Title: Barnett Family: Family and Business Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1906-1971

Creator:

• Barnett Family

Call Number: Milwaukee Mss 21

Quantity: 0.6 c.f. (2 archives boxes)

Repository:

Housed at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries’ Archives Department / Milwaukee Area Research Center; owned by the Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

UW-Milwaukee Libraries, Archives / Milwaukee Area Research Ctr. (Map)

Abstract:

Family and business records from three generations of a Milwaukee Jewish family. Isaac Barnett, who founded the family's textile business, was a Lithuanian immigrant who settled in Milwaukee in 1902 and founded the Barnett Woolen Mills around 1913. The business papers describe the company's 1938 bankruptcy and subsequent reorganization, and activities of another family business, the Muskego Company. The family papers include some genealogical information and letters written after World War II between Israel Barnett and the family's European cousins: Rabbi Saul Schenker, who had survived imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp, and Jenny Trachtenberg, both of whom were then living in France.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mil00021

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The histories of the Barnett family and its business, the Barnett Woolen Mills are closely inter-related. A Barnett family member headed the company from its founding in the early 20th century until its final dissolution in 1971.

Isaac Barnett, the company's founder, left Lithuania for the United States in 1886 when he was 30 years old. Barnett first settled in Monroe, Wisconsin, and then moved to Milwaukee in 1902. Isaac's first job in Milwaukee was that of a junk dealer. The Wright's Milwaukee City Directories of 1902-1909 list the occupations of Isaac and his son, Israel, as simply “junk,” “junk dealer,” or “peddler.” The company's stationery of the era is a bit more descriptive. It states: “I. Barnett & Son. Scrap Iron, Metals, Rubbers and Rags; Hides, Tallow and Furs: A Specialty.”

The Barnetts' woolen business was organized by 1913 when the Milwaukee City Directory lists Isaac's occupation as “carbonize wool”; the 1916 directory lists him as a “manufacturer [of] wool shoddy.” The I. Barnett Woolen Mills is first mentioned in the city directory of 1919, which lists company officers as Isaac Barnett, president; Harry Nathan (Isaac's son-in- law), vice president; and Israel Barnett, secretary-treasurer.

In its early days, the Barnetts' junk business was located at various addresses in Milwaukee, including 5th Street, 4th Street, Oregon Street, and later Virginia Street. The Woolen Mill was established on Muskego Avenue in Milwaukee.

Isaac Barnett died in 1930 at the age of 74. He had been a former president and trustee of Milwaukee's Congregation Beth Israel, and a member of B'nai B'rith. Besides his wife Mary, Isaac was survived by three daughters: Rose (Mrs. Ed) Kupper, Flora (Mrs. Harry) Nathan, and Anne (Mrs. John) Callen; as well as son Israel. After his father's death, Israel became company president. Isaac Barnett Woolen Mills filed for bankruptcy in April 1938. Israel's wife, Sarah (nee Selensky), and his son Philip, took the first steps toward reorganizing the business in September 1938. They repurchased the company's equipment from the Milwaukee Employees Pension Association and signed a lease for the same Muskego Avenue building. By 1945, Philip and Sarah had expanded the company's partnership to include Philip's sisters, Dorothy Perlman and Eva Perlman, as well as Israel.

Following the reorganization, the company did some business--principally real estate dealings--under the name The Muskego Company. The exact relationship between the Barnett Woolen Mills and the Muskego Company is not clear from collection papers. The Wisconsin Secretary of State's Corporation Division states that the Muskego Company was dissolved in 1971; the Woolen Mills was never listed with the state as a corporation.

The collection consists of family and business papers documenting nearly three generations of a Jewish family's life in Milwaukee, from 1906 to 1971. It consists of two series: FAMILY and BUSINESS records. The FAMILY series includes letters between Israel Barnett and his family's cousins, Rabbi Saul Schenker and Jenny Trachtenberg, who were living in France following World War II. Much of the correspondence between Barnett and Schenker, a Nazi concentration camp survivor, is concerned with Schenker's efforts to immigrate to the United States. Brief translations accompany the letters written in Yiddish. Genealogical information can be found in letters regarding Israel and Sarah's efforts to secure derivative citizenship papers, clippings and family mementoes, and the file dealing with plans for the Israel Barnetts' 50th wedding anniversary in 1958. A scrapbook and clippings dealing with Jewish religious affairs is also included in this series.

