USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Fifty years of Boston; a memorial volume issued in commemoration of the tercentenary of 1930; 1880-1930, Pt. 1 > Part 24
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50
Last, but by no means least, in this circle of busy "districts," comes the South Boston section. This part of the city has had a strange fortune, for it was originally planned as the aristocratic quarter of the city; but fate had it otherwise, and our wealthier families reside in the Back Bay and Fenway region.
At least one United States cruiser, as well as two torpedo boats, and several of the American cup defenders have been launched at South Boston, but its miles of shore front, once the site of prosperous shipyards, are now given up to other uses. The district is still, however, in parts, a busy hive of miscellaneous manufactures, including sugar refining (one of the oldest of its industries), machinery of various kinds, shoes, safety razors, machine tools, confectionery, and iron founding. The glory of its earlier iron foundries (the South Boston Iron Works were the greatest in the country), glass works, brick yards, rope walks, cordage factories, brass, lead and copper foundries, soap factories, wagon factories, has largely departed. The famous Grueby pottery was closed less than two decades ago. But its modern and famous Fish Pier typifies one of Boston's most valuable and interesting industries and one that possibly has greater potentialities of future growth than any in the city. A considerable part of South Boston's industrial progress is to be credited to the energetic policy of a local development corporation that has been in existence for almost a century.
The South Boston district also figures prominently in the maritime prestige of Boston, inasmuch as it is the terminus of several important ocean and coast- wise steamship lines which play their due part in carrying on the export and
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import business of the city of Blackstone and Winthrop. Tlicse are located, not on the original peninsula, but on the large tract of made land developed since 1880 by the statc.
THE LARGER METROPOLITAN UNIT
As these paragraphs are written, an announcement of momentous importance to Boston comes from Washington. We have already referred to Metropolitan Boston as the fourth urban area in the United States. We now learn that the Census Bureau has given our city a long-deferred recognition by classing it as such. Henceforth it is officially, as well as actually, fourth. The Boston Metropolitan District hercafter will include eighty citics and towns, with a 1931 population of more than 2,300,000, covering the territory within a radius of twenty-one miles, and with a total area of 1,021 square miles and a density of population of 2,260 inhabitants per mile. Only New York Chicago and Philadelphia exceed in size and in industrial and economic impor- tance this Boston Metropolitan District. The new economic area includes practically all of the more important shoe manufacturing communities of Massachusetts and all of its tanning centers, and its official recognition tends to make Boston more than ever the world's greatest center of the leather and footwear industries.
THE FUTURE
There need be no concern as to Boston's ability to take care of its future industrial growth, for the city has ample available area for new mills and fac- tories. It has nearly 3,000 acres of filled-in lands (much of it constructed since 1880), notably in South Boston, East Boston, the South End and Dor- chester. Great stretches, still unoccupied, offer attractive sites situated near tidewater and having good railroad connections.
Boston is today New England's foremost workshop and distributing center, with numerous organized agencies committed to the task of developing it further along these lines. Its probable status fifty years hence, when its ocean and coastwise steamship lines shall have been developed to their limit and its transportation system perfected, presents an inviting subject of spec- ulation. Wc can see no reason in its present situation to anticipate an industrial decline.
That this is the view of others who are able to speak with authority and without the suspicion of regional bias appears from the following comment made in August, 1931, by Dr. Julius Klein, Assistant Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce:
"For Boston, as the economic capital of a reoriented and advancing New England, the next years should also be rich in opportunity. With one-fifth of the section's industrial output centered in its met- ropolitan area, and dominating a trading district which contains forty-six per cent of the population and forty-four per cent of the wealth of the northeast, Boston is both the commercial nerve center and industrial heart of the entire New England region. The two must flourish together."
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TRADE DEVELOPMENTS - WHOLESALE AND RETAIL
By FRANK G. FITZPATRICK
The most significant event of the decade prior to 1880, so far as Boston's physical development is concerned, was the Great Fire of 1872. This catas- trophe, which caused the greatest material loss the city has ever sustained, effectively wiped out the entire business district from the corner of Kingston and Summer streets; where the fire started, through Summer street to Wash- ington, along Washington to the Old South Church, down Milk street, around the Post Office and through Water, Oliver, Pearl, High, Purchase and Broad streets to the waterfront. This area included nearly sixty-five acres in the heart of the city, where the clothing, wholesale dry goods, wool, shoe and leather, paper and hardware trades were concentrated. The granite founda- tion blocks at the southwest corner of the Post Office, until their recent removal to make way for the new Federal Building, carried on their crumbled surfaces the scars inflicted by the terrific heat from across Milk street, a mute but still eloquent reminder of the ultimate victory of this edifice against the consuming flames.
