Showing 1863 results

In late January, Macy’s announced it had sold the famous I. Magnin Building in Union Square. At its prime, I. Magnin was a shopping destination among destinations and a place to shop and be seen shopping among the city’s elite.

A visit to The Chronicle’s archive turned up some classic images of the building’s construction and history, as well as I. Magnin’s earlier history — 118 years of it — in San Francisco. When the store finally closed in 1995, two of The Chronicle’s most well-known columnists of the 20th century wrote in its honor.

I. Magnin and Co. was founded in 1877 in San Francisco by Mary Ann Magnin and her husband, Isaac. Mary Ann set up a small shop in the city, where she made and sold fancy baby clothes alongside Isaac’s wood carvings.

The store moved around San Francisco’s retail hot spots, “gradually developing an exclusive clientele,” The Chronicle wrote in Mary Ann Magnin’s 1943 obituary. Advertisements for the store appeared in the pages of The Chronicle as early as 1900.

As the store expanded, “Mrs. Magnin saw to it that her buyers throughout the world kept her supplied with the choicest items.”

The signature I. Magnin Building, a 10-story white marble store, opened on Union Square in 1948.

HBC is a diversified retailer focused on driving the performance of high-quality stores and their omni-channel platforms and unlocking the value of real estate holdings. Founded in 1670, HBC is the oldest company in North America. HBC’s portfolio today includes formats ranging from luxury to premium department stores to off price fashion shopping destinations, with over 250 stores and about 30,000 employees around the world. HBC’s leading businesses across North America include Saks Fifth Avenue, Hudson’s Bay and Saks OFF 5TH.

HBC also has significant investments in joint ventures. It has partnered with Simon Property Group Inc. in the HBS Joint Venture, which owns properties in the United States. In Canada, it has partnered with RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust in the RioCan-HBC Joint Venture.

Introduction
J. C. Penney was a successful retail businessman from Missouri. He founded the J. C. Penney Company, a nationwide chain of stores that sells a wide variety of products. Penney strongly believed that stores should be run with honesty and a deep respect for the customer.

James Cash Penney was born on September 16, 1875, on a farm in Caldwell County, near Hamilton, Missouri. He was the seventh of twelve children born to James Cash Penney and Mary Frances Paxton Penney. Jim’s father was a poor farmer and a Baptist minister. The Penneys raised their large family to believe in the Golden Rule, self-reliance, self-discipline, honor, and education. The Penneys—though they still worked the farm—moved to a house in Hamilton so the older children could attend high school.

Jim spent his childhood doing farm work and attending school. When he was eight, he had to pay for his own clothing because money was scarce and his father wanted him to learn the value of money. To do so, Jim raised and sold livestock until neighbors complained of the noise and smell.

In 1893, Jim graduated from Hamilton High School. He continued to work on the family farm though he really wanted to become a lawyer. Six weeks before he died, Jim’s father helped him get a job as a store clerk at the J. M. Hale and Brothers dry goods store in Hamilton. Jim began his training as a salesman on February 4, 1895. The day before he died, Jim’s father said, “Jim will make it. I like the way he has started out.” His father’s confidence in him was a great source of strength and inspiration throughout his life.

J. C. Penney worked hard at both Hale’s store and the farm. Other salesmen often bullied Penney and took customers away from him. Penney learned that he had to stand up for himself. Even as he gained confidence in himself and developed his skills as a salesman, Penney started feeling ill. He was diagnosed as being susceptible to tuberculosis. His doctor told him to move to a drier climate. In 1897, Penney moved to Denver, Colorado, and found work in a dry goods store. Then he bought a butcher shop with all his savings. This first business failed, however, because Penney wouldn’t give special favors to a powerful customer.

In 1898, Penney went to work for Thomas Callahan and Guy Johnson, who owned dry goods stores called Golden Rule stores in Colorado and Wyoming. Callahan liked Penney’s honesty and strong work ethic. In 1899, he sent Penney to Evanston, Wyoming, to work with Johnson in another Golden Rule store. That same year, Penney married Berta Alva Hess. Then Callahan and Johnson asked Penney to join them in opening a new Golden Rule store. Using money from savings and a loan, Penney joined the partnership and moved with his wife and infant son to Kemmerer, Wyoming, to start his own store.

