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| Origins and Growth of Marshall Field's
What became Midwest's most prominent and well-known department store dates back as far as 1852 when Potter Palmer, one of Chicago's great nineteenth-century movers and shakers, opened a small dry goods store on Lake Street, then the city's prime retail strip. Palmer quickly made a name for himself through his innovative retailing practices, including liberal return and credit policies. When his health began to fail, Palmer sold his firm to two young merchants, including the ambitious Marshall Field. Out of the dry-goods business, Palmer turned his attention to real estate development, particularly the improvement of State Street, which Palmer hoped to transform into a grand shopping corridor that would propel Chicago toward international distinction. In 1868, Palmer built a palatial structure on the northeast corner of Washington and State and then convinced Field to relocate his firm to the new State Street building. Three years later, when the Great Fire swept across central Chicago, Marshall Field's fledgling dry goods emporium was burned to the ground and thousands of dollars worth of merchandise lost. But Field insisted upon reopening the store almost as soon as the smoke had cleared. Within just a few short days, newly ordered shipments of goods were arriving from the East and Field was conducting business as usual, albeit on a temporary site just outside the burned over district. Not soon thereafter, plans were laid for the construction of an even grander and more spacious State Street store than the one that had been destroyed only months before. In the years that followed, Field's business enjoyed tremendous success and quickly established its reputation as Chicago's most fashionable and respectable department store. As business and profits increased, the store building itself was progressively enlarged, coming eventually to occupy the entire square block bounded by State, Washington, Randolph, and Wabash. The southeast quadrant was built in 1893 in anticipation of the Columbian Exposition, followed by the northwest and northeast quadrants. Expansion of the State Street Store With business steadily increasing throughout the 1880s and 1890s, it soon became apparent to Marshall Field that if he was to grow as Chicago grew, larger quarters would be in order. The first major expansion of the store was completed in 1893 with the opening of the nine-story structure on the northeast corner of Washington and Wabash. Although the new additional retail space helped to handle the thousands of out-of-town visitors to the store during the World's Columbian Exposition, the continued growth of everyday consumerism in Chicago soon prompted yet more expansion plans. By the early 1900s, with the intention of expanding the store even further, Marshall Field set out to purchase all the remaining properties in the city block bouded by Washington, State, Wabash, and Randolph Streets. By 1907, the entire block of buildings, with the lone exception of the 1893 structure, had been demolished and replaced with new retail buildings, all of which offered upwards of seven floors of selling space, effectively tripling the size of the store within a five- to six-year period. 
Marshall Field and Company on State Street, Looking southeast, after the 1907 expansion Equally remarkable was new store's primarily neo-classical design, as most evident in its refashioned State Street facade. Toward the center of the block was the building's front portico, where Marshall Field's wealthiest and most elite customers would be greeted by well-mannered doormen and politely escorted inside the store. The portico was set off by four marble Ionic columns and was meant to suggest not only the firm's economic might and financial stability--recall, most banks and municipal buildings utilized neo-classical design elements--but also the store's apparent authority and reliability in matters of fashion and cultural tastes. The State Street store retains its neo-classical appearance to this day.
Social Life at Marshall Field's Like all of Chicago's downtown department stores, Marshall Field's was more than just a place to shop. Although the purchase of goods and services was fundamental to the store's existence and profitability, customers patronized the store for many additional reasons. For many Chicagoans of the first half of the 20th century, the practice of shopping at Marshall Field's was as much a social and cultural excercise as it was an effort to acquire the most satisfying article of clothing or piece of furniture. Executives at Marshall Field's worked hard to make their store a place where Chicago's wealthier men and women could successfully cultivate and comfortably reaffirm their own personal standing in the community as they shopped. Store aisles and merchandise displays, for instance, were so arranged as to ensure that even the most polite proprieties would not be violated as ladies reached to inspect an item. Likewise, elaborate systems of credit and layaway plans were developed, each with its unique language and set of rituals, to relieve women of the responsiblity and carrying and handling cash themselves. While such practices as these did not eradicate stooping for merchandise and cash purchases altogether, they did have the tendency to relegate such "embarrasing" behaviors to the store's less well-off clientele and thus preserve the "necessary" delicacy and respectability of it's wealthier female patrons. Because of the store's reputation as a high-class retail establishment, many Chicagoans found it a desirable place to socialize and, perhaps more importantly, be seen socializing. This was especially true for Marshall Field's female customers who, unlike Chicago's men and their downtown gentlemen's clubs, had few institutions at which to socialize and confirm one another's social position. The downtown department stores filled this void. Thus, beginning around the turn of the century, Chicago women increased the frequency and duration of their visits to the downtown emporiums. For some, a trip downtown became almost a daily ritual. A given woman might invite one or two of her neighbors to go along, arrive shortly after the Field's opened at 10am, spend the next hour or two shopping with one another, have a leisurely lunch together in one of the store's restaurants, partake in a fashion show or cooking class in the afternoon, and then return home in time to prepare for her family's return from work and school. The next day the ritual would be repeated, only perhaps with a different pair of companions. Marshall Field's men's and women's lounges offered additional space within the store where customers could pursue social affairs apart from actitivities normally associated with shopping. Both lounges were elegantly appointed and included sofas, chairs, writing tables, and reading materials. As a place where customers gathered to visit or rested from their shopping acitivites, they were primarily intended to serve the social needs of the Marshall Field's patrons. For many of Chicago's women, a stopover in the ladies' lounge was a key component to their visits to the store. 
A Portion of the Women's Waiting Room, State Street Store, ca. 1910 
South Grill Room, State Street Store, ca. 1915 Out-of-town visitors, many of whom took in the store during a layover between connecting trains, were also frequent users of the lounges. There they were able to send and receive telegrams and cablegrams, arrange hotel reservations, purchase theater tickets, consult railroad timetables, and receive other helpful travel information. While it may appear otherwise by early twenty-first-century standards, women's daily visits to Marshall Field's should not be considered idle leisure. For Chicago's wealthier or up-and-coming families, the ability of the wife to complement her husband's position in the community was of considerable importance, and often had as much or more influence upon his financial success as did his own expertise or merits as a man of business. As the wife of a professional or businessman, she was expected not only to outfit her family and their home in a manner suitable to their place (or desired place) in society, but also to cultivate social contacts that could enhance improve her husband's fortunes and improve her family's overall social standing. This she accomplished in large part by ingratiating herself to other prominent women while on shopping trips to stores like Marshall Field's. Chicago's less well-off families partook in these rituals as well, though on a less frequent basis and not always at Marshall Field's. If the family could not afford a housekeeper, the amount of time the female head-of-household could spend on shopping excursions would be limited by the amount of housework she had to do. And the amount of time she could spend socializing on such excursions would be further reduced by time spent searching for needed merchandise and the expense of a department store lunch or similar activity. Women who worked for a living had to limit their time at the department stores to evenings and weekends. Suburban Branch Stores Marshall Field's in Evanston, est. 1929 Marshall Field's in Oak Park, est. 1929 Suggested Books · Lloyd Wendt, Give the Lady What She Wants: The Story of Marshall Field and Company (And Books, 1997, reprint of 1957 ed.). · Robert W. Twyman, History of Marshall Field and Company, 1852-1906 (Ayer Publishing, 1976). · William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (Vintage Books, 1994).
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Page authored: 12
January 1997 -
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