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All large American cities by the 1860s had department stores. Many were founded by European immigrants. Larger cities had multiple stores that were often intensely competive such as the fabled rivalry of Maceys and Gimbles endearingly told in the Chritmas classic, "Miracle on 34th St.". Often stores appealed to different clentelle. Some focused on the luxury trade while others sought the trade of low income consumers. These were not chain stores, but individual stores in each cities. It was not until the 1960s that these many of these stores began to open stores in other cities. Rural communities were poorly served until Montgomery Wards launched the mailorder business in the 1870s, followed by Sears and Roebuck in the 1880s.
Bloomies is certainly one of the most fabled American department stores. It is located on America's most renowned and certainly tallest shopping mile in New York.
The area spans 25 blocks, anchored at one end by Macy's on Herald Square and at the other by Bloomingdale's on 59th Street, span five avenues west to east and
include the country's most renowned concentration of grand, historic department stores. Actually ahalf-dozen of these great American stores survive. They are now
widely spaced between hundreds of specialty stores on and off Fifth Avenue.
Boggs & Buhl was a department store in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. We notice catalogs in the 1890s. Styles included the Autumn and Winter 1895-96 catalog. We notice achild's double-breast Waverly suit and a child's standard suit (Spring & Summer 1892), child's Rennert suit and child's sailor suit (Spring & Summer 1892), a selection of boy's suits, children's caps and bonnets, and boy's ties, ladies' collars and trimmings (Autumn & Winter 1895-96).
The Bon-Ton Stores operate more than 70 department stores in smaller markets traditionally underserved by the larger retail chains. Most Bon-Ton stores are
located in the northeastern states, especially Pennsylvania and New York. There are also a few stores in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, Vermont, and West Virginia. The stores sell branded and private-label women's clothing (one-fourth of total sales), accessories, children's clothing,
cosmetics, home furnishings, and men's clothing. The Grumbacher family, who founded the company in 1898, controls The Bon-Ton.
One of the grand New York department stores that has since gone out of business.
The 1917 De Pinna Co. catalog wa issued in hard over. De Pinna was an important New York retailer. It was located on 5th Avenue with other exclusive retailers
and was the New York branch of an English boys clothing store that was founded in London, 1880, so I presume that the text was written by them.) The catalog
advises, "The manly appearance of an English lad is always noticeable. Over there, the dressing of boys and young men has been standardized for years. There is
lacking in their dress that suggestion of feminine intervention which has crept at times into the dress of American boys. There is no reason why any good healthy
American boy should be decked in ribbons, frills, and laces. There is every reason why he should wear--according to his station in life--clothing and accessories that
closely resemble those of men ..." The text runs on another few pages to tout the importance of "manly" attire... It is interesting that this word is no longer used in
children's fashion ads It certainly was used a lot around the early 1900s! One wonders why the term fell out of favor. Sometimes the changing rhetoric of fashion is
just as mysterious as fashion trends themselves. Also note the phrase "good, healthy". There is a psychological implication here. Did men innately regard a boy who is
ill or a invalid as more the property of his mother than a "good, healthy" boy? One factor that needs to be considered is that De Pinna was a menswear retailer. Boys
were likly to be brought there by their fathers and thus frilly clothes would werelily to hve little clothes. Fancier outfits were more likekly to be found at dress shops
which commonly offered clothes for young boys nd department stores. In both these, it would be more likely that boy woul be likely to be bought by their mothers.
Chicago was the largest and most prominent Midwestern city. It was thus understandable that several important Midwestern department stores developed in the city.
Among the most important is Marshall Field's. The store was founded by Potter Palmer in 1852. Palmer was one of Chicago's great 19th century entrepreneurs. He
opened a small dry goods store on Lake Street which at the time was Chicago's prime retail strip. He soon established his reutation among Chicaho stores through
his innovative retailing appraoch, in particular a liberal return as well as easy credit policies. Palmer eventually sold his store to two young merchants, including the
ambitious Marshall Field. Palmer pursued real estate development--especially the improvement of State Street. He wanted to transform State Street into an imposing
shopping corridor that would make an international name for Chicago. Palmer in 1868 built a palatial sbuilding on the northeast corner of Washington and State and
convinced Field to move his store into the new State Street building.
