We Were Merchants: The Sternberg Family and the Story of Goudchaux’s and Maison Blanche Department Stores

(Louisiana State University Press) Sternberg provides an account of how his parents, Erich and Lea, fled from Nazi Germany to Louisiana in the 1930s, and together with their children built Goudchaux’s Department Store into a Baton Rouge legend. Eventually, it would become Goudchaux’s/Maison Blanche — an independent retail force during the golden age of the department store, and, by 1989, the largest family-owned department store in America. Hans J. Sternberg was chairman and co-CEO of Goudchaux’s/Maison Blanche Department Stores from 1965 to 1992 and is now chairman and CEO of Starmount Life Insurance Company. James E. Shelledy is the Fred Jones Greer Endowed Chair at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University.