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Land Of Desire
''Land of Desire'' is a book by William Leach about the development of consumer capitalism in the United States from 1890–1932. It was a National Book Award Finalist for 1993. The title of the book comes from the statement by store owner John Wanamaker that "everyone who starts a new thing has to stand where Columbus did when he set sail. Few had faith that he could ever reach the land of desire." Synopsis ''Land of Desire'' opens with the premise that American democracy shifted fundamentally after the Civil War as land ownership became concentrated in fewer hands and the population moved to cities to become wage laborers. In the accompanying cultural transformation money gained importance as the good life came to be defined no longer by control over production but by the power to consume (pp. 3–8).Elliott J. Gorn, "Selling Urban Dreams" (book review essay), ''Journal of Urban History'' 24(4), May 1998. The emphasis shifted away from home, family, and self-reliance and to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consumer Capitalism
A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or Service (economics), services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. The term most commonly refers to a person who purchases goods and services for personal use. Consumer rights “Consumers, by definition, include us all," said President John F. Kennedy, offering his definition to the United States Congress on March 15, 1962. This speech became the basis for the creation of World Consumer Rights Day, now celebrated on March 15. In his speech : John Fitzgerald Kennedy outlined the integral responsibility to consumers from their respective governments to help exercise consumers' rights, including: *The right to safety: To be protected against the marketing of goods that are hazardous to health or life. *The right to be informed: To be protected against fraudulent, deceitful, or grossly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dry Goods
Dry goods is a historic term describing the type of product line a store carries, which differs by region. The term comes from the textile trade, and the shops appear to have spread with the mercantile trade across the British Empire (and former British territories) as a means of bringing supplies and manufactured goods to far-flung settlements and homesteads. Starting in the mid-18th century, these stores began by selling supplies and textile goods to remote communities, and many customized the products they carried to the area's needs. This continued to be the trend well into the early 20th century. With the rise of department stores and catalog sales, the decline of dry goods stores began, and the term has largely fallen out of use. Some dry goods stores became department stores especially around the turn of the 20th century. The term goes back to the 17th century and originally referred to any goods measured in dry measure, not liquid measure, of volume, such as stere, bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nathan Straus
Nathan Straus (January 31, 1848 – January 11, 1931) was an American merchant and philanthropist who co-owned two of New York City's biggest department stores, R. H. Macy & Company and Abraham & Straus. He is a founding father and namesake for the Israeli city Netanya. Biography Nathan Straus was born to a German Jewish family in Otterberg in the former Palatinate, then ruled by the Kingdom of Bavaria (present-day Germany), the third child of Lazarus Straus (1809–1898) and his wife, Sara (1823–1876). His siblings were Hermine Straus Kohns (1846–1922), Isidor Straus (1845–1912), and Oscar Solomon Straus (1850–1926). The family moved to the U.S. state of Georgia in 1854. After losing everything in the American Civil War the family moved to New York City, where his father formed L. Straus & Sons, a crockery and glassware firm. The Straus family owned slaves and conducted business with other slave owners, taking several formerly enslaved people to the North with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isidor Straus
Isidor Straus (February 6, 1845 – April 15, 1912) was a Bavarian-born American Jewish businessman, politician and co-owner of Macy's department store with his brother Nathan. He also served for just over a year as a member of the United States House of Representatives. He died with his wife, Ida, in the sinking of the passenger ship RMS ''Titanic''. Early life Straus was born into a Jewish family in Otterberg in the former Palatinate, then ruled by the Kingdom of Bavaria. He was the first of five children of Lazarus Straus (1809–1898) and his second wife and first cousin, Sara Straus (1823–1876). His siblings were Hermine (1846–1922), Nathan (1848–1931), Jakob Otto (1849–1851) and Oscar Solomon Straus (1850–1926). In 1854 he and his family immigrated to the United States, following his father, Lazarus, who immigrated two years before. They settled first in Columbus, Georgia, and then lived in Talbotton, Georgia, where their house still exists today. He was pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Filene's
Filene's (formally William Filene & Sons Co.) was an American department store chain; it was founded by William Filene in 1881. The success of the original full-line store in Boston, Massachusetts, was supplemented by the foundation of its off-price sister store Filene's Basement in 1908. Filene's, in partnership with Abraham & Straus, Lazarus, and Shillito's, was an original member of the holding company Federated Department Stores upon its establishment in 1929. Filene's expanded into shopping malls throughout New England and New York in the later half of the twentieth century, and was rivaled by fellow Boston-based department store Jordan Marsh. Federated sold Filene's to The May Department Stores Company, and spun off Filene's Basement into a separate company, in 1988. With this reorganization, the Filene's nameplate replaced the Hartford-based G. Fox & Co. in 1992 and Steiger's in 1994; the store assumed control of the Pittsburgh-based department store chain Kaufmann's in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lincoln Filene
