Jordan Marsh

Jordan Marsh

Industry	Retail
Founded	1841
Founders	Eben Dyer Jordan Benjamin L. Marsh
Defunct	1996
Fate	acquired by Federated Department Stores
Successor	Macy's
Headquarters	Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. Miami, Florida, U.S.
Products	Clothing footwear bedding furniture jewelry beauty products housewares
Parent	Federated Department Stores

Jordan Marsh (officially Jordan Marsh & Company) was an American department store chain that was headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and operated throughout New England. It was founded by Eben Dyer Jordan and Benjamin L. Marsh in 1841. The ownership of Jordan Marsh was transferred between several holding companies during its operation, including Hahn Department Stores in 1928, Allied Stores in 1935, and Federated Department Stores in 1988. The brand was retired and the stores were converted into New York City-based Macy's in 1996.

Allied also operated a separate group of stores in Florida, Jordan Marsh Florida, which was disbanded in 1991.

History

19th century

An illustration of shoppers crowding the entrance to Jordan Marsh in Boston, c. 1910

The former flagship store at Downtown Crossing in Boston, c. 1950

In 1841, Eben Dyer Jordan left his job at a Boston dry goods store and went into business for himself, laying the foundation for the first Jordan Marsh. Ten years later, Jordan partnered with Boston merchant Benjamin L. Marsh. They began by selling linen, silk, and other dry goods from Europe to wholesale customers in and around Boston.

As the business grew, the company moved from one location to another. In 1861, Jordan and Marsh decided to begin selling directly to the public. They acquired a brownstone building at 450 Washington Street, in the heart of present-day Downtown Crossing in Boston. After the American Civil War ended in 1865, Jordan and Marsh expanded into nearby buildings, offering an increasing quantity and variety of goods. The partners eventually established the nation's first departmentalized store, calling it Jordan Marsh and Company. During the second half of the 19th century, Eben Jordan's son, Jordan Jr., and George Mitton, a new partner, took over the company, turning it into a modern department store.

In addition to establishing the first department store, Jordan Marsh introduced the concept of department shopping, combining an elegant atmosphere with excellent personal service and a wide range of merchandise. With many different departments displaying wares from around the world, the store drew shoppers from Boston and from the growing streetcar suburbs. Once at the store, consumers could do more than just shop. Jordan Marsh offered fashion shows, a bakery famous for its blueberry muffins, art exhibitions, and even afternoon concerts.

Jordan Marsh also pioneered new services for shoppers not available in more traditional specialty shops, offering credit, usually in the form of charge accounts. It introduced the customer-is-always right policy, and offered money-back guarantees. Jordan Marsh was implemented new technology, and was one of the first stores to feature electrical lights, glass showcases, telephones, and elevators. It also installed pneumatic tubes that delivered cash and credit information to individual departments.

20th century

A Jordan Marsh advertisement in the Telegram & Gazette in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1971

Jordan Marsh Florida division's final logo

In 1935, the Jordan Marsh department store in Boston became one of the founders of New York City-based Allied Stores Corporation, a successor to Hahn Department Stores, Inc., a holding company founded in 1928.

Following the end of World War II in 1945, Jordan Marsh's management announced that it intended to build a new store in Downtown Boston. Jordan's five older buildings secured a new building, which consumed a full city block. Covering an area larger than Harvard Stadium, it had two stories underground and another 14 that rose into the air. It had the latest technology, including air conditioning, automatic doorways, block-long show windows, and radiant-heated sidewalks.

In 1949, after the addition of the new building, the Jordan Marsh Complex was split into four distinct units: the 1949 new store, the original main store, annex, and bristol building. The Boston Redevelopment Authority estimated the complex's total retail space at 1,700,000 sq ft (160,000 m²), which made it the largest retail venue in Boston. At the same time, the company began moving into the suburbs. Jordan Marsh constructed its first branch stores in older suburban communities in the 1940s. By 1966, branch stores accounted for half of all department store sales.

Shopper's World shopping mall opened in Framingham, Massachusetts on October 4, 1951, and was one of the nation's earliest suburban shopping malls with Jordan Marsh standing at the mall's southern end as its sole anchor. It was the first mall-styled Jordan Marsh in the country and was unmistakable for its large white dome. The dome was visible from the air and was used on aeronautical charts as a visual reporting point for aircraft approaching Boston's Logan Airport. It was reputed to be the third-largest in diameter unsupported dome in the world after St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Shopper's World quickly became the most recognizable Jordan Marsh outside its flagship store in Boston.