Gimbles is another of the most fabled American department stores. Not only because of its history, but because of the classic Americam film--Miracle on 34th
Street. America's most renowned and certainly tallest shopping mile is located in New York. The area spans 25 blocks, anchored at one end by Macy's on Herald
Square and at the other by Bloomingdale's on 59th Street, span five avenues west to east and include the country's most renowned concentration of grand, historic
department stores. Actually ahalf-dozen of these great American stores survive. They are now widely spaced between hundreds of specialty stores on and off Fifth Avenue.
This is not a company that we had heard of before. We know that it was fonded in 1915. and that it was located at 307 %th Avenue in New York. The name suggests that they were a manufacuring company, but we note a substantial catalog in 1925 that had a wide range of clothing far beyond what any one company would be capable of producing in addition to jewelry. The product offering was weighted toward women's wear, but there was some boys clothing offered as well which provide some interesting details on 1920s clothing. We assume because of the address (5th Avenue is known as a fashionable shopping area) that they were a department store wuth a mailorder business, but the only information we have is pages from the catalog. We do not know what happeed to the company after 1925.
America had thousands of mens wear stores. A small town might just hve one. Large cities would have several. Of course HBC could never collect information on all of these stores, but details on representative stores are useful in understanding period clothing and retail marketing. These stores handled clothing for men and boys. The age of boys served varied from store to store. We suspect that styling was also a factor. They probably did not handle clothing for boys until they were breeched. Tghis meant school age boys, perhaps 8-10 years of age. Hee we are not precisely sure. A good example of these stores is E.F. Holmes & Co., Clothiers and Gents' Furnishers, located in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas. We have a advertising card, presumably given to clients. It is a colorized picture/ ad of two boys dressed like sailors. Unfortunately it is not dates, but the style and lithofraphic color suggests the 1890s to us.
Joseph Horners was an important store in Pittsburgh. The name Joseph Hornes was well known for high qualty and expensive clothing,the stuff they sold lasted a long time,many people called hornes the store of spraydecor. The main store in Pittsburgh had a wide variety of camp shorts." We have little information about the store at this time.
Hornes only sold clothing. The sub stores were spread out
through most of western Pennssylvania. Many big malls in the area had Hornes stores. These were small compared with the main store in downtown Pittsburgh. The main Pittsburgh store had an amazing nine
floors and sold every type of brand name clothing you could imagine, It catered to men, women, and children. If Hornes did not have it no one did. Hornes was sold in the late 1980s. The name was changed to Lazures Department Store. The main store in Pittsburgh closed for good in the early 90s. There were a few small stores left in the malls, but Macey's purchased the remaing Lazurez franchise (January 2005). How long they will last is anyones
guess. A reader remembers the camp shorts his mother bought at Hornes in 1971.
K-mart is a major discount store in the United States. They carry a large selection of children's stores. I first remember seeing K-mart stores in the 1960s. They are located throughout the United States, although they have lost ground to Wal-Mart in recent years. K-Mark declared bankruptsy in 2002. There was much hand-ringing within the company as to just what mistakes they have made. Most K-Mart customers knew that one of the orimary reasons was poor service. Retailers that make customers wait in long lines to check out show that they have little regard for their customers.
Lord & Taylor is perhaps America's oldest retail store. It traces its roots back to the 1820s, although it was far from a department store in those early years. While the Ne York stores along 6th Avenue served the middle-class and working-class commuters who used the 'El,' the 5th Avenue stores catered to the wealthier
clientele of the "carriage trade." Samuel Lord and George Taylor, two English immigrants, combined to build one of the most respected fashion establishments along the more upscale retailers. Their first store was on Catherine Street store. The partners began attracting the New York "carriage trade" (high-class customers who could afford carriages) in 1826. The store moved three times. Each move followed the northward march of the New York's fashionable retailers and the grand buildings that shoppers came to expect from a top-line department store. The Grand and Chrystie streets store opened in 1853 had a domed central rotunda and cathedral windows. The Broadway building in 1872 was one of New York's first cast-iron frame buildings and had a steam elevator. incredibly featuring chandeliers and a plush couch! Speculating that the retail district would expand east, they built their third department store at the corner of 20th Street. The store was moved moved for a final time in 1914 to 38th Street and 5th Avenue. The rather unimposing granite and limestone building is not as striking as the earlier stores, but more utilitarian. The store is famous for its Christmas windows depicting the holiday season through the years. The flagship Lord & Taylor store stands fully 10 stories high in New York and is a far cry from all the Lord & Taylor chain stores established elsewhere in America. In 2000 there were 78 Lord & Taylor stores in America. The store itself as a corporate entity has been absorbed by the St. Louis-based May Department Stores.
