File:Victor-Kaplon-and-Family.jpg

Summary

This formal photo shows a prosperous young Kaplon family, circa 1895. From left (we believe) are daughter Fanny, wife Ida, daughters Annie and Elizabeth (sitting), sons Myer and Abraham or Amos.

Victor Kaplon escaped from Russia with his brother on a ship hidden under a load of hay and came to America in the 1880s. He started as a peddler carrying his pack, a walking department store, selling his wares in Virginia and Washington County, Maryland.

Eventually, Victor and family owned and operated a department store between the tracks in the old Berlin beginning in 1889, later moving to a new store at the corner of W. Potomac St. and Maryland Ave. in 1908. Kaplon’s went out of business in March, 1967.

Suzette Richwagen Some old timers have told me that Fanny went to New York on buying trips for the Kaplon store, and would generate excitement by covering all the windows while she was dressing them before she would unveil the new merchandise for the season. They have also told me that she generally wore her hair in a bun in her later years and kept her pencils there, and that she walked very quickly. The Kaplon family is the best of American success stories, about starting from nothing and making something, they are certainly worthy of research, and role models I look up to as a small business owner....The Kaplon store was innovative at the time it was built for it's large show windows modeled after stores in New York, where the family had connections and went to purchase merchandise to show in Brunswick....I remember when they auctioned off the contents of the store when I was 15, that was in 1975, I attended the auction.

Doris Kelley Barker Loved all that you said, Suzette and it is all true. Yes, she covered those Macy-like beautiful windows and when she opened them, she had the beautiful clothes & jewelry all among the clothes—those windows were gorgeous and we all loved all of them. She rode the B&O RR to NYC several times a year. She would call my Mother & would tell her dresses that she would be having for her & also for me, a child, then a teenager, then I was married to C. Wayne Barker. They had their office in a lovely loft-like area of that large first floor toward the left side and their dressing rooms for men/women were under it. I loved it all.

(Photo courtesy of the Jewish Museum of Maryland)