Fortunately the Old South Church was saved by the heroic efforts of the firemen, and stood out after the disaster more of a landmark than ever on the border of the desolate area.
The fire was a staggering blow to the business interests of the city, coming as it did almost at the beginning of winter; but great as the disaster proved to be in the extent of property losses and in the temporary paralysis of much of the most important trade and commercial enterprise of the city, its con- sequences, when viewed in the light of tempered historical perspective, were not without their compensating advantages.
The constructive opportunity afforded by the simultaneous leveling of so many buildings over such a large area was readily grasped by the city authorities and their new plans for wider thoroughfares and more open spaces for this throbbing center of the city's trade were soon ready. Summer, Washington, Federal, Congress, Milk, Arch and Hawley streets were widened at this time, and Franklin, Pearl, Oliver and Arch streets were extended. Even though many of these streets are no longer considered especially broad, at least in relation to the heavy pressure of traffic through them today, it is evident that the expenditure of some $3,500,000 by the city on these improvements was one of the best investments that Boston has ever made.
In the rebuilding of the burned district, which made great progress during the year following the fire, the city secured a more accessible business center with larger tax values, and the business enterprises found the sturdy new buildings more commodious and more convenient for their various needs.
The destruction wrought by the fire was responsible for the moving of some trades into sections outside the burned district. The shoe and leather
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houses, for example, which were chiefly on and about High street before the fire, moved into the section bounded by South and Lincoln streets and Church Green, where, with some extension on Essex street, they are still located. The name Church Green, which still appears on the street sign at the corner of Summer and Bedford streets, is reminiscent of the time when the church of the New South Society, with its classical façade and graceful spire, designed by Bulfinch, securely dominated this now busy intersection.
Notwithstanding the zeal with which the city went about rebuilding the burned district, the great business depression which began in 1873 and which was to exceed in duration any the country has yet experienced, was particularly severe in its effects on Boston business. Money was scarce, rates were correspondingly high, and the volume of trade was reduced to an average level approximately twelve per cent below normal for a period of more than five years. By 1879, however, the worst was over and the year 1880 found the city entering on a new era of prosperity.
WHOLESALE TRADE
For a considerable period before and after the Civil War it was customary for many retail merchants of New England to come to Boston semi-annually for the purpose of replenishing their stocks of merchandise. These visits were educational as well as practical. They afforded the retailer opportunities to become familiar with the latest styles, to inspect a great variety of miscella- neous staples and novelties in merchandise, to meet other retailers for an exchange of views of mutual interest, and to become personally better acquainted with his sources of supply, whether the wholesale merchants or the manufacturers. Incidentally most buyers looked forward to these occasions with a pleasant anticipation of meeting old friends after the completion of the day's business and of enjoying such other forms of recreation as these periodic trips to the great city might reasonably be expected to provide. The buyers, realizing that in all probability they would not be again in the market for another six months, usually came prepared to place comparatively large and complete orders. This practice has been progressively curtailed since the late decades of the last century; partly because of the more satisfactory and more exten- sive services provided by the sales departments of manufacturers and whole- salers generally, and partly because of the resultant growth of a hand-to-mouth buying policy on the part of retailers which, especially during the last decade, has become more and more generally adopted. The traveling salesman became gradually an important link between the wholesale house and the retail store, while serving the interests of both. The efforts of all three were closely inter- related in their objectives. Many a traveling man has willingly stepped behind the counters of his customer on a busy evening in the store in order to help wait on the trade after his own day's work was finished; and many business acquaintances thus formed developed into lifelong personal friendships.
THE ROLE OF THE TRAVELING SALESMAN
As the role of the salesman increased in importance, and especially as it came to be supervised by more and more efficient sales management, the
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TREMONT STREET IN THE 1890's
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TREMONT STREET THIRTY YEARS LATER IN THE SHOPPING DISTRICT
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retailer found it less and less necessary to go to market. Most of his needs had come to be well satisfied by the traveling salesman with his samples and the responsive service of the wholesale house which he represented. This sales system, which had already become well established by 1880, was still further developed as timne went on and as the population increased, until by the year 1900 it could safely be maintained that no section of the country was so thoroughly covered and served by traveling salesmen as New England. Most of these men traveled out of Boston, to which as a source of supply all New England was commercially related, except the western part of Connecticut, which, because of its closer proximity to New York City, was accustomed to place its trade there.
