So, steam power had by the last third of the nineteenth century wrought revolutions in mining, manufacturing, and transportation on land, the rivers, and the oceans. That would seem to be enough. But the inventors of the nineteenth century would wrest yet one more revolution from steam, by generating from it electric light, and then…
1904 (undated)
Description
This 1904-07 Wanamaker Vest Pocket Subway Guide is one of only four known surviving examples of the first subway map intended for public use. It was printed in 1904 on behalf of, or by, Wanamaker s department stores to promote their expanded New York City location, which featured an underground entrance to the Astor Place subway station. That busy subway platform is pictured here in an image entitled The Wanamaker Station in the Subway at Astor Place, showing fashionably-dressed New Yorkers at the entrance to the Wanamaker s store (pointed out to the reader with the red, hand-stamped note, Direct Entrance from Subway to the Wanamaker Store Now Open. ) A train, with its taillight shining, can be seen leaving on the uptown track. Below this vignette are a timetable and a map of the nascent subway (then extending from Brooklyn Bridge to 145th Street.) Special attention, naturally, is given on both the map and timetable to the Astor Place sto
John Wanamaker makes a sale
Is marketing a science?
John Wanamaker. Credit: SnappyGoat.
John Wanamaker was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the US, on 11 July 1838. At the age of 22 he was already well established as a retailer and store owner, and in 1876 he opened the Grand Depot, in an abandoned railway station in his home town. It was the “first-ever department store”, says Philadelphia magazine, with an estimated 71,000 customers visiting on its first day.
A PBS article on Wanamaker for the series “They Made America” says much of his initial retail success came from his reputation for fair dealing.
John Wanamaker, 1890. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.