Goodbye, Marshall Field’s
I said goodbye to Mr. Field while I was in Chicago last month. I walked through Marshall Field’s Michigan Avenue store for old time’s sake, before it becomes a Macy’s and the Marshall Field’s name goes away forever.
It’s not the first department store to change names — it’s not even Marshall Field’s first name (which was Field, Palmer, and Leiter until Mr. Field bought out his partner, Mr. Leiter, in 1881). And it’s the last regional chain that May Department Stores Co. decided to convert following its merger this year with Federated Department Stores: They’re converting 330 stores into Macy’s, ditching 10 venerable old department-store names including Filene’s, Foley’s, Hecht’s, Kaufmann’s and Strawbridge’s. The decision to convert Marshall Field’s 62 stores came a month or so later, and sent many Chicagoans into mourning.
I grew up in Chicago, so I have a soft spot for Marshall Field’s. When all Dayton’s stores turned into Marshall Field’s in 2001, shortly after I moved to Minnesota, it bothered me in principle, but not personally. The stores themselves didn’t change much, but native Minnesotans felt like they’d been annexed by Chicago. Many still call it Dayton’s.
This time, for me, it’s personal. When I was five, my family took the train downtown to see the holiday displays in Marshall Field’s windows and watch Chicago’s version of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I was just as excited to see Miss Elizabeth Trench from Romper Room as I was to see Santa Claus — who was, after all, the only marketing pro working for every regional department store back then. Marshall Field’s was Christmas magic, then and now. But once it becomes Macy’s, it’ll be corporate magic, not hometown Chicago magic.
Retail consolidation has been going on for a long time, but it didn’t used to be so hard on the old family names. When four chains joined forces in 1929 to form Federated — Abraham & Straus in Brooklyn, Filene’s in Boston, F&R Lazarus & Co. in Columbus, OH, and Bloomingdale’s in New York — they kept their own names and identities, but merged their financial interests. These days, having different names on the shopping bags, circulars and signs cuts too deep into the profit margin.
So there really was a Marshall Field, and a George Draper Dayton, and a J.L. Hudson.
And there really was a Rowland Hussey Macy and a Joseph B. Bloomingdale and a John W. Nordstrom, too. But the faces behind those store names have disappeared, too, and now retail is about using economies of scale to give all the ladies what they want, as long as it’s the same thing at the lowest price.
To be fair, Marshall Field’s has been mostly like Macy’s for a long time. Even now, the distinguishing touches — the Walnut Room, the Frango Mints — are presented like tourist attractions, Frangos piled high on random displays in high-traffic departments, like shoes and cosmetics. A display of magnets, mugs and handbags emblazoned with vintage photos of Field’s in its heyday wring our nostalgia for souvenir profit. “Give the lady what she wants,” Field said. But that was yesterday.
So next month I’ll look at Marshall Field’s holiday windows for one last time, and I’ll pull out my cherished copy of Miracle on 34th Street and watch Mr. Macy and Mr. Gimbel shake hands, two rivals brought together by Santa Claus himself.
In black-and-white, at least, the old gentlemen merchants live on.
