And the man behind the brand is...
Frank Woolworth
As a young boy growing up in Jefferson County, New York Frank Winfield Woolworth knew he was going to be a merchant. He thought store, he dreamed store, he played store. Often in the evening he and his brother would arrange make-believe merchandise on the dining room table and take turns selling to each other.
Yet the man who was to build the largest chain of stores in the world was turned down time and again in his quest to land his first retailing position.
In 1871, at the age of 19, Woolworth drove around Watertown, New York in an old sled looking for a sales job. Finally he was offered an opportunity at the Dry Goods firm of Augsbury-Moore. Of course he wasn't going to be paid but he wouldn't be charged anything for being around and learning, either.
After 2 1/2 years Woolworth worked hard enough to command a salary of $6 a week. He left for an offer of $10 a week but was soon cut to $8 for not moving enough goods. His health broke soon afterwards and Woolworth returned to the family farm to recuperate.
In 1877 his former employer Moore called him to run his store for $10 a week. In the spring of 1878 Woolworth arranged a number of slow-moving items on an old sewing table and priced them for 5¢ each. All the goods, heretofore unattractive to customers, sold the first day. It was the beginning of Woolworth's career selling an assortment of goods at one low price.
He convinced Moore to stake him with $300 to open a 5-cent store in Utica, New York in February 1879. At first the goods sold briskly but sales dropped to $2.50 a day and the store closed. Moore and Woolworth did not give up on the idea and launched another store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on June 21 the same year.
The Lancaster store was a modest 14' x 35'. The opening inventory was worth $410, comprised totally of nickel items. First day sales totalled $127.65, nearly 30% of his inventory. He later added 10¢ items and the Lancaster store became the first of over 2300 Woolworth 5 & 10s across the world.
In the 1880s few manufacturers would consider dealing with retailers. Woolworth realized the only way to give his customers the best deals was to buy directly from the suppliers. Only through persistence and imagination was he able to break through these traditional retailing barriers. By buying in large quantities he was able to offer high quality merchandise for 5¢ and 10¢.
Woolworth expanded the idea rapidly. He brought his brother, his old store-playing partner, into the 5 & 10 business. His brother, Moore and other close friends and associates all started chains of 5 & 10 stores, six chains in all.
In 1912 the F.W. Woolworth Company organized to take over all the 5 & 10 stores, 596 in all. The men had never been competitors and often bought and consulted together. The consolidation was a logical progression.
In 1913 Woolworth built the world's tallest building - the 792-foot Woolworth Tower. Other buildings were to grow taller but none so captured the imagination of the public, erected as it was in an age when the public was entranced with the romance of American business. Woolworth paid for the entire cost of $13,500,000 out of his own pocket - a gargantuan monument constructed literally from nickels and dimes.
Woolworth remained active in the business until his death in 1919, accumulating a fortune of $65,000,000, never having sold an item for more than a dime.
Showing posts with label Store Brands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Store Brands. Show all posts
February 12, 2007
Wanamaker's
And the man behind the brand is...
John Wanamaker
John Wanamaker had sacrificed his job in a Philadelphia clothing store to weakening health and began a supposedly more benign employment as permanent secretary for the Y.M.C.A., the first such paid position in the country. But he soon found himself amid the toughs of south Philadelphia trying to establish a new Sunday School. Wanamaker’s untiring efforts would eventually make Bethany Mission, which he opened in 1858, the largest Sunday School in the world.
His work in the religious movement also yield two unexpected bonuses:
a wife and his first business partner. In 1860 the 22-year old Wanamaker took Mary Brown as his wife and teamed with her brother Nathan to start a clothing store. Wanamaker had learned the retailing business thoroughly at Tower Hall, the most prominent clothing establishment in Philadelphia.
Oak Hall, as the partners named their new store, floundered in the beginning but a rush of orders for military uniforms at the outbreak of the Civil War started the store on the road to success. The influx of cash enabled Wanamaker to test his flamboyant advertising methods. He distributed handbills and calendars at county fairs, launched huge balloons from the roof with prize offers of a free suit inside, and plastered the Oak Hall name around town wherever he could.
But where Wanamaker truly made his mark was in newspaper advertising. Hardly a paper hit the Philadelphia streets without a Wanamaker ad in it;
he eventually pioneered half-page and full-page mercantile advertisements.
He wrote most of the copy himself, especially favoring rhyming couplets.
Even though this rendered many of the ads nonsensical it made Oak Hall
one of Philadelphia’s most popular stores by the end of the war.
Nathan Brown died in 1868 and Wanamaker was sufficiently well off to buy his partner’s interest. Wanamaker immediately set out to build a second store,
a “New Kind of Store,” as he envisioned it. At a time when retailing was confined to specialty shops Wanamaker wanted to put the widest possible variety of goods under one roof, with each department more richly stocked than the leading specialty store with which it competed.
When a huge abandoned Pennsylvania Railroad shed became available Wanamaker bought it and converted it into the most varied retail store in the world. Counters of goods radiated from the center of his Grand Depot in concentric circles with items Wanamaker had stocked from trips across Europe. His “New Kind of Store” opened in 1877 with 650 employees. By 1882 the store was such as success that the payroll swelled to 3,000.
With his two stores booming Wanamaker had become one of Philadelphia’s leading citizens. He left everyday affairs to his younger brothers and sons and entered politics. He served as chairman of the Republican national finance committee in 1888, raising the largest campaign war chest ever seen.
As a reward he was named to President Benjamin Harrison’s cabinet at
Postmaster General.
After his stint in Washington Wanamaker made unsuccessful runs for the Senate and governorship of Pennsylvania. All the while Wanamaker never slackened in his work for Bethany Mission. While in Washington He returned to Philadelphia every Sunday to teach his class. But as rewarding as the spiritual side of his life was it couldn’t fill a man as inexhaustible as Wanamaker.
In 1896 he acquired the lease on the world-famous A. T. Stewart emporium in New York City, when the store of his idol slipped into bankruptcy after the founder’s death. To meet increasing competition in New York Wanamaker built the largest department store in the city in 1907. The store was an immediate success and Wanamaker returned to Philadelphia in 1910.
Now 72, the “father of the modern department store” was not quite finished. Across the street from Philadelphia’s City Hall Wanamaker built the largest building ever devoted to selling goods. It covered an entire city block, reached 12 stories into the sky and contained 45 acres of floor space. It was as ornate as it was grand. The organ in the gallery was so large it required 13 freight cars to transport it from the St. Louis Exposition. And it was only one of three organs in the store.
Profits in the Wanamaker stores skyrocketed during World War I,
in part due to a sharply inflated prices. After the war Wanamaker gambled that prices had reached their zenith and, seeing a chance to perform a public service as well, he reduced all merchandise in both his New York and Philadelphia stores by 20%. The sale lasted two months. Extra help was hired to handle the volume. His timing was prescient; prices indeed had peaked and began dropping rapidly.
The great sale of 1920 was Wanamaker’s farewell gesture. He turned over both stores to his son and focused on his religious work. In 1922 heart failure caught up with him and John Wanamaker died at age 84. His list of innovations from 60 years of retailing stretched beyond any other.
John Wanamaker
John Wanamaker had sacrificed his job in a Philadelphia clothing store to weakening health and began a supposedly more benign employment as permanent secretary for the Y.M.C.A., the first such paid position in the country. But he soon found himself amid the toughs of south Philadelphia trying to establish a new Sunday School. Wanamaker’s untiring efforts would eventually make Bethany Mission, which he opened in 1858, the largest Sunday School in the world.
His work in the religious movement also yield two unexpected bonuses:
a wife and his first business partner. In 1860 the 22-year old Wanamaker took Mary Brown as his wife and teamed with her brother Nathan to start a clothing store. Wanamaker had learned the retailing business thoroughly at Tower Hall, the most prominent clothing establishment in Philadelphia.
Oak Hall, as the partners named their new store, floundered in the beginning but a rush of orders for military uniforms at the outbreak of the Civil War started the store on the road to success. The influx of cash enabled Wanamaker to test his flamboyant advertising methods. He distributed handbills and calendars at county fairs, launched huge balloons from the roof with prize offers of a free suit inside, and plastered the Oak Hall name around town wherever he could.
But where Wanamaker truly made his mark was in newspaper advertising. Hardly a paper hit the Philadelphia streets without a Wanamaker ad in it;
he eventually pioneered half-page and full-page mercantile advertisements.
He wrote most of the copy himself, especially favoring rhyming couplets.
Even though this rendered many of the ads nonsensical it made Oak Hall
one of Philadelphia’s most popular stores by the end of the war.
Nathan Brown died in 1868 and Wanamaker was sufficiently well off to buy his partner’s interest. Wanamaker immediately set out to build a second store,
a “New Kind of Store,” as he envisioned it. At a time when retailing was confined to specialty shops Wanamaker wanted to put the widest possible variety of goods under one roof, with each department more richly stocked than the leading specialty store with which it competed.
When a huge abandoned Pennsylvania Railroad shed became available Wanamaker bought it and converted it into the most varied retail store in the world. Counters of goods radiated from the center of his Grand Depot in concentric circles with items Wanamaker had stocked from trips across Europe. His “New Kind of Store” opened in 1877 with 650 employees. By 1882 the store was such as success that the payroll swelled to 3,000.
With his two stores booming Wanamaker had become one of Philadelphia’s leading citizens. He left everyday affairs to his younger brothers and sons and entered politics. He served as chairman of the Republican national finance committee in 1888, raising the largest campaign war chest ever seen.
As a reward he was named to President Benjamin Harrison’s cabinet at
Postmaster General.
After his stint in Washington Wanamaker made unsuccessful runs for the Senate and governorship of Pennsylvania. All the while Wanamaker never slackened in his work for Bethany Mission. While in Washington He returned to Philadelphia every Sunday to teach his class. But as rewarding as the spiritual side of his life was it couldn’t fill a man as inexhaustible as Wanamaker.
In 1896 he acquired the lease on the world-famous A. T. Stewart emporium in New York City, when the store of his idol slipped into bankruptcy after the founder’s death. To meet increasing competition in New York Wanamaker built the largest department store in the city in 1907. The store was an immediate success and Wanamaker returned to Philadelphia in 1910.
Now 72, the “father of the modern department store” was not quite finished. Across the street from Philadelphia’s City Hall Wanamaker built the largest building ever devoted to selling goods. It covered an entire city block, reached 12 stories into the sky and contained 45 acres of floor space. It was as ornate as it was grand. The organ in the gallery was so large it required 13 freight cars to transport it from the St. Louis Exposition. And it was only one of three organs in the store.
Profits in the Wanamaker stores skyrocketed during World War I,
in part due to a sharply inflated prices. After the war Wanamaker gambled that prices had reached their zenith and, seeing a chance to perform a public service as well, he reduced all merchandise in both his New York and Philadelphia stores by 20%. The sale lasted two months. Extra help was hired to handle the volume. His timing was prescient; prices indeed had peaked and began dropping rapidly.
The great sale of 1920 was Wanamaker’s farewell gesture. He turned over both stores to his son and focused on his religious work. In 1922 heart failure caught up with him and John Wanamaker died at age 84. His list of innovations from 60 years of retailing stretched beyond any other.
Tiffany's
And the man behind the brand is...
Charles Tiffany
In 1837, at the height of America's first great Depression, Charles Tiffany and John Young opened a fancy goods store in lower Manhattan with $1000 borrowed from Tiffany's father. Tiffany had first operated a store ten years earlier when he ran a country store for his father, a wealthy mill owner. Now he put his retailing ideas to work in a simple wood-and-brick structure opposite City Hall.
The first week's profits totalled 33¢. But Tiffany & Young had correctly gauged the popularity of imported Chinese goods and their business flourished. The fancy goods business expanded through 1838. On New Year's Day 1839 robbers invaded the emporium and carted away everything transportable, over $4000 of goods. Fortunately the partners had taken all the cash home with them for the holiday, enough to restock. Quickly they were growing again, adding costume jewelry for sale for the first time. Tiffany would later recall the popular baubles as cheap, garish, in poor taste and crudely made. But real gems of any sort were rare in the United States at the time.
Tiffany's instituted a firm price policy. The price on the tag was the price to be paid - no haggling as was the custom of the day. It was a policy Tiffany's would later adhere to even with $100,000 necklaces.
In 1845 Tiffany & Young discontinued paste jewelry and began featuring gold jewelry. In 1847 Swiss jeweled watches were added to the line and a year later Tiffany started a gold-smithing shop, making the first company-designed jewelry. He brought out the first Tiffany Blue Book catalog, adopting the famous "Tiffany blue" packaging.
Charles Tiffany was a master of publicity, teaming with neighbor P.T. Barnum on several occasions. Tiffany's crafted a tiny silver horse and carriage for the wedding of Barnum's celebrated midgets, General Tom Thumb and his bride Lavinia.
The New York press dubbed Tiffany the "King of Diamonds" when he displayed the French crown jewels, although the gems were actually purchased by his partner Young. From that day to this Tiffany's has been regarded as America's greatest jeweler. In 1853 Charles Tiffany bought full control of the business and moved the Tiffany & Co. store uptown.
Prior to the Civil War the United States had no standing army.
