Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to Use

No usage restrictions.

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 Cohn Brothers Account Books #5556, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Historical Collectible Auctions in March 2013 (Acc. 101758).

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: May 2019

Encoded by: Laura Smith

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.

• Bayou Sara (La.)--History--19th century.
• Clifton (Miss.)--History--19th century.
• Louisiana--Commerce--19th century.
• Mississippi--Commerce--19th century.
• Saint Francisville (La.)--History--19th century.
• Cohn Brothers (Lorman, Miss.)
• Merchants--Louisiana.
• Merchants--Mississippi.

• Cohn Brothers Store Ledgers, Mss. 4679, Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, LSU Libraries, Baton Rouge, La.

The Cohn Brothers business was founded by Jewish merchants who emigrated from Alsace, France to the American South in the nineteenth century.

The collection contains two nineteenth-century ledger volumes with accounts for stores in Louisiana and Mississippi that were owned by the Cohn Brothers, Jewish merchants who emigrated from Alsace, France. One ledger dated 1876 to 1884 documents business transactions for stores in Bayou Sara, La. and St. Francisville, La. The second ledger dated 1878 to 1879 documents business transactions for stores in Mississippi, including Clifton, Miss. Transactions noted in the volumes include freight charges and purchases of dry goods, sugar, coffee, liquor, beer, fabric, thread, buttons, shoes, tobacco, lumber, bricks, photographs, stamps, and other items. Accounting entries provide sales details for hundreds of customers including formerly enslaved African Americans.