With the increased emphasis placed by wholesalers on road selling their road sales increased in volume, frequently, it must be admitted, at the expense of their store sales and mail orders; yet competition left them little choice but to push for the road sales. As a logical result of this policy not only has the retailer gradually been led to expect and to require frequent calls from salesmen and express delivery of merchandise, but, largely as a consequence of these facilities, he has gradually accustomed himself to the habit of hand- to-mouth buying. This means smaller and more frequent orders; and whereas it has occasioned additional expense for the wholesaler in extra bookkeeping, stationery, postage and packing, it has meant for the retailer quicker stock turns, lower interest charges, and, unless carried to the extremes where sales have been lost because of inadequate stocks, generally better profits. Hand- to-mouth buying, however, has not been limited to the retail outlet. As the retailer discovered the possibility of operating advantageously on smaller average stocks, the pressure for the maintenance of large reservoirs of stock on the part of the wholesaler and the manufacturer was also correspondingly reduced, which meant that they in turn were enabled to adopt somewhat more flexible buying policies.
As a result of the wide acceptance of the hand-to-mouth buying policy the time interval between the manufacture of an article and its arrival in the hands of the ultimate consumer has been very materially lessened, except where there has been excessive overproduction of the article; the average size of shipments has been greatly reduced, resulting in lower freight volumes and largely increased use of express, motor trucks and parcel post. Under these conditions a considerably reduced demand for storage space of all kinds has become general. Many believe that this habit of buying has come to stay, and with normal business this may prove to be the fact; but, should we enter a durable period of rapidly rising prices or protracted scarcity of goods, it is but natural to expect a recurrence of speculative buying with larger orders and longer intervals in their placement.
SEPARATION OF WHOLESALE AND RETAIL DEPARTMENTS
Between 1880 and 1900 it was not unusual for many large business houses to run both wholesale and retail departments simultaneously, as, for example, in the dry goods and furnishings field, Arnold, Constable and Company, Lord and Taylor, and A. T. Stewart in New York; John Wanamaker and Straw-
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bridge and Clothier in Philadelphia; Marshall Field and Company and Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company in Chicago; and Jordan Marsh and Company in Boston. Of the above-mentioned concerns only the Chicago houses still con- duct their wholesale departments. Most similar companies have found it desirable to concentrate in the retail field. Of the many contributing causes leading to this evolution the following are most significant:
(a) The growing importance and complexity of the modern depart- ment store, into which most similar houses have developed, not only required all the interest, capital and brains of the management, but also evidently warranted their conviction that concentration of all their resources in the retail end of the business was more profitable than continued operation in the two fields.
(b) The wholesale business, already keenly competitive, was faced with the growing tendency on the part of the manufacturers to sell directly to the retail trade, with the result that the outlet for the middleman, whether wholesaler or jobber, was correspondingly restricted.
(c) A further and recently more significant influence indirectly affecting the wholesale business has come from the gradually increas- ing number and volume of chain stores, whose competition has affected the independent stores to such an extent that in many instances the independent's purchases from the wholesaler have fallen off considerably.
The wholesaler has thus on the one hand been menaced by the competition of the direct selling manufacturer and on the other has found his outlet limited by the handicap which his normal customers have encountered in the growth of the chain store, inail order houses and house to house selling. Under the circumstances it is not surprising that many Boston wholesale houses have retired from business during the last generation or two.
THE GROWTH OF THE DEPARTMENT STORE
Historically one of the most significant factors in the evolution of retail distribution has been the developinent of the department store. In this develop- ment Boston has played its conspicuous part. In fact, the credit for the estab- ishment of the first departmentized store in America is often given to Jordan Marsh and Company, whose retail business dates from 1861, ten years after their foundation as a wholesale house in 1851. There are admittedly other claimants to this distinction, notably A. T. Stewart and R. H. Macy in New York, and it also appears that Houghton, Dutton and Company, Boston, were early in the field.
Probably several of these interesting experimental ventures were advanced simultaneously during the 1860's. The idea had received earlier acceptance in Europe, especially in Paris, where the Bon Marché is often cited as the first department store in the world.
It is not surprising that the plan of combining many departments under one roof met with popular approval. It had much to commend it in so far as
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it served the convenience of the buying public, especially of those who had miscellaneous items on their shopping lists. There was an obvious additional convenience in case of inclement weather.
The early successes in this field led to other ventures and the years follow- ing the depression which began in 1873 witnessed the foundation of numerous department stores in many of the large cities of the country. Any analysis of their function in the sphere of retail distribution must consider their relation to the public, their physical set-up, their merchandising methods and their sales promotion.