Tiffany prepared for the hostilities by submitting the first list of equipment used
by the French army to the quartermaster general. Thereafter his firm sold gold epaulets, cap ornaments, navy lace and other military accouterments.
Mrs. Lincoln, who was coldly received by Washington society, consoled herself
with several shopping sprees at Tiffany's. When the ear ended Tiffany did a
brisk business in commemorative swords for returning heroes.
After the Civil War Charles Tiffany was ready to outfit America's Gilded Age. "We'll give the customer what we want," proselytized the country's leader in good taste. In 1867 Tiffany's won the first international medal awarded to a United States silver-maker at the Paris Exposition Universelle. Tiffany's would continue to win prizes - and valuable publicity - everywhere its jewelry was exhibited.
In 1870 Tiffany built a new iron store on Union Square. The New York Times hailed the store as "a Jewel Palace...the largest of its kind in the world.
A school of taste...a teacher of art progress." Tiffany's now became a museum that incidentally sold its exhibits. A trip to Tiffany's was a must on every rich traveler's New York itinerary.
The gem that attracted more visitors than any other was the Tiffany Diamond. Found in the new Kimberly mines in South Africa in 1877, it was once purchased for $18,000. Tiffany thought it might just be just one of many yellow diamonds found and cut it and held it for years without publicity. But the Tiffany Diamond remains the largest flawless and perfectly colored canary diamond ever mined.
It is worth over two million dollars.
Charles Tiffany's biggest problem in the last quarter of the 19th century was finding diamonds, not selling them. Newly discovered mines in South Africa helped but by far the most romantic source was the royal houses of Europe who sold their collections when they became strapped for cash. Tiffany routinely sold $6,000,000 of diamonds a year. At times he could have $40,000,000 in gems in his vaults.
In the 1880s and 1890s a new millionaire could prove his status to his associates merely by sending his wife to a ball, weighed down with enough jewels to cripple a good Sherpa. Tiffany catered to the new money as well as the old.
The store kept seven employees just to get information and photographs on the wealthy in every American city. If someone walked into Tiffany's and his photo and financial status were on file the new customer could take his jewels without payment. "When we give credit to anyone who had supposed himself unknown to us we are sure to retain him forever," said Tiffany.
Charles Tiffany was inexorably linked with the rich and famous of America although he lived comparably simply. He enjoyed nothing more than a hearty walk. When he discovered a new pedometer he added it to his Blue Book. He died in 1902, his life spanning virtually a century, at the age of 90, leaving an estate of $35,000,000. He was planning yet another uptown move for Tiffany's.
Charles Tiffany
In 1837, at the height of America's first great Depression, Charles Tiffany and John Young opened a fancy goods store in lower Manhattan with $1000 borrowed from Tiffany's father. Tiffany had first operated a store ten years earlier when he ran a country store for his father, a wealthy mill owner. Now he put his retailing ideas to work in a simple wood-and-brick structure opposite City Hall.
The first week's profits totalled 33¢. But Tiffany & Young had correctly gauged the popularity of imported Chinese goods and their business flourished. The fancy goods business expanded through 1838. On New Year's Day 1839 robbers invaded the emporium and carted away everything transportable, over $4000 of goods. Fortunately the partners had taken all the cash home with them for the holiday, enough to restock. Quickly they were growing again, adding costume jewelry for sale for the first time. Tiffany would later recall the popular baubles as cheap, garish, in poor taste and crudely made. But real gems of any sort were rare in the United States at the time.
Tiffany's instituted a firm price policy. The price on the tag was the price to be paid - no haggling as was the custom of the day. It was a policy Tiffany's would later adhere to even with $100,000 necklaces.
In 1845 Tiffany & Young discontinued paste jewelry and began featuring gold jewelry. In 1847 Swiss jeweled watches were added to the line and a year later Tiffany started a gold-smithing shop, making the first company-designed jewelry. He brought out the first Tiffany Blue Book catalog, adopting the famous "Tiffany blue" packaging.
Charles Tiffany was a master of publicity, teaming with neighbor P.T. Barnum on several occasions. Tiffany's crafted a tiny silver horse and carriage for the wedding of Barnum's celebrated midgets, General Tom Thumb and his bride Lavinia.
The New York press dubbed Tiffany the "King of Diamonds" when he displayed the French crown jewels, although the gems were actually purchased by his partner Young. From that day to this Tiffany's has been regarded as America's greatest jeweler. In 1853 Charles Tiffany bought full control of the business and moved the Tiffany & Co. store uptown.
Prior to the Civil War the United States had no standing army.
Tiffany prepared for the hostilities by submitting the first list of equipment used
by the French army to the quartermaster general. Thereafter his firm sold gold epaulets, cap ornaments, navy lace and other military accouterments.
Mrs. Lincoln, who was coldly received by Washington society, consoled herself
with several shopping sprees at Tiffany's. When the ear ended Tiffany did a
brisk business in commemorative swords for returning heroes.
After the Civil War Charles Tiffany was ready to outfit America's Gilded Age. "We'll give the customer what we want," proselytized the country's leader in good taste. In 1867 Tiffany's won the first international medal awarded to a United States silver-maker at the Paris Exposition Universelle. Tiffany's would continue to win prizes - and valuable publicity - everywhere its jewelry was exhibited.
In 1870 Tiffany built a new iron store on Union Square. The New York Times hailed the store as "a Jewel Palace...the largest of its kind in the world.
A school of taste...a teacher of art progress." Tiffany's now became a museum that incidentally sold its exhibits. A trip to Tiffany's was a must on every rich traveler's New York itinerary.
The gem that attracted more visitors than any other was the Tiffany Diamond. Found in the new Kimberly mines in South Africa in 1877, it was once purchased for $18,000. Tiffany thought it might just be just one of many yellow diamonds found and cut it and held it for years without publicity. But the Tiffany Diamond remains the largest flawless and perfectly colored canary diamond ever mined.
It is worth over two million dollars.
Charles Tiffany's biggest problem in the last quarter of the 19th century was finding diamonds, not selling them. Newly discovered mines in South Africa helped but by far the most romantic source was the royal houses of Europe who sold their collections when they became strapped for cash. Tiffany routinely sold $6,000,000 of diamonds a year. At times he could have $40,000,000 in gems in his vaults.
In the 1880s and 1890s a new millionaire could prove his status to his associates merely by sending his wife to a ball, weighed down with enough jewels to cripple a good Sherpa. Tiffany catered to the new money as well as the old.
The store kept seven employees just to get information and photographs on the wealthy in every American city. If someone walked into Tiffany's and his photo and financial status were on file the new customer could take his jewels without payment. "When we give credit to anyone who had supposed himself unknown to us we are sure to retain him forever," said Tiffany.
Charles Tiffany was inexorably linked with the rich and famous of America although he lived comparably simply. He enjoyed nothing more than a hearty walk. When he discovered a new pedometer he added it to his Blue Book. He died in 1902, his life spanning virtually a century, at the age of 90, leaving an estate of $35,000,000. He was planning yet another uptown move for Tiffany's.
Speigel's
And the man behind the brand is...
Joseph Spiegel
The Spiegel family trace their ancestry to a prosperous 16th century German textile merchant who bought the largest mirror (spiegel in German) he could find in town. He carted the mirror up to his hillside home but could not find a way to get it through the door. He leaned it against the wall by the door and searched for a way in. He never found it. The mirror remained on the hill and became a town landmark. The family who lived in the house came to be known as the Spiegels.
In 1848 the current Spiegels fled their homeland to escape political strife and went to New York. They had no money, no friends and spoke no English.
Trying to survive the best they could the family splintered; the father working all the time peddling needles and small housewares, daughters marrying into hopeful circumstances, a brother moving to Ohio.
When the Civil War erupted 19-year old Joseph itched to join his older brother in battle. Marcus, a German revolutionary, rose rapidly to the position of Colonel in the Union Army and promised the family he would keep young Joseph from harm. Marcus assigned him to a regimen of volunteers.
The 120th of Ohio was sent on an ill-advised invasion of the Texas Red River area in an attempt to secure wool for New England textile mills and was summarily turned back. Returning from the campaign on the City Belle, the paddlewheeler was ambushed by Confederate trips. Marcus was killed and Joseph taken prisoner.
After the war Joseph went to Chicago to live with a sister and her husband. Spiegel found the brawling town to be little more than a step up from prison with unsanitary water and a ubiquitous stench from the new meat-packing houses.
But the young town had a vibrancy and promise. In less than a month his brother-in-law had set him up in the furniture business.
At J. Spiegel and Company he waited on customers, ordered stock,
tended the books and packed merchandise. By 1870 Spiegel assumed full control.
The next year the Great Chicago Fire consumed the business district and Spiegel scrambled to haul as much stock as possible to his backyard before his small wood shop was destroyed. The next morning he leased a lot on Michigan Avenue and began selling what he could under a tent.
A rebuilding Chicago needed his furniture but the Panic of 1873 sapped his remaining resources. He was able to entice an investor, Jacob Cahn, to remain open as Spiegel and Cahn, Retail Furniture Dealers. Business was brisk and when Cahn retired in 1879 Spiegel was once again selling furniture as J. Spiegel and Company.
At the time a wave of immigrants populated Chicago and spawned a spate of cut-rate, low-quality furniture dealers. Spiegel, who deplored the trade in cheap goods, responded aggressively with advertising, even supplying furniture to theaters as props in exchange for mentions on the playbills. But his wealthy customers were deserting traditional areas for newer homes in the suburbs. Spiegel was looking at a dying business.
He finally succumbed to his son Modie’s idea of an entire spectrum of household goods sold at low cost on consumer credit. Modie attracted $32,000 in investors for his plan and in 1893 the business incorporated as Spiegel House Furnishings Company. Joseph acted as general administrator, stationed formally at the front door to greet customers and guide them to salesmen on the floor. In 1898 the first branch store for new markets opened to chase their former clients to the outreaches of Chicago.
Selling was a high-pressure environment and Spiegel’s gained a reputation for “wacky” goings-on. Modie ran the show - and often it was. The floor covering area could transform overnight into an Arabian Nights desert home to move a few Persian rugs. But the real showstopper was unlimited credit - “All you want -
on your terms.”
More Spiegels entered the business. The least promising was Arthur, Joseph’s youngest son. Given a job as a salesman he often fell asleep on a pile of a rugs. He was exiled to the warehouse and eventually given the lowest job his father could find - answering the mail. Spiegel occasionally received letters about ordering by mail on credit and it was Arthur’s job to politely invite the inquirers to visit a Spiegel store in Chicago.
One day Arthur asked his father how many of these letters he thought Spiegel received in the course of a year. Joseph’s guesstimate was ridiculously low. Arthur pestered his father for a trial at filling these orders. His father, perhaps seeing this as a way to inspire his unenterprising son, relented. Arthur handled each request personally by providing information about the wanted items, figuring the down payment, explaining the terms and figuring freight costs. In no time he had more business than he could handle, all of it unsolicited.
What would happen if Spiegel advertised? Joseph couldn’t understand offering credit to complete strangers but Arthur couldn’t be dissuaded. He produced a 24-page booklet of mail-order merchandise. Tiny Spiegel’s only innovation in a field dominated by Sears & Roebuck and Montgomery Ward was free credit. Arthur wrote an editorial on “The Beauties of Installment Credit” and adopted the slogan, “We Trust the People - Everywhere!”
The tiny Spiegel House Furnishings had more orders than they could fill.
By 1906 mail sales reached $980,000 - double the volume of retail stores.
Arthur and his staff was working 90-hour weeks. To fuel the growth Spiegel incorporated and never looked back.
Joseph Spiegel, approaching 70, was glad to let the mail division boom in another direction. He was never comfortable mailing good merchandise to people he had never met. Joseph continued doing what he liked best - greeting customers in his store and selling furniture to his friends.
Joseph Spiegel
The Spiegel family trace their ancestry to a prosperous 16th century German textile merchant who bought the largest mirror (spiegel in German) he could find in town. He carted the mirror up to his hillside home but could not find a way to get it through the door. He leaned it against the wall by the door and searched for a way in. He never found it. The mirror remained on the hill and became a town landmark. The family who lived in the house came to be known as the Spiegels.
In 1848 the current Spiegels fled their homeland to escape political strife and went to New York. They had no money, no friends and spoke no English.
Trying to survive the best they could the family splintered; the father working all the time peddling needles and small housewares, daughters marrying into hopeful circumstances, a brother moving to Ohio.
When the Civil War erupted 19-year old Joseph itched to join his older brother in battle. Marcus, a German revolutionary, rose rapidly to the position of Colonel in the Union Army and promised the family he would keep young Joseph from harm. Marcus assigned him to a regimen of volunteers.
The 120th of Ohio was sent on an ill-advised invasion of the Texas Red River area in an attempt to secure wool for New England textile mills and was summarily turned back. Returning from the campaign on the City Belle, the paddlewheeler was ambushed by Confederate trips. Marcus was killed and Joseph taken prisoner.
After the war Joseph went to Chicago to live with a sister and her husband. Spiegel found the brawling town to be little more than a step up from prison with unsanitary water and a ubiquitous stench from the new meat-packing houses.
But the young town had a vibrancy and promise. In less than a month his brother-in-law had set him up in the furniture business.
