Author:

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2016-10-27

Total Pages: 74

ISBN-13: 9781334078859

Excerpt from John Wanamaker: The Record of a Citizens' Celebration to Mark His Sixty Years Career as Merchant; April, 1861 April, 1921 Mr. Wanamaker began life without rich or in uential support, and it is but the barest truth to say that all that he achieved was due to his own energy, honesty and intellect. When he entered on his career as merchant, sixty years ago (april 8, 1861) at Oak Hall, Sixth and Market Streets, he had little or nothing to aid him but his own spirit of enterprise, and that remarkable gift of vision which has so often enabled him to look into the book of the future and read therein the destined greatness of America. Some of his best friends and well-wishers prophesied that the young clothing merchant would fail, and there seemed good ground for this prediction. But John Wanamaker, with his wonderful capacity for hard work, and that splendid enthusiasm which the lapse of time has never destroyed, went serenely ahead and made for himself, within a few years, an important place in the community. In 1876, the year of the Centennial Exhibition, Mr. Wanamaker moved into the Grand Depot at Thirteenth and Market Streets, (a rehabilitation of the old Pennsylvania general freight depot, where Moody and Sankey had recently appeared); and early in 1877, before this venture was a year old, he inaugurated the New Kind of Store, when he added to the regular retail clothing business a finely equipped dry goods store. People were amazed at such seeming audacity, and again some predicted failure, but starting with that place as a foundation he gradually developed and built up the great Wanamaker Store, which now occupies all the ground between Chestnut and Market and Thirteenth and Juniper Streets, and which has been so well described as one of the wonders of America. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."