John Wanamaker

Early life and education

Wanamaker was born in the Grays Ferry section of South Philadelphia on July 11, 1838. to John Nelson Wanamaker, a brickmaker and native of Kingwood, New Jersey, and Elizabeth Deshong Kochersperger, daughter of a farmer and innkeeper in Gray's Ferry.

His mother's ancestors came from Rittershoffen in Alsace, France, and from Canton of Bern in Switzerland.

Career

At the age of 19, Wanamaker was hired by the Philadelphia YMCA, and served as the first corresponding secretary in the YMCA national organization.

Department store business

In 1861, Wanamaker opened his first store in partnership with his brother in-law Nathan Brown. The store, called "Oak Hall", was located at 6th and Market Streets in Philadelphia, adjacent to the site of the residence and offices of George Washington during his presidency.

Oak Hall grew substantially based on Wanamaker's then-revolutionary principle: "One price and goods returnable".

In 1869, he opened his second store at 818 Chestnut Street, and, capitalizing on his own name due to the untimely death of his brother-in-law and growing reputation, renamed the company John Wanamaker & Co. In 1875, he purchased an abandoned railroad depot and converted it into a large store, called John Wanamaker & Co. "The Grand Depot". Wanamaker's is considered the first department store in Philadelphia.

The Wanamaker Building is a large, 12-story granite store in Philadelphia, designed by Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham and completed in 1910. It was dedicated by U.S. President William Howard Taft on December 30, 1911. The store stands on the site of "The Grand Depot", encompassing an entire block at the corner of 13th and Market Streets across from Philadelphia City Hall. The new store, The Wanamaker Building, which still stands today, became a Philadelphia institution. The entire building was initially devoted to the department store and company offices.

The building has remained an integral part of Philadelphia culture. In 2018, the upper office tower was marketed as the Wanamaker Office Building.

The Wanamaker Building's most notable feature is its seven-story, marble-clad central atrium, known as the "Grand Court". The Grand Court quickly became a Philadelphia favorite, highlighted by the Wanamaker Eagle and the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ.

The Grand Court has been featured in several movies, including Nasty Habits in 1977, Blow Out in 1981, Mannequin in 1987, and 12 Monkeys in 1995.

The Wanamaker Grand Court Organ was designed by George Ashdown Audsley and built by the Los Angeles Art Organ Company for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. The instrument had 10,059 pipes, and cost $105,000 to construct, equal to $3,760,000 today. Wanamaker bought the organ in 1909 and had it transported from St. Louis aboard 13 freight cars. The organ's installation in Philadelphia took two years. It was played for the first time on June 22, 1911, to coincide with England's King George V's coronation.

Postmaster General

In 1889, Wanamaker began the First Penny Savings Bank in order to encourage thrift. The same year, he was appointed United States Postmaster General by President Benjamin Harrison; he was accused by the newspapers of the day of buying the post. Wanamaker was credited by his friends with introducing the first commemorative stamp and many efficiencies to the Postal Service. He was the first to make plans for free rural postal service in the United States, although the plan was not implemented until 1896.

In 1890, Wanamaker persuaded Congress to pass an act prohibiting the sale of lottery tickets through the mail, and then he aggressively pursued violators. Those actions effectively ended all state lotteries in the US until they reappeared in 1964, partly as an effort to undermine organized crime.

Wanamaker's tenure at the Post Office was riddled with controversy. He fired some 30,000 postal workers under the then common "spoils system" during his four-year term, as it was customary for a change in political administrations to lead to new appointments for their own supporters. The changeover of so many employees caused severe confusion, inefficiency, and a run-in with civil-service crusader Theodore Roosevelt, a fellow Republican.

In 1890, Wanamaker commissioned a series of stamps that were derided in the national media as the poorest quality stamps ever issued, both for printing quality and materials. When his department store ordered advance copies of the newly translated novel The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy, the deadline was missed, and only the regular discount was offered by the publisher. He retaliated by banning the book from the US Mail on grounds of obscenity.

He was ridiculed for this action by many major U.S. newspapers. In 1891, he ordered changes in the uniforms of letter carriers, and was accused of arranging for all the uniforms to be ordered from a single firm in Baltimore, to which he was believed to have financial ties. In 1893 he made a public prediction at the Chicago World's Fair that U.S. mail would still rely on stagecoach and horseback delivery for a century to come, failing to anticipate the effects of trains, the automobile, and related truck vehicles.

During World War I, Wanamaker publicly proposed that the United States buy Belgium from Germany for the sum of one-hundred billion dollars, as an alternative to the continuing carnage of the war.

Philanthropy

Wanamaker was known for his philanthropy to programs to aid the poor in Philadelphia. He co-founded Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission (now Philly House), a homeless shelter and soup kitchen, in 1878. The Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission has since expanded to provide more services and still supports the homeless population of Philadelphia. In December 1915 Wanamaker purchased the Empire Theatre at Broad St. and Fairmont Ave, and used his wealth to transform it into a new local headquarters for the Salvation Army (SA) known as the Salvation Army Memorial Building (opened May 1917). The building remained the SA's Philadelphia headquarters until it was demolished in March 1970.