At J. Spiegel and Company he waited on customers, ordered stock,
tended the books and packed merchandise. By 1870 Spiegel assumed full control.
The next year the Great Chicago Fire consumed the business district and Spiegel scrambled to haul as much stock as possible to his backyard before his small wood shop was destroyed. The next morning he leased a lot on Michigan Avenue and began selling what he could under a tent.
A rebuilding Chicago needed his furniture but the Panic of 1873 sapped his remaining resources. He was able to entice an investor, Jacob Cahn, to remain open as Spiegel and Cahn, Retail Furniture Dealers. Business was brisk and when Cahn retired in 1879 Spiegel was once again selling furniture as J. Spiegel and Company.
At the time a wave of immigrants populated Chicago and spawned a spate of cut-rate, low-quality furniture dealers. Spiegel, who deplored the trade in cheap goods, responded aggressively with advertising, even supplying furniture to theaters as props in exchange for mentions on the playbills. But his wealthy customers were deserting traditional areas for newer homes in the suburbs. Spiegel was looking at a dying business.
He finally succumbed to his son Modie’s idea of an entire spectrum of household goods sold at low cost on consumer credit. Modie attracted $32,000 in investors for his plan and in 1893 the business incorporated as Spiegel House Furnishings Company. Joseph acted as general administrator, stationed formally at the front door to greet customers and guide them to salesmen on the floor. In 1898 the first branch store for new markets opened to chase their former clients to the outreaches of Chicago.
Selling was a high-pressure environment and Spiegel’s gained a reputation for “wacky” goings-on. Modie ran the show - and often it was. The floor covering area could transform overnight into an Arabian Nights desert home to move a few Persian rugs. But the real showstopper was unlimited credit - “All you want -
on your terms.”
More Spiegels entered the business. The least promising was Arthur, Joseph’s youngest son. Given a job as a salesman he often fell asleep on a pile of a rugs. He was exiled to the warehouse and eventually given the lowest job his father could find - answering the mail. Spiegel occasionally received letters about ordering by mail on credit and it was Arthur’s job to politely invite the inquirers to visit a Spiegel store in Chicago.
One day Arthur asked his father how many of these letters he thought Spiegel received in the course of a year. Joseph’s guesstimate was ridiculously low. Arthur pestered his father for a trial at filling these orders. His father, perhaps seeing this as a way to inspire his unenterprising son, relented. Arthur handled each request personally by providing information about the wanted items, figuring the down payment, explaining the terms and figuring freight costs. In no time he had more business than he could handle, all of it unsolicited.
What would happen if Spiegel advertised? Joseph couldn’t understand offering credit to complete strangers but Arthur couldn’t be dissuaded. He produced a 24-page booklet of mail-order merchandise. Tiny Spiegel’s only innovation in a field dominated by Sears & Roebuck and Montgomery Ward was free credit. Arthur wrote an editorial on “The Beauties of Installment Credit” and adopted the slogan, “We Trust the People - Everywhere!”
The tiny Spiegel House Furnishings had more orders than they could fill.
By 1906 mail sales reached $980,000 - double the volume of retail stores.
Arthur and his staff was working 90-hour weeks. To fuel the growth Spiegel incorporated and never looked back.
Joseph Spiegel, approaching 70, was glad to let the mail division boom in another direction. He was never comfortable mailing good merchandise to people he had never met. Joseph continued doing what he liked best - greeting customers in his store and selling furniture to his friends.
Sears & Roebuck
And the men behind the brand are...
Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck
First some facts. In its heyday Sears & Roebuck had the most stores, the most customers, the biggest building. The company was the biggest publisher in America. They shipped enough catalogs to fill a train of boxcars 30 miles long. One out approximately every 200 American workers worked for Sears.
Sears alone accounted for 1% of the American Gross National Product.
And it all began with a shipment of refused pocket watches.
Richard Sears was 15 when he became the family breadwinner in 1879.
He worked in the offices of the Minneapolis-St. Louis Railroad but pestered his bosses for a field job. They sent him to North Redwood, Minnesota as a freight agent.
Checking shipments in the station everyday Sears quickly learned about the mail order business. In 1886 a town jeweler refused a shipment of "yellow watches." The Chicago commission house handling the watches wired Sears that as the station agent he could have the watches for $12 each rather then incur the return shipping costs.
Sears knew the popular gold pocket watches were fetching $25 in retail stores. But he wasn't interested in retailing. He took the watches and sold them to local station agents down the line for $14 each. Anything they made over that they could keep.
Sears was hooked. As a bonded freight agent he did not have to pay to take delivery. He could settle his account when other agents paid him. It was a venture without risk, only profit. Sears began ordering more watches C.O.D.
In six months he had amassed more than $5000, a substantial fortune in 1886.
He moved to Minneapolis, the biggest city he knew, and founded the R.W. Sears Watch Company. He began advertising watches in the paper, unheard of at the time, and found he had a natural flair for the work. So many orders poured in he needed to move to Chicago to facilitate shipping in 1887.
In April 1887 an advertisement appeared in the Chicago Daily News:
"WANTED - Watchmaker with reference who can furnish tools. State age, experience and salary requirement." A tall, lean man from Hammond, Indiana answered the ad. He presented Sears an example of his best work. Sears studied it closely for a moment and admitted, "I don't know anything about watchmaking, but I presume this is good, otherwise you wouldn't have submitted it to me." Alvah Curtis Roebuck was hired.
Sears continued to build his business by undercutting the competition in price, often buying discontinued lines from suppliers. With low prices come suspicions of quality. Sears quelled such doubts with the strongest guarantees in the business.
Richard Sears was an aggressive, dynamic salesman who thrived in business competition. But a large part of him also longed for the bucolic country life.
In 1888 Sears sold his watch company for $72,000, retaining a half-interest in the firm's Toronto branch. Roebuck owned 25% of the Canada business.
Sears invested $60,000 of his money in Iowa farm mortgages.
By 1889 Sears was again selling watches in Minnesota, doing business as the Warren Company, his middle name. Again he lasted only a year before retiring. This time he sold his Toronto business and his Minnesota concern to Roebuck.
A week later he was back. He asked Roebuck for half the company and soon their first watch catalog, featuring 52 pages, was published. Sears added products to the book as they caught his fancy. By 1893 he had added bicycles and organs and other general merchandise and the catalog grew to 322 pages. It was the first familiar all-purpose catalog from Sears & Roebuck, "The Cheapest Supply House on Earth."
The business was always buoyed by its pledge: We Guarantee Satisfaction and Safe Delivery on Everything You Order. The story circulated through the Midwest of a customer who had come to Richard Sears with a crusty, bruised watch he had dropped on a rock in the mud. Sears handed him a new watch. When the customer protested that the damage was his own fault Sears stopped him,
"We guarantee our watches not to fall out of people's pockets and bounce in the mud."
Sears wrote to the farmers in their own language - simple, earthy and direct. He called his catalog "the farmer's friend" and built confidence in rural America that they could comfortably write to the big city. Sears called his business plan "Iowaization."
In 1893 Sears & Roebuck again outgrew Minneapolis and returned to Chicago. Despite the general economic Panic Sears stepped up his advertising, driving the company into debt but boosting sales. If the orders slowed the company would fail and Sears kept expanding.
It was the proper strategy for long-term growth but the short-term risk was too much for Alvah Roebuck, who was at heart a tinkerer not a high-stakes gambler. In 1895 he asked Sears for $25,000 for his share of the company and got out.
In short order Sears located two new partners and Roebuck returned as the firm's head of watches and jewelry, seemingly not perturbed at the new arrangement.
Richard Sears was something of a loose cannon. His outrageous advertising claims were legendary. Once he started a banking department where customers could drop off savings for 5% interest, in complete violation of state banking laws. A sound businessman was needed to balance the irrepressible Sears.
Alvah Roebuck gave up but Julius Rosenwald, his next partner, steadied the enterprise.
Sears & Roebuck continued to expand as the economy strengthened. In one issue of Comfort magazine Sears placed 70 different ads, each bursting with copy from border to border. Sears travelled extensively in Europe seeking medical help for his ailing wife but kept a steady stream of ideas flowing to Chicago.
The Panic of 1907 exacerbated the differences between the expansionist Sears and Rosenwald. His chief satisfaction was derived not in making money but in making the company grow. In 1908 Sears resigned as president. He was named Chairman of the Board but never attended a board meeting. He spent his time on his great farm outside Waukesha, Wisconsin until his death in 1914 at the age of 50.
After Alvah Roebuck left the company in the early 1900s he made a modest fortune developing equipment in the infant motion picture industry. He was wiped out by the Depression and returned to Chicago at age 69 to seek work with the company that bore his name.
He stopped by a local store and the manager asked if he could publicize the visit of one of the founders. People poured in to see the Roebuck of Sears & Roebuck. He went on salary, touring for several years and writing a personal history of the company's early days. He died in 1948 at the age of 84, once again a shareholder in Sears, Roebuck & Company by virtue of the firm's profit-sharing plan.
Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck
First some facts. In its heyday Sears & Roebuck had the most stores, the most customers, the biggest building. The company was the biggest publisher in America. They shipped enough catalogs to fill a train of boxcars 30 miles long. One out approximately every 200 American workers worked for Sears.
Sears alone accounted for 1% of the American Gross National Product.
And it all began with a shipment of refused pocket watches.
Richard Sears was 15 when he became the family breadwinner in 1879.
He worked in the offices of the Minneapolis-St. Louis Railroad but pestered his bosses for a field job. They sent him to North Redwood, Minnesota as a freight agent.
Checking shipments in the station everyday Sears quickly learned about the mail order business. In 1886 a town jeweler refused a shipment of "yellow watches." The Chicago commission house handling the watches wired Sears that as the station agent he could have the watches for $12 each rather then incur the return shipping costs.
Sears knew the popular gold pocket watches were fetching $25 in retail stores. But he wasn't interested in retailing. He took the watches and sold them to local station agents down the line for $14 each. Anything they made over that they could keep.
Sears was hooked. As a bonded freight agent he did not have to pay to take delivery. He could settle his account when other agents paid him. It was a venture without risk, only profit. Sears began ordering more watches C.O.D.
In six months he had amassed more than $5000, a substantial fortune in 1886.
He moved to Minneapolis, the biggest city he knew, and founded the R.W. Sears Watch Company. He began advertising watches in the paper, unheard of at the time, and found he had a natural flair for the work. So many orders poured in he needed to move to Chicago to facilitate shipping in 1887.
In April 1887 an advertisement appeared in the Chicago Daily News:
"WANTED - Watchmaker with reference who can furnish tools. State age, experience and salary requirement." A tall, lean man from Hammond, Indiana answered the ad. He presented Sears an example of his best work. Sears studied it closely for a moment and admitted, "I don't know anything about watchmaking, but I presume this is good, otherwise you wouldn't have submitted it to me." Alvah Curtis Roebuck was hired.
Sears continued to build his business by undercutting the competition in price, often buying discontinued lines from suppliers. With low prices come suspicions of quality. Sears quelled such doubts with the strongest guarantees in the business.
Richard Sears was an aggressive, dynamic salesman who thrived in business competition. But a large part of him also longed for the bucolic country life.
In 1888 Sears sold his watch company for $72,000, retaining a half-interest in the firm's Toronto branch. Roebuck owned 25% of the Canada business.
Sears invested $60,000 of his money in Iowa farm mortgages.
By 1889 Sears was again selling watches in Minnesota, doing business as the Warren Company, his middle name. Again he lasted only a year before retiring. This time he sold his Toronto business and his Minnesota concern to Roebuck.
A week later he was back. He asked Roebuck for half the company and soon their first watch catalog, featuring 52 pages, was published. Sears added products to the book as they caught his fancy. By 1893 he had added bicycles and organs and other general merchandise and the catalog grew to 322 pages. It was the first familiar all-purpose catalog from Sears & Roebuck, "The Cheapest Supply House on Earth."
The business was always buoyed by its pledge: We Guarantee Satisfaction and Safe Delivery on Everything You Order. The story circulated through the Midwest of a customer who had come to Richard Sears with a crusty, bruised watch he had dropped on a rock in the mud. Sears handed him a new watch. When the customer protested that the damage was his own fault Sears stopped him,
"We guarantee our watches not to fall out of people's pockets and bounce in the mud."
Sears wrote to the farmers in their own language - simple, earthy and direct. He called his catalog "the farmer's friend" and built confidence in rural America that they could comfortably write to the big city. Sears called his business plan "Iowaization."
In 1893 Sears & Roebuck again outgrew Minneapolis and returned to Chicago. Despite the general economic Panic Sears stepped up his advertising, driving the company into debt but boosting sales. If the orders slowed the company would fail and Sears kept expanding.
It was the proper strategy for long-term growth but the short-term risk was too much for Alvah Roebuck, who was at heart a tinkerer not a high-stakes gambler. In 1895 he asked Sears for $25,000 for his share of the company and got out.
In short order Sears located two new partners and Roebuck returned as the firm's head of watches and jewelry, seemingly not perturbed at the new arrangement.
