History of the Department Store - Report Example

History of the Department Store: Changes in our Cities During the 19th century the department store rose up to be the center of commerce in almost every town across America, and in doing so helped shape the cities that we have today. They were molded by the existing technologies that made them possible, and in many ways became a mirror of the culture as well as the geography. Once the staple of American shoppers, they have given way to big box stores, discount houses, and Internet shopping. Still, all these alternative forms of shopping are modeled after the department store that was popularized during the 19th century. Building techniques and transportation made the department store possible, and the new consumer economy made it a profitable reality. As our cities changed, the department store changed to meet the needs of the new demographics. While some suburbs flourished, inner cities fell into decline. By examining the history of the department store we can get a better look at the evolution of our American cities, and create a more effective plan for their future. The department store had its beginnings in New York when A T Stewart opened his legendary Marble Palace in 1846. This would be followed by Lord & Taylor, Macy's, Marshall Field, and Wanamaker who spared no luxury in opulent buildings, window displays, and the quality of merchandise. By the turn of the twentieth century the department store had become the hub of American inner city commerce. Owned by giants such as R. H. Macy, Marshall Fields, and A. T. Stewart, the stores reflected the name and reputation of their owners. The department store concept catapulted the owners to fame and notoriety as a1900 account of A T Stewart refers to him as "the acknowledged head of the mercantile world in this city and the sights on New York included AT Stewarts marble store downtown and Stewart's marble palace uptown" (From cellar to garret, 1900). These men that pioneered the department store helped define the geography of our cities and shape the demographics of consumerism. Department stores were created when the ability to move goods to a central location coincided with the ability to move customers to that location. Department stores were unique in their ability to offer a huge array of goods under one roof arranged in departments. "Such large retailers only became feasible when the horsecar or streetcar could deliver crowds to the central city. Department stores exploited economies in purchasing and distributing to a large market, which made them cheaper than the alternative, local neighborhood stores" (Nye, 1990, p.113). In addition, the stores utilized the concept of fixed pricing, which eliminated the need to haggle or bargain on a price. This would open the door for relatively inexperienced salesclerks that were often women. Of course, the success of the department store would be dependent upon attracting enough customers to make it a profitable venture. The introduction of the trolley car and railroad made this possible. The early department stores were located along these lines of transportation and created the core of commerce and the inner city. In Chicago, P. Palmer ran a dry goods and carpet store in the downtown area and had foreseen the coming of the department store, and the importance of the inner city, with the success of the Marble Palace and Macy's in New York. "Palmer had correctly foreseen that State Street would become the burgeoning city's new central business district because of its location near an important transportation junction, and he invested wisely in real estate there" (Benes, 2006, p.72). In 1893, Marshall Field opened a store on Palmer's property amid the fanfare of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. The store was an instant success as, "People would visit the store and then go home and tell their neighbors about it. The neighbors would come to marvel at the huge store-and to buy its rare and high-quality goods" (Benes, 2006, p.72). These department stores located in downtown areas would attract other ancillary businesses and became not only the center of commerce, but also tourist attractions. As building techniques improved, the department store built vertically adding more departments and selections. "The sheer size of the department store required the use of new building materials, glass technology, new heating, cooling and lighting devices, and in-store people movement, which led to new store design, among other engineering and architectural innovations" (Tamilia, 2002, p.3). The department store transformed the look and texture of the inner city as well as the geography of commerce. To a large extent, the inner city was designed and built based on the genderized preferences of the female. Shopping, and the department store, would become the escape from the domesticity of the home and the drudgery of housework. The department stores were designed with the female shopper in mind. The large department stores and their retailing districts, "were characterized by ornamental architecture and grand boulevards, restaurants, bars, small boutiques and large department stores" (Jayne, 2006, p.131-132). This would additionally bring women into the downtown area, a place that was off limits in the male dominated world of business just a few years earlier. In Chicago, the Marshall Field store "cultivated an exalted, almost sacred, ambience. Its famous stained glass Tiffany Dome also connoted elegance and luxury" (Marchland, 1998, p.12). The department stores appealed to women not only as shoppers, but also as workers. Macy's routinely advertised with opportunities for positions for women such as jewelry saleswoman, ladies' tailor, skirt drapers, waist drapers, and cash girls" (Want ads, 1902). The department store had transformed the downtown area from a man's sole proprietorship to a place frequented, designed, and managed by women. The newly designed downtown areas that had the department store as a centerpiece attracted new technology and innovation. Electricity was a new invention that transformed downtown at the instigation of the department stores. Electricity and the light bulb allowed the department stores to keep longer hours, which transformed the downtown area into a festive area where people would go for shopping as well as entertainment. The new department stores would be some of the first businesses to adopt "many electrical innovations from the world's fairs and the theatre, including enormous electric fountains, spotlights, back lighting, indirect lighting, miniature electrified landscapes, and all the exoticism of the midway" (Nye, 1990, p.114). Advertising, another innovation that was heavily utilized by the department stores, was able to reach across the countryside and attract the rural population to a downtown area that had become a common space. According to Nye (1990), the department store was "instrumental in transforming the American populace into a mass society" (p.132). The department store had dramatically altered our view of society and projected the concept of unity through a common space. After the turn of the twentieth century, the automobile provided more transportation