Baruch and Lennox families photographs and papers

Prussian born Simon Baruch (1840-1921) immigrated to America in 1855. Upon his arrival he made his way to Camden, South Carolina, where his sponsor, Mannes Baum, operated a general merchandise store. Simon started work as a bookkeeper in the Baum store but his interest in medicine soon led him to enter the South Carolina Medical College and continue his studies at the Medical College of Virginia, from which he graduated in 1862. During the Civil War Simon served as a surgeon for the Confederate army. Returning to Camden after the war, he established a country practice and married Isabelle Wolfe (1850-1921). Together they had four boys: Hartwig Nathaniel Baruch (1868-1953); Bernard Mannes Baruch (1870-1965); Herman Benjamin Baruch (1872-1953); and Sailing W. Baruch (1874-1962). In 1881 the family moved to New York where Simon campaigned for better hygiene and established the first public baths for the poor. Simon's eldest son, Hartwig N. Baruch, aspired to become an actor and in the 1890s acted with the Boston Stock Company and on Broadway under the stage name of Nathaniel Hartwig. His mother persuaded him to follow his younger brothers Bernard and Sailing to Wall Street. (Bernard would become a successful American financier, presidential advisor, and elder statesman, and Sailing would become a prominent banker and stockbroker.) In 1899 Bernard bought Hartwig a seat on the New York Stock exchange. From 1903 to 1918 Hartwig worked as a partner in the firm of Baruch Brothers and when it merged with Henry Hentz & Co. he became a partner in the new firm. In 1917 he married his second wife, Arline Lennox, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Henry Lennox of Rocky Hill, Connecticut. They had one son, Hartwig Nathaniel Baruch Jr. (1918-1997).