Samuel Henry Kress was a descendant of Carl (Charles) Kress, one of the three brothers of Johann Nicholaus Heinrich Kress who came to America with him. He was therefore a cousin of the descendants of Johann Nicholaus Heinrich Kress. (For example, he was George Henry Cress' fourth cousin with them both sharing Johann Peter Kress as their 3rd Great Grandfather)

Samuel Henry Kress Genealogy

Samuel Henry Kress (#699) was the son of John Franklin Kress (#590) the son of Henry Kress (#489) the son of Charles Kress (#406) the son of Johann Carl (Charles) Kress (#334) who was the brother of Johann Nicholaus Heinrich Kress (#325) the sons of Johann Peter Kress (#270) the son of Philipp Caspar Kress (#240) the son of Conrad Kress (#223) the son of Carl Kress (#185) the son of Dr. Thomas Kress/Cress, J. U. D. (#138) the son of Andreas I Kress, the Elder (#105) the son of Christoph Kress (#71) the son of Wilhem Kress (#39) the son of Hermann II Kress of Kressenstein (#23) the son of Knight Hermann I Kress (#15) the son of Hans I Kress (#6) the son of Heinrich I Kress of Neunhof (#2) the son of Heroldus Kress (#1).

Biography

Samuel Henry Kress (July 23, 1863 – September 22, 1955) was a businessman, philanthropist, and founder of the S. H. Kress & Co. five and dime store chain. With his fortune, Kress amassed one of the most significant collections of Italian Renaissance and European artwork assembled in the 20th century. In the 1950s and 1960s, a foundation established by Samuel H. Kress donated 776 works of art from the Kress collection to 18 regional art museums in the United States. It was this Samuel H. Kress Foundation along with Karl Friedrich von Frank which produced for us in 1930 the Kress Family History book.

Samuel was born at Cherryville, Lehigh township, Northampton county, Pennsylvania, July 23, 1863, and was named after his uncle Samuel (# 592), who was killed in the Battle of Gettysburg. As a lad he applied himself diligently to whatever occupation was available, continuing his studies in his leisure time. At the age of 17, he passed the required teachers' examination and was given a school of eighty pupils of various ages. His pay was twenty-five dollars a month, and he walked three miles from his home to the schoolhouse and back again each day.

In 1887 he purchased a stationery and novelty store at Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, and set up business. In 1890 he bought a wholesale business of stationery and toys at Wilkes-Barre, and named it the Kress Stationary Company, retaining the retail store at Nanticoke. It was during these years that the chain store idea was taking root in his mind. As with all pioneers, his first steps in his enterprise were full of dangers and hardships, but he was convinced that he was working upon a sound idea. He had great confidence in the development of the South, and his first step wsa the establishment of a store at Memphis, Tennessee, in 1896. From 1896 till 1900 twelve stores were opened in the South, the Pennsylvania stores were sold, and the headquarters of the Five and Ten Cent Stores were moved from Wilkes-Barre to New York City. The Memphis store thus became the nucleus of the chain of more than two hundred stores of S. H. Kress & Company, of which he was chairman of the Board of Directors.

Samuel H. Kress was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, Sons of the Revolution, Military Order of the Loyal Legion, Sons of Veterans, Kane Lodge, F. and A. M. of New York, and of the Lutheran Church. He was a Grand Officer of the Order of the Crown of Italy, having previously held the rank of Cavaliere (Italian equivalent of the English title "Knight") of the same order.

He belonged to the following clubs: Metropolitan, Lotos, Army and Navy, Automobile Club of America, New York Athletic Club, Oakland Golf, Rockwood Hall Country of Tarrytown, N. Y., Wykagyl Country of New Rochelle, N. Y., Everglades, Bath and Tennis of Palm Beach, Fla., and the Westmoreland of Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

He made gifts of important paintings to various Art Museums, including the Metropolitan Art Museum of New York, which named him a Benefactor of the institution.