The BUSINESS records series contains legal documents of the woolen mill's 1938 reorganization including an appraisal and property inventory. The correspondence of the mill and the Muskego Company are concerned with financial matters and include letters to and from other mills and textile manufacturers, company employees and sales representatives. The mill's efforts to sell saddle blankets to cowboys are also described through correspondence.

Financial records include claims following the 1938 bankruptcy, an accounting system plan developed in 1919, the 1930 price list and a 1936 property tax assessment. No information regarding the company's size or annual production is included. This series also includes weaving ideas and patents and some actual wool samples.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Philip Barnett, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1979. Accession Number: M79-118, M79-145

Processing Information

Processed by Susan Steinwall and Joanne Rohler, February 1981.

	Series: Family
Box   1 Folder   1	Correspondence, 1906, 1924
	Israel Barnett
Box   1 Folder   2	And Rabbi Saul Schenker and Jenny Trachtenberg (Barnetts' European cousins), 1947-1950, undated
Box   1 Folder   3	And other family members, 1944-1946, 1953, 1958, 1967-1969, undated
Box   1 Folder   4	Philip Barnett, 1969
Box   1 Folder   5	Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary Party Plans for the Israel Barnetts, including lists of family and friends, 1958 March 23
Box   1 Folder   6	Landscape blueprint, 1945
Box   1 Folder   7	Mementoes, newspaper clippings, 1919, 1925-1927, 1929-1931, 1942-1946, 1950, 1952, 1955-1956, 1965-1968, undated
Box   1 Folder   8	Miscellaneous writings, 1907, 1922, 1924, 1947-1948, 1950, 1954-1958, undated
Box   1 Folder   9	Scrapbook, clippings (religious), 1906-1907, 1913, 1915, 1921-1923, 1935, 1948, 1951, undated
	Series: Business	⇧
Box   2 Folder   1	Advertisements, 1963, undated
	Correspondence
Box   2 Folder   2	Bankruptcy and reorganization, 1938, 1940
Box   2 Folder   3-4	General, 1912-1913, 1916, 1924-1925, 1928, 1930, 1934, 1936, 1940, 1943, 1945, 1947-1949; and 1951-1952, 1954, 1959, 1961-1962, 1971, undated
Box   2 Folder   5	Hondo Saddle Blanket Marketing, 1963-1964
Box   2 Folder   6	Muskego Company, 1942, 1944, 1946, 1950-1954
Box   2 Folder   7	Dye House Blueprint, 1918
Box   2 Folder   8	Elevator Operating Permits, 1912, 1948, 1952
	Financial and Legal
Box   2 Folder   9	Bankruptcy - claims and inventory, 1938
Box   2 Folder   10	Debts to Family Members, 1928, 1932-1933, 1937, undated
Box   2 Folder   11	General Accounting and Cost System Plan, 1919
Box   2 Folder   12	Miscellaneous, 1942, 1948, 1951, 1963-1964
Box   2 Folder   13	Philip Barnett Investment Account, 1938-1942
Box   2 Folder   14	Price Lists and Specifications, 1930, undated
Box   2 Folder   15	Reorganization, Partnership, 1935, 1938, 1941, 1945, 1955
Box   2 Folder   16	Tax Assessment and Bills, 1936, 1941
Box   2 Folder   17	Notes and Miscellany, 1948, 1951, 1963, undated
	Personnel
Box   2 Folder   18	Miscellaneous, 1948, 1963
Box   2 Folder   19	Tax Withholding Forms Returned by Post office, 1947
Box   2 Folder   20	Stationery, 1929, undated
Box   2 Folder   21	Weaving ideas, Patents of Other Mills, 1949, 1955-1956, undated
Box   2 Folder   22	Wool Samples, 1921, 1949