Abraham Lincoln Filene (April 5, 1865 – August 27, 1957) was an American businessman and philanthropist. Biography Born to a Jewish family in Boston, Massachusetts, he was one of 5 children of William Filene and Clara Ballin. His parents were German Jewish immigrants - his father from Posen, Prussia and mother was born in Segnitz, Bavaria - who immigrated to the United States in 1848. His father founded Filene's department stores. Known by his middle name, Lincoln, together with his older brother Edward, built his father's store into a highly successful business. A social reformer, Lincoln Filene supported the American women's suffrage movement and went against the position taken by most members of the American business community when he publicly supported President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal agenda. Filene had a keen interest in educational issues and served as a member of the Executive Board of the National Committee for the Department of Education. A philanthropist, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Filene
Edward Albert Filene (September 3, 1860 – September 26, 1937) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He is best known for building the Filene's department store chain and for his decisive role in pioneering credit unions across the United States. Early life Born in Salem, Massachusetts, Edward was one of five children of William Filene (born May 8, 1830) and Clara Ballin (born December 13, 1833). Both his parents were German Jewish immigrants, his father from Posen, Prussia, and his mother was born in Segnitz, Bavaria. William immigrated to the US in 1848 after abandoning law school in Berlin. It was some time in the 1850s that William and Clara met while Clara was visiting relatives in Hartford, Connecticut. They married in New York City. As "a peddler, chiefly of women’s apparel" William built up a company composed of several small retail shops.Stillman, YankiEdward Filene: Pioneer of Social Responsibility. ''Jewish Currents.'' September 2004. In 1865, at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siegel-Cooper Company
The Siegel-Cooper Company was a department store that opened in Chicago in 1887 and expanded into New York City in 1896. At the time of its opening, the New York store was the largest in the world. First store in Chicago Siegel-Cooper began as a discount department store on State Street in the Loop. It was founded by Henry Siegel, Frank H. Cooper and Isaac Keim in 1887. Four years later, the store moved into the eight-story Second Leiter Building at State and Van Buren Street, designed by William Le Baron Jenney, where it stayed until 1930, after a 1914-15 reorganization into Associated Dry Goods Corp., but keeping the Siegel-Cooper name in Chicago. The building was then occupied from 1931 to 1986 by Sears, Roebuck & Company. It continues in use, most recently in the 21st century as a college campus. Second store in New York City In September 1896,Abelson, Elaine S. "Siegel-Cooper" in , p.1182 the company opened a store in New York City, a huge emporium in the Ladies' Mile ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Siegel
Henry Siegel (March 17, 1852 – August 25, 1930) was an American businessman and co-founder of the Siegel-Cooper Company. Biography Siegel was born on March 17, 1852, to a German Jews, Jewish family in Eubigheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In 1867, he immigrated to the United States where he worked as a clerk by in Washington, D.C., Parkersburg, West Virginia, and Parker, Pennsylvania, Lawrenceburg, Pennsylvania. In 1876, he co-founded Siegel, Hartsfield & Company in Chicago. In 1887, he co-founded the Siegel-Cooper Company, also in Chicago, with Frank H. Cooper and Isaac Keim. In 1896, Siegel-Cooper opened a store in New York City in the Ladies' Mile Historic District. In 1902, Henry Siegel sold the company to one of his major stockholders, Captain Joseph B. Greenhut and his son Benedict J. Greenhut, who merged the store with B. Altman across the street in New York City creating a mega-store. In the same year, Siegel bought the Simpson Crawford Company (with one store in New Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marshall Field's
Marshall Field & Company (commonly known as Marshall Field's) was an upscale department store in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in the 19th century, it grew to become a large chain before Macy's, Inc acquired it in 2005. Its eponymous founder, Marshall Field, was a pioneering retail magnate. The company's flagship Marshall Field and Company Building on State Street in the Chicago Loop is a National Landmark. It was officially branded ''Macy's on State Street'' in 2006, when it became one of Macy's flagship stores. History Early years Marshall Field & Company traces its antecedents to a dry goods store opened at 137 Lake StreetPDX History of Marshall Field's Retrieved August 20, 2006. in , |
Marshall Field
Marshall Field (August 18, 1834January 16, 1906) was an American entrepreneur and the founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores. His business was renowned for its then-exceptional level of quality and customer service. Field is also known for some of his philanthropic donations, providing funding for the Field Museum of Natural History and donating land for the campus of the University of Chicago. Early life Marshall Field was born on a farm in Conway, Massachusetts, Marden, Orison SwettHow Marshall Field Succeeded ''Mises Institute''. the son of John Field IV and Fidelia Nash. His family was descended from Puritans who had come to America as early as 1629. At the age of 17, he moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he first worked in a dry goods store alongside his brother Joseph Field. and (includes brief biography of Marshall Field). He left Massachusetts after five years of working in the dry goods store in search of new opportun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wanamaker's
John Wanamaker Department Store was one of the first department stores in the United States. Founded by John Wanamaker in Philadelphia, it was influential in the development of the retail industry including as the first store to use price tags. At its zenith in the early 20th century, Wanamaker's also had a store in New York City at Broadway and Ninth Street. Both employed extremely large staffs. By the end of the 20th century, there were 16 Wanamaker's outlets, but after years of change the chain was bought by Albert Taubman, and added to his previous purchase of Woodward & Lothrop, the Washington, D.C., department store. In 1994, Woodies, as it was known, filed for bankruptcy. The assets of Woodies were purchased by the May Company Department Stores and JCPenney. In 1995, Wanamaker's transitioned to Hecht's, one of the May Company brands. In 2006, Macy's Center City became the occupant of the former Philadelphia Wanamaker's Department Store, which is now a National Historic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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