Special Lecture & Building Tour: Kaufmann’s

Thursday, June 15
5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Kaufmann’s Grand
434 Fifth Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15219

$30 per person
This event is limited to 25 participants.

Refreshments and light hors d’oeuvres will be served

Join us for a special evening of learning about the history and impact of the Kaufmann family, whose impact on Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania is told in a compelling new book, Kaufmann’s: The Family That Built Pittsburgh’s Famed Department Store, by Pittsburgh authors Marylynne Pitz and Laura Malt Schneiderman.

The event will be held in a 9th-floor reception lounge of the former Kaufmann’s Department Store, now a luxury apartment building Downtown. A short lecture and Q-and-A by the authors will be followed by an opportunity to tour the building and see how it was converted into a hotel and apartment building.

Click here to learn more and to purchase the book.

In 1868, Jacob Kaufmann, the nineteen-year-old son of a German farmer, stepped off a ship onto the shores of New York. His brother Isaac soon followed, and together they joined an immigrant community of German Jews selling sewing items to the coal miners and mill workers of western Pennsylvania. After opening merchant tailor shops in Pittsburgh’s North and South sides, the Kaufmann brothers caught the wave of a new type of merchandising—the department store—and launched what would become their retail dynasty with a downtown storefront at Fifth Avenue and Smithfield Street. In just two decades, Jacob and his brothers had ascended Pittsburgh’s economic and social ladder, rising from hardscrabble salesmen into Gilded Age multimillionaires.

Generous and powerful philanthropists, the Kaufmanns left an indelible mark on the city and western Pennsylvania. From Edgar and Liliane’s famous residence, the Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece called Fallingwater, to the Kaufmann clock, a historic landmark that inspired the expression “meet me under the clock,” to countless fond memories for residents and shoppers, the Kaufmann family made important contributions to art, architecture, and culture. Far less known are the personal tragedies and fateful ambitions that forever shaped this family, their business, and the place they called home. Kaufmann’s recounts the story of one of Pittsburgh’s most beloved department stores, pulling back the curtain to reveal the hardships, triumphs, and complicated legacy of the prominent family behind its success.

About the Authors

Marylynne Pitz is an award-winning journalist covering art, architecture, books, and history. She was a member of the news team that won the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Tree of Life shooting in 2018. She has won five Golden Quills, an Inland Press Association award for investigative reporting, and a Matrix Award. A native of Indianapolis, she has lived in Pittsburgh since 1980.

Laura Malt Schneiderman is a journalist and web developer in Pittsburgh. She has won seven Golden Quills and was part of a team that won the Scripps Howard Edward J. Meeman Award in 2011. Originally from Saint Louis, she has worked in journalism in Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania.