Valley Girl Views: Wannamakers Department Store - And The Invention Of The Price Tag

A sketch of the interior of Wanamakers Department Store

March 1878, Philadelphia Times

The Wanamaker store was set up as a giant wheel with 196-foot aisles radiating from a 90-foot circular counter. It featured the first department store restaurant, the first pneumatic tube delivery system for orders and money, and on December 26 1878, Wanamaker brought electric lighting to his store in Philadelphia. It the first ever department store to do so. The following year the Wanamaker store got a telephone, too. It was also Wanamaker who began the idea of setting set prices, rather than having customers haggle. He believed that if we are all equal in the eyes of God, we should all pay one price.

John Wanamaker was 28 when he opened his first retail store in 1861. Sixteen years later, inspired by London’s Royal Exchange and Paris’ Les Halles, Wanamaker opened his first department store He envisioned a grand shopping hall which would sell his already established menswear and would expand to sell woman’s clothing and dry goods.

Wanamaker’s stores catered to an upper-middle class, advertising a focus on quality. Materials were guaranteed to be high quality, but customers who were not satisfied could bring back their purchase for a refund – an unheard-of concept at the time.

."Not only did Wanamaker envision a new kind of shopping destination, he pioneered a new shopping experience as well. The first to use and enforce the phrase, “The customer is always right,” Wanamaker ran his store under the message of the golden rule....

One of the most important things Wanamaker left to modern stores was the price tag. Before he popularized the use of set prices, stores relied on haggling. Wanamaker believed that if everyone was equal before God, then everyone should be equal before price. It seems obvious today, but it wasn’t until Wanamaker invented the price tag that it became the norm." - Atlas Obscura

"Wanamaker’s did so well that it decided to build a twelve-floor building on the same property. On November 14, 1910, Wanamaker finished the final section of his new department store. The construction had been done in three parts in order to keep the Grand Depot open. President Taft attended its dedication in 1911. It is the only department store where a president was at the opening."

An Organ & An Eagle, From The 1904 Worlds Fair

For those who attended the 1904 World's Fair in St Louis, popular souvenirs included pins, pocket knives, & engraved ruby red glassware. Wanamaker wanted a bit more. He purchased August Gaul’s 2,500 pound unique “Durana” bronze Eagle, and in 1909, the pipe organ that had bankrupted the builders who made it.

Designed by renowned organ architect, George Ashdown Audsley, and built by the Los Angeles Art Organ Company. the Wanamaker Organ originally incorporated more than 10,000 pipes. The huge cost of construction ($105,000) actually bankrupted the builder.

A firm believer in music’s capacity to benefit civic life, Wanamaker purchased the organ in 1909 and had it shipped to Philadelphia in thirteen rail cars. There he had it installed over a two-year period in the palatial seven-story atrium of his Philadelphia emporium. After it was installed, Wanamaker created an on-site factory to expand the organ and hired 40 full-time employees to add 8,000 more pipes between 1911 and 1917, and an addiitonal 10,000 pipes between 1924 and 1930.

Created to represent Germany at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, August Gaul’s 2,500 pound unique “Durana” bronze Eagle was hand-assembled, with each feather created and attached separately. It took skilled workmen five months to complete the monumental piece.

At the end of the fair, the sculpture was acquired by John Wanamaker for display in his store and has stood at that location ever since. It's not uncommon for friends to "meet at the eagle" .

Today, the Wanamaker building is a historical landmark. You can still meet at the eagle, and listen to the the worlds second largest organ, in what is today Macy's Department store. And while you are shop, and much of the original architecture, murals, and marble can still be seen, as you shop at Macy's. And thanks to Wanamaker, you can purchase your items at a set price, there's no need to haggle

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