Jesse Isidor Straus (1872-1936)

He was born in New York City and graduated from Harvard (1893). He lost both his parents on the Titanic in 1912. He and his family were co-owners of Macy's Department Store in New York of which he was President during the 1930s. He was appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt as the American Ambassador to France from 1933 until his death in 1936 and he co-founded the Lycée Français at New York. According to the Straus family newsletter, he "felt that Judaism was a religion, not a nationality, and that Jews, and members of all religious groups in any country, should assimilate... He refused all traffic with the Zionists and rigidly opposed pro-Jewish discrimination at Macy's." He married Irma Nathan and they were the parents of three children (listed). They lived at 720 Park Avenue in New York where he amassed a collection of fine arts, rare books, and memorabilia. He left a collection of autographs to his granddaughter who donated them to Vassar College as the "Jesse Isidor Straus Autograph Collection".