SPECIAL POST: The History of Surrey and Bobbie Jerome Handbags

1960s large-sized Bobbie Jerome tapestry handbag, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Bobbie Jerome's distinctive imprint inside bag above.

The History of Surrey and Bobbie Jerome Handbags

The Bobbie Jerome company created many different bag styles in fabrics from tapestries to patents to velvets to tweeds and more, and we have a number of examples in The Vintage Purse Museum collection.  

Old newspaper advertisements indicate that Bobbie Jerome bags were offered at a more affordable price point in comparison to some of the other makers we’ve covered in our Photo and History Archive. 

In its early days, Bobbie Jerome was best known for its "fitted" (accessorized) evening bags, and it appears that the company had a contract with Volupte, a cosmetics’ accessories maker, to produce the compacts and other items that came with these bags. 

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 30, 1952, clipped via Newspapers.com.

The Vintage Purse Museum has one Bobbie Jerome black clutch bag that came with its compact, lipstick case, and perfume holder (pictured in the collage below), and two similar Bobbie Jerome black evening bags (not pictured) that didn’t come to us with accessories. We don't know if these other two originally had the fittings, but not all Bobbie Jerome bags were sold with them, as evidenced by the 1951 advertisement below our photo collage.

Simple yet elegant black handbag by Bobbie Jerome with Volupte compact and faux-bejeweled lipstick holder and perfume holder. The perfume vial is labeled Charles of the Ritz and still has a scent. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

The (Shreveport) Times, August 5, 1951, clipped via Newspapers.com. Bobbie is misspelled in this ad.

What stymied us when we first started researching Bobbie Jerome was the fact that the company’s owners didn’t seem to take as much advantage of media outlets as their contemporaries. We couldn’t find any promotional advertorials by fashion columnists or announcements of trunk shows presented by sales reps, so we concluded that the staff of Bobbie Jerome remained more behind-the-scenes, with minimal publicity. 

We were extremely fortunate to receive an email response from the very gracious Emily Klotz, whose father Harold Klotz was vice president of Bobbie Jerome. Emily kindly gave us invaluable information about the company and her family.

We also culled information from our usual sources, including genealogy websites and a newspaper archive. The genealogy websites were a little difficult to accurately navigate because of conflicting information, but Emily helped us confirm that her grandparents were Austrian immigrants Aaron Klotz (1875-?) and Dora Gettinger Klotz (1881-?). The couple married in 1901 in Manhattan. Aaron was trained as a tailor. Emily told us that her grandfather made beautiful suits and shirts, but also had other businesses, including a garage in Manhattan. The Klotzes had seven children. Their second son was Murray, born in either 1903 or 1905. Youngest son Harold, Emily’s father, was born in 1911, and was the only Klotz sibling to join Murray in the handbag business. (Note: Birth years of the siblings vary on documents, as do their names, some of which were later Americanized.)

Emily Klotz told us that her father Harold was born on Rivington Street, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, close to the Tenement Museum. We were able to confirm the Klotz family's home address of 295 Rivington St., which we found on Aaron Klotz's 1911 US naturalization application. 

Emily also told us that she has a Brooklyn Eagle newspaper article about four Klotz brothers playing the same position on the local high school football team in succession over a 16-year span.

Per mid-1920s trade publications, Murray Klotz worked for Renown Fur Trimming Co. He was later a partner in fur auctioneers Feldman & Klotz. Then, in 1929, he headed his own fur company, Murray Klotz Furs. He eventually expanded into the production of fur handbags with the Murray Klotz Fur Bag Co., although the name varied in some reports. A 1947 industry magazine, Handbags Illustrated, says the “Murray Klotz Fur Corp.” manufactured fur handbags to match fur coats. 

According to family lore, Murray Klotz segued into the fabric and leather bag business because of an allergy to furs. He eventually created Surrey Bag Co. (Our Surrey Original bag is pictured below.) The Klotz fur company and Surrey Bag Co. were both mentioned in a 1945 issue of the trade publication Hide and Leather and Shoes, which published an article about the Office of Price Administration (OPA) allowing Mr. Klotz to “establish higher price lines for its handbags” because of his experience in the industry. During WWII, OPA was a government agency that set price ceilings on goods so that they would not become too expensive during wartime.

1940s brown suede Surrey Original bag, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Label inside bag above.

Surrey Original advertisement, August 25, 1948, the Dayton Daily News, clipped via Newspapers.com.

