Editing Chain store (section)

==History==
[[File:WH Smith, Pickering Station - geograph.org.uk - 2553628.jpg|thumb|right|225px|Heritage [[WHSmith|W.H. Smith]] stall at [[Pickering railway station]] in North Yorkshire ]]
In 1792, [[Henry Walton Smith]] and his wife Anna established [[WHSmith|W.H. Smith]] as a news vending business in [[London]] that would become a national concern in the mid-19th century under the management of their grandson [[William Henry Smith (1825–1891)|William Henry Smith]].<ref>{{cite news |title=WH Smith expansion is given wings with takeover of Marshall Retail |url=https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/markets/article/wh-smith-expansion-is-given-wings-with-takeover-of-marshall-retail-7c9pxxcmg |access-date=22 June 2022 |work=[[The Times]]|quote=WH Smith is the world's oldest national retail chain after being started by Henry Smith as a newspaper shop in 1792}}</ref><ref name= HIS>{{cite web|url=http://www.whsmithplc.co.uk/about_whsmith/history_of_whsmith/|title=History of WHSmith - About WHSmith|website=Whsmithplc.co.uk|access-date=2 August 2018|archive-date=December 29, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111229131447/http://www.whsmithplc.co.uk/about_whsmith/history_of_whsmith|url-status=live}}</ref> The world's oldest national retail chain, the firm took advantage of the [[History of rail transport in Great Britain#1830–1922: Early development|railway boom]] during the [[Industrial Revolution]] by opening news-stands at [[railway station]]s beginning in 1848.<ref name= HIS/> The firm, now called WHSmith, had more than 1,400 locations as of 2017.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.whsmithplc.co.uk/about_whsmith/our_stores/|title=Our stores - About WHSmith|website=Whsmithplc.co.uk|access-date=2 August 2018|archive-date=October 26, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171026164026/http://www.whsmithplc.co.uk/about_whsmith/our_stores/|url-status=live}}</ref>

In the U.S., chain stores likely began with J. Stiner & Company, which operated several tea shops in [[New York City]] around 1860.<ref>Marc Levinson, ''The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America'', 2nd ed (2019), p. 14.</ref> By 1900, [[George Huntington Hartford]] had built [[The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company]], originally a tea distributor based in New York, into a grocery chain that operated almost 200 stores. Dozens of other grocery, drug, tobacco, and variety stores opened additional locations, around the same time, so that retail chains were common in the United States by 1910. Several state legislatures considered measures to restrict the growth of chains, and in 1914 concern about chain stores contributed to passage of the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act.<ref>Levinson, p. 67.</ref>

[[File:Post card ad Dewachter Freres clothing stores pre-1886.png|right|275px|thumb|Post card ad listing eight cities and towns where Dewachter Frères offered "[[ready-to-wear]] clothes and by measure for men and children," {{circa|1885}}]]Isidore, Benjamin and Modeste Dewachter [[Retail design|originated the idea of the chain department store]] in Belgium in 1868,<ref name= PANTH>Le Pantheon de L'Industrie, Paris, 1891, Page 20</ref><ref name="louisdewis.com"/> ten years before A&P began offering more than coffee and tea. They started with four locations for ''Maisons Dewachter'' (Houses of Dewachter): [[La Louvière]], [[Mons, Belgium|Mons]], [[Namur]] and [[Leuze-en-Hainaut|Leuze]].<ref name= PANTH/> They later incorporated as ''Dewachter frères'' (Dewachter Brothers) on January 1, 1875.<ref name =ACTS>Annexes to the Belgian Monitor of 1875. Acts, Extracts of Acts, Minutes and Documents relating to Corporations, Book #3, Page 67</ref> The brothers offered [[ready-to-wear]] clothing for men and children and specialty clothing such as riding apparel and beachwear.<ref name="louisdewis.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.louisdewis.com|title=The Dewis Collection - The Art of Louis Dewis|website=Louisdewis.com|access-date=18 February 2019|archive-date=August 21, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170821212611/https://foodmenuprice.co.za/|url-status=live}}</ref> Isidore owned 51% of the company, while his brothers split the remaining 49%.<ref name =ACTS /> Under Isidore's (and later his son Louis') leadership, ''Maisons Dewachter'' would become one of the most recognized names in Belgium and France with stores in 20 cities and towns. Some cities had multiple stores, such as [[Bordeaux, France]].<ref name="louisdewis.com"/><ref>{{cite web|url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maison_Dewachter_Bordeaux,_France_Letterhead_1904.png|title=English: This is the letterhead for the Bordeaux location of Maison Dewachter, a chain of men's and boys' clothing stores in Belgium and France.|first=Maison|last=Dewachter|location=Bordeaux, France|date=2 August 2018|access-date=2 August 2018|website=Wikimedia Commons|archive-date=May 3, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180503153606/https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maison_Dewachter_Bordeaux,_France_Letterhead_1904.png|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dewachter.fr/|title=Magasins de prêt-à-porter sur Montpellier|website=Dewachter.fr|access-date=8 January 2019|archive-date=January 10, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190110220842/https://www.dewachter.fr/|url-status=live}}</ref> Louis Dewachter also became an internationally known landscape artist, painting under the pseudonym [[Louis Dewis]].

By the early 1920s, chain retailing was well established in the United States, with A&amp;P, [[F. W. Woolworth Company|Woolworth's]], American Stores, and [[United Cigar Stores]] being the largest.<ref>{{cite book |title= Chain Stores: Their Management and Operation |url= https://archive.org/details/cu31924013822964 |vauthors= Hayward WS, White P, Fleek HS, Mac Intyre H |publisher=McGraw-Hill |location=New York |year=1922 |oclc=255149441 |chapter= The chain store field |pages=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924013822964/page/n27 16]–31}}</ref> By the 1930s, chain stores had come of age, and stopped increasing their total market share. Court decisions against the chains' price-cutting appeared as early as 1906, and laws against chain stores began in the 1920s, along with legal countermeasures by chain-store groups.<ref>{{cite book |title= Chain Stores in America: 1859–1950 |author= Lebhar GM |location= New York |publisher=Chain Store Publishing Corp. |year=1952 |oclc=243136}}</ref> State taxes on chain stores were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1931. Between then and 1933, 525 chain-store tax bills were introduced in state legislatures, and by the end of 1933 special taxes on retail chains were in force in 17 states.<ref>Levinson, p. 122.</ref>