Richard Sears was something of a loose cannon. His outrageous advertising claims were legendary. Once he started a banking department where customers could drop off savings for 5% interest, in complete violation of state banking laws. A sound businessman was needed to balance the irrepressible Sears.
Alvah Roebuck gave up but Julius Rosenwald, his next partner, steadied the enterprise.
Sears & Roebuck continued to expand as the economy strengthened. In one issue of Comfort magazine Sears placed 70 different ads, each bursting with copy from border to border. Sears travelled extensively in Europe seeking medical help for his ailing wife but kept a steady stream of ideas flowing to Chicago.
The Panic of 1907 exacerbated the differences between the expansionist Sears and Rosenwald. His chief satisfaction was derived not in making money but in making the company grow. In 1908 Sears resigned as president. He was named Chairman of the Board but never attended a board meeting. He spent his time on his great farm outside Waukesha, Wisconsin until his death in 1914 at the age of 50.
After Alvah Roebuck left the company in the early 1900s he made a modest fortune developing equipment in the infant motion picture industry. He was wiped out by the Depression and returned to Chicago at age 69 to seek work with the company that bore his name.
He stopped by a local store and the manager asked if he could publicize the visit of one of the founders. People poured in to see the Roebuck of Sears & Roebuck. He went on salary, touring for several years and writing a personal history of the company's early days. He died in 1948 at the age of 84, once again a shareholder in Sears, Roebuck & Company by virtue of the firm's profit-sharing plan.
J.C. Penney's
And the man behind the brand is...
James Cash Penney
James Cash Penney named his first store "Golden Rule." He was going to combine ethics and business in his store on the frontier. The ethics he had learned growing up as a minister's son in Hamilton, Missouri. The business instincts seemed to come naturally.
His career started in 1883 at the age of 8 when his father told him he would have to buy his own clothing. James had saved $2.50 from errands and bought a pig. He fattened the pig for several months, sold it at a profit and reinvested in more pigs. Soon he had a dozen pigs - and some unhappy neighbors. His father forced him to give up his young business.
As a young man Penney worked as a clerk. His first job paid $2.27 a month. He journeyed to Colorado for health reasons and invested his small savings in a butcher shop. His meatcutter told him his most important duty would be supplying the chef at the local hotel with a bottle of bourbon each week. Penney did it once and regretted it immediately. He ended the liquor bribes and lost his biggest account and the business.
In 1902 Penney went to the mining town of Kemmerer, population 1000,
in the southwestern hills of Wyoming. With $500 of his own money and $1500 of borrowed capital he joined a 1/3 partnership in a store Penney would run.
The Golden Rule was a shack on a muddy sidestreet in downtown Kemmerer. On one side was a laundry, on the other a boarding house. Penney lived upstairs with his family. The venture was not without risk. At the time part of a miner's wage was scrip redeemable only at the mining company store's inflated prices. Outside competition was decidedly not welcome.
Penney was determined to sell goods at prices as low as possible with a one-price policy for all. He would cater to the needs of rural America by selling basic types of merchandise his customers would need. His concepts were well-received. First day cash receipts totalled $466.59.
Penney did so well he was able to buy his partners out for $30,000 in 1907. Right from the start he had dreamed of a chain stores. He developed a partnership idea where the new store owner would own 1/3 of the new Golden Rule provided he had a man trained to run the store. These men trained others who would go and start their own stores in new western towns. The policy led to rapid and successful expansion. By the 1930s there was a Penney's store in every western town with a population greater than 5000.
In 1913 Golden Rule became J.C. Penney. The name was so trusted that lumberjacks were known to leave six months pay for safekeeping with a Penney's manager whom they had never seen but whom they trusted merely because he was a Penney's man.
In 1917 James Penney retired as President to devote himself to philanthropic interests. He remained as Chairman of the Board, a strictly honorary position. The Stock Market Crash drained his $40,000,000 fortune and broke, discouraged and ill Penney entered a Battle Creek, Michigan sanitarium where he prepared himself to die, considering himself a failure.
But he recovered and returned home with a renewed interest in the Penney Company. He travelled around the country attending company conventions and rarely missed an important store opening. Everywhere he went people were thrilled to see the J.C. Penney in their store. He raised prize cattle, his life having come full circle. Penney lived to be 95, just short of his oft-stated goal of 100.
He was the last of the great merchant princes.
James Cash Penney
James Cash Penney named his first store "Golden Rule." He was going to combine ethics and business in his store on the frontier. The ethics he had learned growing up as a minister's son in Hamilton, Missouri. The business instincts seemed to come naturally.
His career started in 1883 at the age of 8 when his father told him he would have to buy his own clothing. James had saved $2.50 from errands and bought a pig. He fattened the pig for several months, sold it at a profit and reinvested in more pigs. Soon he had a dozen pigs - and some unhappy neighbors. His father forced him to give up his young business.
As a young man Penney worked as a clerk. His first job paid $2.27 a month. He journeyed to Colorado for health reasons and invested his small savings in a butcher shop. His meatcutter told him his most important duty would be supplying the chef at the local hotel with a bottle of bourbon each week. Penney did it once and regretted it immediately. He ended the liquor bribes and lost his biggest account and the business.
In 1902 Penney went to the mining town of Kemmerer, population 1000,
in the southwestern hills of Wyoming. With $500 of his own money and $1500 of borrowed capital he joined a 1/3 partnership in a store Penney would run.
The Golden Rule was a shack on a muddy sidestreet in downtown Kemmerer. On one side was a laundry, on the other a boarding house. Penney lived upstairs with his family. The venture was not without risk. At the time part of a miner's wage was scrip redeemable only at the mining company store's inflated prices. Outside competition was decidedly not welcome.
Penney was determined to sell goods at prices as low as possible with a one-price policy for all. He would cater to the needs of rural America by selling basic types of merchandise his customers would need. His concepts were well-received. First day cash receipts totalled $466.59.
Penney did so well he was able to buy his partners out for $30,000 in 1907. Right from the start he had dreamed of a chain stores. He developed a partnership idea where the new store owner would own 1/3 of the new Golden Rule provided he had a man trained to run the store. These men trained others who would go and start their own stores in new western towns. The policy led to rapid and successful expansion. By the 1930s there was a Penney's store in every western town with a population greater than 5000.
In 1913 Golden Rule became J.C. Penney. The name was so trusted that lumberjacks were known to leave six months pay for safekeeping with a Penney's manager whom they had never seen but whom they trusted merely because he was a Penney's man.
In 1917 James Penney retired as President to devote himself to philanthropic interests. He remained as Chairman of the Board, a strictly honorary position. The Stock Market Crash drained his $40,000,000 fortune and broke, discouraged and ill Penney entered a Battle Creek, Michigan sanitarium where he prepared himself to die, considering himself a failure.
But he recovered and returned home with a renewed interest in the Penney Company. He travelled around the country attending company conventions and rarely missed an important store opening. Everywhere he went people were thrilled to see the J.C. Penney in their store. He raised prize cattle, his life having come full circle. Penney lived to be 95, just short of his oft-stated goal of 100.
He was the last of the great merchant princes.
Montgomery Ward
And the man behind the brand is...
Montgomery Ward
The Montgomery Ward catalog has been chosen on many lists as one of the 100 most influential American books ever published. One such nominating committee, the Grolier Club, stated: "The mail order catalogue has been perhaps the greatest single influence in increasing the standard of American living. It brought the benefit of wholesale prices to city and hamlet, to the crossroads and prairie."
It wasn't so obvious at the time.
Aaron Montgomery Ward was born in Chatham, New Jersey in 1844 and his family went west to Niles, Michigan in 1853 where his father took up the cobbler's trade. Aaron left school at 14 to work in brickyards and a barrel factory where he learned his most valuable lesson: "I learned I was not physically or mentally suited for brick or barrel making."
He clerked at a shoe store and then a country store earning $6 a month -
plus board. Ward was ready to go to the big city. In the 1850s Chicago was home to 30,000 people and known, none too affectionately, as "The Mudhole of the Prairies." The streets were barely above the level of Lake Michigan and covered with bottomless goo.
But by the late 1860s Chicago was teeming with post- Civil War energy.
Fifteen railroad lines moved 150 trains a day out of the busy terminals.
Like thousands of other young men Ward arrived in Chicago in 1866 and began work in various dry goods firms, including one operated by Marshall Field.
He became a salesman, his income rising to the princely sum of $12 a week.
As he made his tedious rounds through the mud in his horse and buggy he took particular notice of the country stores on his route. They were congenial places with pot belly stoves and made fine meeting places for local farmers but they were far from friendly when the farmers had to actually buy something. Selection was small, prices were high. The storekeeper was at the mercy of the big city wholesalers.
Ward considered how he could help the disadvantaged farmer. He decided on a mail order store. He would set up in the big city where he could easily reach suppliers and buy in quantity to get the best prices. A catalog listing his prices would be sent to farmers who would receive their order by mail, cash on delivery. It was not a new idea but the few direct mail firms at the time sold only one or two items. Ward was going to bring the whole store to the farmer.
Ward worked and saved. He talked about his idea with friends and associates. They all agreed he would go broke trying to sell goods sight-unseen to back country folk. He was not dissuaded.
By 1871 he finally saved enough money to buy a small amount of goods at wholesale prices. On October 8, 1871 the Great Chicago Fire engulfed the city for 30 hours. Every building in a 4-square mile area was destroyed. So was Ward's inventory.
Back to work. By August 1872 he scraped up some money and convinced a few people to join him, raising $1600 in working capital. He printed up a one-page price list and hand-addressed the first circulars to the Grangers, a co-operative farm supply organization. One of his earliest price lists contained 163 items under the banner "Supplied By The Cheapest Cash House In America." Most of the items cost $1, including clothing, a 6-view stereoscope, and a backgammon set.
For most of 1873 Ward's mailbox was bare. His partners wanted out and Ward, who still had his sales job, managed to buy them out of their small investments. The Panic of 1873 was sinking established traditional retailers, let alone his radical enterprise.
His business was ridiculed by the Chicago Tribune as a disreputable firm "hidden from public gaze with no merchandise displayed and reachable only through the post office." Under threat of a lawsuit the Tribune printed a retraction.
The retraction was added to the next flyer and sales increased.
About this time ready-made clothing began appearing. It was always believed that no two people had the same measurements and tailors were needed to make quality clothes. But the crunch for uniforms in the Civil War demonstrated that certain combinations of measurements could be standardized. Ward told his faraway customers - "Give your age and describe your general build and we will, nine times out of ten, give you a fit."
Ward, a short, stout man, wrote all the early copy. He always included a message in his catalogs, often educating the reader about buying and selling,
"It is best to make your order around $5. Shipping charges on small orders will eat up your savings. Consider joining a buying club with your neighbors."
Business began to grow rapidly as consumers came to trust Ward's unseen store. He bound his first catalog in 1874 and the book exploded to 72 pages in 1875. Ward began to worry he might become too big and took an ad in Farmers Voice just to reassure his customers he had not lost touch with their needs.
In 1893 Ward sold controlling interest to George R. Thorne who had come on as a partner late in 1873. Ward remained president but after awhile he even stopped attending board meetings. The last twenty years of his life were spent preserving the Chicago waterfront as a park for the people. He spent over $200,000 of his own monies to defending the public's right to open space.
His long-time efforts to prevent the erection of buildings along Lake Michigan won him the title of "The Watch Dog of the Lake Front." At one time there were 46 building projects planned in the park and he fought them all successfully, losing many influential friends along the way. Finally, just before his death in 1913 he won his final legal battle to forever keep the waterfront an open area.
The Tribune, no friend of Montgomery Ward, wrote,"We know now that Mr. Ward was right, was farsighted, was public spirited. That he was unjustly criticized as a selfish obstructionist or as a fanatic. Before he died, it is pleasant to think, Mr. Ward knew that the community had swung round to his side and was grateful for the service he had performed in spite of misunderstanding and injustice."
Montgomery Ward
The Montgomery Ward catalog has been chosen on many lists as one of the 100 most influential American books ever published. One such nominating committee, the Grolier Club, stated: "The mail order catalogue has been perhaps the greatest single influence in increasing the standard of American living. It brought the benefit of wholesale prices to city and hamlet, to the crossroads and prairie."
It wasn't so obvious at the time.
Aaron Montgomery Ward was born in Chatham, New Jersey in 1844 and his family went west to Niles, Michigan in 1853 where his father took up the cobbler's trade. Aaron left school at 14 to work in brickyards and a barrel factory where he learned his most valuable lesson: "I learned I was not physically or mentally suited for brick or barrel making."
He clerked at a shoe store and then a country store earning $6 a month -
plus board. Ward was ready to go to the big city. In the 1850s Chicago was home to 30,000 people and known, none too affectionately, as "The Mudhole of the Prairies." The streets were barely above the level of Lake Michigan and covered with bottomless goo.
But by the late 1860s Chicago was teeming with post- Civil War energy.
Fifteen railroad lines moved 150 trains a day out of the busy terminals.
Like thousands of other young men Ward arrived in Chicago in 1866 and began work in various dry goods firms, including one operated by Marshall Field.
He became a salesman, his income rising to the princely sum of $12 a week.
