The 101-Year-Old Jewish King of Christmas Decor

For all you vintage Christmas enthusiasts out there, have you heard of Marshall Rauch—the man who patented satin Christmas ball ornaments? Not only was he the first Jewish senator in North Carolina and a WWII veteran (and quite dashing in his youth), but he also became the largest producer of Christmas ornaments in the world!

In 1954, Rauch founded Rauch Industries Inc. (Pyramid Mills Co as a subdivision) with Bill Spiegel (yes, the famous Spiegel catalog that rivaled Sears, etc.) in Gastonia, NC. Spiegel had come across some Japanese trinkets—small fake apples—wrapped in satin string. He wondered if Rauch’s textile mill could wrap a Styrofoam ball in a similar fashion. After weeks of trial and error, Rauch succeeded. “Within two years, he’d patented the process to wrap the balls.”

The timing was ideal: Aluminum Christmas trees were all the rage, and the rotating color wheel that illuminated the tree made glass ornaments look pretty boring. Satin ones, however, shimmered! Rauch expanded into glass ornaments, garlands, fake snow, and other fun stuff which buyers loved because they could get all their Christmas merchandise from one company.

For years, his factories produced more than a million ornaments daily. By the time Rauch sold his company to Syratech in 1995 for $51 million, the Christmas ornament industry had already begun shifting to China.

Earlier this year, Rauch turned 101 years old. As a Jewish man leading the Christmas industry, he has heard—and told—every possible joke about it. He even placed a doormat emblazoned with “Shalom” outside one of his ornament factories in Gastonia.