Are You Smarter Than A Tortus?

July 20, 2010

Isidor Straus met an untimely end on the maiden voyage of the British ship company White Star Line's most infamous ship: the Titanic.

Straus and his brother, Nathan, started out selling china- and glassware in  R. H. Macy and Company department stores and eventually bought the store in 1895. Straus was born in Rhenish, Bavaria in 1845 and immigrated to America with his family as a child. He tried to join the Confederate Army at 16 but was turned away due to his age. The intrepid Straus then began working for a cotton export firm but found himself stranded in London with his entire life savings stitched into his underwear for safekeeping. He decided to import crockery from Europe instead and was so successful at selling the goods in Macy's stores that he ended up eventually buying the company.

In 1912, Isidor Straus and his wife, Ida, set sail from Southampton, England to return from a trip to Europe. They typically preferred to travel on German ships, but this time decided to take the maiden voyage of the Titanic, a luxurious new ocean liner owned by the White Star Line. Straus and his wife, Ida, who refused to leave his side, perished in the cold waters on April 15, 1912.

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