As he made his tedious rounds through the mud in his horse and buggy he took particular notice of the country stores on his route. They were congenial places with pot belly stoves and made fine meeting places for local farmers but they were far from friendly when the farmers had to actually buy something. Selection was small, prices were high. The storekeeper was at the mercy of the big city wholesalers.
Ward considered how he could help the disadvantaged farmer. He decided on a mail order store. He would set up in the big city where he could easily reach suppliers and buy in quantity to get the best prices. A catalog listing his prices would be sent to farmers who would receive their order by mail, cash on delivery. It was not a new idea but the few direct mail firms at the time sold only one or two items. Ward was going to bring the whole store to the farmer.
Ward worked and saved. He talked about his idea with friends and associates. They all agreed he would go broke trying to sell goods sight-unseen to back country folk. He was not dissuaded.
By 1871 he finally saved enough money to buy a small amount of goods at wholesale prices. On October 8, 1871 the Great Chicago Fire engulfed the city for 30 hours. Every building in a 4-square mile area was destroyed. So was Ward's inventory.
Back to work. By August 1872 he scraped up some money and convinced a few people to join him, raising $1600 in working capital. He printed up a one-page price list and hand-addressed the first circulars to the Grangers, a co-operative farm supply organization. One of his earliest price lists contained 163 items under the banner "Supplied By The Cheapest Cash House In America." Most of the items cost $1, including clothing, a 6-view stereoscope, and a backgammon set.
For most of 1873 Ward's mailbox was bare. His partners wanted out and Ward, who still had his sales job, managed to buy them out of their small investments. The Panic of 1873 was sinking established traditional retailers, let alone his radical enterprise.
His business was ridiculed by the Chicago Tribune as a disreputable firm "hidden from public gaze with no merchandise displayed and reachable only through the post office." Under threat of a lawsuit the Tribune printed a retraction.
The retraction was added to the next flyer and sales increased.
About this time ready-made clothing began appearing. It was always believed that no two people had the same measurements and tailors were needed to make quality clothes. But the crunch for uniforms in the Civil War demonstrated that certain combinations of measurements could be standardized. Ward told his faraway customers - "Give your age and describe your general build and we will, nine times out of ten, give you a fit."
Ward, a short, stout man, wrote all the early copy. He always included a message in his catalogs, often educating the reader about buying and selling,
"It is best to make your order around $5. Shipping charges on small orders will eat up your savings. Consider joining a buying club with your neighbors."
Business began to grow rapidly as consumers came to trust Ward's unseen store. He bound his first catalog in 1874 and the book exploded to 72 pages in 1875. Ward began to worry he might become too big and took an ad in Farmers Voice just to reassure his customers he had not lost touch with their needs.
In 1893 Ward sold controlling interest to George R. Thorne who had come on as a partner late in 1873. Ward remained president but after awhile he even stopped attending board meetings. The last twenty years of his life were spent preserving the Chicago waterfront as a park for the people. He spent over $200,000 of his own monies to defending the public's right to open space.
His long-time efforts to prevent the erection of buildings along Lake Michigan won him the title of "The Watch Dog of the Lake Front." At one time there were 46 building projects planned in the park and he fought them all successfully, losing many influential friends along the way. Finally, just before his death in 1913 he won his final legal battle to forever keep the waterfront an open area.
The Tribune, no friend of Montgomery Ward, wrote,"We know now that Mr. Ward was right, was farsighted, was public spirited. That he was unjustly criticized as a selfish obstructionist or as a fanatic. Before he died, it is pleasant to think, Mr. Ward knew that the community had swung round to his side and was grateful for the service he had performed in spite of misunderstanding and injustice."
Marshall Field's
And the man behind the brand is...
Marshall Field
"The customer is always right!" History does not record exactly when, or even if, Marshall Field, the 19th century's wealthiest merchant, ordered that declaration but it exemplified his retailing philosophy and came to represent the American retailing credo. In an era of "caveat emptor" Field's stores emphasized full credit refunds for any reason whatsoever.
Marshall Field did not carry the stamp on greatness upon him in his early years. After Field achieved unprecedented success in Chicago his first employer remarked about Field's four years as a Pittsfield, Massachusetts clerk, "Well, I'd never thought it of him. He was about the greenest looking lad I ever saw when he came to work for me."
With $1000 saved from his Pittsfield job Field, a slender, handsome man of average height, went to join his brother in Chicago in 1856. His brother got him a clerk position in the largest wholesale drygoods house in Chicago. Field's salary was $400 a year. He slept on the premises and saved $200.
Field progressed rapidly and became a partner in 1860 at the age of 25.
Prices rose with the Civil War brewing and when the war ended Field bought into the store of Potter Palmer who introduced fashion to the rough frontier town of 50,000 that was Chicago in 1865.
Palmer soon concluded that his present Lake Street location did not hold as much promise as a State Street address. State Street was little more than a muddy ribbon flowing through rows of dilapidated shacks but Potter quietly acquired all the property on State Street. He built a street 100 feet in width, erected a 6-story building and opened his doors. State Street was on its way to becoming one of the great shopping streets in the world. Field and his partner Levi Leiter leased the new building.
In 1871 Field was turning over $8,000,000 of inventory each year when the Great Chicago Fire destroyed the city. Field's losses were over $3,500,000 and only $2,500,000 was insured. The firm was caught in the financial panic of 1873 and in 1877 the store again went to the ground in flames. Despite the setbacks of the 1870s the company not only survived but prospered.
In 1881 Field bought out Leiter for $2,000,000. Over the next 25 years sales tripled from 25million dollars to 73 million. Field stressed quality and would have nothing to do with shoddy merchandise. He believed in providing his customers with the most attractive facilities possible in which to shop.
Outside of retailing the merchant dabbled in railroads, real estate, banking and steel. He financed the Chicago Natural Museum of History with over ten million dollars. When Marshall Field died in 1906 his estate was estimated at $150 million. He was the largest taxpayer in the United States.
Marshall Field
"The customer is always right!" History does not record exactly when, or even if, Marshall Field, the 19th century's wealthiest merchant, ordered that declaration but it exemplified his retailing philosophy and came to represent the American retailing credo. In an era of "caveat emptor" Field's stores emphasized full credit refunds for any reason whatsoever.
Marshall Field did not carry the stamp on greatness upon him in his early years. After Field achieved unprecedented success in Chicago his first employer remarked about Field's four years as a Pittsfield, Massachusetts clerk, "Well, I'd never thought it of him. He was about the greenest looking lad I ever saw when he came to work for me."
With $1000 saved from his Pittsfield job Field, a slender, handsome man of average height, went to join his brother in Chicago in 1856. His brother got him a clerk position in the largest wholesale drygoods house in Chicago. Field's salary was $400 a year. He slept on the premises and saved $200.
Field progressed rapidly and became a partner in 1860 at the age of 25.
Prices rose with the Civil War brewing and when the war ended Field bought into the store of Potter Palmer who introduced fashion to the rough frontier town of 50,000 that was Chicago in 1865.
Palmer soon concluded that his present Lake Street location did not hold as much promise as a State Street address. State Street was little more than a muddy ribbon flowing through rows of dilapidated shacks but Potter quietly acquired all the property on State Street. He built a street 100 feet in width, erected a 6-story building and opened his doors. State Street was on its way to becoming one of the great shopping streets in the world. Field and his partner Levi Leiter leased the new building.
In 1871 Field was turning over $8,000,000 of inventory each year when the Great Chicago Fire destroyed the city. Field's losses were over $3,500,000 and only $2,500,000 was insured. The firm was caught in the financial panic of 1873 and in 1877 the store again went to the ground in flames. Despite the setbacks of the 1870s the company not only survived but prospered.
In 1881 Field bought out Leiter for $2,000,000. Over the next 25 years sales tripled from 25million dollars to 73 million. Field stressed quality and would have nothing to do with shoddy merchandise. He believed in providing his customers with the most attractive facilities possible in which to shop.
Outside of retailing the merchant dabbled in railroads, real estate, banking and steel. He financed the Chicago Natural Museum of History with over ten million dollars. When Marshall Field died in 1906 his estate was estimated at $150 million. He was the largest taxpayer in the United States.
Macy's
And the man behind the brand is...
Rowland Macy
Rowland Hussey Macy was born of Quaker stock on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts and like many young men was seized by the sea. He sailed at the age of 15 on the Emily Morgan, bound for Cape Horn and beyond. He spent four years sailing through the South Seas before returning to Massachusetts.
Although he was often called Captain Macy in later years he never again set to sea, save as a passenger.
Macy had no clear idea what to do after his sea adventures and for several years his trail is lost to history. He surfaced in the dry goods trade in Boston is 1844, his first of several marginally successful retail operations. In 1849 Macy headed for San Francisco in the Gold Rush, leaving behind his wife and family.
His success in the gold fields is unknown but by 1850 he was doing business in Marysville as Macy & Company but the merchant partnership was soon put up for public auction. We next find Macy back in Haverhill, Massachusetts operating a store offering a full line of dry goods in 1853. He was experimenting with many of the principles that would later become Macy staples: dealing only in cash, a single price policy and extensive advertising. But this venture failed also.
Macy tried brokering for a short while and then bolted to Superior City, Wisconsin in 1857 to engage in land speculation just as the boom shipping town was going bust. At the age of 35, struggling in the nation's heartland, it was hard to see how Rowland Macy had laid the foundation for creating the world's most famous department store.
Macy came to New York in 1858 and opened a small fancy goods store.
He chose a corner uptown from the main shopping district where several merchants before him had failed. As an adventurer from Boston veteran New York merchants conceded Macy would meet the same fate.
His tiny 20 foot by 60 foot store had counters running down both sides and through the middle leaving but two narrow aisles. Was the site selection foresight or simply the result of lack of funds? For years the location was no great advantage but slowly the New York trade moved away from the southern end of Manhattan towards Macy.
Three weeks after opening Macy was burglarized of over $1000 worth of goods and several months later a window fire cost him $2000 in losses. They were setbacks a merchant grossing $5 a day at the start could ill afford. For two years Macy's was only one of scores of similar stores struggling to survive when he offered a department of "French and German fancy goods": pocketbooks, handbags, frames, games and dolls.
Gradually Macy's store was becoming a department store, although there was no such appellation at the time. He had 22 distinct lines of goods and struggled with a suitable name for his business. He tried such cumbersome titles as "Macy's Grand Central Fancy Goods Establishment."
By whatever name Macy prospered. He advertised relentlessly and with great innovation. He was not afraid to use white space in the grey, copy-heavy papers of the time. He repeated words and used special eye-grabbing patterns with his headlines. Macy wrote his own copy in a personal anecdotal style rather than the formal tomes of his competition.
Macy continued his policies, first nurtured in Massachusetts, of dealing only in cash, offering his goods at the lowest prices possible and setting a single price for all. These tenets would become standard practices by department stores that would follow Macy's.
Macy pioneered many promotional selling tactics. He began using a five-point red star to identify his goods as early as 1862. He used clearance sales, free delivery and solicited mail orders. Macy introduced fractional and odd pricing to suggest bargains. His ads proclaimed that "Macy's will not be undersold."
The small original store expanded piecemeal until Macy had the ground space of 11 stores, employing over 400 people. Receipts had grown into the thousands each day. Macy, however, began to suffer the ill effect of constant attention to his business. In the 1870s he contracted Bright's disease of the kidneys.
He sailed to Europe for rest and medical treatment in 1877. Suspecting the gravity of his situation Macy had arranged his affairs so his partners could continue the business in the event of his death, which in fact came in Paris at the age of 55.
Rowland Macy
Rowland Hussey Macy was born of Quaker stock on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts and like many young men was seized by the sea. He sailed at the age of 15 on the Emily Morgan, bound for Cape Horn and beyond. He spent four years sailing through the South Seas before returning to Massachusetts.
Although he was often called Captain Macy in later years he never again set to sea, save as a passenger.
Macy had no clear idea what to do after his sea adventures and for several years his trail is lost to history. He surfaced in the dry goods trade in Boston is 1844, his first of several marginally successful retail operations. In 1849 Macy headed for San Francisco in the Gold Rush, leaving behind his wife and family.
His success in the gold fields is unknown but by 1850 he was doing business in Marysville as Macy & Company but the merchant partnership was soon put up for public auction. We next find Macy back in Haverhill, Massachusetts operating a store offering a full line of dry goods in 1853. He was experimenting with many of the principles that would later become Macy staples: dealing only in cash, a single price policy and extensive advertising. But this venture failed also.
Macy tried brokering for a short while and then bolted to Superior City, Wisconsin in 1857 to engage in land speculation just as the boom shipping town was going bust. At the age of 35, struggling in the nation's heartland, it was hard to see how Rowland Macy had laid the foundation for creating the world's most famous department store.
Macy came to New York in 1858 and opened a small fancy goods store.
He chose a corner uptown from the main shopping district where several merchants before him had failed. As an adventurer from Boston veteran New York merchants conceded Macy would meet the same fate.
His tiny 20 foot by 60 foot store had counters running down both sides and through the middle leaving but two narrow aisles. Was the site selection foresight or simply the result of lack of funds? For years the location was no great advantage but slowly the New York trade moved away from the southern end of Manhattan towards Macy.
