M. Rich Dry Goods was founded by Morris Rich in 1867 in postwar Atlanta in a twenty-by-seventy-foot, hastily-built structure. Morris Rich (Reich) was an immigrant from Hungary and was one of the thousands of men who moved into the South during Reconstruction. He, along with brothers Daniel, Emanuel and William, developed M. Rich and Bros. throughout the last half of the 19th century.
By the 1920s it was one of the largest stores in the South and was known simply as Rich’s. The Rich family was known for their civic-mindedness. During WWI, when European markets for cotton collapsed, the store took cotton bales in trade from Georgia’s cotton farmers. And when the city of Atlanta could not meet the payroll for its teachers during the Depression, Rich’s worked out a system where they paid the teachers in exchange for city-issued script.
The store continued to be owned and run by the Rich family until the late 1970s, when it was sold to Federated Department Stores. In 2005 Rich’s stores were changed to Macy’s.
Written by Lizzie Bramlett, fuzzylizzie.com
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