The Golden Rule Store in Kemmerer, Wyoming, 1904The Golden Rule Store in Kemmerer, Wyoming, 1904
The store J. C. Penney opened on April 14, 1902, was a one-room wooden building. He and his family lived in the attic above the store. Penney stocked quality products at fair prices for mining and farm families. He accepted “cash only” for his goods, rather than credit. Penney’s store was successful because his customers liked the merchandise and good service.

Within a year, Penney was managing two more stores. Soon, he had a one-third ownership in three stores in Wyoming. By 1907, Callahan and Johnson sold their shares of the chain to Penney who dreamed of starting more Golden Rule stores throughout the West. The store name represented his religious beliefs and gave him a business motto.

The number of men Penney hired and trained grew larger each year and formed the basis of his company. Penney always called his employees “associates.” These men became manager-partners in new stores and also shared in the profits. One of the manager's jobs for each store was to find another honest and hardworking man and train him as manager for another new store. Penney's goal was not to have a chain of stores, but to have a chain of good men. By 1909, Penney established his headquarters office in Salt Lake City.

In 1910, tragedy hit. Penney’s wife, Berta, died of pneumonia and left him with two sons, Roswell Kemper Penney and James Cash Penney Jr. Penney was devastated and later wrote that with Berta’s death, his “world crashed” around him. Despite his grief, Penney’s business continued to prosper. In 1912, there were thirty-four Golden Rule stores with sales surpassing $2 million. The chain name was changed in 1913, becoming the J. C. Penney Company. By 1914, Penney relocated his headquarters to New York City to be closer to the major sources of merchandise.

The J. C. Penney Company flourished under the company motto, “Honor, Confidence, Service, and Cooperation.” As new stores appeared across the country, illustrated announcements in newspapers let people know that a J. C. Penney store would soon open in their community. Smart advertising, just treatment of customers, and good products at affordable prices made Penney very wealthy. He opened the first J. C. Penney Store in his home state of Missouri on April 15, 1918, in Moberly.

In 1919, Penney married Mary Hortense Kimball. Sadly, Mary died in 1923, leaving him with another son, Kimball. After Penney’s first employer, J. M. Hale, retired in 1924, Penney opened his 500th store in his hometown of Hamilton. Penney bought the same building where he had started his retail career and selected fourteen citizens from Hamilton as his partners in the store. Two years later, Penney married his third wife, Caroline B. Autenreith. Together they had two daughters, Mary Frances and Caroline Marie. Their marriage lasted until his death.

Throughout his life, Penney acted in ways that were useful and productive. In the 1920s, the quality of America’s dairy and beef cattle was generally poor. Penney wanted to improve the livestock. He purchased the Emmadine Farm in New York and established a purebred Guernsey herd there. That dairy herd, the Foremost Guernsey Association herd, was given to the University of Missouri in 1952. Penney had also purchased his father's farm near Hamilton in the 1920s. On it he established a purebred Aberdeen Angus herd. In addition to establishing farms for cattle, Penney built a residential community for retired clergy. In 1954 he set up the J. C. Penney Foundation. This foundation still supports organizations that address important issues such as community renewal, the environment, and world peace.

In the last decades of his life, Penney was a popular speaker and a respected author. Although Penney was not a college graduate, he received honorary degrees from a variety of colleges and universities, including the University of Missouri and Stephens College, both in Columbia. James Cash Penney died in New York City on February 12, 1971, at the age of ninety-five. He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. On April 14, 2002, the J. C. Penney Company celebrated one hundred years in business. The company is still one of America's largest retailers.

IKEA was founded by Ingvar Kamprad in 1953 and came to life as a mail order catalogue business in the forested town of Älmhult, Sweden. Today, it’s a global home furnishing brand that brings affordability, design and comfort to people all over the world. We may have come a long way since our humble beginnings, but our vision remains the same: to create a better everyday life for the many people. Explore the IKEA story here, to learn more about our heritage, what drives us today and the ways we seek to positively impact people and planet.

Kmart, original name S.S. Kresge Co., American retail chain with a history of marketing general merchandise primarily through discount and variety stores. It is a subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation.