Three weeks after opening Macy was burglarized of over $1000 worth of goods and several months later a window fire cost him $2000 in losses. They were setbacks a merchant grossing $5 a day at the start could ill afford. For two years Macy's was only one of scores of similar stores struggling to survive when he offered a department of "French and German fancy goods": pocketbooks, handbags, frames, games and dolls.
Gradually Macy's store was becoming a department store, although there was no such appellation at the time. He had 22 distinct lines of goods and struggled with a suitable name for his business. He tried such cumbersome titles as "Macy's Grand Central Fancy Goods Establishment."
By whatever name Macy prospered. He advertised relentlessly and with great innovation. He was not afraid to use white space in the grey, copy-heavy papers of the time. He repeated words and used special eye-grabbing patterns with his headlines. Macy wrote his own copy in a personal anecdotal style rather than the formal tomes of his competition.
Macy continued his policies, first nurtured in Massachusetts, of dealing only in cash, offering his goods at the lowest prices possible and setting a single price for all. These tenets would become standard practices by department stores that would follow Macy's.
Macy pioneered many promotional selling tactics. He began using a five-point red star to identify his goods as early as 1862. He used clearance sales, free delivery and solicited mail orders. Macy introduced fractional and odd pricing to suggest bargains. His ads proclaimed that "Macy's will not be undersold."
The small original store expanded piecemeal until Macy had the ground space of 11 stores, employing over 400 people. Receipts had grown into the thousands each day. Macy, however, began to suffer the ill effect of constant attention to his business. In the 1870s he contracted Bright's disease of the kidneys.
He sailed to Europe for rest and medical treatment in 1877. Suspecting the gravity of his situation Macy had arranged his affairs so his partners could continue the business in the event of his death, which in fact came in Paris at the age of 55.
Levitz
And the man behind the brand is...
Ralph Levitz
Pottstown, Pennsylvania seemed an unlikely spot for a revolution. Here, for more than a quarter-century Ralph and Leon Levitz operated two furniture stores that looked pretty much like their father’s store which opened in nearby Lebanon in 1910. In fact it looked pretty much like every one of the other 25,000 furniture stores across the country.
The Levitz family netted about $60,000 in a good year and had built a net worth of maybe $500,000. Each year they advertised a year-end clearance sale from their warehouse and customers came in drove. The rest of the year they made the occasional buck waiting for the year-end bonanza. What would happen with warehouse sales all year round?
The first Levitz warehouse store opened in Allentown in 1963. Immediately inside the door the customer was dwarfed by cartons stacked 20 feet high and spread over a warehouse the size of a football field. On the other side of the warehouse was a showroom with 250 model-room vignettes.
Selling brand name furniture without delivery charges, no decorating services, and a limited choice of fabrics the Levitzs were able to slash prices by 25%.
Also, the American population was becoming increasingly mobile and didn’t want to be tied to expensive furniture. The first wave of post World War II retirees were buying second homes and not looking to plow a fortune into furnishings.
The cash register never stopped ringing.
Ralph Levitz, a quiet, genial 58-year old conventional furniture retailer,
had stood the staid, sleepy furniture industry on its ear. Levitz wasted no time in spreading his “concept” of warehouse selling. He targeted 55 major markets, opening outlets near highway interchanges where land and rental costs were below prime downtown locations and near railroad sidings to keep delivery costs down.
In ten years Levitz sales ballooned to $175 million a year. The Levitz stock became the darling of Wall Street, exploding from $4 a share to $150. The family net worth jumped past $300 million. It was all a bit much for small town furniture retailers. In 1974 a professional manager was recruited as President and Chief Executive Officer to shepherd Levitz through its era of protracted expansion.
Ralph Levitz
Pottstown, Pennsylvania seemed an unlikely spot for a revolution. Here, for more than a quarter-century Ralph and Leon Levitz operated two furniture stores that looked pretty much like their father’s store which opened in nearby Lebanon in 1910. In fact it looked pretty much like every one of the other 25,000 furniture stores across the country.
The Levitz family netted about $60,000 in a good year and had built a net worth of maybe $500,000. Each year they advertised a year-end clearance sale from their warehouse and customers came in drove. The rest of the year they made the occasional buck waiting for the year-end bonanza. What would happen with warehouse sales all year round?
The first Levitz warehouse store opened in Allentown in 1963. Immediately inside the door the customer was dwarfed by cartons stacked 20 feet high and spread over a warehouse the size of a football field. On the other side of the warehouse was a showroom with 250 model-room vignettes.
Selling brand name furniture without delivery charges, no decorating services, and a limited choice of fabrics the Levitzs were able to slash prices by 25%.
Also, the American population was becoming increasingly mobile and didn’t want to be tied to expensive furniture. The first wave of post World War II retirees were buying second homes and not looking to plow a fortune into furnishings.
The cash register never stopped ringing.
Ralph Levitz, a quiet, genial 58-year old conventional furniture retailer,
had stood the staid, sleepy furniture industry on its ear. Levitz wasted no time in spreading his “concept” of warehouse selling. He targeted 55 major markets, opening outlets near highway interchanges where land and rental costs were below prime downtown locations and near railroad sidings to keep delivery costs down.
In ten years Levitz sales ballooned to $175 million a year. The Levitz stock became the darling of Wall Street, exploding from $4 a share to $150. The family net worth jumped past $300 million. It was all a bit much for small town furniture retailers. In 1974 a professional manager was recruited as President and Chief Executive Officer to shepherd Levitz through its era of protracted expansion.
Kroger's
One the man behind the brand is...
Bernard Kroger
When he was 13, in the Panic of 1873, Bernard Kroger’s German immigrant father’s Cincinnati dry goods store failed. Young Kroger was forced from school into the working world, securing a position as a drug store clerk. The wages were good but his mother couldn’t abide her son working on Sundays and made him quit.
Unable to find work in Cincinnati Kroger shipped away to a farm 30 miles northeast of town. He worked from 4:30 in the morning until nightfall before returning exhausted to his unheated loft on top of a shed. He soon contracted malaria but couldn’t stop working and surrender his $6 a month. Finally, after nine months with his weight down to 100 pounds, he gave up. Kroger walked the 30 miles back to Cincinnati to save the train fare.
Still ill, he applied the next day for work as a salesman for the great Northern and Pacific Tea Company. The owner was none too eager to take on the gaunt, shriveled figure standing before him. He didn’t look like he would last the week. But Kroger talked his way into a trial. He left with a sample case of sugar, coffee and tea.
Kroger was soon making a steady $7 a week in commission sales, more than he had ever earned. Times were good but he realized that sales were slowly slipping. Kroger investigated and discovered the store owner was cutting back on his quality. Kroger learned the lesson that was to guide him through the rest of his business career: “You can’t fool people on food.”
Now experienced Kroger had no difficulty in finding another sales position.
He landed with the Imperial Tea Company but the owners proved to be inept and Kroger was prepared to move on when he was offered managership of the store. He negotiated complete control and set out to implement his retailing theories: long hours, frugality, and quality for the price.
Eleven months later Kroger had the store operating at a profit but the owners would not meet his terms for continued employment. With no hesitation Kroger and a friend opened their own little store. The Great Western Tea Company greeted its first customer on July 1, 1883. But owning your own business isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.
Two week later Dan, his delivery horse, was killed and his wagonload of goods smashed in a railroad crossing accident. Then one of Kroger’s brothers died and he had to assume funeral expenses. A month later the Ohio River overflowed and flooded the store. Yet, by year’s end the store was established with not a debt outstanding.
Kroger bought out his partner for $1500 and by 1885 he was stocking four stores. He bought directly from producers and in bulk which allowed him to cut prices. When the country experienced a general business downturn in 1893 he bought more stores. In 1902 when he owned 40 stores and changed the business name to The Kroger Company & Baking Company.
Kroger had become the first grocery store to bake its own bread in 1901.
He was able to sell loaves of bread for 2 1/2¢ a loaf and still make a profit.
Other items Kroger wasn’t looking to make a profit on; he introduced the practice of loss leaders to the industry. When Kroger became the first store to combine groceries and meat he entered a drawn out battle with butchers in the community.
In 1908 Kroger celebrated 25 years in business. His 136 stores, all painted bright red inside and out, were beginning to become known outside the Cincinnati area. Kroger’s grocery business was booming but he was unable to transfer his success to other businesses. A newspaper venture failed and a foray into railroading was equally unsatisfying. At one point a Kroger train collided with a Kroger delivery truck. When he learned of the accident the boss railed, “There is just one spot in the whole United States where one of my damn railroad cars could hit one of my damn trucks and you fellows succeeded in finding it.”
Kroger met more success in banking when he founded the Provident Bank in Cincinnati. But nothing matched his grocery empire. Kroger established a great laboratory staffed with food experts and chemists to scrutinize every food item his stores sold. He had stores in more than 1000 communities in the midwest, thirteen bakeries, three packing plants, a candy factory and plants for roasting coffee and packing tea.
In 1928 Kroger sold his shares in the company for $28 million. His life became one of golf in the morning and cards in the afternoon. When the market crashed he bought much of his stock back but retired from business for good in 1932.
His last six years were devoted to philanthropic interests. When Bernard Kroger died in 1938 he operated 4,844 stores.
Bernard Kroger
When he was 13, in the Panic of 1873, Bernard Kroger’s German immigrant father’s Cincinnati dry goods store failed. Young Kroger was forced from school into the working world, securing a position as a drug store clerk. The wages were good but his mother couldn’t abide her son working on Sundays and made him quit.
Unable to find work in Cincinnati Kroger shipped away to a farm 30 miles northeast of town. He worked from 4:30 in the morning until nightfall before returning exhausted to his unheated loft on top of a shed. He soon contracted malaria but couldn’t stop working and surrender his $6 a month. Finally, after nine months with his weight down to 100 pounds, he gave up. Kroger walked the 30 miles back to Cincinnati to save the train fare.
Still ill, he applied the next day for work as a salesman for the great Northern and Pacific Tea Company. The owner was none too eager to take on the gaunt, shriveled figure standing before him. He didn’t look like he would last the week. But Kroger talked his way into a trial. He left with a sample case of sugar, coffee and tea.
Kroger was soon making a steady $7 a week in commission sales, more than he had ever earned. Times were good but he realized that sales were slowly slipping. Kroger investigated and discovered the store owner was cutting back on his quality. Kroger learned the lesson that was to guide him through the rest of his business career: “You can’t fool people on food.”
Now experienced Kroger had no difficulty in finding another sales position.
He landed with the Imperial Tea Company but the owners proved to be inept and Kroger was prepared to move on when he was offered managership of the store. He negotiated complete control and set out to implement his retailing theories: long hours, frugality, and quality for the price.
Eleven months later Kroger had the store operating at a profit but the owners would not meet his terms for continued employment. With no hesitation Kroger and a friend opened their own little store. The Great Western Tea Company greeted its first customer on July 1, 1883. But owning your own business isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.
Two week later Dan, his delivery horse, was killed and his wagonload of goods smashed in a railroad crossing accident. Then one of Kroger’s brothers died and he had to assume funeral expenses. A month later the Ohio River overflowed and flooded the store. Yet, by year’s end the store was established with not a debt outstanding.
Kroger bought out his partner for $1500 and by 1885 he was stocking four stores. He bought directly from producers and in bulk which allowed him to cut prices. When the country experienced a general business downturn in 1893 he bought more stores. In 1902 when he owned 40 stores and changed the business name to The Kroger Company & Baking Company.
Kroger had become the first grocery store to bake its own bread in 1901.
He was able to sell loaves of bread for 2 1/2¢ a loaf and still make a profit.
Other items Kroger wasn’t looking to make a profit on; he introduced the practice of loss leaders to the industry. When Kroger became the first store to combine groceries and meat he entered a drawn out battle with butchers in the community.
In 1908 Kroger celebrated 25 years in business. His 136 stores, all painted bright red inside and out, were beginning to become known outside the Cincinnati area. Kroger’s grocery business was booming but he was unable to transfer his success to other businesses. A newspaper venture failed and a foray into railroading was equally unsatisfying. At one point a Kroger train collided with a Kroger delivery truck. When he learned of the accident the boss railed, “There is just one spot in the whole United States where one of my damn railroad cars could hit one of my damn trucks and you fellows succeeded in finding it.”
Kroger met more success in banking when he founded the Provident Bank in Cincinnati. But nothing matched his grocery empire. Kroger established a great laboratory staffed with food experts and chemists to scrutinize every food item his stores sold. He had stores in more than 1000 communities in the midwest, thirteen bakeries, three packing plants, a candy factory and plants for roasting coffee and packing tea.
In 1928 Kroger sold his shares in the company for $28 million. His life became one of golf in the morning and cards in the afternoon. When the market crashed he bought much of his stock back but retired from business for good in 1932.
His last six years were devoted to philanthropic interests. When Bernard Kroger died in 1938 he operated 4,844 stores.
Kresge's
And the man behind the brand is...
Sebastian Kresge
Sebastian Spering Kresge's first business enterprise was a single hive of bees he nursed into a colony of 32 hives as a young boy. He would keep bees as an adult hobby because, he said, "My bees always remind me that hard work, thrift, sobriety and earnest struggle to live an upright Christian life are the rungs of the ladder of success."
