The colourful and spectacular social and cultural background of the Freiman family
reveals how they were successful in establishing Freiman’s as the premiere department
store in the growing city of Ottawa. Their connection to international trends
resulted from their upper-middle-class social status and their educated cultured
background which enhanced the aura of the store. Archibald Jacob Freiman was
born in Lithuania and as a teenager immigrated to Hamilton, ON, Canada with his
family (Figler  1962, 197). He attended the Hamilton Business College and by the age of nineteen was already a junior
business partner to a house furnishing company in Ottawa (Bilsky 2009, 26-27). After
a few years of experience and confidence building in 1917 A.J. Freiman became
the sole owner of his own department store business at 73 Rideau Street, the
overall company being named A.J. Freiman Limited in 1923 (Figler 1962, 199).
A.J. Freiman was an intuitive and creative business man who from an early age
recognized the importance of advertising and store display through inspiration
from the United States and Europe. He took many trips to Europe, one of the
most influential being a month long summer trip in 1920 which inspired Freiman
to start their iconic annual "Birthday Sales" in 1921. Fashion, particularly high fashion, was of interest to A.J. Freiman and in 1928 he took his son to an opening in Paris at the haute couture house of Martial and Armand (Freiman
1978, 84). Freiman was not only devoted to his business but also his national
and local community which was evident by the attendees to his funeral in 1944
of which included close friend Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, the
Ottawa mayor, representatives from the War Information Bureau, the Judiciary,
the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Zionist Organization of America, the Red
Cross, War Veterans, and an honor guard consisting of forty members of the Air
Force (Figler 1962, 292). The Freiman name was iconic in Ottawa and his son,
Lawrence Freiman, also continued its reified status, being even more involved
in the cultural landscape of Ottawa and the international trends than his
father. While studying at the Harvard Business School in Boston after his
undergraduate at McGill University, he was exposed to the big city life of New
York and its diverse arts and culture(Freiman 1978, 69). This undoubtedly had
an effect on Lawrence when he came back in 1931 to help the struggling
Depression ridden store.