Financial History Issue 128 (Winter 2019) | Page 34

WHERE ARE
THEY NOW?
Newburger & Co. and
Newburger, Loeb & Co.
By Susie J. Pak
The history of Newburger & Co. and
Newburger, Loeb & Co. exhibits some of
the main characteristics of firms founded
by German immigrants in the United
States: they originated in the clothing trade
and built a foundation on extended family
networks that spanned several generations.
The firms trace their origins to Morris
Newburger, who was born in Germany in
1834 and immigrated to the United States
in 1854. Morris’s father was a teacher and
descended from a family of rabbis. In
Germany, Morris worked in the dry goods
business. After moving to the United
States, he lived in New York, in the South
and in the Midwest before settling in Phil-
adelphia. In 1862, Morris married the for-
mer Bertha Hochstadter, and he entered
a partnership with her brothers, Adolph,
Albert and David, creating the firm of
Newburger & Hochstadter, wholesale
clothing traders. Later Morris became the
president of the Mechanics National Bank
in Philadelphia and founded the clothing
manufacturer, Morris Newburger & Sons.
He and his wife had seven children: five
sons (Samuel M., Morton M., Alfred H.,
Frank. L. and Lester M. Newburger) and
two daughters (Ida Newburger Gutman
and Carrie Newburger Loeb).
Morris and Bertha’s son, Samuel Meade
Newburger, was born in Philadelphia in
1863. He graduated from Central High
School in 1878 and joined his father’s firm
Robert L. Newburger (left) with Joseph L.
Searles III. As a partner with Newburger, Loeb &
Co., Searles became the first African American
member of the New York Stock Exchange.
in 1880. His brother, Morton, also became
a member of the firm but died tragically
from typhoid fever in 1888 at the age of
24. Over time, the family retired from the
wholesale clothing business and moved
into manufacturing before devoting them-
selves to the securities business. Samuel
and another brother, Lester Morris New-
burger, a graduate of the University of
Pennsylvania Wharton School of Busi-
ness, founded a tobacco manufacturing
company in Philadelphia called Stewart,
Newburger & Co., which was renamed
Newburger & Co. in 1905.
By then, Lester and Samuel’s brothers,
Frank and Alfred, had already entered
the brokerage business. Born in Philadel-
phia in 1873, Frank Lieberman Newburger
attended the University of Pennsylvania
before joining his father’s clothing manu-
facturing firm. His brother, Alfred, worked
in the manufacturing sector before join-
ing Frank in business. Frank and Alfred
became partners in Newburger, Cahn &
Co., a Philadelphia firm, and its affili-
ated Baltimore firm, Cahn, Newburger &
Hoblitzell. In 1899, when those firms were
dissolved, Frank and Alfred founded the
firm of Newburger Brothers and Hen-
derson with John J. Henderson, a Phila-
delphia native who was also an active
Catholic layman.
As the formation of Newburger Bros.
& Henderson indicates, the Newburgers
built alliances with non-family members,
but they did not neglect the family founda-
tion of their business. Given the partner-
ship structure and the nature of the securi-
ties business and its trade in information
32    FINANCIAL HISTORY  |  Winter 2019  | www.MoAF.org
and reputation, it is not surprising that
the family network remained a substantial
one, particularly given the number of chil-
dren in the family they could draw upon
for resources. In 1907, Newburger Broth-
ers and Henderson became Newburger,
Henderson & Loeb when the brothers cre-
ated a partnership with their sister Carrie’s
husband, Jacob F. Loeb.
The son of Marx B. Loeb, a clothing
merchant, and his wife, Henrietta Frank,
Jacob Frank Loeb was a Philadelphia
native and a graduate of the University
of Pennsylvania. Jacob was a member of
his maternal family’s firm, Frank Bros. &
Co., clothing manufacturers, before join-
ing with the Newburgers and Henderson
in the formation of the new firm. His
brother, Horace Loeb, a Swarthmore Col-
lege graduate, joined the firm in 1907 after
working in manufacturing for more than
20 years. (Their sister, Birdie Loeb, was
married to Benedict Gimbel, a founder of
the Gimbel Brothers Department store).
Alfred set up the firm’s New York office in
1907, and Samuel moved to New York in
1908. In 1926, Samuel’s son, Morton Joel
Newburger, became a partner in the fam-
ily firm, representing the third generation
in business.
The Newburger firm continued to
introduce the next generation of family
members as it went through a series of
partnership changes. In 1931, Alfred and
Samuel retired and Henderson left to form
his own co-partnership with his son, John
Sailer Henderson, though he also retired
later that year from business after a long
illness. Newburger, Henderson & Loeb