Starting today, we will no longer add content to or check for any new comments made on this WordPress site; but you will be able to find all our posts on the new site.  And once you register there, you’ll be able to comment and converse with us in the same fashion as you did here.

In the coming months, we will continue to improve and add content to the new Fondly, Pennsylvania blog.  There you will find the same information on our collections and projects that we made here on WordPress.  Plus, you will have all of HSP’s online resources, including our other blogs, directly at your fingertips.

So please join us at the new hsp.org!

Fondly,

Your faithful HSP blog writers

You may have noticed a hiatus in posts here at Fondly, Pennsylvania.  We are still hard at work with our collections, but we are also in the midst of updating our website.  By the end of January, this blog will be moved to HSP’s new website.  We will have a brand new look and, more importantly, a brand new URL.  So stay tuned for our new address, which we’ll post here, and prepare to update your links!

Fondly,

HSP blog writers from archives, conservation, and digitization

Though our online purchasing power has ramped up over the last few years, shopping meccas remain in many major cities, such as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.  Philadelphia’s own retail star has dimmed some over the past, but its Center City neighborhood is undergoing something of a shopping revival.  However, among the chains and independent stores, the area lays claim to only one large free-standing department store: Macy’s.  It wasn’t that long ago, though, that Center City had four major, long-running department stores all within a few city blocks: Wanamaker’s, Strawbridge and Clothier,  Lit Brothers, and Gimbels.  These stores brought the spending community together to one location that was easy to navigate and convenient for drivers as well as public transportation riders. They also helped set retail trends that continue to this day.

Below is a bit of history about each.  HSP has a number resources and images (more can be found in our Digital Library) concerning the histories of Philadelphia’s great retail stores.  Many Philadelphians carry with them memories of shopping at these places.  Feel free to share yours in the comments section below.

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Wanamaker’s – 13^th and Market streets (now the site of Macy’s)

Wanamaker's Department Store, postcard (circa 1920)

John Wanamaker (1838-1922) was a well-known merchant, entrepreneur, and lifelong resident of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He opened his first Philadelphia clothing store, Oak Hall, with partner Nathan Brown in 1861, and founded John Wanamaker and Co. several years later in 1869.  In 1876, they opened “A New Kind of Store” known as the Grand Depot at 13th and Market Streets.  This store later became the flagship store, which eventually branched out into central and southeastern Pennsylvania.  Satellite stores were also established in New Jersey, Delaware, and New York City.  Wanamaker was at the forefront in many areas in retailing including merchandising, employee relations and advertising.

In the mid-1990s, Hecht’s took over all of Wanamaker’s branches, including the Philadelphia flagship store, which, after being closed for several years, became Macy’s in 2006.

In 1955, flagship store employee Frederick Yost, also a visual merchandiser and advertiser created the Christmas Light Show that included lighted character timed to an audio recording.  The display has been renovated and updated throughout the years and continues to be a highlight (and tradition) for many of Macy’s holiday shoppers.

(HSP’s extensive John Wanamaker collection contains both records of the store and Wanamaker’s personal papers.)

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Strawbridge and Clothier –Market Street, between 8^th and 9^th streets

Strawbridge and Clothier, photograph (circa 1930)

This major department store began as a small dry goods store founded by Justus C. Strawbridge (born 1838), an enterprising young Quaker from Mount Holly, New Jersey, in 1861 in a rented three-story building at 8th and Market streets in Philadelphia.  Strawbridge developed a close friendship with Isaac H. Clothier (born 1837), one of his cloth dealers from Philadelphia, and the two decided to partner.  Strawbridge and Clothier opened July 1, 1868, and a new five-story store replaced the old building.  For a time, this store served as the only place in Philadelphia where one could purchase both domestic and European goods under one roof.

In 1930, despite the economic depression, the company expanded their store to a satellite branch in Ardmore, Pennsylvania—it was the first time a local department store branched out to the suburbs.  In the 1960s, Strawbridge and Clothier further diversified by opening a discount chain of stores under the name “Clover.”  Strawbridge and Clothier remained a family-run business until it was sold to the May Department Store Company in 1996.  The Philadelphia store officially closed in May 2006 after being in operation for 138 years.

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Lit Brothers – Market Street between 7^th and 8^th streets

Lit Brothers, photograph (1936)

In 1893, Samuel and Jacob Lit opened their first department store in Philadelphia. In an environment that already included plenty of competition, the Lit brothers set their store apart by offering lower prices on similar goods.  It developed a popular millinery department with the slogan “Hats Trimmed Free of Charge.”  In the early 1900s the store was rebuilt into a flagship site that took up an entire city block.  The store was bought in the 1920s by the investment and trading house Bankers Securities Corporation, run by Philadelphia financier and philanthropist Albert M. Greenfield.

Lit Brothers became known for its “Enchanted Colonial Village,” a Christmas display like those developed by other department stores.  This tradition started in the 1960s, and the village was designed by Philadelphians Thomas Comerford and was built by Christian Hofmann, a German toy creator.

This was the first of the four stores  to succumb to financial troubles — it filed for bankruptcy in the 1970s.  The Lit Brothers flagship store closed in 1977.

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Gimbels – Market Street, between 9^th and 10^th streets

Gimbels, print (1900)

Adam Gimbel (1815-1896), a Bavarian by birth who immigrated to the United States in 1840, opened up his first retail store in Vincennes, Indiana in 1842.  At a time when bartering and negotiating sales was still common, Gimbel introduced fixed pricing in his store; that is, everything had a set price that was non-negotiable.  This “one profit system” became was one of the hallmarks of modern retailing.  Gimbel was also one of the first retailers to accept returns and give refunds.