The profits from his hives helped finance his schooling at the Eastman Business College in Poughkeepsie, New York. What he couldn't pay for he borrowed from his father with a bargain that he would give his father all his earnings, save board and clothing, until he was 21.
At 19 he worked one year as a country school teacher for $22 a month but was anxious to get underway in business and began clerking in a Scranton grocery store in 1889. With his obligation met at age 21 Kresge began exploring the business field working in door-to-door selling, insurance, bookkeeping, and baking before settling into the sale of tinware for five years on straight commission.
One of his customers was F.W. Woolworth who impressed Kresge with the size and efficiency of his cash-only business. Kresge attempted to join Woolworth's
5¢ & 10¢ business in 1896 but was not successful. He entered into other retailing partnerships with $8000 he had carefully saved, working in stores in Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Michigan.
By 1899 he was on his own in Detroit. Kresge put a large number of items on open counters where they could be examined and appraised. The slogan over his door said it all: "Nothing over 10 cents." Immediately Kresge set about to build a chain of 5 & 10s.
He had an uncanny knack for site location and saw each new store as a personal challenge. His stores were in heavily trafficked areas and appealed to bargain hunters. By 1916 he had 150 Kresge 5 &10 stores.
With inflation after World War I the heyday of the 5 & 10 came to an end.
As a result Kresge started "Green Front Stores" in 1920 which featured goods from 25¢ to $1.00 to distinguish them from his Red Front 5 &10s. Both concepts prospered.
Kresge retired as president in 1925 devoting much of his time to the Kresge foundation which he endowed with $1,300,000 in cash and $65,000,000 in securities. Kresge was extremely generous with employees and associates but never learned to spend money on himself. His personal frugality was legendary. His stinginess was cited as a complaint in two messy, highly publicized divorces.
He used a pair of shoes until they were completely worn out - and then lined them with paper. His inexpensive plain suits lasted until the last thread. One of his rare indulgences was an air-cooled Franklin motor car which according to a close associate, "he ran until the wheels fell off." At age 58 some friends persuaded him to take up golf but he gave up the sport after three rounds because, he said, he could not afford to lose a golf ball.
After his retirement as president he remained active in company affairs as Chairman of the Board, a post he retained until the age of 98 when the company had grown to include 670 Kresge variety stores, 150 K-Mart department stores and 110 Jupiter discount stores. He died in 1966, within sight of his birthplace in Mountainhome, Pennsylvania where his Swiss ancestors settled in 1765, at the age of 99. He lived to within one year of his mother, whose picture he displayed in every Kresge store until she died in 1940 at the age of 100.
Sebastian Kresge
Sebastian Spering Kresge's first business enterprise was a single hive of bees he nursed into a colony of 32 hives as a young boy. He would keep bees as an adult hobby because, he said, "My bees always remind me that hard work, thrift, sobriety and earnest struggle to live an upright Christian life are the rungs of the ladder of success."
The profits from his hives helped finance his schooling at the Eastman Business College in Poughkeepsie, New York. What he couldn't pay for he borrowed from his father with a bargain that he would give his father all his earnings, save board and clothing, until he was 21.
At 19 he worked one year as a country school teacher for $22 a month but was anxious to get underway in business and began clerking in a Scranton grocery store in 1889. With his obligation met at age 21 Kresge began exploring the business field working in door-to-door selling, insurance, bookkeeping, and baking before settling into the sale of tinware for five years on straight commission.
One of his customers was F.W. Woolworth who impressed Kresge with the size and efficiency of his cash-only business. Kresge attempted to join Woolworth's
5¢ & 10¢ business in 1896 but was not successful. He entered into other retailing partnerships with $8000 he had carefully saved, working in stores in Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Michigan.
By 1899 he was on his own in Detroit. Kresge put a large number of items on open counters where they could be examined and appraised. The slogan over his door said it all: "Nothing over 10 cents." Immediately Kresge set about to build a chain of 5 & 10s.
He had an uncanny knack for site location and saw each new store as a personal challenge. His stores were in heavily trafficked areas and appealed to bargain hunters. By 1916 he had 150 Kresge 5 &10 stores.
With inflation after World War I the heyday of the 5 & 10 came to an end.
As a result Kresge started "Green Front Stores" in 1920 which featured goods from 25¢ to $1.00 to distinguish them from his Red Front 5 &10s. Both concepts prospered.
Kresge retired as president in 1925 devoting much of his time to the Kresge foundation which he endowed with $1,300,000 in cash and $65,000,000 in securities. Kresge was extremely generous with employees and associates but never learned to spend money on himself. His personal frugality was legendary. His stinginess was cited as a complaint in two messy, highly publicized divorces.
He used a pair of shoes until they were completely worn out - and then lined them with paper. His inexpensive plain suits lasted until the last thread. One of his rare indulgences was an air-cooled Franklin motor car which according to a close associate, "he ran until the wheels fell off." At age 58 some friends persuaded him to take up golf but he gave up the sport after three rounds because, he said, he could not afford to lose a golf ball.
After his retirement as president he remained active in company affairs as Chairman of the Board, a post he retained until the age of 98 when the company had grown to include 670 Kresge variety stores, 150 K-Mart department stores and 110 Jupiter discount stores. He died in 1966, within sight of his birthplace in Mountainhome, Pennsylvania where his Swiss ancestors settled in 1765, at the age of 99. He lived to within one year of his mother, whose picture he displayed in every Kresge store until she died in 1940 at the age of 100.
February 10, 2007
Hudsons
And the man behind the brand is...
Joseph Hudson
Aristede Bouciaut is credited with opening the first department store in Paris in 1852. Until that time the prevailing retail philosophy was to turn stock slowly and mark prices high. A merchant never marked a price on an item, all transactions were haggled to a conclusion.
Bouciaut changed all that. He operated under a completely opposite philosophy. He was the first to establish marked, fixed prices which allowed him to start price advertising. Until Bouciault came along there was an implied obligation to buy when a customer entered a store. Bouciaut introduced the "free" entrance. He also pioneered the refund on unsatisfactory merchandise.
All these were new ideas when Joseph Lowthian Hudson arrived in Michigan at the age of 15 to begin a five-year merchant apprenticeship. Hudson was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne in industrial England and came with his family to Hamilton, Ontario in 1855. His father followed the new telegraph trade to Michigan as the Civil War broke out in 1861.
After his apprenticeship Hudson opened a small general store in Ionia, Michigan in 1866. The business flourished but expanded too quickly and filed bankruptcy. Hudson was legally obligated to pay only 60¢ on the dollar but his sense of pride and integrity would not accept the settlement. He paid back every creditor in full - plus the compound interest on the debts. This earned Hudson an unlimited line of credit for the rest of his life.
In 1877 Hudson went to Detroit to manage a men's and boy's store owned by his mentor. It was not a true department store but he was moving in that direction. Against the advice of friends Hudson invested $110,000 of his own money and $242,000 of borrowed money to build an 8-story store in downtown Detroit. Critics warned that the mega-store was too far from the commercial district but Hudson made it so attractive and value-packed that people came to shop.
In an era of economic uncertainty sales didn't increased for 13 years. Hudson was sustained during this period by smaller stores in other states. Good times returned in 1905 and Hudson quickly grew into Detroit's wealthiest merchant.
His merchandise was always of the finest quality, durability and value.
He was extremely giving to charities with his fortune and always enjoyed going
into the community and begging for anything he considered a worthy cause.
In 1912 Hudson desired to return to his homeland one more time and sailed to England. He never returned, dying in Worthing, England at the age of 66.
Joseph Hudson
Aristede Bouciaut is credited with opening the first department store in Paris in 1852. Until that time the prevailing retail philosophy was to turn stock slowly and mark prices high. A merchant never marked a price on an item, all transactions were haggled to a conclusion.
Bouciaut changed all that. He operated under a completely opposite philosophy. He was the first to establish marked, fixed prices which allowed him to start price advertising. Until Bouciault came along there was an implied obligation to buy when a customer entered a store. Bouciaut introduced the "free" entrance. He also pioneered the refund on unsatisfactory merchandise.
All these were new ideas when Joseph Lowthian Hudson arrived in Michigan at the age of 15 to begin a five-year merchant apprenticeship. Hudson was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne in industrial England and came with his family to Hamilton, Ontario in 1855. His father followed the new telegraph trade to Michigan as the Civil War broke out in 1861.
After his apprenticeship Hudson opened a small general store in Ionia, Michigan in 1866. The business flourished but expanded too quickly and filed bankruptcy. Hudson was legally obligated to pay only 60¢ on the dollar but his sense of pride and integrity would not accept the settlement. He paid back every creditor in full - plus the compound interest on the debts. This earned Hudson an unlimited line of credit for the rest of his life.
In 1877 Hudson went to Detroit to manage a men's and boy's store owned by his mentor. It was not a true department store but he was moving in that direction. Against the advice of friends Hudson invested $110,000 of his own money and $242,000 of borrowed money to build an 8-story store in downtown Detroit. Critics warned that the mega-store was too far from the commercial district but Hudson made it so attractive and value-packed that people came to shop.
In an era of economic uncertainty sales didn't increased for 13 years. Hudson was sustained during this period by smaller stores in other states. Good times returned in 1905 and Hudson quickly grew into Detroit's wealthiest merchant.
His merchandise was always of the finest quality, durability and value.
He was extremely giving to charities with his fortune and always enjoyed going
into the community and begging for anything he considered a worthy cause.
In 1912 Hudson desired to return to his homeland one more time and sailed to England. He never returned, dying in Worthing, England at the age of 66.
Hallmark
And the man behind the brand is...
Joyce Hall
“I’d like to be the kind of friend you are to me.” Those words, from Edgar Guest, were the first to ever appear on a Hallmark card, in 1916. In the 19th century it was simply too expensive to pay a messenger to deliver sentiments on paper and the thought of sending someone else’s words was simply preposterous. Today more than one-half of all the personal mail delivered in the United States is greeting cards, about seven billion a year. And ten million cards sent each day bear the mark of the man who changed the holiday calendar in America: Joyce Hall.
Hall was born in David City, Nebraska where his father abandoned the family when Joyce was nine. At the age of 15 he was working in a bookstore in Norfolk, Nebraska where his favorite merchandise were not the impressive new books but the intriguing picture postcards the store stocked from Europe. In January 1910 Hall moved to a room in the YMCA in Kansas City (there is even a postcard of the YMCA in Hall’s autobiography).
The next year his brother Rollie joined him in opening a specialty store for postcards, gifts and stationery. The boys were prospering until a fire in 1915 burned away their business. The promise shown by the young men was enough to land a $25,000 loan to rebuild the store and purchase a neighboring engraving firm. The first two Hall cards appeared in 1915. They were unfolded, a little smaller than a postcard, and decoratively handpainted.
Gradually the Halls built a business around gifts. During Christmastime in 1917 Joyce Hall was running out of red and green tissue paper and substituted decorative envelope lining paper. Gift wrap and greeting cards were empire-builders for Hall but no all his innovations were hits. In 1924 he introduced “Greetaphones,” flat cards with records containing an 8-line sentiment with a musical background which no steel needle could decipher when played.
Greeting cards became extravagances of the first order during the Depression in the 1930s but Hall refused to lay off any employees. In 1936 he revolutionized the greeting card business with the introduction of lighted, eye-level display cases featuring rows and rows of cards. Prior to that greeting cards were purchased by asking a clerk who would select an appropriate card.
The British invented the Christmas card but it was the rare greeting that was sent at any other time of year. In America, however, there seemed hardly any occasion that wasn’t worthy of a greeting card. Hall stoked the passions for greeting cards with the first advertising in national magazines in 1928 and by 1944 all his radio commercials were trailed by the unforgettable, “When you care enough to send the very best.” Hall had at first rejected the tag line, written by staffer Ed Goodman, as too long but it soon came to symbolize his entire philosophy.
He started a Hallmark Gallery on New York’s Upper Fifth Avenue as an elegant showcase for Hallmark products and sponsored high-quality television specials - he even aired an opera - as early as 1951. These critically acclaimed ventures were not financially successful but the reputation Hall developed was priceless. When he wanted to feature some of Winston Churchill’s paintings on greeting cards Churchill agreed when told it was for Hallmark. “A good firm,” he said.
Hall retired in 1966 but still maintained a busy work schedule. He spearheaded the conversion of 85 ruined acres, 25 blocks, on the southern edge of Kansas City into the stunning Crown Center. Work was still underway on his last project when he died in 1982 but the new Hallmark headquarters when finished embodied the credo he always lived for, “Good taste is good business.”
Joyce Hall
“I’d like to be the kind of friend you are to me.” Those words, from Edgar Guest, were the first to ever appear on a Hallmark card, in 1916. In the 19th century it was simply too expensive to pay a messenger to deliver sentiments on paper and the thought of sending someone else’s words was simply preposterous. Today more than one-half of all the personal mail delivered in the United States is greeting cards, about seven billion a year. And ten million cards sent each day bear the mark of the man who changed the holiday calendar in America: Joyce Hall.
Hall was born in David City, Nebraska where his father abandoned the family when Joyce was nine. At the age of 15 he was working in a bookstore in Norfolk, Nebraska where his favorite merchandise were not the impressive new books but the intriguing picture postcards the store stocked from Europe. In January 1910 Hall moved to a room in the YMCA in Kansas City (there is even a postcard of the YMCA in Hall’s autobiography).
