Hey, there are you, Adam Graham the very same and this is my old time radio snack wagon.

Welcome to the Old Time Radio snack Wagon, where we serve up a bite sized portion of old time radio.

And now here's your snack wagon host, Adam Graham.

We're serving up another helping of a series I've brought you last season, Captains of Industry.

If you've ever listened to the Sherlock Holmes programs that were sponsored by Clippercraft, one of the locations where you could buy clipper Craft suits was in the John Wannamaker stores.

I often wondered who was John Wannamaker.

We'll find out in this Story of John Wannamaker.

The Story of John Wannamaker on the outskirts of Philadelphia in July eighteen hundred and thirty eight.

John was the eldest of six children and seemed destined to become outstanding in the world of business.

His first experience consisted.

Of odd jobs, errand boy stock boy.

He then took a position of salesman with Colonel Bennett and Tower Hall, pioneer of the retail clothing business in Philadelphia, and after a few years, John one day asked to speak to the colonel.

Well, come in, John, come in.

What have you got on your mind?

Now?

I'm sorry, colonel if I've interrupted anything.

Oh to what do you want to see me about?

I've been with you at Tower Hall for several years now, Colonel Bennett, and I've studied the business carefully.

Ye're the best salesman I've got.

Then, well, well, what.

Is it speak of?

John?

Very well, Colonel Bennett, I'd like either a substantial increase in salary or a share in the business.

You what, I believe I've earned it, sir, You believe.

I'm the best judge of how much you should earn want to make her.

But Colonel Bennett, you just said that I was the best salesman you had.

You see what.

Happens when I give my clerks a little praise goes to their hits.

They want to share in my business.

Nothing has gone to my head, Colonel.

I came here to ask you for that, and would have asked the same thing had you said nothing in my praise.

Isn't the laborer worthy of his hire?

Yes?

No?

And now we can leave the Bible quotations out of this wannamaker and you don't get either a raised or her share of my business, then you leave me no alternative.

Colonel Bennett, I'm sorry, what do you mean.

I shall open a store nearby and take your trade you want, and what pray, Telly, you're going to use for money?

It will take time, I know, but open the store I shall, and I promise you, Colonel Bennett, it'll be the biggest department store in the world.

Thus, John Wannamaker set the pattern of his life, and as a part of this pattern, he married lovely Mary Aeroner Brown in eighteen sixty.

A year later, we find John, Mary and her brother Nathan at the Wannamaker home.

I'm asking you to become my partner in this venture, Nathan, because you're the man best fitted for the place.

I want to establish a clothing store that will revolutionize the business.

Well, what have you got in mind?

John?

As they are now, stores are opened and closed at the owner's whims.

Once an article is bought, an exchange in return of the purchase price is unheard of.

Now the public regards the merchant as an army whose chief ambition is to cheat them as much as possible.

And you expect to change all that John lets a lifetime.

Works, but you have your lives to do it in Nason.

You have confidence in this plan, Mary.

Complete confidence.

John plans to stabilize the hours of service, establish a school in a store for the training of employees, give the employees shorter hours and summer holidays with pay, and give the customers not only good service, but waiting rooms, the post office, a restaurant.

Now, hold on here, how much money have you've got, John, two thousand dollars?

Two thousand?

Can you expect to do all this to pioneer in things that may make you the laughing stock of Philadelphia?

Well as to that, maybe they will laugh at first, but they'll come back again for the good service and continue to come back.

Nadan.

I'm so sure of this that I'm backing my dream with every cent of my savings.

Will you do the same, put up two thousand dollars for something that sounds completely impossible?

Eh, Well, you've never failed yet in anything you put your heart and soul into.

All right, I'll do it.

My heart and soul's in this, all right, Nadan.

It's going to be a struggle, but we'll make good.

I know we'll make good.

The partners rented two floors in a building called McNeil's Folly.

Even their best friends doomed the venture to failure due to the war and general business depression, but by eighteen hundred and sixty nine business had so increased that Oak Hall had to be enlarged and a branch store was opened.

But yet more room was needed, and Wanna.

Maker purchased a huge pasture at thirteenth in Market Streets, which contained the recently deserted freight station of the Pennsylvania A Road.

When his competitors heard of this purchase, loud was the laughter dire with the predictions.

At Green John Wannamaker's.

Crazy Country is passing through a business panic.

You'll be wiped out.

You can't make a store out of an old prate sting saved.

Right, Dreamers don't belong in business.

And what do you think, Mary?

Why?

John?

What is it to think?

He's made the right move?

And this new store is going beyond even your highest hope.

Oh dearest Mary, what a wife?

What a comrade?

You are?

You're right?

This still will exceed my highest hopes.

Because if there's one person in the world I couldn't fail, it's you.

A new store called the Grand Depot slowly arose from the humble prate station business rowin such leaps and bounds that by eighteen eighty four Wannamaker was forced to open another store on Ninth Street and Broadway, and these two great stores saw stirring times as the years passed.

The old freight station became crowded, outmoded, and John Wannamaker saw that he must build a new store on the site.

But how to do this without interrupting business?

And even more important, Wannamaker decided that in this new store he was going to incorporate everything that he had ever dreamed of in a store.

So he called a meeting of his board of directors and store managers.

Gentlemen, as you all know, we must expand.

