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part of its ongoing effort to dominate Chicago's non-Loop discount
retailing market, Wieboldt's purchased Rosenberg's department store of
Evanston in October of 1929. The old Rosenberg's store became the fourth
outlet in Wieboldt's growing chain of mid-sized, value-oriented
department stores.
Rosenberg's was founded in 1883 and fancied itself as "The North Shore's Greatest Store." The Rosenberg family no doubt had many reasons for merging with the Wieboldt chain. One factor was certainly Evanston's declining economic isolation from Chicago's Loop and Uptown retail markets. Throughout the 1920s, improved transportation links and intense marketing campaigns made the Loop department stores both more accessible and more indispensible than ever before. Squeezed by the robust competition, many smaller, suburban stores such as Rosenberg's were compelled to either close or sell out to larger chains. 
Rosenberg's Department Store, ca. 1908 In classic pre-Depression advertising hyperbole, Wieboldt's championed the acquisition of Rosenberg's as an economic boon to Evanston's shoppers. The new store, it was promised, would offer the suburb's residents "the tremendous resources of an institution of $25,000,000 in sales" and "a price policy that offers more and better merchandise at prices lower than ever." In the late 1940s, Wieboldt's Evanston store moved from the old Rosenberg's location at Davis and Benson into a new and exceptionally modern building on the northeast corner of Church and Oak. Related Information Early Wieboldt's Marketing and Advertising Techniques The Milwaukee Avenue Store The Northtown Store The Englewood Store Online Resources Photograph: Rosenberg's, exterior view, 1916 [Univ. of Minnesota Univ. Libraries] |