“Give the Lady what she wants.”
—Marshall Field
To a child’s eyes, it was a magical store.
Marshall Field’s in Chicago was a must-stop when the family drove from Peoria to visit Uncle Emmett in Chicago. Uncle Emmett and I liked to go to the Riverwiew Amusement Park and ride the Bobs roller coaster. He was swell.
My first Field’s purchase was a boxed Slinky toy which cost $1.. I found it on the fourth floor toy department. The sales ladies all were beautiful and smelled so good. They offered service with a genuine smile and all seemed right with the world. Customer service was paramount and respectable women left their parlours and began to be seen in the public square. Monied women with wealthy fathers and husbands enjoyed the lavish new department stores, theaters, and hotels. Field’s meant elegance, quality, beauty, and service.
In the time between the Belle Epoque and the Roaring Twenties, debate saw competing visions of women’s proper place in modern society and the moral and cultural changes wrought by urban capitalism. Prosperous customers became known as the “carriage trade” because horse-drawn carriages kept the sidewalk-sweeping skirts out of the dirt. A green Field’s truck delivering goods meant a certain status had been achieved.
A small dry goods store began its history when it opened in 1852 in Chicago by a New York Quaker named Potter Palmer. Looking at the muddy streets and wooden buildings, Field saw opportunity. His store knew economic downturns, spectacular fires, and fierce competition as it transformed itself into a world-class retailer and merchandise powerhouse. Field priced the merchandise, displayed luxury goods attractively, and accepted returns for any reason.
Field sent buyers to Europe for the latest fashions and gracious sales ladies would help milady try on the frocks at the Chicago location. The store offered quiet contemplation with an area for sitting and relaxing in between lunch and shopping.
Those waiting and resting rooms had comfortable chairs, an infirmary staffed by a trained nurse and plenty of washrooms. There were phone books from 100 American cities, a check-cashing bureau, a travel service, and a post office. One customer regularly left alimony checks at the personal services desk. Another asked the store to retrieve a package forgotten on a street car. Service was king.
The store had a dazzling Tiffany mosaic dome, the Walnut Room restaurant, bronze clocks and offered the first bridal registry in 1924 and first book signing in 1914. The Field Christmas windows were spectacular then as they are today under the name of Macy’s. By the holiday season 1938, Field’s offered 234 selling sections, 45 passenger elevators, 7,500 employees serving 65,000 customers daily. The store covered just more than 61 acres of retail floor space. What a behemoth!
The famous Field’s clock was installed in 1897 after Field saw pedestrians tucking notes to friends into the store’s window frames. The clock became a meeting place and people familiar with downtown Chicago knew what was meant by “Meet me under the clock.”
The store was named a National Historic Landmark in 1978 and a Chicago Landmark in 2005. Marshall Field’s store was a place where nothing was impossible and dreams came true.