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Alexander Turney Stewart and the Development of the Department Store, 1823-1876

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Harry E. Resseguie
Harry E. Resseguie
Affiliation:
Millerton, New York
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Abstract

In detailing the business practices of an important 19th-century retailer, Mr. Resseguie contributes new material to the history of marketing.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1965 , pp. 301 - 322
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1965

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References

1 Pasdermadjian, Hrant, The Department Store: Its Origins, Evolution, and Economics (London, 1954), pp. 3–4Google Scholar;Nystrom, Paul H., The Economics of Retailing (New York, 1917), p. 97.Google Scholar

2 Hower, Ralph M., History of Macy's of New York, 1858–1919 (Cambridge, Mass., 1943), p. 100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Crissey, Forrest, Since Forty Years Ago (Chicago, 1915).Google Scholar

4 Appel, Joseph H., The Business Biography of John Wanamaker, Founder and Builder (New York, 1930), p. 101.Google Scholar

5 Pasdermadjian, Department Store, p. 1.

6 Filene, Edward A., Next Steps Forward in Retailing (Boston, 1937), p. 167.Google Scholar

7 Pasdermadjian, Department Store, pp. 3–23.

8 Hower, Macy's, pp. 48–54, 69–70.

9 Nystrom, Retailing, pp. 199–217.

10 Although Crissey's brief and incomplete sketch of The Fair is not comparable to the detailed works of Pasdermadjian, Hower, and Nystrom, it has been used in this study because it is still the most comprehensive discussion of this great Chicago store, frequently credited — incorrectly — with having been the first American department store.

11 Hower, Macy's, pp. 69–70.

12 Resseguie, Harry E., “A. T. Stewart's Marble Palace: The Cradle of the Department Store,” New York Historical Society Quarterly, vol. XLVIII (April, 1964), pp. 131–62.Google Scholar

13 Pasdermadjian, Department Store, p. 5–6.

14 Review of Reviews (London), Feb., 1892, p 154, digested from article on Parisian department stores in Revue des Deux Mondes, Jan. 1, 1892; ibid., July, 1894, p 163, digest of articles on Parisian stores by Vicomte Avenel in Revue des Deux Mondes, July 15, 1894.

15 Hower, Macy's, Appendix A, p. 412.

16 Ibid., p. 416.

17 New York Daily Advertiser, September 1, 1823.

18 New York Herald, April 12, 1876.

19 Pasdermadjian, Department Store, p. 16.

20 Reminiscences of Josiah Reece, former buyer for A. T. Stewart & Co., Dry Goods Economist, July 15, 1891, p 19.Google Scholar

21 Nystrom, Retailing, pp. 211–12, quoting testimony of S. M, Woodward, of Woodward & Lothrop, Washington and Otto Young, of The Fair, Chicago, before Industrial Commission.

22 The Times (London), April 22, 1876.

23 Sanborn, Alvan F. (ed.), Reminiscences of Richard Lathers: Sixty Years of a Busy Life in South Carolina, Massachusetts, and New York (New York, 1908), pp. 43–44.Google Scholar

24 Filene, Next Steps, p. 293.

25 Harper's Magazine, March, 1869.

26 New York Tribune, April 11, 1876.

27 Ibid., April 22, 1876; Chambers's Journal (Edinburgh), June 17, 1876.

28 New York Tribune, April 11, 12, 1876.

29 Appel, Joseph H., Growing Up With Advertising (New York, 1940), pp. 53–59Google Scholar; italics in original.

30 “A Late Retailer,” A Peep Into Catharine Street; or, the Mysteries of Shopping (New York, 1846), Chapter 9.Google Scholar

31 Browne, Junius Henri, The Great Metropolis: A Mirror of New York (Hartford, 1869)Google Scholar; Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1871.

32 Nystrom, Retailing, p. 192.

33 Hower, Macy's, p. 50.

34 The History of Lord & Taylor (New York, 1926); illustration of G. W. Warren & Co., 192 Washington Street, Boston, circa 1843, in possession of author; advertisement of Daniell & Co., Boston, in Andrews' Stranger's Guide to Boston, 1848.

35 Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1871.

