Christine Nicholls, author and historian, has written several books on East African history including Red Strangers: The White Tribe of Kenya, a biography on missionary-explorer David...
My 2 January blog talked about the arrival of Jewish people in Kenya. One of the earliest, Sammy Jacobs, was a real entrepreneur. He started ‘The Dustpan’ store in Nairobi, where you could buy almost anything. This is what the magazine African World said about his shop on 31 October 1913:
‘Where but a few brief years ago the lion made the plains ring with his roar, and the hippopotamus lumbered his way down to Nairobi rivers to slake his thirst, now stand numbers of elegant, handsomely appointed shops and stores. Situated right in the very heart of Nairobi’s commercial activities, ‘The Dustpan’ ranks as one of the foremost of these business centres. Probably in its own line, as a domestic pantechnicon, where all manner of household utensils may be purchased, ‘The Dustpan’...
