Silverman Jewelry Company Display Case

Silverman Jewelry Company Display Case

Jewelry

Archibald Silverman, born on March 5, 1880 in Russia, immigrated to the United States 10 years later. In 1897, along with his brother Charles, he started Silverman Brothers, a jewelry manufacturing company in Providence on Eddy Street. He began with making gilded wire beauty pins. When Pope Leo XIII died, [in 1903] Silverman made some black-bordered brooches bearing the Pope’s picture and sold them personally on the streets of Boston. He started manufacturing ornaments called “Merry Widow wings”; when the musical show was at its crest, and was one of the first to turn out fancy veil pins when brave ladies started riding in horseless carriages. Their advertisement in the Providence City Directory of 1910 lists them as manufacturing jewelers, and the items they made as “Cuff, Ribbon, Beauty, Veil Pins and Photo Frames”. On May 15, 1945, Silverman Brothers won the Army-Navy “E” Award for its production of insignia and decorations for the Armed Forces. Silverman Brothers was cited for producing more than 26 million pieces for the Philadelphia Quartermaster Depot. In addition to insignia, the company also made surgical instruments and airplane and torpedo parts for the war effort. The company continued in business until 1956. This display case shows many of the items they produced.

Silverman Bros. Jewelry Company

Beryl and Chaya Segal Archives of the RI Jewish Historical Association

Rhode Island Jewish Historical Association

1903-1956

Rhode Island Jewish Historical Association

Display Case

Jewelry