The company was founded by Sebastian S. Kresge, a traveling hardware salesman, and John G. McCrory, owner of eight general merchandise stores in the eastern United States and one of Kresge’s customers. In 1897 the two opened a pair of five-and-ten-cent stores in Memphis, Tennessee, and Detroit, Michigan (McCrory continued managing his McCrory Corporation stores through the 1920s). Kresge ultimately became the sole owner of this venture and by 1907 operated S.S. Kresge stores in eight cities between Chicago and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. With Kresge as president (1907–25) and chairman of the board (1913–66), the company expanded steadily. Kresge’s at first restricted the price of its merchandise to not more than 10 cents, but inflation triggered by World War I drove the limit to 15 cents and higher.

In 1962, under a program designed by company president Harry B. Cunningham, Kresge’s entered the large-scale discount retail market with construction of the first Kmart store outside Detroit. With its success, the company expanded aggressively, erecting an average of 85 discount stores per year over the next two decades throughout the United States and parts of Canada. During this time Kmart also introduced (1965) its popular “Bluelight Specials,” surprise deals that were announced in-store and offered for only 15 minutes; after 1991 they were only occasionally used. The corporate name was changed to Kmart in 1977. Kmart was particularly prescient in arranging a retail agreement with Martha Stewart: in 1987 the company hired her to serve as the public face for its entertainment and lifestyle products, and in 1997 Kmart became the exclusive retail store for the Martha Stewart Everyday line of home furnishings.

Kmart’s expansion continued throughout the 20th century, and by 2000 the company operated 2,200 Kmart, Big Kmart, and Super Kmart stores in the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Increasing competition with the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, and other discount stores, however, led Kmart to declare bankruptcy in 2002. Although some of its retail stores were shuttered, Kmart survived both the bankruptcy and the legal difficulties experienced by the representative of its star brand, Martha Stewart. The reorganized Kmart Holding Corporation acquired Sears, Roebuck and Company in 2005 for some $12 billion and took the name Sears Holdings Corporation, the corporate entity formed to manage the Kmart and Sears retail brands. Edward S. Lampert controlled nearly 40 percent of the new corporation. Although the holding company remained prosperous, sales at Kmart and Sears stores continued to decline. In 2009 Stewart accused Kmart of allowing her line to “deteriorate,” and their partnership ended the following year. During this time various Kmart stores were closed. In addition, the financial stability of Sears Holdings became increasingly uncertain, with Lampert drawing criticism for his handling of the corporation. In October 2018 Sears Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Founded in 1851 by Eben Dyer Jordan and Benjamin Lloyd Marsh, Jordan Marsh opened their first store selling linen, silk, calicos, ribbons and assorted dry goods to Victorian Bostonians. Following the Civil War, the store moved from Pearl Street to Winthrop Square and later to Washington Street between Summer and Avon Streets where in its new five story building, designed by Bradlee, Winslow & Wetherell, they unveiled the novel concept of "department shopping" under one roof. From the late 19th century onward, Jordan Marsh was to offer a selection of goods that offered such things as clothing, furniture, children’s toys and a plethora of other goods that attracted shoppers six days a week. The store offered personal service, with the adage that the customer is always right, easy credit, art exhibitions, and musical performances. It soon became a treasured part of life for shoppers who went to town, especially during the holiday season with The Enchanted Village of Saint Nicholas.

By 1951 Jordan Marsh had expanded to the suburbs with its first store at Shopper’s World in Framingham and by the 1970’s it was the largest chain in New England. Many people mourned when Jordan Marsh was sold, and the Macy's name went up on Jordan Marsh stores in 1995. Come hear about its fascinating history by the author of the upcoming history of this once important Boston department store.

Nephew of Norman Norell.

The National Federation of Republican Women was founded in 1938 and is the largest grassroots Republican women's organization in the nation.

Soul Train was an American television-program created by Don Cornelius. The program spanned 35 years and featured performances by R&B, soul, funk, pop, and hip hop artists.

