Metadata: The Archives of the Department Store Pukeva
Collection
- Country:
- Finland
- Holding institution:
- Helsinki City Archives
- Holding institution (official language):
- Helsingin kaupunginarkisto
- Postal address:
- Eläintarhantie 3 F, 00530 Helsinki
- Phone number:
- +358 9 31043571
- Web address:
- https://kaupunginarkisto.hel.fi/
- Reference number:
- Pukevan arkisto
- Title:
- The Archives of the Department Store Pukeva
- Title (official language):
- Pukevan arkisto
- Creator/accumulator:
- The Pukeva company
- Date(s):
- 1930/1999
- Language:
- Swedish
- Finnish
- Extent:
- Other: unorganized
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
- The Pukeva archives are part of the Helsinki-related private collections held at the City Archives of Helsinki but currently they remain unorganized and unlisted. Pukeva was a clothing store chain with five stores in Helsinki, founded in 1933 by the Finnish Jewish businessman Ruben Jaari. In 1975, Pukeva's main store was Finland's second largest department store in Finland. The private archives contain miscellaneous documents and newspaper clips about the Pukeva store chain, and the curriculum vitae of Ruben Jaari.
- Archival history:
- The Helsinki City Archives was founded in 1944, and it archives documents of the agencies, administration, and departments of the city. It also collects private archives pertaining to the history of Helsinki. In total, there are almost 15 shelf kilometers of documents, making it Finland's largest municipal archive. 1.6 million pages of official documents of the city of Helsinki and 20,000 maps and drawings have been digitized and are available online (Sinetti archive information system). The archives of Pukeva were donated to the Helsinki City Archives after Pukeva’s bankruptcy in the 1990s. Like many other private collections donated to the City Archives, the Pukeva collection has not yet been organized or digitalized.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Ruben Jaari (Jankeloff, 1906–1991) was a Finnish Jewish businessman who founded the clothing store Oy Pukeva AB in 1933 in Helsinki. Jaari’s family had moved from Russia to Finland in the 1860s. At the turn of the century many Jews living in Helsinki were in small-scale clothing business, which during subsequent decades developed into several family-owned stores and chains. Pukeva was the first retail store in the country to offer payment plans for its customers, and its main store was located in the city centre of Helsinki. Pukeva organized popular fashion shows, promoted mass market clothing, and had modern escalators, becoming a symbol of post-war economic recovery in Helsinki. Pukeva declared bankruptcy during the recession in 1993.
- Access points: locations:
- Helsinki
- Access points: persons/families:
- Ruben Jaari (Jankeloff)
- Yerusha Network member:
- National Archives of Finland
