Subject: Cap Manufacturers

Billhead - COHEN, M. D....circa 1850....52 NORTH SECOND STREET, BELOW ARCH, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania......; FURRIER AND CAP MANUFACTURER...PRINT OF A CAP. Myer David (M. D.) Cohen (1811–1865) was a German Jewish immigrant from Prussia who established himself in Philadelphia’s bustling commercial district. He operated a "Fur Store," acting as a fancy furrier and cap manufacturer. He specialized in fashionable fur trimmings and wholesale/retail caps, actively buying raw animal skins from traders at full market price. His business at 52 North Second Street was situated "two doors below Arch Street" in what is now Philadelphia's historic Old City. During the 1850s, Second Street was a major commercial hub dense with textile, clothing, and accessory manufacturers. Today, this corridor is preserved under the Old City Historic District.Myer David Cohen and his family were highly influential in the early development of American Jewish civic and religious institutions. In an era when keeping a business closed on Saturday was financially difficult and rare in the United States, historical newspaper advertisements for M. D. Cohen explicitly stated, "The store is always closed on Saturdays." This strict adherence to the Jewish Sabbath (Shabbat) was a proud marker of traditional Jewish identity in early Philadelphia commerce. In 1837, Myer David Cohen married Judith Simha da Silva Solis. She belonged to a highly prominent Sephardic Jewish family that traced its roots back to the Iberian Peninsula and 17th-century Amsterdam. Upon their marriage, she requested that their lineages be formally joined, giving rise to the prominent Solis-Cohen dynasty in Philadelphia.Through his marriage and Philadelphia business, M. D. Cohen fathered children who became towering figures in American medicine and Jewish communal affairs. His eldest son, Dr. Jacob da Silva Solis-Cohen (1838–1927), served as a Union Army surgeon during the Civil War. He is celebrated historically as the "Father of Laryngology" in the United States, performing the first successful laryngectomy for laryngeal cancer in the country. Another son, Dr. Solomon Solis-Cohen (1857–1948), became a celebrated professor of clinical medicine. He was profoundly active in Jewish activities, helping found the Jewish Publication Society of America, the Jewish Theological Seminary, and the Philadelphia Young Men's Hebrew Association (YMHA).

Billhead of M. D. Cohen, a furrier and cap manufacturer, located at 52 North Second Street, below Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The billhead is dated circa 1850 and features a print of a cap. M. D. Cohen is identified as the father of Dr. Jacob Solis-Cohen. The billhead is part of the E Collection in Archives and Manuscript Series 56, Box A, Folder 3.