The History of Korvettes Department Stores looks back at a much loved New York Department store chain that has been gone for more than 30 years. Nonetheless, Korvettes department stores are still fondly remembered by many generations of shoppers. New Yorkers have always had so many great shopping options, High end stores such as Macy’s, Gimbels, Bloomingdales, and Lord & Taylor have always been countered with stores such as Woolworth’s and McCorys. In the middle was Korvettes. The franchise focused on offering quality merchandise at low prices. Their jewelry, appliances, luggage, clothing and other items were usually priced at a third off of suggested retail prices or more. Many of the stores were originally called E.J. Korvette, but over time they replaced many of their stores signs and advertising from E.J. Korvette to Korvettes as to that’s what most people called them

Over the years, there have been so many false stories over the naming of Korvettes. Many of them had to do with Korean War Veterans which was ridiculous because the company originated in New York in 1948. The Korean War did not begin until 1950. Korvettes was founded by two men named Eugene Ferkauf and Joe Zwillenberg. Ferkauf said that the company name was a combination of the two friends’ names and an intentional re-spelling of the word corvette. The corvette was a small naval ship. The Chevrolet Corvette did not come into existence until 1953.

Joe and Eugene’s first Korvettes store was located on Manhattan’s 45th street, between Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue. The store could easily be accessed by people taking trains at the nearby Herald Square 34th Street and 33rd Street PATH subway stations. Korvettes expanded significantly in the 1950’s and 1960’s, with many of their retail outlets placed in strip malls that were next to urban roads with high traffic volumes.

Korvettes was one of the first retailers to offer popular merchandise at discounted prices. Their initial concept was similar to how Pennsylvania-based McCrory stores, the S.S. Kresge company, Woolworth’s and other similar organizations operated at the time. Offering items that were far below manufacturers’ suggested retail prices made some critics and competitors think that Korvettes was violating the 1936 Robinson-Patman act. However, the company was able to avoid true price discrimination.

Several retailers filed fair trade lawsuits against Korvettes, in attempts to prevent them from providing merchandise at reduced rates. Fair trade laws at the time mandated that retailers sell items at prices that were suggested by their manufacturers. None of the lawsuits were successful. All those efforts really did was draw more attention to Korvettes’ low prices. Ferkauf credited Chas Wolf, a luggage wholesaler, as the inspiration for his company’s pricing methods. Wolf used these ideas sparingly, whereas Korvettes used their membership cards and low prices as key selling features in many of their advertising and promotional materials.

Membership cards were given to nearby businesses and to the general public. Employees were told to hand out membership cards to any visitors to their stores. This positioned Korvettes as a cooperative retail organization. It received products from suppliers at low prices and passed those savings on to their customers. This was something that Gimbels, Macy’s and other competitors just couldn’t match.

Korvettes opened their first modern retail outlet in Long Island in 1954. The Carle Place store had 90,000 square feet of retail space. It was also the first Korvettes location that sold clothing. The company expanded to six stores in total by 1956. This number would double to 12 in 1958. In its prime, Korvettes had 58 retail locations throughout the United States. At their peak, sales averaged more than $2,500 per square foot of retail space.

Locations were added in St. Louis, Missouri, Chicago, Illinois, Detroit, Michigan and northern Virginia in the 1960’s. It was one of the first major retailers that opened on Sundays, after challenging local rules and regulations and conducting their own study on the matter in 1976. Many other companies started opening on Sundays after this breakthrough.

Ferkauf recruited businessman Jack Schwadron in 1961. Schwadron had previously worked for the Alexander’s Department Stores chain. He was named the general manager of Korvettes’ ready-to-wear division. Jack would rise up the corporate ranks, becoming vice president of Korvettes in 1964.

During that time, the company expanded their product lines to include home entertainment items. Several top of the line audio stations were constructed in several retail locations. Korvettes also launched their XAM brand of TV sets, amplifiers, speakers and receivers. It was widely speculated that the brand name was the backwards spelling of one of the founders’ former pet dog Max. The Roland company from Japan produced many of the products in Korvette’s XAM line.

Schwadron resigned from Korvettes in June 1965. He cited differences of opinion in how public relations, advertising and merchandising were handled as some of the primary reasons for his departure. Later that year, Korvettes created their own home furnishings department. They stopped subcontracting carpet and furniture sales and built their own distribution network and warehouses.

Purchasers in East Paterson, New Jersey would acquire furniture that would then be delivered to Korvettes’ central warehouse in Danville, Virginia. That warehouse would then send out orders placed by their customers to their Jessup, Maryland; Pennsauken, New Jersey or East Paterson delivery warehouses. Korvettes continued this process until December 1977.

