Carrie Marcus was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1883 to Jewish German immigrants. The family followed a married daughter to Hillsboro, Texas in 1895, and then to Dallas in 1899. In 1905 Carrie married Abraham Lincoln Neiman. Carrie and her husband “Al” moved to Atlanta with her brother Herbert and his wife Minnie to work for the Coca Cola Company. Their success at Coca Cola was rewarded with a $25,000 buyout to obtain the sales rights in Missouri and Kansas.
Carrie and her family returned to Dallas where they invested their nest egg in the retail department store business, launching the upscale fashion clothing and department store Neiman Marcus in 1907. Success was immediate as all of the luxurious, high-end fashionable clothing which Carrie purchased on a buying trip to New York sold out within weeks of the opening of Neiman Marcus. Carrie and other buyers for the store became part of Dallas and retailing history, and eventually Carrie was said to be a “symbol of elegance” by Holiday Magazine. Carrie and her husband Al, and the Marcus family are central figures in the History of Jews in Dallas.
In 1928 the Neimans were divorced and Herbert bought out his brother-in-law’s share of the company. Carrie then became the key figure in the organization of the store’s successful fashion shows, and then beginning in 1938 the annual Neiman Marcus Fashion Award for outstanding fashion was inaugurated by Carrie. In 1950 Herbert died, and Carrie took over as the chairwoman of Neiman Marcus. Carrie died in 1953 after approving the Preston Road Neiman Marcus branch store. At that date Stanley Marcus and other family members took over the top management at the company.
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