Marks Family
Dry goods merchants M. Marks & Sons completed this massive corner structure detailed with plate-glass windows, oversized entry arch, and a rooftop tower, in September 1891. After the grand opening, the News and Courier declared the new Marks Store a “Poem in Granite, Terra Cotta and Dress Goods, One of the Handsomest and Costliest Establishments in the South.” Moses Marks and his sons, Joseph, Isaac, and Mord (joined later in the business by a fourth son, Leopold), had spared no expense in the construction of their three-story commercial building, where they offered all sorts of domestic dry goods: ladies’ underwear, corsets, gloves, and lace, perfume and jewelry; infants’ needs, men’s furnishings, hosiery, gloves, and underwear; crockery, fancy goods, and dress goods (fabrics). The Marks building remained a King Street landmark until its demolition in 1955.
Dry goods merchant Moses Marks (d. 1911)
Marks family
Isaac Marks (1863–1951) (left to right); his daughter Madeleine; his wife, Rosa Moritz (1876–1943); Fannie Minzesheimer Marks, wife of his brother Joseph; his daughter Doris; and his brother Joseph Marks, 1916.
Fannie Minzesheimer Marks
Wife of Joseph Marks, she was the second president (1913–1918) of the Charleston chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women.
Rosa Marks (Mrs. Isaac)
Photograph taken for her season pass to the South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition, 1901–1902. Courtesy of Charleston County Public Library.
M. Marks & Sons 1917–18 catalog guarantees wholesale prices
From the collections of the South Carolina Historical Society.
Cover of M. Marks & Sons 1917–18 catalog
From the collections of the South Carolina Historical Society.
M. Marks & Sons 1917–18 catalog, inside page
From the collections of the South Carolina Historical Society.