Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Rise and Fall of Department Stores

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

For most of human history, if you wanted something, you had to make it yourself or know the person who made it.  Eventually, merchants began to sell more and more goods in one store to make it convenient for consumers.  These stores reached their zenith with enormous structures which sold almost everything. They were not just innovations themselves, but they were an engine for innovations which are still with us today. Learn more about the rise and fall of department stores on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Darcy Adams Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EverythingEverywhere Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Everything Everywhere is an Airwave Media podcast. Please contact [e-mail] to advertise on Everything Everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For most of human history, if you wanted something, you had to make it yourself or know the person who made it. Eventually, merchants began to sell goods in a single store to make it convenient for consumers. And these stores reached their zenith with enormous structures that sold almost everything. These stores weren't just innovations themselves, but they were engines for innovations that are still with us today. Learn more about the rise and fall of department stores on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. It is hard to express just how difficult it used to be to get stuff. Hundreds of years ago, the average person didn't own very much of anything. If you wanted something, be it an article of clothing, a piece of furniture, or a pot, you had to go to someone who made them, and then they probably had to make it custom for you. Once you had it, you probably kept it forever, did everything you could to repair it, and maybe even passed it to your children after you died.

Eventually, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, stuff became mass-produced, and you could just buy stuff that was already manufactured. You could go to a place called a general store that sold everything from nails and pots to pans and candy. It was just a matter of time before someone took the idea of a general store to its logical conclusion. The first store, which could be considered a department store, or at least a proto-department store, would be Harding Howland Company, which opened in 1796 in London. The store was divided into four different sections, which sold different things. furs and fans, which I have no idea why those two things were put together, fabrics, jewelry and

clocks, and ladies' hats. The store was just four large rooms connected together, 150 feet long, so it was really kind of just four stores and one. The thing which separated it from other stores was that it was tailored for women. It was a place where upper class and middle class women could go shopping. Over in France, something similar as being developed with the Megazons de Nouveau, or Novelty Shop. These began as Proto department stores as well. One of the first, largest and oldest, because it still exists, is Le Bon Marche. It was open in 1838 as a small 300-square-meter store, but it was radically enlarged and changed in 1852. In the United States, the first department store was known as the Marble House, which opened on Pine Street,

New York in 1825. These early department stores were not the full-fledged stores that we know of today. The big change in department stores occurred in the second half of the 19th century. The World's Fair of 1851 in London, the first World's Fair, was a huge hit with the people in London. Millions of people went to the Crystal Palace and saw thousands of consumer products from around the world on display. Nothing was for sale, but all of these people were basically window shopping and developing a desire for all these brand new consumer products. This spirit of modernity and abundance drove the creation of larger, more impressive retail establishments. Le Bon Marchet in Paris expanded to 50,000 square meters from its original 300. Marshall Field in Chicago opened in 1852.

Macy's in New York was founded in 1858. Wanamakers in Philadelphia opened in 1877. There were dozens of competing department stores in cities all over the United States and Europe. What these stores had in common is that they were catering to their primary customers, which were women. A department store was an opportunity for women to get out of the house and meet other women without having to be escorted in public by a man. Women could literally spend an entire day at a department store. These department stores also had something which couldn't be found almost anywhere else at the time. Public restrooms for women. This is something we wouldn't think twice about today, but it was actually extremely.

extremely rare in the 19th century. Eristid Boussico of La Bon Marchet famously installed a reading room for men to wait while their wives were shopping. Department stores weren't just catering to women as customers, but they were also one of the first places who hired large numbers of women. In many department stores, young single women comprised half or more of the workforce, and it became one of the most high-profile and desirable jobs for women at the time. These department stores also had large windows, where they would often have elaborate displays showcasing not just the products, but also each season as well. Even if you weren't a customer of the department store, everyone who walked by would be

