Previous Intro Note: Retailing: Five and Dime to High Fashion
Explosive growth in retailing and merchandising during the 1920s took place across the economic and geographic spectrum, from the so-called "variety stores," such as the nationwide Woolworth chain, that catered to the low-end consumer; to middle-class department stores, such as Macy's and Gimbel's in New York City's retailing hub, in the vicinity of 34th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues; to high-end shops on New York's Fifth Avenue; and from Filene's in Boston to Wanamaker's in Philadelphia, and all around the country.
While the chain store had its greatest successes in the grocery field (A&P, Kroger's, and Piggly Wiggly), the idea of the chains was particularly identified in the popular mind with the "variety chain," of which F.W. Woolworth's was the leading exemplar. A 50th anniversary pamphlet, Fifty Years of Woolworth . . . with amazing buying opportunities for your nickels and dimes (1929), traces the history (1879-1929), in the United States and Europe, of this originator of the "variety" or "5 and 10 cent store." The "five and dimes" sold just about everything except fashions (although the stores did carry clothing novelties such as handkerchiefs, belts and ties), relying on "organized quantity buying" and "organized quantity selling" as the secret behind their ability to "offer so much for so little."
The high-end consumer appears in "Promoting Prestige through Advertising," in the February 15, 1926 issue of Talking Machine World. The article shows how the Brunswick Salon on Fifth Ave in New York customized its advertising of phonographs and radios to appeal to the wealthy. The August 1926 issue of House and Garden offers upscale ads for cars, shoes and homes, and features on houses and interiors of distinction. "Will Skirts Disappear?: A Thirty-Year Prophecy by the Paris Arbiter of Fashion" in the January 1927 issue of Forum offers a gentle critique of the excesses of high fashion, including an illustrated fashion forecast that is surprisingly prescient.
Essentially a promotional piece, Wanamaker's own Friendly Guide Book to Philadelphia and the Wanamaker Store (1926) divides its 64 pages about equally between the entire city of Philadelphia, with all that it offers, and the charms of the department store. A drawing of "The Grand Court" of the Wanamaker store shows a and "the great organ" (p. 42), in a tableau reminiscent of a cathedral. A massive statue of a great bronze eagle which, like the organ, was bought by Wanamaker after its exhibition at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, presides over the Grand Court (p. 44). The store had a radio station, broadcasting its own organ recitals, as well as lectures, news, and weather forecasts (p. 46). (INTRO NOTE Radio) Also discussed are the "Egyptian Hall" (p. 49), the "Byzantine Chamber" (p. 50), the "Empire Salon" (p. 50), and the "Little Gray Salons," which sell exclusive women's apparel in a setting designed to mirror "the charming shops in the Place Vendome and the Rue de la Paix" in Paris (p. 53). And then there is "The Little Home that Budget Built."
Opened in April 1923, the "Budget House" contained two model apartments, furnished "on different scales of expenditure," one simple and the other more luxurious. "Each apartment represents the standards of requirement of a refined American home." In addition to the fact that all of the furnishings can be purchased at Wanamakers, "All the contents of the apartments are for sale [off the floor], and this causes the settings to be changed almost daily, which adds to their charm, since every time one visits Wanamaker's there is always something new to be seen in the Budget House" (p. 51). (INTRO NOTE Thrift).
In Boston, retailer and business theorist and visionary Edward A. Filene ran Filene's department store. He experimented with market segmentation, the existence of selling opportunities at many different income levels, by opening Filene's Basement in 1902 in the lower level of his mainstream store. There he sold marked-down goods, appealing both to shoppers of moderate income and to bargain-hunters.
A key trend in retailing during the decade was the "art-in-industry movement," which encouraged the incorporation of the artful, streamlined, "modern" look into the production, advertising and sale of household gadgets and furniture; frequent changes in style and color spurred consumerism. (DETAIL NOTE Art-in-Industry)
Macy's joined the debate on the importance of color, style, and art in the merchandising to consumers of clothing, furnishings and even automobiles in How the Retailer Merchandises Present Day Fashion, Style and Art (1929), by Irwin D. Wolf of the Kaufmann Department Stores, Inc. and Austin Purves, Head, Design Atelier, R.H. Macy and Company, Inc. Purves discusses "Modernism," the importance of the concept of design, and how the department store fits into these considerations: "I have felt there has been a tremendous gap between the high standard of architecture and the highest standard of purely utilitarian things. You may want to use a good refrigerator or you may want to wear nice-looking clothes. And yet so far as production is concerned in this country, we have not become sufficiently conscious of the inter-relation [sic] of the whole line of creative endeavor from architecture down to purely useful things" (p. 12).
Purves also draws a parallel between fashion trends and General Motors' strategy of adding frequent changes in style and color to jack up the merchandising of automobiles.
Several other pieces on Macy's, appearing in serials, make it possible further to trace some of the merchandising activities of this major middle-class department store in the twenties. The first Macy's Christmas parade and, implicitly, the growing power of the child consumer, were covered by the December 1924 issue of Merchants Record and Show Window. An Illustrated Monthly Journal for Merchants, Display Managers and Advertising Men, which carried "Notes from New York" (pp. 22-25), subtitled "Macy's parade and great mechanical showing of Christmas toys." The August 1925 issue of the Bulletin of the Taylor Society carried an article on scientific management in department stores, focusing on Macy's. (INTRO NOTE Taylorism) And Section 3, the electrical goods section of the Dry Goods Economist for June 5, 1926, carried an article on the "model rooms" of Macy's electrical show.
The classic University of Chicago study, The Saleslady (1929), rich in personal voice and anecdote, gives an insider's sense of department store life. Chapters include "Getting a Job," "Customers," "Recreation," "A Life History: Twenty-One Years in a Department Store," "The Saleslady at Home," and "Songs of the Saleslady," which reproduces actual songs.
A consumer-related question that particularly bedeviled department store retailers during the twenties was how to cultivate customers' good will, yet discourage them from returning merchandise. The August 1926 issue of the National Retail Dry Goods Association Bulletin provides an overview article on what was widely referred to as the "evil" of merchandise returns: "Solution of Returned Goods Problem Demands Reforms Within the Store Followed by Consumer Education."
The General Collections monograph The Retail Shopping and Financial Districts in New York and Its Environs: A Consideration of the Factors Affecting Location (1927), published by the Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs, shows how even the discipline of urban planning -- which concerned itself with planning the physical layout of cities, towns, and suburbs -- was affected by the need to accommodate department store retailers and shoppers.
Previous Intro Note: Retailing: Five and Dime to High Fashion