biography
pronunciation:
[wonamayker]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1838–1922)
|
| biography:
| Merchant, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. After a few years as secretary of the Philadelphia Young Men's Christian Association, he and his new brother-in-law, Nathan Brown, opened a men's clothing store called ‘Oak Hall’ (1861). In 1869, a year after Brown's death, Wanamaker opened the more fashionable John Wanamaker & Co. He turned this store over to his brothers to manage when in 1876, in time for the centennial, he opened the ‘Grand Depot’, a huge dry-goods and men's clothing store located in a former Pennsylvania Railroad depot. Unable to attract other merchants to open shop under his roof, in 1877 he opened a number of ‘specialty shops’ that flourished after a year. He expanded into New York City (1896) and continued enlarging his innovative ‘department’ stores, advertising effectively in newspapers and implementing a money-back customer guarantee. An enthusiastic Presbyterian and Republican, he founded the Bethany Sunday School (1858), supported temperance and the Pennsylvania Blue Laws, and unsuccessfully ran for various political offices. He required military drill of his male clerks, and offered to release them for service during the Spanish-American War and World War 1, but he provided business classes and benefits for his employees. As a reward for his support of Benjamin Harrison, he was made postmaster-general (1889) and introduced several improvements. |
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