Wanamaker
NAME:
Wanamaker’s Stores
ALTERNATIVE NAME:
None
LANGUAGE:
English
TIME:
1861 on
LOCATION:
USA
CATEGORY:
Shop
DISCIPLINE:
Merchandising, advertising
SHORT DESCRIPTION:
One of the earliest large department stores
DESCRIPTION:
The first Wanamaker store was opened in Philadelphia on 8 April 1861 by John Wanamaker and his partner Nathan Brown. It was named “Oak Hall” and sold men’s and boys’ clothing. The staff consisted of two cutters, who also served as salesman, and one errand boy. The Civil War had just begun and three months after opening the store, they were helping to equip soldiers for the front.
From the moment they opened, Wanamaker’s store was a pioneering business. They made cash payments on the spot to the workers who made the clothes, and in the first winter of trading, they held sales to move stocks. This let them take in new lines from merchants and attract more custom.
In 1862 they introduced shorter days for their workers. Three years later Wanamaker’s took their most significant and controversial step when they announced there was just one price for their goods. Normal practice involved bargaining to achieve a compromise between the selling price and the buying price of goods.
Wanamaker’s set a fair price, and declared that customers could return unsatisfactory goods and would get their money back. The idea of just one price was ridiculed by other merchants and many of the customers refused to believe it. However, it soon caught on and business boomed.
In 1868 Nathan Brown died and in 1869 Wanamaker extended his premises. He employed the advertising agency N W Ayer, run by <hired> FW Ayer*, to advertise his business and his shop became known all over the country.
By the early 1870’s it was the largest clothing shop in the country and was visited by people from every state. In 1871 Wanamaker’s supplied and delivered goods for the victims of the Chicago fire. In 1874 Wanamaker announced a full guarantee for all purchases.
In the same year, he brought an old freight depot in Philadelphia on which to build a new store. Before beginning construction, Wanamaker, who was a religious man, allowed the evangelists Dwight L Moody and Ira D Sankey to hold their first revivalist meetings there in November 1875. His new store, which he called the Grand Depot, was influenced by stores such as Bon Marche in Paris which Wanamaker had studied on his travels in Europe.
It opened on 6 May 1876 and was presented to fit in with the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia was held that year. Flags flew from towers on the building, the name John Wanamaker was written full length on the side of the building and some of the machines seen in the Exhibition, such as a steam cutter for material, were in use at the Grand Depot. It covered two acres and had six different departments for men’s and boys’ outfitters. In the cutting, sewing and trimming rooms, customers were able to see how their clothes were made and put in special orders.
By the end of the year, over seven hundred staff were working at the Grand Depot and a mail order bureau was installed in a small room. Wanamaker wanted to capitalize on the business brought in by the Exhibition and declared that he was going to establish a general store in which would be assembled the “the world’s best products upon the most intelligent and economical basis”.
In March 1877, what was billed as a New Kind of Store opened on the same premises with new merchandizing methods in place. Wanamaker likened his store to a giant wheel. In centre of the building was a circular counter with a 90 ft circumference for the sale of silks from which radiated long aisles intersected by other aisles.
The counters in the aisles were laden with goods and manned by shop assistants. There were fitting rooms, parlours, retiring rooms, and a special room lit by only by gaslight for the sale of silks for making evening dresses. In the department selling mourning clothes, a hole was cut in the ceiling to let daylight through so that the shade of black could be studied in natural light.
Seventy thousand people attended the opening day and within a month the President of the United States, Ulysses S. <visited by> Grant*, called in and was kitted out for his upcoming travels in Europe. Merchants and curious visitors such as the writer <visited by> Nathaniel Hawthorne*, came from all over the country.
Wanamaker bought an adjoining store which he demolished to make an arcade tiled with marble and lit by stained glass skylights that formed a suitably impressive entrance to his store. In October 1877, women’s wear from Paris and Berlin was on sale, the first time Paris fashions had been featured in the US in a large way. There were mid-winter sales, white sales and summer sales.
In 1878, Wanamaker’s became the first store to be lit by electricity when 28 arc lamps of 3,000 candlepower each (invented by <used lights by> Davy*) were installed. Wanamaker later visited <used lights by> Edison* who had exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition and Edison’s lighting system eventually replaced the arc lamps. Wanamaker also installed cash carriers, cash registers, and vacuum cleaners. A children’s department was added and china was added to the sales stock. There were free lectures on cookery and playrooms for children.
By 1882 Wanamaker’s employed three thousand people and the range of goods included all clothing for men, women and children, books, upholstery, furniture, carpets, rubber goods, silverware, china, travel goods, jewellry, saddlery, harnesses, toys, artist’s materials, and travel goods. The store was hung with paintings, and equipped with elevators and ventilating fans.
Wanamaker’s were the first US store to send store boys regularly to camp every summer, and to give staff a half-day free on Saturday and paid summer vacations. By 1885, the store had become known as Wanamaker’s instead of the Grand Depot
In 1893, the year of the World Fair in Chicago, Wanamaker’s created a mini world fair within the store with exhibits later shown at the Chicago Exposition. In 1896 Wanamaker established the John Wanamaker Commercial Institute and established a library for store staff. In 1898 the store supplied the heavy white cotton used for marine corps uniforms and any Wanamaker employee who left to fight in Cuba had his job kept open for him.
When the store began selling pianos in 1899 they also gave vocal and instrumental training. In 1905, they became the first in the world to install a continuous twenty-four hour telephone service for mail orders. In 1907, a Wanamaker’s was opened in New York.
The New York store closed in 1954.
ONELINER: Wanamaker's, ground-breaking store
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Appel, Joseph H, The Business Biography of John Wanamaker, Macmillan Company, New York, 1930
Wanamaker Stores, Golden Book of the Wanamaker Stores, 1861-1911, John Wanamaker, 1911