The National Cloak and Suit company is not a firm we know much about. All we know at this time is that it was located in New York. It appears to be a substantial company. We notice the company advertising in the February 1903 issue of the Delineator. We notice a catalog offering wommen's clothes ("My Lady's Wardrobe") for Spring-Summer 1904. The first catalog we notice offering a full range of clothing is from 1909, but there may have been earlier ones. The 1912 catalog contains a wide range of merchandise. any National 1912 garments are archived on the Ammerican 1912 catalog page. We do not know when the company was founded, but the use of "cloak" in the company name suggests an older company. We also do not know when company closed. We do note a 1920 catalog with very stylish women's clothes. As far as we know, it was purely a catalog company.
Rogers, Peet & Co. was founded as a result of a 1874 merger of the clothing firms of Marvin N. Rogers and Charles Bostwick Peet (1837-1902). Both men were wholesale clothiers who operated stores n Broadway in downtown New York during the 1860s. The first Rogers, Peet store was located at 487 Broadway on the southwest corner of Broome St. and Broadway. The company gradually expanded. The company at the peak of operations had 12 stores in New York. A store at 16 E. 42nd and at 479-481 5th Ave. was opened in 1915. This proved to be the last surviving Rogers, Peet store, which finally closed in the mid-1980s. Rogers, Peet was respmsible for several important innocatuons in the menswear industry. They began attaching tags to garments informers their clientelle of the fabric composition. This was not required by the Government, but a decision the compsny took on it own. They introduced price tags which were placed on each item. The common practice at the time was for clerks and buyers to haggle over price. They gave buyers a money back guarantee. Rogers, Peet specialized in men's and boys' wear (suits, coats, jackets, pants, shirts, hats, neckties, underwear, gloves, socks,and belts. Later in the 20th century they added women's apparel (coats, slacks, sweaters). The boys' wear ads we have seen suggest clothes with a strong British look. This would suggest a toney, affluent clientelle.
The note A.S. Shuman, a Boston retailer. We do not know much about the company at this time. They were advertising in a national circulation magazine in 1911. They offered children suits and other clothes in 1911. Their exclusive brand was Knockabout.
Strawbridge & Clothier was an important znd early department store chain in the Philadelphia area focused on the middle-class rather than affluent sustomer. The store began as a partnership between Justus C. Strawbridge and Isaac H. Clothier (1868). We believe that both had earlier retail experience, but do not have detauls. The partners were Quakers and brought to their stores the Quaker principles of simplicity and community service. We note a catalog in 1884 (figure 1), but we are not sure when they first began catalog sales. They grouped the boy's cloything on separate pages, but for some reason mixed up ages and garments. We can see how popular kilt suits were. And that notice that knee pants were still mostly for youger boys. This would change considerably by the end of the decade. The prices are interesting showing that clothing was a little more expebdive at the time in relative terms. For exmple a $5.00 suit swould be about $135 in 2020 dollars. The founding families, especially the Strawbridges, trtained control for four generations. It was not incorporated until (1922). It became the last locally-​controlled, family-owned department store chain in the greater Philadelphia area.
Franklin Simon (FS) opened in 1902 and was an important New York City deparment store until 1948, but continued for 4 more years under new management. It primarily focused on women's fashions, with an emphasis on European fashion. The described its concept as 'to import much of his merchandise with a view to selling the imported goods as cheaply, if possible, as the domestic.' Atthe time, imprted clothing came oprimarily from Europe. The store was very different than other department stores. The foundrs created it as an aggregation of specialty shops rather than a standard single store. Each of the FS shops offered a specialty line, in many cases more variety than a traditional department store. While the focus was on women's wear, there was also a good range of children clothes which made sence becuse women generally purchased the children's clothes, of course for girls and younger boys. There was also some men's wear. This was a New York City Fifth Avenue department store which operated from about 1905-52. The flagship store was opened at 414 Fifth Avenue at 38th Street, a former Astor-family mansion. At the time it was the first important Fifth Avenue store above 34th Street. Many stres like Tifany;s were to follow. It published a well-illustrated catalog as far as we can tell in the 1910s and 20s. FS began opening branch stores (1932). A rare retailer expanding during the Depession. There were branch stores opened mostly in the Northeast, but one in Ohio, another in Tennesse, and a beach focused store in Palm Beach Florida.
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