“In no other city in Illinois does the department store exist as it is in Chicago, and nowhere else does the small merchant so severely feel its competition.”
The busy intersection of State and Madison streets in Chicago in 1893. In 1897, local merchants tried passing anti-department store legislation meant to do away with the giant discount stores taking over State Street and other areas in downtown Chicago.
The dawn of a century saw Quincy Street, looking west here from State Street, teeming with pedestrian and vehicular traffic in 1900. The Leader store on the left and Siegel Cooper & Co. on the right were among the early department stores in Chicago. Editors note: This historic print shows crop marks.
Besides its store at State and Randolph streets, Marshall Field’s had an unprofitable business at Madison and State streets. So in 1874, it offered the building at a discounted price to Mandel Brothers, which had outgrown its headquarters beyond the Loop. The idea was that the more stores on State Street, the greater its magnetic attraction to shoppers.
Accordingly, in February 1897, 10 shopkeepers’ groups joined together as the Cook County Retail Dealers Association. Others joined subsequently. Four men who head the North Side Business-Men’s Association were featured in a Jan. 19, 1897, Chicago Tribune story about the anti-department store crusade in Cook County.
The public’s attention was consumed by the debate over whether department stores were a boon or detriment. Hardly any other subject would provoke a comparable bar stool dispute. ”We get of them a better quality of goods than we can possibly buy at one-line stores scattered about in the residence districts at 10 to 20 percent less price,” L. Tuttle wrote when the Tribune asked readers to weigh in on the issue.
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