In 1956, Jordan Marsh opened its first store in Miami, Florida, featuring slogans such as "Florida's high fashion department store" and "the store with the Florida flair". It was later reorganized into a separate division of Allied from Jordan Marsh in Boston, including a headquarters in Miami. With newcomers heading into Florida, the store lost focus and began to downgrade its offerings in order to compete. Jordan Marsh also opened a San Diego branch around the same time, which occupied the former Sears store in downtown San Diego. The San Diego branch underperformed the Florida branches and was closed in 1958. The Florida stores disbanded in 1991, with several merging with Maas Brothers, which later became Burdines and now Macy's.

The main building of Boston's Jordan Marsh complex, an ornate brownstone edifice with a landmark corner clock tower designed by Nathaniel J. Bradlee in the 1860s, was torn down in 1975, along with its entire row of historic annex buildings. Local architect Leslie Larson founded a coalition called the City Conservation League to try to save the main building, which made way for a low modern brick structure that sits there today as Macy's. Some outraged customers cut up their credit cards in protest of the demolition. The protests and preservationist grassroots efforts led to the creation of the Boston Landmarks Commission.

Jordan Marsh at Natick Mall in Natick, Massachusetts, in the early 1990s. The store later became a Macy's, then JCPenney, and then Wegmans.

In 1986, the Canadian Campeau Corporation acquired Allied Stores Corporation, which was reorganized under the merger agreement. In February 1987, Campeau merged D.M. Read Co. of Bridgeport, Connecticut, into Jordan Marsh, and merged Jordan Marsh Florida with Maas Brothers of Tampa, Florida, as the new Maas Brothers/Jordan Marsh Florida division.

In 1988, Campeau Corporation acquired Federated Department Stores. To consolidate with Federated, Allied's New York headquarters moved to Cincinnati.

Closing

In 1990, saddled by debt resulting from the highly leveraged Campeau takeover of Federated, both Federated and Allied filed for bankruptcy. Campeau Corp. U.S., Inc., was renamed Federated Stores, Inc. The following year, in 1991, the operations of Jordan Marsh Florida and Maas Brothers were absorbed by Burdines in 1991.

In February 1992, a new public company, Federated Department Stores, Inc., emerged, and Allied Stores Corporation was merged into it. A consolidation of the A&S and Jordan Marsh divisions resulted in the A&S/Jordan Marsh division, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York.

In 1994, the A&S/Jordan Marsh division merged with Macy's East, and the A&S stores were renamed Macy's in 1995. In 1996, Jordan Marsh stores in the Northeast U.S., which were already part of Macy's East division, were converted to Macy's name and branding.

Enchanted Village

From the 1940s until 1972 and again in the early 1990s, Jordan Marsh's flagship store in Downtown Crossing in Boston was home to Enchanted Village, a lavish Christmas display which at its height consumed an entire floor of the department store and was spotlighted in the store's display windows. The display's centerpiece, besides Santa Claus, was an eight-set Lionel electric train display. In what started as a marketing gimmick, Enchanted Village quickly became a legendary Boston tradition and an annual mainstay of the city's holiday season.

In 1998, Macy's discontinued Enchanted Village when it was moved to City Hall Plaza. More recently, it was housed in the Hynes Convention Center.

On June 16, 2009, Enchanted Village, including all its props and figures was sold at auction, after the City of Boston said it no longer could afford to sponsor the annual event. Enchanted Village was subsequently sold to Jordan's Furniture, a unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway with no connection to the former Jordan Marsh, and is on display in Avon, Massachusetts during the holiday season.

See also

• Adriatic Mills, a Worcester, Massachusetts, textile mill owned by Jordan Marsh
• Jordan Hall, was built with major funding from one of the Jordan family
• Jordan Marsh Co. v. Commissioner

Further reading

• Cohen, Lizabeth (2003). Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9780307555366.
• Benson, Susan Porter (1986). Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252060137.
• Jordan, Marsh Illustrated Catalogue of 1891 (Dover Publications reprint, 1991).
• Tales of the Observer, by Richard H. Edwards, Jr. (Jordan Marsh Company, 1950).

External links

• Blog about memories of shopping in Boston
• A Last Look at Boston's Enchanted Village 2005