able to window shop and fantasize about the stuff they would one day like to buy. The person who's credited with revolutionizing department stores is the Wisconsin-born Harry Gordon Selfridge. Selfridge was hired as a stockboy at Marshall Fields in Chicago and rose through the ranks to become a full partner in the company over a 25-year career. Selfridge was the originator of many of the things that have become standard for most department stores. The phrase the customer is always right is an aphromism which was created by Selfridge. If you've ever seen a store promoting X number of shopping days until Christmas, that too is an innovation developed by Selfridge. Have you ever walked into a department store and noticed that the very first thing you always pass is

the perfume counter? That was another Selfridge innovation. Urban Street. streets in the 19th century smelled horrible. Horse dung littered the streets and the smell would waft into the buildings. By placing the perfume counter at the front of the store, it would mask the smell from the street. Under Selfridge, Marshall Fields became the first department store to offer revolving credit and personal shoppers. And they were even the first store to do book signings with authors. Selfridge opened the State Street store in Chicago, which was considered to be a palace of shopping, and one of the first buildings to install escalators. Selfridge turned Marshall Fields into more than just a store, he made it into a destination. Over in Philadelphia, Wanamaker's

Department Store introduced electrical lighting, telephones, and perhaps most importantly, fixed prices on every product. In 1906, Selfridge visited London, where he was surprised to find that the department stores in London had not adopted the same level of sophistication that American stores like Marshall Fields had. Herod's, which had just opened its new flagship store in 1905, was the biggest department store in London, but it lacked the pizzazz that American stores had. So, he resigned from Marshall Fields and moved to London to open up his own store in 1909, Selfridges. Selfridges in London was a destination above and beyond what Marshall Fields in Chicago ever was.

The store had multiple restaurants, a rooftop garden, VIP reception rooms, and even a first-aid center. There were over a hundred departments, and the floors were redesigned to make products more accessible to customers. The Selfridge's staff was also trained to be more than just cashiers, but actual salespeople. They were trained on their product lines and actively sold products. And just as an aside, I highly recommend the PBS ITV series called Mr. Selfridge, and it covers the life of Harry Selfridge in London. There are four seasons to the show, and the title role is played by Jeremy Piven. Department stores eventually spread to most communities, even of moderate size. If a town had a population of even,

even several thousand people, it would have been enough for a small department store. One of the world's largest department stores was, ironically enough, built in a communist country. The Glovny Unarversali magazine, also known by its acronym, GUM, was the largest store in the Soviet Union. It was located directly across Red Square from Lenin's Tomb. It was formerly a marketplace with 1,200 stores, but after the communist revolution, it was converted into a department store. Stalin eventually shut it down, but it was reopened after Stalin's death. The GUM department store was one of the only stores in the Soviet Union which didn't suffer from chronic shortages due to its high-profile location. However, that was offset by the enormous lines that extended beyond Red Square.

Department stores were sort of the pinnacle of retail shopping for most of the 20th century. One of the problems is that department stores were not built for efficiency. They were designed to have a large selection and to be a place where people could go to find most anything that they needed. Most department stores were standalone family-run stores or were part of a small regional chain. The largest department store chains were run by catalog operators such as Sears, JCPenny's, or Montgomery Wards. This left them vulnerable to competition from two different directions. On one hand, large discount chains were able to buy in volume and implemented efficiencies that department stores couldn't. Instead of having multi-story buildings, inexpensive real estate, and downtown areas,

they were in big-box stores on the edge of cities. They didn't have restaurants or other amenities that department stores did, reducing their overhead. From the other end, department stores had competition from malls. While department stores were often the anchor stores of most malls, the malls were a bigger destination than department stores could ever have hoped to have been. Malls offered greater specialization with smaller stores, plus malls had attractions such as movie theaters, and some even had amusement parks. Over the last several decades, most smaller department stores have closed because of competitive

pressure. The trend towards online retailers has only accelerated this trend. Department stores do still exist, mostly as a few surviving anchor stores in malls or destination attractions in large cities. Stores like Macy's in New York, Herods in London, Le Bon Marche in Paris, and Mitsukoshi in Tokyo. Department stores will probably always have some place in the retail landscape, but in a world where you can buy anything with a click of your mouse and have it delivered to your home, it's unlikely that department stores will ever be as important as they were in the 20th century. Everything Everywhere is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett.

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