Adolph P. Schuman was a prominent San Francisco businessman, founder and president of the Lilli Ann

Lilli Ann

Lilli Ann was a clothing company that was started in San Francisco, California in 1934 by Adolph Schuman, and named for his wife Lillian. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, the company was known for its good workmanship and high-quality fabrics.- References :...

 apparel company, and a longtime Democratic Party campaign contributor who had close ties to John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

 and Robert F. Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy

Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...

.

Schuman's father, a Hungarian Jewish immigrant who came to America in the 1880s, was driving a milk truck in San Francisco when the son started a wholesale women's clothing company in 1933 in two rented rooms with an $800 loan. In 1982, Lilli Ann reported retail sales of $40 million.

After World War II, Schuman opened a Lilli Ann show room in Paris, and promoted his line by organizing a “San Francisco to Paris Fashion Show”, with lavish runway productions in both cities which brought him into personal contact with such leading Paris fashion designers as Coco Chanel

Coco Chanel

Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was a pioneering French fashion designer whose modernist thought, menswear-inspired fashions, and pursuit of expensive simplicity made her an important figure in 20th-century fashion. She was the founder of one of the most famous fashion brands, Chanel...

 and Cristobal Balenciaga

Cristóbal Balenciaga

Cristóbal Balenciaga Eizaguirre was a Spanish Basque fashion designer and the founder of the Balenciaga fashion house....

. At the same time, Schuman's purchase of huge quantities of European fabrics helped revitalize the war-ravaged French and Italian textile industries in the early 1950s.

A liberal Democrat, Schuman frequently held campaign fund-raising dinners and parties at his Nob Hill home, and was one of the four wealthy San Francisco Jewish political contributors - the others were Cyril Magnin

Cyril Magnin

Cyril Isaac Magnin was one of the most prominent San Francisco businessmen of the post-World War II era, chief executive of the Joseph Magnin Co., which evolved into a multi-million dollar chain of upscale women's clothing stores....

, Benjamin Swig and Walter Shorenstein

Walter Shorenstein

Walter H. Shorenstein was an American billionaire real estate developer and investor. His company, Shorenstein Company, owned 130 buildings totaling at least of office space at the time of his death. He ranked 371 on the "Forbes 400" list of richest Americans.-Early life:Shorenstein was born in...

- who formed what local Democratic politicians appreciatively called "The Green Machine" of the 1960s.