Abraham B. Cohen

From Newsboy to President

Born in Boston, Abraham B. Cohen (1893-1967) started his career as a newsboy and then an errand boy for a shoe company. Slowly, he worked his way up to becoming a stock clerk and a salesman. After the start of World War I, he started the Cohart Shoe Company in Boston. He married Dolly Lurie in 1920, and then moved to Cincinnati in 1926 to join the Stern-Auer Shoe Company. In 1931 it joined with the U.S. Shoe Company, which supplied the Red Cross with shoes. In Cincinnati, Cohen eventually became the president of U.S. Shoe Company, and he also served on the Hebrew Union College Board of Directors. In 1957 he was presented with a plaque from Eleanor Roosevelt for "distinguished service to the cause of human rights." After his death at age sixty-seven from cancer, his wife reported: "he was a symbol of good will in the world. He never got into a fight with anyone, but though a man of peace, he never sacrificed a principle. His moral of life was: unto every person everywhere be good, be just, be fair."