called "Bloom and Conn", succeeded the first (1898-99) but did not flourish; a third, also known as Bloom and Conn, which doubled as a grocery store for its remote Path Valley mountain community, thrived in Dry Run, Pennsylvania, northwest of Chambersburg, at the same time as the Waynesboro store, and the fourth Bloom and Conn began and ended its existence during the same week of April, 1899, in the Fulton County
hamlet of Burnt Cabins, Pennsylvania
, for lack of space. The fifth and sixth Bloom stores opened in East Baltimore
in 1905, offering finer men's clothing and furnishings, respectively, but closed after less than a year.
In February, 1900, with the extended Bloom and Conn families now settled in southcentral Pennsylvania
and northern Maryland
, the partnership between the Conns and Blooms was dissolved and each family started its own company. The Bloom family's youngest child, Nathaniel M. Bloom (1884-1899), had not survived the effects of his trans-Atlantic crossing; another, A. Jacob Bloom (1869-1898), fell victim to tuberculosis
during the company's "Conn and Bloom" phase. These circumstances left eldest brother Ben and the next oldest, Isaac H. Bloom (1872-1955), to open the first exclusively "Bloom" store at 84 South Main in Chambersburg on March 10, 1900. Eli F. Bloom (1876-1941), treasurer
of the firm, managed the company's finances from an office above the Chambersburg store until his death in 1941, while Harry M. Bloom (1880-1969) became company sales manager after clerking several years in Waynesboro under Isaac. Bloom Brothers opened its second store on March 21, 1901, in the former Old City Hall on Waynesboro's Town Square, meeting with greater success there than it had as Bloom and Conn two years earlier.
Benjamin Bloom died of tuberculosis
in March, 1904, at the age of 43, but Bloom Brothers thrived under Isaac as president and principal buyer, earning a dedicated customer base by offering "15% to 25% lower prices than other stores", advertised in such local papers as the Chambersburg Valley Spirit and the Waynesboro Herald. Having grown too large for its inaugural space, the Chambersburg store moved in April, 1903, to its second location at 83 South Main Street on the northwest corner of Main and Queen, where the company began a tradition of offering seven departments to the public: dry goods, men's furnishings (including shoes), millinery, clothing, china, household furnishings, and carpets.
Thanks to the company's aggressive discounting, the frugal farmers and laborers of the surrounding Pennsylvania and Maryland countryside descended upon Bloom Brothers every Saturday, and the Waynesboro store, having outgrown the Old Town Hall, moved to a larger location at 25 West Main Street in March, 1903.
In 1905, the brothers' newly-widowed father, Morris H. B. Bloom, opened men's clothing and furnishings stores at 32 and 100 Exeter Street in East Baltimore, but Bloom was compelled to close the stores and leave the country in October, 1906, to aid his younger brother, Benjamin J. Bloom (1845-1906), ailing from tuberculosis
contracted while dairy farming
in Boksburg, South Africa, and the Baltimore stores did not reopen upon his return in 1907 to the United States after his brother's death.
The Chambersburg store was the largest of its kind in the Borough of Chambersburg, and both surviving Bloom stores were the first in Franklin County to employ an overhead cash system. Later in their history, the stores pared household furniture, carpeting, and china from their inventory and by the 1930s sold mainly clothing.
While the Waynesboro store remained at 25 West Main from March, 1903, until its closing in 1933 during the Great Depression
, the Chambersburg store had four locations. Having begun in 1900 at 83 South Main and moved in 1903 across the street to 84 South Main, the store assumed its third location in the Reisher Building at 74 South Main Street in 1913. Twenty-six years later in 1939, it moved a last time to the even larger Keefer Building at 100 South Main. But with World War II
claiming vast quantities of consumer goods and the store's heir apparent, Navy Ens. D. Dudley Bloom
, son of Harry, fighting the Japanese in the South Pacific, the last Bloom Brothers store closed its doors in Chambersburg on March 1, 1944, after 47 years of continuous service to the community on South Main Street.
Bloom Brothers's second location (1903-13) at 83 South Main Street on the northwest corner of Main and Queen Streets has been on the National Register of Historic Places
since 1982. It has long been occupied by Lyon and Company, men's clothiers.
The Bloom Building, an office complex at 17 West Main in Waynesboro carved out of the National Hotel when the First National Bank of Waynesboro (now a part of M&T Bank
) built its headquarters, survived intact until the First National repurchased it in December, 1972, to make room for an annex.
Bloom Avenue in Chambersburg's northwest corner near Letterkenny Army Depot
alludes both to the department store family and to Rep. Sol Bloom
(D-NY) (1870-1949), longtime advocate of U. S. defense spending.
After dividing his time between managing the stores and serving as vice-president of the Waynesboro Trust Company (1912–1925), Isaac H. Bloom founded the Bloom Building and Loan Association in Baltimore in 1926 and presided over its board of directors until the bank's dissolution at Bloom's death in June, 1955.
Franklin County, Pennsylvania
As of the census of 2000, there were 129,313 people, 50,633 households, and 36,405 families residing in the county. The population density was 168 people per square mile . There were 53,803 housing units at an average density of 70 per square mile...
and Fulton County
Fulton County, Pennsylvania
Fulton County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. As of 2010, the population was 14,845.Fulton County was created on April 19, 1850, from part of Bedford County and named for inventor Robert Fulton.Its county seat is McConnellsburg....
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, and Baltimore, Maryland, from the company's founding in 1897 as the Old Reliable Conn and Bloom Dry Goods Store until the closing of the last store in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
Chambersburg is a borough in the South Central region of Pennsylvania, United States. It is miles north of Maryland and the Mason-Dixon line and southwest of Harrisburg in the Cumberland Valley, which is part of the Great Appalachian Valley. Chambersburg is the county seat of Franklin County...
, in 1944.
The Old Reliable Conn and Bloom Dry Goods Store opened on April 24, 1897, at 84 South Main Street in downtown Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
Chambersburg is a borough in the South Central region of Pennsylvania, United States. It is miles north of Maryland and the Mason-Dixon line and southwest of Harrisburg in the Cumberland Valley, which is part of the Great Appalachian Valley. Chambersburg is the county seat of Franklin County...
. First cousins Simon Conn (1860-1932) and Benjamin Bloom (1861-1904), whose immediate ancestors had first emigrated from western Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
to the US states of Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
and Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
beginning in the 1830s, opened the store after spending their youths peddling goods from farm to farm in southcentral Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
and northern Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
. A second store in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania
Waynesboro, Pennsylvania
Waynesboro is a borough in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, located northwest of Baltimore, Maryland, 67 miles southwest of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and north of the Mason-Dixon Line. The population within the borough limits was 9,614 at the 2000 census. When combined with the surrounding...
, called "Bloom and Conn", succeeded the first (1898-99) but did not flourish; a third, also known as Bloom and Conn, which doubled as a grocery store for its remote Path Valley mountain community, thrived in Dry Run, Pennsylvania, northwest of Chambersburg, at the same time as the Waynesboro store, and the fourth Bloom and Conn began and ended its existence during the same week of April, 1899, in the Fulton County
Fulton County
Fulton County is the name of eight counties in the United States of America. Most are named for Robert Fulton, inventor of the first practical steamboat:* Fulton County, Arkansas, named after Governor William Savin Fulton...
hamlet of Burnt Cabins, Pennsylvania
Burnt Cabins, Pennsylvania
Burnt Cabins is an unincorporated community in Dublin Township, Fulton County, Pennsylvania, United States, at the foot of Tuscarora Mountain. It contains U.S. Route 522 and I-76 ....
, for lack of space. The fifth and sixth Bloom stores opened in East Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
in 1905, offering finer men's clothing and furnishings, respectively, but closed after less than a year.
In February, 1900, with the extended Bloom and Conn families now settled in southcentral Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
and northern Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
, the partnership between the Conns and Blooms was dissolved and each family started its own company. The Bloom family's youngest child, Nathaniel M. Bloom (1884-1899), had not survived the effects of his trans-Atlantic crossing; another, A. Jacob Bloom (1869-1898), fell victim to tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
during the company's "Conn and Bloom" phase. These circumstances left eldest brother Ben and the next oldest, Isaac H. Bloom (1872-1955), to open the first exclusively "Bloom" store at 84 South Main in Chambersburg on March 10, 1900. Eli F. Bloom (1876-1941), treasurer
Treasurer
A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The adjective for a treasurer is normally "tresorial". The adjective "treasurial" normally means pertaining to a treasury, rather than the treasurer.-Government:...
of the firm, managed the company's finances from an office above the Chambersburg store until his death in 1941, while Harry M. Bloom (1880-1969) became company sales manager after clerking several years in Waynesboro under Isaac. Bloom Brothers opened its second store on March 21, 1901, in the former Old City Hall on Waynesboro's Town Square, meeting with greater success there than it had as Bloom and Conn two years earlier.
