John Wanamaker

Open full sized image

Wanamaker, 1922

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

John Wanamaker was a merchant and founder of one of the first American department stores.

Wanamaker began work at age 14 as an errand boy for a bookstore and served as secretary of the Philadelphia YMCA from 1857 to 1861. In 1861 he established with Nathan Brown the clothing firm of Brown and Wanamaker, a partnership that ended with Brown’s death in 1868. In 1869 he founded John Wanamaker and Company and in 1875 bought the freight depot of the Pennsylvania Railroad to house the store. A “new kind of store,” it collected specialty shops under one roof and soon became one of the largest department stores in the nation. Wanamaker also acquired the former A.T. Stewart Store in New York City in 1896. The two Wanamaker’s stores remained among the nation’s largest and most innovative department stores under the direction of John’s son Lewis Rodman Wanamaker (1863–1928). John Wanamaker was noted for his successful use of advertising, and he was one of the first major merchandisers to employ advertising agencies. From 1889 to 1893 he served as U.S. postmaster general.