Business a part of the family

Frederick W. Bromberg remembers the exact day he first started working at his family-owned jewelry store. The date was June 30, 1966, and at only 6 years old, his job was to operate the downtown elevator from 8:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. 

Ricky, as he is known, still has the first 50-cent piece he earned that day, framed along with a note from his father — past Bromberg’s President Frank H. Bromberg Jr. — commemorating the occasion. 

“It’s what I always wanted to do,” said Bromberg inside his back office at the jewelry store’s Mountain Brook location. 

Bromberg said he has few family memories that don’t involve discussion about the store. 

“My family would talk about the store over dinner, at holiday gatherings,” he said. “It was an everyday occurrence.”

Bromberg, who today oversees operations as the company’s president, said he’s always been connected to the store. Bromberg worked at the store during the summer, during Christmas breaks and would even take the bus to the downtown location after school every day. 

After working as the elevator operator, Bromberg moved through almost every job in the company, from working in the stockroom to the office, the sales floor and even as a telephone operator. For Bromberg, it was the best and only way to learn everything about the company. 

“It would have been impossible to understand the company’s inner workings except from the bottom up,” he said. 

This year, Bromberg & Company Inc., now under its sixth generation of family leadership, will celebrate its 180th year in business. 

The company, Bromberg said, is the oldest company in continuous operation in the state. 

It began in 1836, when a young Frederick Bromberg opened the very first Bromberg’s location in Mobile. At the time, Alabama had achieved statehood only 17 years prior and the city of Birmingham did not yet exist. In Store Magazine recognized Bromberg’s as the “oldest family-owned retail business of any kind in the U.S.”

According to “Bromberg’s: An Alabama Tradition for 150 Years,” a book about the store’s origins published in 1987, the Bromberg family story originates in the early 1800s. 

The Brombergs lived in the prosperous Prussian village of Bromberg, where they enjoyed a prominent status in the city. After the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, however, the city suffered economic decline and fell under the rule of Poland. 

In 1832, Frederick Bromberg, then just a young silversmith and jewel merchant, decided to immigrate to America in search of better opportunities.

He arrived in New York, where he met and married a fellow recent immigrant and native of Hamburg, Germany, named Lisette Cunigarde Dorothea Beetz. A few years later, in 1836, the couple moved south to Mobile, a city, they were told, that offered a temperate climate, sophisticated culture and plentiful opportunity. 

It wasn’t long before Frederick established himself and opened a store in the new city.

According to “Bromberg’s: An Alabama Tradition,” early store inventory included piano fortes, sheet music and a few musical instruments before it expanded to include instrument repair. 

The original store became the exclusive agent for Chickering pianos and eventually grew to include jewelry and gifts. 

Despite various challenges, including a financial crisis, wars and yellow fever, Frederick’s grandson, Frederick W., moved the business to Birmingham in 1900. 

It was here the company grew to enjoy considerable prosperity. After various moves to various Birmingham buildings, including the Linn Building, which housed the first Bromberg’s Birmingham location, and the Farley Building, where it remained for 15 years, the company was among the first to branch outside the city limits into the suburbs. 

The Bromberg’s Mountain Brook store, which opened in 1959, marked the company’s first branch expansion. 

Today, the company maintains its corporate offices and stockroom on Second Avenue North in downtown Birmingham as well as two retail locations in Mountain Brook Village and The Summit. 

Bromberg’s said the company’s success is because of a combination of luck and hard work. Throughout the years, the company has managed to remain among family based on the luck of having capable descendants to carry it on, he said. 

In terms of its resiliency, Bromberg said it all goes back to the company’s motto and ability to change with time.

“We can’t rest on the laurels of past achievements,” said Bromberg. “We can’t be emotional about saying goodbye to things that do not work, or afraid of taking new opportunities. Everything we do falls within the umbrella of our mission.”

Bromberg said he looks forward to continued prosperity in the decades to come with the rest of the Bromberg family and the Birmingham community. 

For more information on Bromberg’s, visit brombergs.com or call the company directly at 969-1776 or 871-3276. 

Bromberg’s stores are located at 131 Summit Blvd. in Birmingham and 2800 Cahaba Road in Mountain Brook.