We Were Merchants is the fascinating and inspiring story of a family of immigrant merchants who transformed a nondescript apparel store in Baton Rouge into a national retail legend. At its pinnacle, when family businesses ruled the retail landscape, Goudchaux's/Maison Blanche had become the largest family-owned department store in America. The Sternbergs sold Goudchaux's/Maison Blanche in the early 1990s, bringing to an end their centuries-old mercantile tradition that began in a small shop in eighteenth-century Germany. We Were Merchants is enhanced with recollections of former customers and employees, and forty-two historic photographs.

 

Hans J. Sternberg was born in Aurich, Germany, and moved with his family to the United States at the age of one. He was chairman and co-CEO (with his brother, Josef) of Goudchaux's/Maison Blanche Department Stores from 1965 to 1992 and is now chairman and CEO of Starmount Life Insurance Company. He and his wife, Donna, live in Baton Rouge. They have four children and nine grandchildren. None are in retail.

James E. Shelledy spent more than thirty years as a newspaper reporter and editor in Utah, Idaho, Washington, and Arizona, as well as a correspondent for the Associated Press. He is the Fred Jones Greer Endowed Chair at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University and lives in Baton Rouge.

ISBN: 9780807134498

Hardcover

160 pages

9.8 x 10.2

Dust Jacket, Illustrated, Table of Contents

LSU Press, 2009