Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Charles Louis Schlom Papers #5313, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Margaret Sachs of Chapel Hill, N.C., in 2007 (Acc. 100599, 100759) and 2015 (Acc. 102169).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Amanda Ross, January 2008

Encoded by: Amanda Ross, January 2008

Updated by: Amy Morgan and Jodi Berkowitz, March 2019

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Family--Mississippi.
• Greenville (Miss.)--Commerce.
• Greenville (Miss.)--History.
• Immigrants--Mississippi.
• Jewelers--Mississippi.
• Jewish businesspeople--Mississippi.
• Jewlry trade--Mississippi.
• Jews--Latvia.
• Jews--Mississippi.
• Jews--Southern States.
• Merchants--Mississippi--History--20th century.
• Mississippi--Social life and customs.
• Schlom family.
• Schlom, Charles Louis, 1880-1950.

Born in 1880 to a family of Jewish craftspeople near Riga, Latvia, Charles Louis Schlom emigrated to America to avoid religious persecution. He and his grandmother came to the United States through Galveston, Tex. As an adult, Charles Louis Schlom traveled throughout the American South, eventually opening a tailoring shop in Memphis, Tenn. In November 1905, Schlom became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He married Nellie Ethel Freeman, and the two followed his friend, Marcy Hartman, to Greenville, Miss., in April 1908. That June, the couple's first child, Zelda Schlom (later Sachs), was born. Three more children followed: Lillian (1910), David (1912), and Fannie Helene (1919). Schlom purchased a jewelry store in 1908, which he expanded and passed on to his relations. Zelda and her husband Irvin Sachs took over the business in 1945. Their daughter Joanne Sachs Skibell and her husband Bernard Skibell moved to Greenville, Miss., in 1955 to become active in the family business.

The collection includes documents related to the Schlom family, a Jewish family of craftspeople in Latvia; legal and financial papers, including the naturalization papers, property deed and loan papers, and last will and testament of merchant Charles Louis Schlom; letters and materials sent to Schlom and newspaper clippings related to the purchase and operation of his Greenville, Miss., jewelry store; photographs of Charles Louis Schlom, family members, and the store; a biographical sketch of Charles Louis Schlom by his oldest daughter, Zelda Schlom Sachs; and other materials.

• Photographs (PF-5313/1-2)