But what you may not know is the idea behind this expansion.

This new store of ours is not only going to give our customers good service, but entertainer entertainment in business.

Mister Wallamker, Yes, Lloyd, this store is going to be a monument to the customer.

I've already discussed the plans of the architects.

It's going to have a grand court storing one hundred and fifty feet high without a break, with columns of dark green marble, balustrades of the various stores.

And an organ.

That's the dream of my life, to have a mighty organ in my store.

Oh, why you will make us all laughing stark, mister Wallamy.

Someone said that to me long ago, Lloyd, and it since proved a false statement.

This grand court isn't going to be the only unique feature.

There will be the Egyptian Hall, a magnificent auditorium seating two thousand people, and the stage where five hundred people can sing at one time, accompanied by a pipe organ of.

Three thousand pile.

But why why five hundred people on the stage singing at the same time.

Because my store must give beauty as well as service, Lloyd.

I want to make shopping a pleasure, something to be looked forward to.

Adjoining this Egyptian Hall will be a Greek hall with walls of solid mahogany inlaid with satin wood.

Then there'll be the house that Budget built, the Crystal tea room served by a vast modern kitchen and presided over by the finest chefs.

I can get on the roof.

I plan an athletic field and a promenade for store employee, which madness mis to wanna make it?

And even if you build lawless, how are you going to do it without stopping business, perhaps losing our tread.

I'm going to build in sections.

Gentlemen, what Yes, while one fourth of the old building is closed off and torn down and the new building is erected, business will continue in the other three For all nonsense.

Customers won't come into a store that's full of construction noises after World Day.

Wait and see, gentlemen, wait and see.

I'd like three yards of late see as a noise makes hearing them so difficult.

Yes, but I traded John wanna make a store?

If he said it sounds out in the middle of the street.

Such a fine man he is, and such a great store.

I'm always satisfied with whatever I buy.

Just the wanna make it will be dead to hear that, madam.

Now what was it you were three yards of late names?

Oh?

Yeah, that coud was over by that pile of pumper.

Would you follow me?

Bad?

What you said?

Be careful those do for I will you know this maker has a challenge making shot in your pleasure.

Even when he says, Jolie, stow around your ears.

And thus they came as Wannamaker had said they would.

And at last, on June eleventh, nineteen ten, six years after the first troubleful of earth had been turned, the store was completed, and standing on the roof, overlooking the full sweep of the city, with the President of the United States, William Howard Taft beside him, John Wannamaker waits to put the capstone of the building in place.

Mister Waamaker, this building, with its great beauty and many artistic features, wonderful as it is, is but a poor monument to your success in proportion to the spiritual monument you have erected in.

The hearts of all who know you.

And I am proud to be here on the day when the combination of your dreams come to pass.

Thank you, mister President.

Thank you, my friends.

There's a half a century of business endeavor, strenuous and constant, that looks down upon us today as we old friends and young beginners stand together for this interesting service.

The inscription on the stone reads this block put in place on June eleventh, nineteen ten by John Wannamaker.

March completion of this structure begun April twenty sixth, nineteen hundred and four.

Cornerstone lay June twelfth, nineteen hundred and nine.

Let those who follow me continue to build with the plum of honor, the level of truth, and the square of integrity, education, courtesy, and mutuality.

John Wannamaker.

The inscription on the capstone is a fitting end to this story of John Wannamaker.

Not even the glory of the business done and good accomplished by his great store, nor his activities as Postmaster General of President Harrison's Cabinet, nor his great activities during the World War, can reveal his sterling character more than these simple words.

His large philanthropies consisted of such monuments as Bethany Church, the Wannamaker Institute of Industries, Bethany Day Nursery, the John Chambers Memorial Church, the Friendly Inn for Destitute Men.

These are but few examples of a great man's great generosity.

John Wannamaker, Captain of Industry.

Welcome a great little profile of a fascinating figure in American retailing.

Some of the practices he introduced are so calm in place, it's easy to take them for granted, but his impact is still felt today.

This episode referenced Wannamaker's faith, with him quoting Scripture to Colonel Bennett and his donation to Best in the Church.

But he was actually very prominent for his faith in his day.

He was the first corresponding Secretary of the National YMCA when the religious aspect of that organization was more prominent.

Wannamaker actually had his life story serialized for Moody Radio's series Stories of Great Christians.

Well, the cast of today's episode was uncredited.

I would swear that Colonel Bennett was played by Julianoah, who played Perry White in the Adventures of Superman radio series.

It seems that Noah may have been topcast a bit as the old man who told people something was impossible or couldn't be done.

Of course, Wannamaker didn't bend steel in his bear's hands, but he helped shape the future of American retailing while building a business empire.

It's time for me to close up the old snackwagon, but don't worry.

We'll be back with another serving of old time radio goodness before you know it.

If you want to enjoy some of our longer form podcasts.

You can feast away at my website at Great Detectives dot net.

Your emails are also welcome at Adam at snackwagon dot net.

The Old Time Radio Snackwagon comes to you from Boise, Idaho.

Your host is Adam Graham.

Sound production is by Rhyn's Media LLC.

You can listen to past episodes of the Old Time Radio snack Wagon as well as connect on social social media at our website at snackwagon dot net.

Email suggestions for episodes to Adam at snackwagon dot net.

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Until next time.

Goodbye,