He was an avid collector of art and antiquities. He made several donations to the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Among the donations was a collection of bronze reproductions of artifacts uncovered from the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, known as the Wanamaker Bronzes, which Wanamaker had commissioned by the Chiurazzi Foundry in Naples for the museum.

Personal life

In 1860, Wanamaker married Mary Erringer Brown.

They had six children, two of whom died in childhood:

Thomas Brown Wanamaker (1862–1908), who married Mary Lowber Welch (1864–1929)

Lewis Rodman Wanamaker (1863–1928), who married Fernanda de Henry and Violet Cruger

Horace Wanamaker (born 1864), died in infancy during the American Civil War

Harriett E. "Nettie" Wanamaker (1865–1870)

Mary Brown "Minnie" Wanamaker (1869–1954), who married Barclay Harding Warburton

Elizabeth "Lillie" Wanamaker (1876–1927), who married Norman McLeod

In 1899, Wanamaker's son, Thomas, who specialized in store financial matters, purchased The North American, a Philadelphia-based newspaper. He irritated his father by publishing regular columns by radical intellectuals, including Henry George, Jr., socialist Henry John Nelson, who later became Emma Goldman's lawyer, and socialist Caroline H. Pemberton. The younger Wanamaker also began publishing a Sunday edition, which offended his father's sense of keeping the Sabbath holy.

His younger son Rodman, a Princeton University graduate, lived in France early in his career. He is credited with creating a demand for French luxury goods in Philadelphia and the United States that persists to this day. Rodman was credited with the artistic quality that gave the Wanamaker stores their cachet. He was also a patron of fine music, organizing spectacular organ and orchestra concerts in the Wanamaker Philadelphia and New York City stores under music director Alexander Russell.

Death

Wanamaker died on December 12, 1922. His funeral was on December 14, 1922, with a service at the Bethany Presbyterian Church. He was interred in the Wanamaker family tomb in the churchyard of the Church of St. James the Less in Philadelphia.

At his death, his estate was estimated to be US$100 million ($1,923,459,245 today), divided equally among his three living children and granddaughters, Mary "Minnie" Wanamaker Warburton (Mrs. Barclay Warburton), Patricia "Paddy" W. Estelle, and Elizabeth Wanamaker McLeod, who all received substantial stock, real estate and cash instruments. Second son Rodman was made sole inheritor of the store businesses.

Rodman Wanamaker died in 1928, leaving the businesses with a documented worth of $36.7 million ($673,210,736 today) in a trust. Rodman is credited with founding the Professional Golfers' Association of America and the Millrose Games.

The senior Wanamaker's first son, Thomas B. Wanamaker, died in Paris in 1908.

Legacy

His country estate, Lindenhurst mansion in Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania, was located on York Road below Washington Lane at (40.0853°N 75.1311°W / 40.0853; -75.1311). The original mansion was designed by architect E. A. Sargent of New York City. President Harrison visited Wanamaker at the Lindenhurst mansion.

A neoclassic mansion was constructed when the original Victorian Lindenhurst burned in 1907, destroying much of Wanamaker's art collection. A railroad station, Chelten Hills located below Jenkintown, and no longer in existence, was constructed on the property in addition to his vast mansion. Part of the former estate became the campus of Salus University.

A family trust owned the Wanamaker's store chain, run by a trustee system set up by Rodman Wanamaker's will. In 1978, the business was sold to Carter Hawley Hale, Inc. The 15-store chain was sold to Woodward & Lothrop in 1986, and the downtown store was renamed as Lord & Taylor. Woodies declared bankruptcy in 1994, and with it went the Wanamaker stores, which were sold to May Department Stores Company on June 21, 1995. In August 2006 the flagship Philadelphia store was converted from a Lord & Taylor to a Macy's.

Bronze busts honoring Wanamaker and other industry magnates stand between the Chicago River and the Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago, Illinois.

A popular saying illustrating how difficult it was to quantify the response to advertising is attributed to Wanamaker: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." See John Emory Powers

Beginning in 1908, Wanamaker financed Anna Jarvis's campaign to have a national Mother's Day holiday officially recognized. On May 8, 1914, the U.S. Congress passed a law designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day, which also later became an international holiday. A dedicated Pennsylvania historic marker honoring Jarvis and Wanamaker is located at Philadelphia City Hall, across the street from Wanamaker's store, where the earliest Mother's Day ceremonies were held.

Wanamaker's fame was considerable around the world in his heyday. In the original play Pygmalion (1912) by George Bernard Shaw, Alfred Doolittle is left a legacy by an American philanthropist millionaire named "Ezra Wanafeller", combining Wanamaker's name with John D. Rockefeller, Sr.