Strauss (surname)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Strauss (German: Strauß) is a common German surname, with variant spellings; Strauß, Straus and Strouse, possibly originating in Middle High German strûz ("fight"). In English, Strauß is usually spelled Strauss.
[edit] Family History
Straus is the American Jewish family, originally from Otterberg, in the Rhenish Palatinate. The earliest member known was one Lazarus Straus, born in the first half of the eighteenth century, whose son Jacob Lazarus Straus was known also as Jacques Lazare. Lazarus was elected in the department of Mont Tonnerre for the Assembly of Jewish Notables convened by Napoleon in Paris July 26, 1806, preliminary to the establishment of the French Sanhedrin. His son Isaac Straus took the name of Straus in the year 1808, when Napoleon passed the decree ordering all Alsatian Jews to adopt family names. Isaac's son Lazarus was possessed of considerable means, made in both agricultural and commercial pursuits. Being of liberal tendencies, he was involved in the revolutionary movement of 1848; he emigrated to the United States in 1854 and settled in Talbotton, Georgia. In 1865 he established in New York a successful pottery and glassware business, in conducting which he was joined in 1872 by his sons. It was due to his instigation that Kayserling undertook the researches in Spain resulting in his work on Christopher Columbus. He died in New York City in April, 1898.