The next year his brother Rollie joined him in opening a specialty store for postcards, gifts and stationery. The boys were prospering until a fire in 1915 burned away their business. The promise shown by the young men was enough to land a $25,000 loan to rebuild the store and purchase a neighboring engraving firm. The first two Hall cards appeared in 1915. They were unfolded, a little smaller than a postcard, and decoratively handpainted.
Gradually the Halls built a business around gifts. During Christmastime in 1917 Joyce Hall was running out of red and green tissue paper and substituted decorative envelope lining paper. Gift wrap and greeting cards were empire-builders for Hall but no all his innovations were hits. In 1924 he introduced “Greetaphones,” flat cards with records containing an 8-line sentiment with a musical background which no steel needle could decipher when played.
Greeting cards became extravagances of the first order during the Depression in the 1930s but Hall refused to lay off any employees. In 1936 he revolutionized the greeting card business with the introduction of lighted, eye-level display cases featuring rows and rows of cards. Prior to that greeting cards were purchased by asking a clerk who would select an appropriate card.
The British invented the Christmas card but it was the rare greeting that was sent at any other time of year. In America, however, there seemed hardly any occasion that wasn’t worthy of a greeting card. Hall stoked the passions for greeting cards with the first advertising in national magazines in 1928 and by 1944 all his radio commercials were trailed by the unforgettable, “When you care enough to send the very best.” Hall had at first rejected the tag line, written by staffer Ed Goodman, as too long but it soon came to symbolize his entire philosophy.
He started a Hallmark Gallery on New York’s Upper Fifth Avenue as an elegant showcase for Hallmark products and sponsored high-quality television specials - he even aired an opera - as early as 1951. These critically acclaimed ventures were not financially successful but the reputation Hall developed was priceless. When he wanted to feature some of Winston Churchill’s paintings on greeting cards Churchill agreed when told it was for Hallmark. “A good firm,” he said.
Hall retired in 1966 but still maintained a busy work schedule. He spearheaded the conversion of 85 ruined acres, 25 blocks, on the southern edge of Kansas City into the stunning Crown Center. Work was still underway on his last project when he died in 1982 but the new Hallmark headquarters when finished embodied the credo he always lived for, “Good taste is good business.”
Eckerds
And the man behind the brand is...
Jack Eckerd
Jack Eckerd was never one for waiting around. It was a trait that was to mold his business career and alter American’s shopping habits.
As a 19-year old in 1932 Eckerd set out to be a barnstorming pilot around Erie, Pennsylvania. He convinced his father to buy an airplane so he could fly him around to his small chain of drugstores. After two years he flew to California for
a one-year course in commercial aviation. But waiting around for a pilot opening was not for him and Eckerd went east to the drugstore business.
He bought a quarter-interest in two Wilmington, Delaware drugstores but World War II interrupted his blossoming retail career. Eckerd spent the war in the Air Transport Command delivering planes from Wilmington to Prestwick, Scotland. After the war he bought both stores outright.
In 1948 Eckerd bought two dilapidated drugstores from his father in Jamestown, New York. He didn’t plan to just rebuild the tired stores. Eckerd had investigated self-service in California and was ready to try the no-waiting concept in his new stores. Customers were thought to want to rely on a druggist’s help but Eckerd anticipated the over-the-counter explosion with open access to goods.
When his small chain reached Erie Eckerd was forced to call his self-service drugstore QuikCheck to avoid confusion with his father’s stores. The new store was a phenomenal success but people still confused newspaper ads with the conventional Eckerds’ stores. Jack Eckerd didn’t want to change the name so he started considering a totally new market.
On a dreary March day in 1952 in his Wilmington office a direct mailing arrived from a Tampa druggist offering three stores for sale. The gray skies outside were excuse enough to fly to Florida and check out the properties. He raised $150,000 in cash, in part from his brother in exchange for 50% of the new stores and his Jamestown stores.
It took two years for the Florida stores to break into the black and after six years only three stores were added when he was offered a chance to build 5 stores with Publix, the leading Florida grocery chain. This twinning of drugstores to supermarkets ignited Eckerd’s growth. Eckerd built his chain to 1700 stored from Florida to New Jersey.
Jack Eckerd spent the 1960s building his business and in the 1970s, dissatisfied with Florida government, he entered the state gubernatorial race. Despite never running for anything in his life Eckerd forced a run-off with the incumbent governor before losing. He lost a race for a United States Senate seat in 1974 and another bid for governor but went to Washington and served as administrator of the General Services Administration under Gerald Ford. After his flirtation with politics, Eckerd retired, devoting his time to Christian charities and sailing.
Jack Eckerd
Jack Eckerd was never one for waiting around. It was a trait that was to mold his business career and alter American’s shopping habits.
As a 19-year old in 1932 Eckerd set out to be a barnstorming pilot around Erie, Pennsylvania. He convinced his father to buy an airplane so he could fly him around to his small chain of drugstores. After two years he flew to California for
a one-year course in commercial aviation. But waiting around for a pilot opening was not for him and Eckerd went east to the drugstore business.
He bought a quarter-interest in two Wilmington, Delaware drugstores but World War II interrupted his blossoming retail career. Eckerd spent the war in the Air Transport Command delivering planes from Wilmington to Prestwick, Scotland. After the war he bought both stores outright.
In 1948 Eckerd bought two dilapidated drugstores from his father in Jamestown, New York. He didn’t plan to just rebuild the tired stores. Eckerd had investigated self-service in California and was ready to try the no-waiting concept in his new stores. Customers were thought to want to rely on a druggist’s help but Eckerd anticipated the over-the-counter explosion with open access to goods.
When his small chain reached Erie Eckerd was forced to call his self-service drugstore QuikCheck to avoid confusion with his father’s stores. The new store was a phenomenal success but people still confused newspaper ads with the conventional Eckerds’ stores. Jack Eckerd didn’t want to change the name so he started considering a totally new market.
On a dreary March day in 1952 in his Wilmington office a direct mailing arrived from a Tampa druggist offering three stores for sale. The gray skies outside were excuse enough to fly to Florida and check out the properties. He raised $150,000 in cash, in part from his brother in exchange for 50% of the new stores and his Jamestown stores.
It took two years for the Florida stores to break into the black and after six years only three stores were added when he was offered a chance to build 5 stores with Publix, the leading Florida grocery chain. This twinning of drugstores to supermarkets ignited Eckerd’s growth. Eckerd built his chain to 1700 stored from Florida to New Jersey.
Jack Eckerd spent the 1960s building his business and in the 1970s, dissatisfied with Florida government, he entered the state gubernatorial race. Despite never running for anything in his life Eckerd forced a run-off with the incumbent governor before losing. He lost a race for a United States Senate seat in 1974 and another bid for governor but went to Washington and served as administrator of the General Services Administration under Gerald Ford. After his flirtation with politics, Eckerd retired, devoting his time to Christian charities and sailing.
Bloomingdales
And the man behind the brand is...
Lyman Bloomingdale
Lyman Bloomingdale loved store windows. He rented his first store, with his brother Joseph, in 1872 far from fashionable Union Square in New York's depressed upper East Side. The building was only 20 feet wide by 70 feet deep but it had two large, perfect plate glass windows.
Lyman set out to create exciting showcases in his windows while Joseph looked after the books. He believed that storefront windows were wasted if all they did was show merchandise. Bloomingdale's windows would be silent stages with eye-catching panoramas to lure curious customers inside.
Bloomingdale saw more in his location than attractive windows. He knew the city of New York had purchased a huge tract of land on the East Side and was developing a fresh, green haven to be called Central Park. New Yorkers would soon migrate to his location at the future park's southern tip Bloomingdale figured.
The Bloomingdale family had a history of being on the cutting edge in New York. With his father, Lyman had operated Bloomingdale's Hoop Skirt and Ladies Notion Shop to keep New York women in step with high European fashion prior to the Civil War. Joseph was a successful traveling salesman, taking hoop skirts as far as California.
First day sales were only $3.68. But one month later the brothers knocked down the storeroom partition to provide more selling room. The Panic of 1873 caused a shift in merchandising philosophy to the best value at the lowest prices. Lyman Bloomingdale created the 19th Ward Gazette, a free paper that supplemented his regular advertisements. The paper provided light news and features in depressed times, binding the store to the community.
Meanwhile New Yorkers migrated towards Central Park. Railroads developed and soon Bloomingdale's marked the epicenter of Manhattan's web of mass transit routes. Lyman set out to let the world know that "All cars transfer to Bloomingdale's." He placed the phrase on placards in New York's trolleys,
in his ads and on his horse drawn delivery cars. A patron of the arts, he commissioned scenic European paintings on his exterior store walls.
By 1880 Bloomingdale's had grown into a five-story building - a department store with plenty of show windows. Lyman took out full page newspaper ads to draw people into the store. Once inside employees demonstrated new products. He had a young woman read from popular books of the day in the book department. He installed New York's first neon arc lights, fascinating shoppers.
The brothers built their grandest building in 1886 at 3rd Avenue and 59th Street. The new store was six stories high with 245 feet of street space for window shoppers. The first story was an impressive 18 feet high to better show off Lyman's displays. He used glass elevators he called "sky carriages" to transport customers throughout the magnificent store.
In 1892 Lyman installed his first escalator, a dream machine seemingly invented for him. It was not only a fantastic attention-getter but gave people a slow, panoramic ride on their individual platforms gazing at his merchandise. Lyman invested in the escalator company.
Bloomingdale's continued catering to lower middle class patrons but started importing fine European goods for society-conscious Americans. The brothers opened offices in Paris, Berlin and Vienna to provide exclusive continental goods for Bloomingdale's.
Sales boomed. Rather than build another building Lyman and Joseph bought adjacent buildings until they owned 80% of the block. Joseph retired from the business on New Years Day 1896 while Lyman continued as sole proprietor until his death in 1905 at the age of 64. Joseph had died a year earlier at age 62. Lyman's son Sam carried on the $5,000,000 business built on its exciting store windows.
Lyman Bloomingdale
Lyman Bloomingdale loved store windows. He rented his first store, with his brother Joseph, in 1872 far from fashionable Union Square in New York's depressed upper East Side. The building was only 20 feet wide by 70 feet deep but it had two large, perfect plate glass windows.
Lyman set out to create exciting showcases in his windows while Joseph looked after the books. He believed that storefront windows were wasted if all they did was show merchandise. Bloomingdale's windows would be silent stages with eye-catching panoramas to lure curious customers inside.
Bloomingdale saw more in his location than attractive windows. He knew the city of New York had purchased a huge tract of land on the East Side and was developing a fresh, green haven to be called Central Park. New Yorkers would soon migrate to his location at the future park's southern tip Bloomingdale figured.
The Bloomingdale family had a history of being on the cutting edge in New York. With his father, Lyman had operated Bloomingdale's Hoop Skirt and Ladies Notion Shop to keep New York women in step with high European fashion prior to the Civil War. Joseph was a successful traveling salesman, taking hoop skirts as far as California.
First day sales were only $3.68. But one month later the brothers knocked down the storeroom partition to provide more selling room. The Panic of 1873 caused a shift in merchandising philosophy to the best value at the lowest prices. Lyman Bloomingdale created the 19th Ward Gazette, a free paper that supplemented his regular advertisements. The paper provided light news and features in depressed times, binding the store to the community.
Meanwhile New Yorkers migrated towards Central Park. Railroads developed and soon Bloomingdale's marked the epicenter of Manhattan's web of mass transit routes. Lyman set out to let the world know that "All cars transfer to Bloomingdale's." He placed the phrase on placards in New York's trolleys,
in his ads and on his horse drawn delivery cars. A patron of the arts, he commissioned scenic European paintings on his exterior store walls.
By 1880 Bloomingdale's had grown into a five-story building - a department store with plenty of show windows. Lyman took out full page newspaper ads to draw people into the store. Once inside employees demonstrated new products. He had a young woman read from popular books of the day in the book department. He installed New York's first neon arc lights, fascinating shoppers.
The brothers built their grandest building in 1886 at 3rd Avenue and 59th Street. The new store was six stories high with 245 feet of street space for window shoppers. The first story was an impressive 18 feet high to better show off Lyman's displays. He used glass elevators he called "sky carriages" to transport customers throughout the magnificent store.
In 1892 Lyman installed his first escalator, a dream machine seemingly invented for him. It was not only a fantastic attention-getter but gave people a slow, panoramic ride on their individual platforms gazing at his merchandise. Lyman invested in the escalator company.
Bloomingdale's continued catering to lower middle class patrons but started importing fine European goods for society-conscious Americans. The brothers opened offices in Paris, Berlin and Vienna to provide exclusive continental goods for Bloomingdale's.
Sales boomed. Rather than build another building Lyman and Joseph bought adjacent buildings until they owned 80% of the block. Joseph retired from the business on New Years Day 1896 while Lyman continued as sole proprietor until his death in 1905 at the age of 64. Joseph had died a year earlier at age 62. Lyman's son Sam carried on the $5,000,000 business built on its exciting store windows.
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