With the introduction of railways throughout the Midwest and the changing economic landscape of the mid late 1800s, some of Gimbels old stores were closed, while other branches were created.  Gimbels opened in Philadelphia in 1894 at 9th and Market streets.  At the time, Gimbels was controlled by several of Adam Gimbel’s sons and grandsons, and the family continued the tradition of offering reliable goods and services at fixed prices.

In 1920, Gimbels, prompted especially by Ellis Gimbel, began sponsoring a Thanksgiving Day parade, which is considered the nation’s oldest.  Gimbels was associated with the annual celebration for over 60 years until the store closed in the mid-1980s.

The story of Native Americans in the United States is not an unfamiliar one.  Most of us are at least somewhat aware of the complicated and tragic relationship between the U.S. government and Indian tribes throughout the country’s history.  For contemporary audiences, well-known phrases like “The only good Indian is a dead Indian” and “Kill the Indian…and save the man” sound like bad dialogue from an old Western film.

Much of what we know about Native American history is shrouded in mythology.  Certainly, that’s how I felt as I began to process the Indian Rights Association (IRA) papers with Willhem Echevarria, project archivist at HSP.  My first task was to sort through boxes of loose newspaper clippings that spanned from the 1870s to the 1980s.  As I organized the clippings, I scanned through them, noting the strange evolution of public opinion on the “Indian situation” over time.  Anytime I came across a particularly offensive headline or a quirky handwritten note, I thought hopefully, “Well, maybe they’re just being ironic.  Herbert Welsh, such a kidder!”

I suppose the Enlightenment thinkers were right, however, and seeing is believing, because it wasn’t until I found visual evidence from the U.S. Indian Schools files that I began to get a clearer picture of the so-called “Indian situation.”

“Are you serious!” I exclaimed one afternoon as I flipped through a 1918 yearbook from the Carlisle Indian School.  Willhem glanced up from his desk with an are-you-working-or-are-you-playing-with-the-documents-expression.  “Look!” I said, shoving the yearbook at him.  It was open to a picture of students dressed for a theatrical production – dressed, may I add, as conquistadors and explorers, among other famous figures from history.

Carlisle Students dressed for a theatrical performance, 1918

“Who would make a Native American dress like Cortez?” I asked as we shook our heads over the picture.  There are many more images like this one in the collection, scattered throughout the annual reports and yearbooks for schools like the Haskell Institute, the Hampton Industrial and Agricultural School, and the Sherman Institute.  The philosophy behind these boarding schools was simple: transform young Native Americans into “good citizens” and productive members of society.  To achieve this end, Indian schools focused on teaching industrial trades to boys, while girls learned housekeeping or nursing skills.  Some children were forcibly removed from their reservations, and many students were given new Anglo names upon arrival.  While I’m sure (or rather, hope) that there were some legitimately good intentions floating around there, underneath the positivist rhetoric remains a constant intention to Anglicize the Native American population.

Carlisle Students “Before and After” – from 1909 Annual Report

So, what was the IRA’s role in the Indian school movement?  What were their intentions in lobbying for Native American rights?  And how might we measure their success?  The Indian Rights Association records contain answers to all these questions and more.   Among the surprising headlines, the occasionally appalling images, and the revealing notes lies a new story waiting to be told.

Manayunk circa 1840 (Bb 862 M312)

A few months ago, I received a request for historic images of Manayunk for a documentary about Samuel Hughes, a Welshman who immigrated to Philadelphia in 1837 and settled on a dairy farm in Manayunk.  While searching our collections, I found this oil and watercolor in one of our graphics collections and was immediately captivated.  Painted by an unknown artist sometime around 1840, this image, with its lush, green landscape and open farmland, was so far removed from my own vision of present-day Manayunk that it prompted me to search for more information about Manayunk’s progression from rural farmland to metropolitan hub.

Title page of "Early History of Roxborough and Manayunk" (Am .3724)

Railroad Bridge over the Wissahickon, Near Manayunk, circa 1834 (Bb 7 R131)

As late as 1817, the population of present-day Manayunk hovered around 60 inhabitants, but the construction of a canal and dam to regulate the Schuylkill, along with the establishment of Manayunk’s first mill in the 1820s, helped the area blossom into a manufacturing hub that drew comparisons to Manchester, England.  Still considered part of Roxborough, the expanding mill town was known by the name of its dam, “Flat Rock,” but rapid population growth brought a push for a proper name.  In 1824, the names “Udoravia,” “Hydoravia,” and “Bridgewater” all came under consideration, but it was “Manaiung,” the Native American word for river, that ultimately provided inspiration for the name “Manayunk” (p. 24).    On June 11, 1840, Manayunk officially incorporated as a borough, completing its transformation from, in Jones’ words, a “once quiet and retired valley” to a miniature town that finally became part of the extended city of Philadelphia in 1854.  

Jones' account of the naming of "Manayunk" (Am .3724)

The more I read about the early history of Manayunk, the more I came to appreciate this painting and the other images in our collections as snapshots of a moment time that perfectly capture Manayunk’s development from a stretch of open farmland along the Schuylkill River to a budding industrial center.  Explore HSP’s Digital Library (https://digitallibrary.hsp.org/) for more great graphic materials that complement and enhance our understanding of the past – you never know what visual history you’ll uncover.

World War II pilots with airplane, photograph (1943), Society photograph collection.