In the August 16, 1946 “Business Notes” section of The New York Times, it was announced that Clyde Jennings (1916-2006), “recently released as a captain in the Army,” was joining Murray Klotz as a partner. In another trade reference, Mr. Jennings was listed as vice president and sales manager. The 1949 Industrial Directory of New York State shows Mr. Klotz as president of Surrey, Mr. Jennings as vice president, and Murray’s wife Tille Klotz (b. Tillie Zakin, 1905-2001) as secretary. (We reached out to Tillie’s family, the Zakins, for information, and one relative kindly responded, but didn’t have any information about her.) 

Emily Klotz told us that Murray and Tillie would often travel overseas to look for designs to recreate in the US. We know from our prior research that this was a common practice for midcentury US bag manufacturers in the 1940s-1950s. Some makers, such as Josef, primarily imported their handbags during this era. Within a few decades, almost all US makers would be importing handbags or, unfortunately, going out of business, which we will explain later in this post.

Clyde Jennings’ first wife was Martha Mitchell, who, per a 1970 newspaper article, also briefly worked at the firm as an assistant buyer. Emily Klotz confirmed Ms. Mitchell’s employment there, but thought she had been a secretary or bookkeeper. We contacted a family member of Mr. Jennings (name withheld for privacy), and they told us that Mr. Jennings first worked for a Virginia handbag company operated by two women. We believe this to be Virginia Art Goods Studios, a company we wrote about in 2020. Mr. Jennings was a friend of Virginia Art Goods Studios’ sales manager Joseph Neikirk.

Mr. Jennings left Surrey in 1949 to work for Deauville handbags. (This is an entirely different entity from the Deauville brand that was owned by Lucille de Paris, a company we wrote about in 2022.) After Mr. Jennings’ departure, Larry Weeks (1906-1970) became Surrey’s sales manager. Mr. Weeks was formerly the owner of the L.R. Weeks Handbag Company, and, per his 1970 obituary, designed the official handbag of the WWII Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) uniform. This was quite interesting to us, as it is usually handbag maker Richard Koret who is credited with designing military uniform handbags, which we previously confirmed via Dr. Erna Risch’s 1945 historical study, “A Wardrobe for the Women of the Army.” However, this doesn't necessarily mean that Mr. Weeks did not contribute to the design and/or manufacture of the WAAC handbag. It’s possible the US government used several resources for its uniform handbags.

As The Vintage Purse Museum has mentioned many times in our articles, the handbag industry was very intertwined, and the above information is the perfect example of this.

Mr. Jennings went on to retire from the US Army Reserve as a colonel, and became a manufacturer’s representative for Vera Sportswear and the Citrus Growers Association. He was also extensively involved in stamp collecting and philately organizations, and his Legacy page reflects a man much admired. 

Murray Klotz established the Bobbie Jerome company in 1949. Genealogy records show that Murray and Tillie Klotz had one child, a daughter named Barbara (1929-1997), who married a man named Jerry in 1950. That’s when we had an “Ah-Ha!” moment: Barbara = Bobbie, and Jerry = Jerome. We confirmed with Emily Klotz that this was, indeed, how Murray came up with the name of the company.

That same year, Murray filed a patent for a vanity case and lipstick holder (pictured directly below). We do not know if this was ever produced, and are left to wonder if he decided instead that it would be more financially feasible to contract with Volupte to include the accessories with his standard evening bags.

Murray Klotz 1950 vanity bag patent (filed 1949), screenshot from Google Patents.

Emily’s father Harold Klotz attended Columbia University, then went on to NYU Law School. Emily said that her father was clerking for a law firm while trying to develop a private practice, but WWII derailed his plans. He served in the US Army as part of Military Intelligence, and left the service with the rank of major. After being discharged from the Army, his brother Murray offered him the position of vice president at Bobbie Jerome. Harold was responsible for negotiating and renewing contracts, as well as similar duties, likely because of his experience as an attorney. 

Brown faux leather and plastic faux tortoise handbag by Bobbie Jerome. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

While the two brothers worked well together, they had very different personalities and didn’t socialize with one another. Harold Klotz and his wife, Laura Silver Klotz (1914-2005), were closer to two of the other Klotz brothers.

The New York Department of State corporations and entities database lists Bobbie Jerome Handbags, Inc. under the parent company name of Surrey Bags, Inc., with an initial filing date of January 30, 1947. We believe this to be the incorporation date of Surrey Bags, Inc., which had been in business a few years earlier as Surrey Bag Co. 

