FIELD, MARSHALL

Marshall Field (1834–1906), the founder of one the world's largest department stores, represented for many U.S. citizens of his generation an example of the classic rags-to-riches success story. Field, the tenth richest man in U.S. history, originated the "customer is always right" policy and introduced many other now-standard retail practices including liberal credit, openly displayed prices, an in-store restaurant, and acceptance of returned merchandise.

Field was born in 1834 and raised on a farm near Pittsfield in western Massachusetts. He left school at age 17 to work in a local dry goods store. After five years his employer offered him the opportunity of an eventual partnership in the store, but Field declined, deciding that opportunities for an ambitious young man lay further west. In 1856, at age 22, armed with a reference from his boss describing him as "a young man of unusual business talent," Field left New England for Chicago, then a rude, muddy, and vibrant city that had just produced its first generation of millionaires. Field's older brother, Joseph, helped secure him a job with Cooley, Wadsworth and Co., the city's largest dry goods store. The small, serious, and polite Marshall Field arranged to live and sleep in the store, and thus he managed to save half of his small income. Field, who came to be known as "silent Marsh" because of his retiring social manner, was determined to make a success of himself. In less than four years, he had become a full partner in the store.

When Cooley retired in 1864, the store became known as Farwell, Field, and Company. Field soon left the store to join with a partner, Levi Leiter, in a new and expanded dry goods business, which they called Field, Leiter. The firm grossed $9 million in its first year (1867). Field worked day and night to build his business and make it a success.

The firm's first major building, a grandiose edifice at the corner of Washington and State Streets in downtown Chicago was only three years old when it went up in smoke in the Chicago Fire of 1871. Field was back in business in a new building by the following year. In 1877 Field, Leiter was again devastated by fire. The building was a total loss, but Field, more than adequately insured, was again able to immediately rebuild.

At a relatively young age, Field had become well known for his hard work, shrewdness in business, honesty, merchandising skills, and penny-pinching personal habits. In 1881 he bought out his partner, Leiter, for $2.5 million. By 1888 he was an extremely rich man and a director of least 28 major corporations. His store continued to thrive during Field's lifetime and throughout the twentieth century. At his death in 1906, Field left an estate valued at $125 million, the equivalent of $40.7 billion in 1998, according to American Heritage. Among his bequests were substantial gifts to the University of Chicago and the museum that later became the Field Museum of Natural History.

See also: Chicago Fire of 1871, Department Store

FURTHER READING

Becker, Stephen. Marshal Field III. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964.

Klepper, Michael, Robert Gunther, Jeanette Baik, Linda Barth, and Christine Gibson. "American Heritage 40: A Ranking of the 40 Wealthiest Americans of All Time." American Heritage, October 1998.

Pierce, B.L. "Rise of a Modern City, 1871–1893." History of Chicago, vol. 3, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957.

Twyman, Robert. Marshall Field and Co., 1852–1906. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1906.

Wendt, Lloyd. Give the Lady What She Wants. Skokie: Rand McNally and Co., 1952.

the customer is always right.

marshall field

Marshall Field

The American merchant Marshall Field (1834-1906) established one of America's first innovative wholesale and retail dry-goods businesses.

The son of a farmer, Marshall Field was born near Conway, Mass., and attended local schools until he was 17. He clerked in a dry-goods store in Pittsfield, Mass. In 1856 he went to Chicago, where he worked for Cooley, Wadsworth and Company, a wholesale dry-goods firm, in 1861 becoming the general manager and a partner. In 1864 Levi Z. Leiter, a large-scale real estate operator, joined the company as a silent partner. When Potter Palmer, an entrepreneur and real estate developer, joined his dry-goods business with Field's and Leiter's, the company became Field, Palmer and Leiter. When Palmer retired in 1867 and Leiter in 1881, the organization became Marshall Field and Company, owned almost entirely by Field and run directly by him. Field was in fact the source and inspiration of the ideas that revolutionized retail selling everywhere.

