adway, in New
York City, to house his business, and which was, at the time, the
largest building in the world devoted to a retail business, is now
occupied by another great merchant, who, starting from a beginning even
smaller than Stewart's, has built up a business many times as great.
John Wanamaker, whatever the growth of the country may be hereafter,
will always remain one of America's most representative and most
successful men of affairs--both representative and successful because
his business has rested from the first on the principle of honest
dealing, of making satisfied customers--in a word, upon the altogether
modern principle of "your money back, if you want it."

John Wanamaker was born in Philadelphia in 1838, a poor boy with his way
to make in the world. He received his education in the common schools,
and at the age of fourteen, entered upon his business career as an
errand boy in a book store. From that, he got a clerkship in a clothing
store, and for some years acted as salesman, until he could save enough
money to start a little store of his own. This he was able to do in
1861, in partnership with a man named Nathan Brown, and ten years later,
he was sole owner of a prosperous and growing business. It was at about
this time that an idea occurred to him which was destined to
revolutionize the retail business of the larger cities of the country.

The idea was simply this: In the great cities, most shoppers have to
travel a considerable distance to get to the business centre, and must
there waste time and energy going from one store to another to make
their purchases. Why not, then, combine all the representative retail
businesses into one store, so that the shopper could make all purchases
under a single roof, pay for them all at once, and have them all
delivered at the same time? Moreover, why could not one great business
be conducted more cheaply, and so undersell, the small ones, since a
single executive staff would do for it, rent, delivery cost, and a
hundred other fixed charges would be reduced, to say nothing of the
advantages of large buying, and the advertising which every department
would get from all the rest? The idea grew into a carefully-formulated
plan, and 1876 saw the start of the great Wanamaker department store,
perhaps the most famous retail business in the world.

Its tremendous success is an old story now, and it has found hundreds of
imitators. Twenty years after the opening of