options that were exploited by the department store owners. No longer chained to the downtown area with the trolleys and trains, they expanded outward to reach more customers. The automobile allowed the department store to begin to evaluate a more complete consumer demographic and make the appropriate adjustments. According to Coles (1999), "The critical environmental conditions include the size of the population and its spatial distribution, consumers' need preference for goods, total income of a region and its spatial as well as social allocation, technology and government regulation" (p.277). The department stores could be located near outlying populations, which would spur an increase in commerce and attract residential development. In addition, stores could cater to the income level and culture of a well-defined geographical space. Critics have argued that the zenith of the department store was the early 20th century and by the middle 1900s the downtown areas and department stores had fallen to the competition of urban retailers. According to Madison (1976), "The competitive position of department stores weakened during the 1920s not only as a consequence of the emergence of the new retailers but also because of the changing structure of cities" (as cited in Tamilia, 2002, p.5). However, in many cases department stores moved location to follow the new urban landscape. Marshall Fields built a landmark department store in the 1970s in Woodfield Mall near Chicago, a 300 plus store mall that has been anchored by both Marshall Fields and Macy's. It is located in Schaumburg Illinois near the center of industrial production and urban expansion. The rationale for locating the store in this location was the income level of the area. By the middle of the 20th century, the upscale department stores of Field's and Macy's had run into competition with the more competitive pricing of stores such as Montgomery Ward and J C Penny. This competition and the move of the population to suburbia would have some dramatic consequences for the department store and its effect on the city landscape. By the middle of the 20th century, the competition from suburbia drew people out of downtown and "city centres lost residents as more and more prime space was redeveloped for offices. Innovative growth was taking place in the outer suburbs, with their shopping malls, business parks, and freeways, while old industries, long-established offices and many affluent residents were quitting the inner city" (Douglas, 1996, p.757). The decline of the downtown department store, and its move to the suburbs, meant little new investment in the inner cities. Downtown areas in the major cities would become areas that were stricken with poverty and criminal activity. Economics would drive the location of the department stores and further define the geography of the cities. As department stores located in the more affluent suburbs, the areas that were left without a department store as an area anchor fell into further decline. This was self-perpetuating as the area could not attract new businesses and employment opportunities were lost. Neighborhoods, stigmatized by the absence of a mall with a major department store anchor, fell further into decay. These phenomena would isolate the population of these neighborhoods both economically and geographically. These areas that have fallen into poverty and forgotten are often the subject of urban development. This term often intones the necessity of relocation and uprooting the members of the community in favor of planned progress. Yet, the geography of the cities is more than simply the physical layout and dimensions. Andreas Faludi notes that planning must move away from the purely physical aspects of the environment and begin to open up to the other disciplines, notably the social sciences (cited in Steinberger, 1985, p.35). Socio-economic class, income level, access to mass transportation, and educational opportunities are all part of the modern geography. The relocation of the department stores in the post World War II era to the new suburbia created a new space in the suburbs, and defined a new geography by their absence in the inner cities. Today, the department store has been relegated to high profile malls that attract the affluent urban shopper. In many cities and towns the J C Penny or Montgomery Ward store that was a primary retailer, either downtown or in the mall, has been replaced by the big box stores or discount outlets. Internet shopping has further cut into the traffic at the brick and mortar outlets. Amazon.com, whose marketing approach defines our geography as socially isolated, may well define the new department store. In conclusion, the grand and glorious days of the 19th century department store are gone, but have left a dramatic effect on the geography and demographics of our American Cities. Once saddled to the train and trolley tracks as a necessary means to get customers to the store, transportation improvements would move the stores to the suburbs and further define our use of space. The stores, named for icons like Macy and Fields, became the leading edge in innovation in design, materials, and style. As the stores moved into the suburbs, the void left behind by their absence was filled with poverty and crime. As anchor stores located in malls that were in high-income areas, the inner cities fell into decay without employment or transportation. As much as their presence had defined the geographical space that they operated in, their loss would forever doom it. Our cities and their landscape is more than a simple matter of acreage and population dispersement, buildings and freeways. They are a living social entity that is heavily influenced by retailers, commerce, and the absence of trade. References Benes, J. (2006, December). Christmas at Marshall Field's, Chicago. American History, 71-74. Coles, T. (1999). Competition, contested retail space and the rise of the department store in Imperial Germany. The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 9(3), 275-289. Douglas, I. (1996). Companion encyclopedia of geography: The environment and humankind. New York: Routledge. From cellar to garret (1900, November 18). New York Tribune, Retrieved November 25, 2008, from http://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/lccn/sn83030214/1900-11-18/ed-1/seq-20 Jayne, M. (2006). Cities and consumption. London, NewYork: Taylor & Francis Routledge. Marchland, R. (1998). Creating the corporate soul: The rise of public relations and corporate imagery in American big business. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Nye, D. E. (1990). Electrifying America: Social meanings of a new technology, 1880-1940. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Steinberger, P. J. (1985). Ideology and the urban crisis. Albany, NY: University of New York Press. Tamilia, R. T. (2002, May). The wonderful world of the department store in historical perspective. Retrieved November 25, 2008, from faculty.quinnipiac.edu/charm/dept.store.pdf Want ads, (1902, November 23). The New York Sun, Retrieved November 25, 2008, from http://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/lccn/sn83030272/1902-11-23/ed-1/seq-39 Read More