The Field enterprise was highly diversified. It sold wholesale dry goods through a sales force reaching small stores all over the Midwest; manufactured dry goods in factories in the British Isles, France, and elsewhere; had its own buying offices all over the world; and operated its retail department store, Marshall Field and Company, in Chicago. When Field died on Jan. 16, 1906, the store covered some 36 acres over 11 Chicago blocks, the largest establishment of its kind.

As a merchant, Field was responsible for many innovations. He introduced the one-price system, bought and sold for cash, and permitted exchange of goods. The reliability of his store was well known. Various customer services were also initiated or early adopted by Field: restaurants, personal shoppers, home delivery, an interior decoration department, and a bargain basement. His sales grew from $12 million annually in 1868 to $25 million in 1881 and $68 million in 1906.

Meanwhile, Field pushed the development of downtown Chicago, so that when he died, half of his fortune, estimated to be between $100 million and $150 million, was in Chicago properties. He wished to make Chicago a great educational and cultural center and gave large sums to various institutions. He helped found the Art Institute, donated the land on which the first buildings of the University of Chicago were erected, and contributed $1 million for the museum at the World's Columbian Exposition. This museum became Field's chief interest; in addition to gifts during his lifetime his $8-million bequest built the Field (later Chicago) Museum of Natural History.

Further Reading

John Tebbel, The Marshall Fields: A Study in Wealth (1947), is a family biography. An early company history is S. H. Ditchett, Marshall Field and Company: The Life Story of a Great Concern (1922). A popularized history is Lloyd Wendt and Herman Kogan, Give the Lady What She Wants! … The Story of Marshall Field & Co. (1952). □

Marshall Field 1834–1906, American merchant, b. Conway, Mass. In 1856, after five years' apprenticeship in a general store in Pittsfield, Mass., he went to Chicago and became a clerk for Cooley, Wadsworth & Co., a leading dry-goods house there, of which he became a junior partner in 1862. In 1865 he became a partner in the firm of Field, Palmer, and Leiter, the company that became Marshall Field and Co. in 1881. He amassed one of the largest private fortunes in the United States and pioneered in establishing many modern retailing practices.

He made the first of his major philanthropies when he was a charter member of the corporation formed (1878) to found the institution which became the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1890 he gave the original tract of land for the Univ. of Chicago, ultimately becoming one of the largest donors to the school. In 1893 he gave $1,000,000 to the fund for the museum at the World's Columbian Exposition. Its collections were the nucleus of the Field Museum of Natural History, now housed in a magnificent building on the Chicago lakefront that was provided by a bequest of $8,000,000 from Field.

His son, Marshall Field 2d, 1868–1905, never made any move to follow his father into business. His early death from a gun wound was officially held to have been accidental.

Marshall Field 3d, 1893–1956, son of Marshall Field 2d, was educated at Eton and at Cambridge, then served in World War I. He engaged in numerous business activities until 1936, when he gave up all of them to devote himself to his various social projects. In June, 1940, Field helped found the New York City liberal newspaper PM. He was the publication's largest stockholder and, from Oct., 1940, its owner. He took no part in its editorial direction, but offered it financial support until Apr., 1948, when the paper was sold; soon afterward it went out of business.

In 1941, Field started the Chicago Sun, and in Jan., 1948, he bought the Chicago Times and merged the two papers. Field took a more active part in that journalistic enterprise, ultimately becoming the paper's dominant personality. Through Field Enterprises, Inc. (est. 1944) he also published the World Book Encyclopedia. His charities included many child welfare organizations. Field's political and social beliefs are expressed in his book Freedom Is More than a Word (1945).

Bibliography: See L. Wendt and H. Kogan, Give the Lady What She Wants: The Story of Marshall Field and Co. (1952); biography of Marshall Field 3d by S. D. Becker (1964); J. Tebbel, The Marshall Fields: A Study in Wealth (1947).