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Cohen Millinery
While living upstairs during the 1890’s, Mrs. Elizabeth Cohen converted her husband’s store into a
millinery shop after her husband’s death to earn money to support her family. Mrs. Cohen sold hats, fancy
goods and gentleman’s accessories from the shop and decorated pre-made hats to suit the individual taste
of her customers. Mrs. Cohen would purchase ready-made hat bodies, then customize them using ribbons, artificial
flowers, buttons and feathers. Fabrics, notions, and ties, cuff links and shirt collars -- gentlemen’s
accessories -- were also sold in the store. While Mr. Cohen was alive, he owned and operated the store selling
gentleman’s accessories which Mrs. Cohen continued to sell after converting the store into the millinery shop.
This millinery shop, built about 1880 in Detroit, Michigan, was one of a new wave of late 19th-century neighborhood, specialized retail shops that
catered to middle-class working families, providing inexpensive, mass-produced goods to their customers.
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