Editing Department store (section)

===Innovations 1850–1917===
[[File:Marshall field interior.jpg|thumb|Marshall Field's State Street store "great hall" interior around 1910]]
[[Marshall Field's|Marshall Field & Company]] originated in 1852. It was the premier department store on the busiest shopping street in the Midwest at the time, [[State Street (Chicago)|State Street]] in Chicago.<ref>Lloyd Wendt and Herman Kogan, ''Give the Lady What She Wants: The Story of Marshall Field & Company'' (1952)</ref> Marshall Field's served as a model for other department stores in that it had exceptional customer service.{{Citation needed|date=January 2017}} Marshall Field's also had the firsts; among many innovations by Marshall Field's were the first European buying office, which was located in Manchester, England, and the first bridal registry. The company was the first to introduce the concept of the personal shopper, and that service was provided without charge in every Field's store, until the chain's last days under the Marshall Field's name. It was the first store to offer revolving credit and the first department store to use [[escalator]]s.{{Citation needed|date=January 2017}} Marshall Field's book department in the State Street store was legendary;{{Citation needed|date=January 2017}} it pioneered the concept of the "book signing". Moreover, every year at Christmas, Marshall Field's downtown store windows were filled with animated displays as part of the downtown shopping district display; the "theme" window displays became famous for their ingenuity and beauty, and visiting the Marshall Field's windows at Christmas became a tradition for Chicagoans and visitors alike, as popular a local practice as visiting the Walnut Room with its equally famous Christmas tree or meeting "under the clock" on State Street.<ref>Wendt and Kogan, ''Give the Lady What She Wants: The Story of Marshall Field & Company'' (1952)</ref>

In 1877, [[John Wanamaker]] opened what some claim was the United States' first "modern" department store in [[Philadelphia]]: the first to offer fixed prices marked on every article and also introduced electrical illumination (1878), the telephone (1879), and the use of pneumatic tubes to transport cash and documents (1880) to the department store business.<ref>Robert Sobel, ''The Entrepreneurs: Explorations Within the American Business Tradition'' (1974), chapter 3, "John Wanamaker: The Triumph of Content Over Form"</ref>

[[File:Anthony Hordern and Sons- 20th December 1936 (18832395934).jpg|thumb|Aerial view of [[Anthony Hordern & Sons]] in [[Sydney, Australia]] (1936), once the largest department store in the world.]]
[[File:Christmas Party For Trooper Devereux's Daughter- Christmas in Wartime, Pinner, Middlesex, December 1944 D23005.jpg|thumb|[[Selfridges]] in [[Oxford Street]], [[London]] in wartime Britain (December 1944)]]
Another store to revolutionize the concept of the department store was [[Selfridges]] in London, established in 1909 by American-born [[Harry Gordon Selfridge]] on [[Selfridges, Oxford Street|Oxford Street]]. The company's innovative marketing promoted the radical notion of shopping for pleasure rather than necessity and its techniques were adopted by modern department stores the world over. The store was extensively promoted through paid advertising. The shop floors were structured so that goods could be made more accessible to customers. There were elegant restaurants with modest prices, a library, reading and writing rooms, special reception rooms for French, German, American and "Colonial" customers, a First Aid Room, and a Silence Room, with soft lights, deep chairs, and double-glazing, all intended to keep customers in the store as long as possible. Staff members were taught to be on hand to ''assist'' customers, but not too aggressively, and to ''sell'' the merchandise.<ref>J.A. Gere and John Sparrow (ed.), ''Geoffrey Madan's Notebooks'', Oxford University Press, 1981</ref> Selfridge attracted shoppers with educational and scientific exhibits; in 1909, [[Louis Blériot]]'s [[monoplane]] was exhibited at Selfridges (Blériot was the first to fly over the [[English Channel]]), and the first public demonstration of television by [[John Logie Baird]] took place in the department store in 1925.

[[File:Hiroshige, Sugura street.jpg|thumb|[[Utagawa Hiroshige]] designed an [[ukiyo-e]] print with [[Mount Fuji]] and Echigoya as landmarks. Echigoya is the former name of Mitsukoshi named after the [[Echigo Province|former province of Echigo]]. The Mitsukoshi headquarters are located on the left side of the street.]]

In [[Japan]], the first "modern-style" department store was [[Mitsukoshi]], founded in 1904, which has its root as a [[kimono]] store called Echigoya from 1673. When the roots are considered, however, [[Matsuzakaya]] has an even longer history, dated from 1611. The kimono store changed to a department store in 1910. In 1924, Matsuzakaya store in [[Ginza]] allowed street shoes to be worn indoors, something innovative at the time.<ref>[http://www.matsuzakaya.co.jp/corporate/history/honshi/index.shtml Matsuzakaya corporate history]</ref> These former kimono shop department stores dominated the market in its earlier history. They sold, or instead displayed, luxurious products, which contributed to their sophisticated atmospheres. Another origin of the Japanese department store is from [[railway]] companies. There have been many [[private railway]] operators in the nation and, from the 1920s, they started to build department stores directly linked to their lines' [[Train station#Terminus|termini]]. [[Seibu Department Stores|Seibu]] and [[Hankyu Department Stores|Hankyu]] are typical examples of this type.
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