Korvettes sales started to slump in the mid-1960’s. Problems arose in the furniture division after an independent manufacturer that they outsourced to couldn’t handle rising consumer demand. Another area of concern was the ill-fated decision to partner with the Hills grocery store chain. The fledgling grocers were not always able to keep up with increased product requests that were made by individual Korvettes stores. It was a risk that didn’t pay off very well. Korvettes later merged with retailer Spartan Goods in 1966. Ferkauf eventually left his leadership role after the merger.

Spartan tried to turn things around for several years with varying results. Korvettes was acquired by the land development business Arlen Realty and Development Corporation in 1971. The corporation hired well-known game show host Bill Cullen to promote Korvettes on many television advertisements over the next several years.

Arlen sold Korvettes to the French company Agache-Willot Group in 1979. Their new owners soon started closing some of the least profitable stores. They later sold real estate, fixtures, equipment and product inventory before declaring bankruptcy in 1980. All remaining Korvettes locations were closed by the end of that year.

One could always get great deals on clothing in Korvettes. They were closer to Sears style clothing than Macy’s. Yet, I always like the clothing better at Korvettes than Sears. Additionally, all the clothing accessories one needed like belts socks, underwear and everything else were sold extremely cheap and in pretty good quality at Korvettes. The store also had their own brand of many household items from hair dryers to record players sold at low prices that would last for years.

In 1856, the 21-year-old Marshall Field moved to Chicago from Massachusetts. He immediately began working at Cooley, Wadsworth & Co. By the Civil War, Field was a partner in the company, then led by John V. Farwell. Not satisfied as the junior partner in Farwell, Field & Co., Field left in 1865. That year, he joined Levi Leiter and Potter Palmer to create a new dry-goods house, Field, Palmer, Leiter & Co.; after Palmer sold out in 1867, this became Field, Leiter & Co. This new company operated on a very large scale, with about $9 million in wholesale and retail sales in 1867. Although two of its stores burned during the 1870s, the company continued to do an immense business. After Leiter retired in 1881, the name of the enterprise became Marshall Field & Co. By the late 1880s, when annual sales rose to over $30 million (about $5 million retail and $25 million wholesale), the company employed a total of nearly 3,000 people at its retail store on State and Washington Streets and its massive seven-story wholesale building at Quincy and Adams. The wholesale division, managed by John Shedd, made most of its purchases in New York City; meanwhile, by the 1890s, retail division chief Harry Selfridge was helping to create the modern department store by adding features such as a tearoom and large display windows. After Field died in 1906 (leaving $8 million for a natural history museum in Chicago that would bear his name), Shedd became president of a company that employed 12,000 people in Chicago (two-thirds of them in retail) and was doing about $25 million in yearly retail sales in addition to nearly $50 million wholesale. A new State Street store, completed in 1907, ranked as one of the largest retail establishments in the world. Under the leadership of Shedd and his successor James Simpson, Field & Co. expanded beyond Chicago during the 1920s. Shedd bought textile mills in North America and Asia; Simpson, who took over in 1923, concentrated on retail sales, opening branches in suburban Oak Park, Evanston, and Lake Forest, and acquiring a Seattle store at the end of the 1920s. Meanwhile, the company built the Merchandise Mart, a building in downtown Chicago that became the world's largest commercial structure when it was completed in 1931. Field & Co. would sell it in 1945. The expansion of the 1920s ended during the Great Depression, when the company closed its wholesale operations. At the end of World War II, Field & Co. ranked as one of the 20 largest retail enterprises in the United States. By the beginning of the 1960s, the company operated 10 stores, employed about 13,000 people, and did nearly $250 million in annual sales. In 1975, when it was adding stores across the country, Field opened a large new downtown Chicago store at Water Tower Place. In 1982, when it was purchased by BAT Industries of London, Field ceased to be an independent Chicago-based company. This continued to be the case after 1990, when Field (by then a 24-store chain) was purchased for about $1 billion by the Dayton Hudson Corp. of Minneapolis. By the end of the century, when Dayton Hudson became the Target Corp., it employed nearly 16,000 Chicago-area residents, who worked at Target discount stores as well as the department stores that retained the Marshall Field name.

Rosalind Snyder was Founder Dean Emeritus 1944-1963 of FIT. She retired in 1963 but continued to assert her belief in the permanence of FIT's unique vision of creative exploration.