36 Selfridge, Harry Gordon, “Selling Selfridge,” Saturday Evening Post, July 27, 1935, p. 53.Google Scholar

37 Pasdermadjian, Department Store, p. 4; New York Times, May 12, 1872.

38 Dry Goods Economist, October 12, 1901.

39 Hower, Macy's, pp. 282, 413.

40 New York Herald, April 9, 1876.

41 New York Tribune, April 22, 1876.

42 Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, May, 1863.

43 The Nation, April 20, 1876.

44 Pasdermadjian, Department Store, pp. 3–4, 16; Hower, Macy's, p. 61.

45 New York Herald, April 11, 1876.

46 William Addison Clarke, in The Counter, June, 1901.

47 Godey's, May, 1863.

48 Edward Crapsey, “A Monument of Trade,” The Galaxy, January, 1870.

49 Clarke, in The Counter, November, 1901.

50 New York Herald, April 11, 1876.

51 Judson, Isabella Field, Cyrus W. Field, His Life and Work, 1819–1892 (New York, 1896)Google Scholar; New York Herald, September 18, 1846; Putnam's Monthly, April, 1853, p 358; New York Tribune, September 18, 1868.

52 Crapsey, “A Monument of Trade.” In the third edition (1932) of his Economics of Retailing, Professor Nystrom quotes this description of Stewart's Astor Place store but credits it to McCabe, J. D.'s Great Fortunes and How They Were Made (Chicago, 1871)Google Scholar the author of which picked it up without credit from Crapsey's highly informative article in The Galaxy. Professor Nystrom comments: “In view of the advanced development of the departmental idea that the quotations presented above show then existed, it is reasonable to assume that the processes of experimentation and application of departmentizing must have been carried on for several years earlier…. Departmentizing was an inevitable development of the growing size and volume of retail stores… It seems probable that the department store idea may have been given consideration by American retailers as early as the 1850's, or at least by the early 1860's …” (pp. 127–37). But on p. 429 Professor Nystrom repeats the statement from his first edition implying that A. T. Stewart had acknowledged his indebtedness to Boucicaut for many of his ideas, for which this writer has been unable to find any documentation.

53 Hower, Macy's, pp. 47, 192.

54 Albion, Robert G., The Rise of New York Port (New York, 1939), p. 183.Google Scholar

55 New York Times, January 7, 1872.

56 Gibbons, Herbert Adams, John Wanamaker (2 vols., New York, 1926), vol. II, p. 369.Google Scholar

57 Dry Goods Economist, August 15, 1891.

58 New York Herald, September 18, 1846; Putnam's Monthly, April, 1853, p 358.

59 Godey's, May, 1863.

60 Crapsey, “A Monument of Trade.”

61 Hower, Macy's, pp. 69–70.

62 The Haberdasher, August, 1891, p. 43; reminiscence of Stewart's first buying trip to Paris in 1839 by Pierre Morand, a commissionaire's clerk who served him, reprinted from an undated issue of the Philadelphia Press; the Garden City, N. Y. Library also has the same in Morand's handwriting.

63 U. S. Economist, February 6, 1858.

64 Ibid., January 6, 1866; New York Herald, April 11, 1876.

65 Godey's, May, 1863.

66 New York Herald, April 11, 1876.

67 Ibid., September 18, 1846.

68 Putnam's Monthly, April, 1853.

69 Clarke, in The Counter, October, 1901.

70 Cross-examination of E. J. Denning by Joseph H. Choate in Rosalie Butler v. Henry Hilton, et al., May 14, 1888, in New York Sun, May 15, 1888.

71 Hower, Macy's, p. 109.

72 Lambert, Richard S., The Universal Provider: A Study of William Whiteley and the Rise of the London Department Store (London, 1938), pp. 68, 94.Google Scholar

73 Twyman, Robert W., History of Marshall Field & Co., 1852–1906 (Philadelphia, 1954), p. 175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

74 Women's Wear Daily, March 2, 1950.

75 Godey's, May, 1863.

76 New York Tribune, September 18, 1868.

77 Hower, Macy's, p. 112.

78 McCabe, J. D., Great Fortunes and How They Were Made (New York, 1871).Google Scholar

79 Godey's, May, 1863; Clarke, in The Counter, October 1901.