Moskow & Krasnoff

Robert Moskow (an anglicized form of Reuben Smooschen) (1893-1965) was born in Russia to Schmuel Labe Moskow, who raised horses for the Czar, and Kayla Dinyeh Kroik Moskow. Around 1905, Mr. and Mrs. Moskow decided to move their family to the United States, in part to avoid their sons’ conscription into the Russian army. After they arrived in New York City, Robert Moskow worked at a lye factory for a short time, before he worked as a packer for dry goods store H. B. Clauffiman & Company for almost a year. While at H. B. Clauffiman, Moskow met John Heinemann (1872-1922), a merchant who agreed to take him South. The pair settled in Andrews, South Carolina, where Robert worked in Heinemann’s dry goods store and attended high school. After Heinemann’s sudden death, Moskow partnered with Russian immigrant Solomon Krasnoff (1874-1936) to open and manage stores in Sardinia, South Carolina and Gables, South Carolina, respectively. Soon thereafter, Krasnoff relocated his store from Gables to St. Charles, South Carolina, and Moskow, who saw greater opportunity in St. Charles, closed his store in Sardinia and bought out Krasnoff’s share of the business. Moskow managed the store in St. Charles for a few years before he joined H. Brody & Sons in Sumter, South Carolina around 1925. In 1934, Moskow returned to Andrews and opened his own business, Moskow’s Department Store. After Moskow’s death in 1965, his wife, Eva Cox Moskow (1899-1986) ran the store before she sold it around 1971.