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In 1867 he removed to New York city, and with his brother Isaac, under the firm name of Stern Brothers, established a dry goods business on Sixth avenue, between 22d and 23d streets. This enterprise, founded in a modest way and being confined strictly to the dry goods trade, formed the nucleus to the firm's present establishment, which was moved to the site it now occupies on 23d street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, in 1878. The firm now consists of three brothers, Louis, Isaac, and Benjamin, the latter being admitted in 1886. Another brother, Bernhard, was also a partner for several years prior to his death in 1888.
Mr. Stern, in co-operation with his brothers, has built up one of the largest and most successful dry goods establishments in New York, and from the first has confined it strictly to the retail dry goods and upholstery trade. The name of Stern Brothers has a wide reputation throughout the United States. They employ nearly 2,000 people, and carry an extensive line of high class imported and domestic goods, and are noted for fairness and reliability in all business transactions. Mr. Stern is an active Republican in politics, taking a keen interest in the welfare of his party, and is a member and the third vice-president of the Republican Club of New York. He is a director of the Bank of New Amsterdam of New York city, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, New York Geographical Society, and first vice-president of the Albany Society of New York, an organization to which many former Albanians belong, and which ably fosters their interest in the capital city though engaged in business in the metropolis. Besides these he is prominently identified with several other social, civil and commercial institutions, and as a citizen is public spirited, liberal, and enterprising.
Louis Stern was born in Germany on the 22d of February, 1847, and came to America with his parents, M. A. and S. Stern, in 1854. The family first located in New York city, but in 1855 removed to Albany, where the father was engaged in the jewelry business until his death in 1866. Mr. Stern received a thorough education in the public schools of the capital city and at the Albany State Normal School, and when fourteen became a clerk in a large dry goods store in Petersburg, Va., where he remained until 1863. He then went to Memphis, Tenn., and later to Mobile, Ala., being engaged in the dry goods trade in those cities.