He was a bachelor who never married or had any children and lived at 1020 Fifth Ave., New York City. He had a rare collection of early Italian furniture; his collection of paintings was noteworthy particularly for its 14th Century Italian Primitives and containing works by such old masters a Vittore Carpaccio, Vivarini, Rodolfo del Ghirlandajo, Pinturicchio, Rembrandt, Rubens, Boucher and Goya y Lucientas. Marbles by Amadeo and fine examples of the work of Luca della Robbia and Andrea della Robbia, together with a rich assortment of early velvets and brocades completing a collection which ranked high among the private art collections of America.

S. H. Kress & Co.

S. H. Kress & Co. was the name of a chain of five and dime retail department stores in the United States of America, established by Samuel Henry Kress, which operated from 1896 to 1981. In the first half of the 20th century, there were Kress stores with ornamented architecture on "Main Street" in hundreds of cities and towns. Kress opened his first stationery and notions store in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, in 1887. The chain of S. H. Kress & Co. 5-10-25 Cent Stores was established in 1896 in Memphis, Tennessee. Many of these buildings still exist today and have been repurposed while retaining their unique ornamented architecture often including the Kress family Coat of Arms.

In 1964, Genesco, Inc., acquired S. H. Kress & Company. The company abandoned its center-city stores and moved to shopping malls. Genesco began liquidating Kress and closing down the Kress stores in 1980. The remaining Kress stores were sold to McCrory Stores on January 1, 1981. Most continued to operate under the Kress name until McCrory Stores went out of business in 2001. McCrory was also a five and dime chain. One of its early investors was Sebastian Spering Kresge, who later founded the S.S. Kresge five and dime chain, which became Kmart.

In 1899, Kresge traded his interest in the McCrory's Memphis, Tennessee store for McCrory's interest in the Detroit, Michigan, store, giving him control there. In 1987, the Kmart Corporation sold its remaining Kresge and Jupiter stores in the United States to McCrory Stores. In 1987, McCrory Stores purchased the 76 remaining Kresge and Jupiter stores from the K Mart Corporation which had long given up on the variety stores division, reuniting the companies. All stores were converted to the McCrory banner. In 1989, McCrory Stores purchased the GC Murphy Co. from Ames Stores. The sale included the remaining GC Murphy Stores and Bargain World Stores as well. In 1989, 1,300 stores were operated by the McCrory company. However, as the decade turned, its fortunes decreased, and by 1992 it filed for bankruptcy. The changing retail landscape including the migrating of shoppers from the inner cities to the influx of superstores such as Target and Wal-Mart sealed the fate of the once mighty Five And Ten. Several rounds of store closures followed, with one of the biggest coming in 1997 when McCrory's shuttered 300 of its last 460 stores. The company also converted some stores to their Dollar Zone format of dollar store, but these closed in early 2002. In December 2001, McCrory Stores announced the remaining McCrory's, TG&Y, G. C. Murphy and J.J. Newberry stores it was operating would begin liquidating and in February 2002 the company ceased operation.

To learn more about S. H. Kress & Co., see the article on Wikipedia.

Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Kress was founder and president of the eponymous Samuel H. Kress Foundation. An avid art lover, he acquired, through art dealers Alesandro Contini-Bonacossi and Joseph Duveen, often with the advice of art historian William Suida, a collection of paintings and sculpture, primarily of the Italian Renaissance school. In 1929 he gave the Italian government a large sum for the restoration of a number of architectural treasures in Italy. Beginning in the 1930s Kress decided to give much of his art collection to museums across the country while he was still alive. Many paintings were donated to the same smaller cities that had brought him his fortune with their stores. In several cases, his gifts became the founding basis for museums in those areas which otherwise could never have afforded artworks of such importance and quality.

On March 17, 1941, Kress and Paul Mellon gave large gifts of art to the people of the United States, thereby establishing the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Franklin D. Roosevelt accepted the gift personally.

Today, the masterpieces Kress donated are considered priceless and the Kress Foundation has dispensed millions of dollars to worthy organizations and institutions in the years since.

To find out more about the Kress Foundation, see the Kress Foundation website.