Coleman Adler
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Coleman E. Adler (1868, Slovakia – 1938, New Orleans, Louisiana) founded the historic Adler's Jewelry in New Orleans, Louisiana. Arriving in New Orleans in 1896, Adler was active in the local Progressive movement there. He belonged to the Progressive Union, Association of Commerce, Tourist and Conventions Bureau, and the Canal Street Association. He founded Coleman E. Adler Jewelry in 1898, a business that still operates on Canal Street.
Coleman E. Adler arrived in New York as boy with his older brother Isaac in 1874. The pair settled in Alabama, where Coleman worked as an apprentice in the jewelry trade as a young man. His early career involved work as a travelling salesman for jewelry firms in New York. His travels brought him to New Orleans, where he met and married Rosa Pokorny.
Rosa was the youngest daughter of Michael and Fannie Pokorny. Originally from Moravia, the Pokornys arrived in New Orleans at the beginning of the Civil War. Michael Pokorny was a master shoemaker and eventually owned three successful shoe stores in downtown New Orleans. Over time, Michael Pokorny became one of the largest real estate owners in the city. By the 1890s, the Pokorny family was much-respected in New Orleans business, philanthropic, and social circles. Coleman and Rosa Pokorny Adler lived at the Pokorny estate at 2113 St. Charles Avenue.
Civic work
A resident of New Orleans for 40 years, Coleman Adler worked to improve and promote his adopted hometown. The city's early growth had been stunted by the Civil War, and national economic depression in the 1870s had ravaged the New Orleans economy. The late 1800s, however, was the era of the Progressive movement, which sought to improve society by applying modern ingenuity and methods. In New Orleans, the movement energized local leaders and businessmen to tackle the city's overall decline. Coleman Adler belonged to many of the groups that actively sought to bring New Orleans into the modern era.
For many years, Adler was an active member of the Canal Street Association. In the early decades of the 20th century, this body provided reliable sanitation and modern illumination on Canal Street, New Orleans. It also repaired older buildings and helped negotiate work agreements between the city transportation system and its workers. Adler was vice chairman of the Canal Street Association when that body installed electric lighting along Canal in 1930. Thomas Edison flipped the inaugural switch on the new lights, and the New York Times ran a full-page story on the project and lighting ceremony.
In 1908, the city's Progressive Union appointed Adler to their Committee of 100. The Committee was created to increase tourism in New Orleans by “bringing tourists from the north, east, and west so that wealthy investors may see for themselves the [city’s] wonderful industrial advantages.”[1] Adler also served on the Association of Commerce's convention committee, which was charged with increasing the number of large conventions held in the city. In 1910, Adler travelled to Washington, D.C., with a cadre of city leaders to promote New Orleans as the locale for the World Panama Canal Exhibition of 1915. When Theodore Roosevelt visited New Orleans in 1911, Adler was on the reception committee for his visit. Over the years, Coleman helped coordinate a number of important events in the city, including “Made in New Orleans Week,” a reception for the Ambassador of Italy, and the Commercial Men's Alliance convention. In 1930, Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley appointed Adler head of the city's Retail Stores Committee. During this period, Adler also served on the board of directors of the Young Men's Business League and the New Orleans Zoological Society.