Benjamin Bloom died of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
in March, 1904, at the age of 43, but Bloom Brothers thrived under Isaac as president and principal buyer, earning a dedicated customer base by offering "15% to 25% lower prices than other stores", advertised in such local papers as the Chambersburg Valley Spirit and the Waynesboro Herald. Having grown too large for its inaugural space, the Chambersburg store moved in April, 1903, to its second location at 83 South Main Street on the northwest corner of Main and Queen, where the company began a tradition of offering seven departments to the public: dry goods, men's furnishings (including shoes), millinery, clothing, china, household furnishings, and carpets.
Thanks to the company's aggressive discounting, the frugal farmers and laborers of the surrounding Pennsylvania and Maryland countryside descended upon Bloom Brothers every Saturday, and the Waynesboro store, having outgrown the Old Town Hall, moved to a larger location at 25 West Main Street in March, 1903.
In 1905, the brothers' newly-widowed father, Morris H. B. Bloom, opened men's clothing and furnishings stores at 32 and 100 Exeter Street in East Baltimore, but Bloom was compelled to close the stores and leave the country in October, 1906, to aid his younger brother, Benjamin J. Bloom (1845-1906), ailing from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
contracted while dairy farming
Dairy farming
Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or an animal husbandry, enterprise, for long-term production of milk, usually from dairy cows but also from goats and sheep, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy factory for processing and eventual retail sale.Most dairy farms...
in Boksburg, South Africa, and the Baltimore stores did not reopen upon his return in 1907 to the United States after his brother's death.
The Chambersburg store was the largest of its kind in the Borough of Chambersburg, and both surviving Bloom stores were the first in Franklin County to employ an overhead cash system. Later in their history, the stores pared household furniture, carpeting, and china from their inventory and by the 1930s sold mainly clothing.
While the Waynesboro store remained at 25 West Main from March, 1903, until its closing in 1933 during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, the Chambersburg store had four locations. Having begun in 1900 at 83 South Main and moved in 1903 across the street to 84 South Main, the store assumed its third location in the Reisher Building at 74 South Main Street in 1913. Twenty-six years later in 1939, it moved a last time to the even larger Keefer Building at 100 South Main. But with World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
claiming vast quantities of consumer goods and the store's heir apparent, Navy Ens. D. Dudley Bloom
D. Dudley Bloom
D. Dudley Bloom is an American businessman who made notable contributions to the consumer products industry as an inventor, advertising copywriter, and marketing executive during the 1950s and early 1960s, including proposing and designing the first conventional travel luggage built on wheels and...
, son of Harry, fighting the Japanese in the South Pacific, the last Bloom Brothers store closed its doors in Chambersburg on March 1, 1944, after 47 years of continuous service to the community on South Main Street.
Bloom Brothers's second location (1903-13) at 83 South Main Street on the northwest corner of Main and Queen Streets has been on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
since 1982. It has long been occupied by Lyon and Company, men's clothiers.
The Bloom Building, an office complex at 17 West Main in Waynesboro carved out of the National Hotel when the First National Bank of Waynesboro (now a part of M&T Bank
M&T Bank
M&T Bank is an American commercial bank that was founded in 1856 in western New York, and today remains headquartered in Buffalo at One M & T Plaza...
) built its headquarters, survived intact until the First National repurchased it in December, 1972, to make room for an annex.
Bloom Avenue in Chambersburg's northwest corner near Letterkenny Army Depot
Letterkenny Army Depot
Letterkenny Army Depot, the Center of Industrial and Technical Excellence for Air Defense and Tactical Missile Systems, was established in 1942. The depot is under the command structure of the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command...
alludes both to the department store family and to Rep. Sol Bloom
Sol Bloom
Sol Bloom was an entertainment and popular music entrepreneur who billed himself as "Sol Bloom, the Music Man" and served for many years in the United States House of Representatives.-Early life:...
(D-NY) (1870-1949), longtime advocate of U. S. defense spending.
After dividing his time between managing the stores and serving as vice-president of the Waynesboro Trust Company (1912–1925), Isaac H. Bloom founded the Bloom Building and Loan Association in Baltimore in 1926 and presided over its board of directors until the bank's dissolution at Bloom's death in June, 1955.