The database shows that, on August 17, 1950, a certificate of amendment included the name Murted Bags, Inc. We had never heard of this brand or company. It is more than likely that the "Mur" in Murted would have been Murray Klotz, but we don’t know who the “Ted” might be, as it was difficult to find business associates of Murray. Our best guess is that Murted was a partnership, company, or additional brand that never came to be. In 1956, Bobbie Jerome filed a merger, which we believe means that it absorbed the name Surrey Bags, Inc., as it was no longer in use.

Surrey wasn’t in business as long as Bobbie Jerome, nor did it produce as many handbags. Surrey Original labels have just the company name, or the name and an embroidered line drawing of a surrey. (Not to be confused with other, unrelated companies using the Surrey name, including a leather company in Canada.) 

Bobbie Jerome labels have just the name in a distinctive font. The Vintage Purse Museum has a Bobbie Jerome handbag with its original box, which has the Bobbie Jerome name printed on it, and a price tag from Battelstein’s Houston, Texas department store. (See below.)

Bobbie Jerome off-white fabric clutch with Battelstein's department store price tag and original box. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

As Emily was much younger than her cousin Barbara, she didn’t know her very well. We were able to discern from genealogy records that Barbara and Jerry divorced, which Emily Klotz confirmed. Emily also told us that Jerry (last name withheld for privacy) was the only other family member that she recalls being employed at Bobbie Jerome, and after the marriage ended, he no longer worked for the company.

1960s Bobbie Jerome red "carpet" bag with handle that folds inside. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

We found listings for Surrey at 31 E. 32nd St., and Bobbie Jerome at 10 E. 33rd St. Then, in 1955, the company's showroom moved to 33 E. 33rd St. The 32nd and 33rd St. addresses housed the showrooms of many popular bag makers, including Delill, Garay, Blum Co., Lucille de Paris, Koret, Soure, Judith Leiber, and countless others.

According to the website of The Bag Lady, "Miss Jean," formerly of Lujean handbags, was hired in 1955 as Bobbie Jerome's designer. A 1953 trade directory shows that the president of Lujean Bag Co. Inc. was Jean Weisbard. This would be Jean Weisbard Meadow (1904-1996), whose husband Leon Meadow (1904-1968) had been secretary-treasurer of Lujean. It is unclear how long Ms. Weisbard worked for Bobbie Jerome.

Emily Klotz remembered the Bobbie Jerome showroom as being a “large area with couches, etc., a smaller room with displays of the various bags for sale,” which were brought out for store buyers to look at and decide which they were going to purchase. The showroom, said Emily, “...had a small factory-like area in the back with some machines, which was supervised by a wonderful man named Cappy.”

We learned from newspaper advertisements that Bobbie Jerome occasionally collaborated with footwear companies such as DeLiso Debs and Avantique, during a time when it was trendy to match handbags to shoes.

Variety of Bobbie Jerome handbags from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. Top left: Green velvet hinged clutch. Top right: Silver Lurex bag with rhinestone clasp and convertible chain. Bottom: Pale blue clutch with convertible chain.

Emily told us that Bobbie Jerome’s main factory was in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and that Harold Klotz attempted to unionize its workers, but Murray Klotz was against unionization. 

Bobbie Jerome plastic faux tortoise clutch inside brocade carrying case. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

By 1974, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) had taken its toll on Bobbie Jerome, which we determined from the fact that there were very few mid-1970s newspaper advertisements for their bags. This time period was confirmed by Emily Klotz, who also told us that the growing number of imports contributed to the closure of the business.

Sadly, a number of handbag makers had to close their doors shortly after GATT’s 1967 “Kennedy Round,” which made it cheaper to import bags (primarily from Asia) rather than continue to make them in the US. While Bobbie Jerome had already been importing some of its handbags from Italy, it soon felt the effects of GATT. The company, said Emily, attempted to branch out by manufacturing suede vests, but it was an unsuccessful endeavor.

Already suffering from health issues for some time, Murray Klotz passed away in Florida in 1978. Harold Klotz worked as a consultant elsewhere after the closure of Bobbie Jerome, but he too became ill and could no longer work. Known for his generosity and community involvement, he later used his legal expertise to assist senior citizens in Bergen County, New Jersey through the Retired Senior Volunteer Program. Harold Klotz passed away in 1993.

Special thanks to Emily Klotz and to the family member of Clyde Jennings. Other resources used were Newspapers.com and MyHeritage.com, to which we have paid subscriptions, as well as Bag Lady University, Familysearch.com and Google. This article c2025 by Wendy Dager/The Vintage Purse Museum. Please do not use photos or information from our website without requesting permission, vintagepursemuseum@gmail.com.