Their relation to the masses has a psychological aspect. The big store appeals to the imagination of the people. It is as a rule easy of access, con- veniently reached from railroad stations, subway or surface connections. Its doors are open to all with no obstacles, inquiries, or impediments of any kind to deter even those who have no intention of buying. Many will enter only out of curiosity, but will leave with perhaps one or more purchases. It is a convenient place to meet friends or to dine as well as to shop. Realizing their dependence on the patronage of the masses, most managements have come to appreciate the expediency of providing many services and conveniences to attract people to the store. Some of these are only remotely related, if at all, to the normal transaction of the business. In fact, the department store has become a kind of city club for many people, who find there entertainment, rest rooms, restaurants, telephone booths, post office, reading and writing rooms, ticket offices, travel and information bureaus, as well as merchandise. Some stores give lectures, demonstrations, art exhibitions, musicales, style shows and other miscellaneous attractions more or less related to the activities of their respective departments. Most of these attractions are free to the public and are maintained at considerable expense by the stores; yet they are far from including all the services now expected in the average large department store. Other services, more directly related to the purchase of merchandise, include free delivery, charge accounts, installment payments, goods sent on approval, exchange privileges and "your money back if not satisfied."
These great modern stores are therefore more than merely successful com- mercial enterprises. They contribute largely to the public interest and con- venience. Their hundred or more closely grouped departments furnish good merchandise at fair prices; and they have generally accepted the principle that square dealing and honest methods are desirable and essential requisites in any establishment whose continued profitable operation depends so much on the good will of the public.
SIDELIGHTS ON THE BIG STORES
Viewing them in nearer perspective, we discover many sidelights on the picture of the big store in operation, not all of which are free from shadow. An enterprise whose function is to cater to the masses is naturally subject to the penalties as well as to the advantages which are consequent upon the per- formance of that function. Whereas a large volume of sales, with quick turns of stock and correspondingly satisfactory profits, may normally be expected in well-managed stores, this is not achieved without great expense, considerable
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risk and daily operation under the keenest of competitive pressure. A central location is usually considered essential for a department store. If it is to serve the masses, it must be readily accessible to them. When H. Gordon Selfridge, a former associate of Marshall Field, asked that the London Tube should have a station opening under his new store, many Londoners thought the sug- gestion a characteristic example of American presumption; yet we who have become accustomed to subway entrances into department stores realize that they are quite as much a convenience to the public as an advantage to the stores. But central locations are not obtained or maintained without very great expense.
In this respect the sites occupied by Boston's department stores are typical. The buildings stand on the most highly valued land in the city and their rentals and taxes are correspondingly high. Furthermore, the very centrality of loca- tion carries its own burden in the resultant difficulties of trucking and delivery, and other related problems of operation in crowded districts, where, with the increase in pedestrian and motor traffic, the congestion has grown progressively worse in the present automobile era. As a result, some of the better class of trade has already turned to the suburban or specialty shops, where customers can arrive inore comfortably in their cars and find convenient parking spaces if they so desire. The multiplicity of services already mentioned, which gen- erally have shown a tendency to increase in number and variety, also constitutes in the aggregate a very considerable item in the expense budget.
There are, however, other considerations besides high operating expense. For example, every organization must formulate its own principles regarding the type of trade which it desires to cultivate, the general tone or atmosphere of the store and its standing in relation to the public. With the emphasis on inass sales, quality may easily become a secondary consideration and, if the public senses a lowering of the standards in quality, a lowering of the prestige of the company is a natural consequence. It is, therefore, a constant problem to devise means for upholding traditions and conserving a good name while at the same time pushing for volume sales to the masses. Further difficulties are sometimes inherent in the average wage schedules. Although executives in department stores frequently command very high salaries, the average compensation of the rank and file is not as a rule rated high. It is perhaps as liberal as the business can reasonably afford; but it is hardly such as to attract exceptional selling ability.
ADVERTISING
In their appeal for the attention of the public the most important agency used by the great retail houses is unquestionably their newspaper advertising. Even a hasty turning of the pages in almost any file of the large newspapers of the last decades of the previous century will reveal the extraordinary changes which have since come about in the character of retail advertising in the public press. From 1850 to 1890 the largest purchasers of newspaper space appear to have been the manufacturers of patent medicines, whose glowing claims regarding the restorative powers of their magic nostrums were usually to be found on the front pages of our metropolitan dailies. The enforcement of the pure food laws and the gradual raising of newspaper standards concerning the
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honesty and quality of the advertising which they were willing to accept have resulted in the elimination of the greater part of this kind of advertising. Most of the progress in this direction has been accomplished within the present century.
John Wanamaker is said to have placed the first full-page advertisement in Philadelphia in 1879; but it was not until several years later that full-page advertisements came to be seen with any frequency. In fact, most of the newspaper "ads" of the early years of the last half-century were limited to the width of one column; and when one of the Boston stores in 1894 bought half a page of space for an entire week in one of the Boston dailies it created something of a sensation. Department stores were already becoming con- vinced of the advantage of regular daily advertising, but the acceptance of such an amount of space was unusual, although it seems small enough in com- parison with the multiple pages often taken by the large stores today. Since the beginning of the century the department stores have been the largest news- paper advertisers and their tendency to require more and more space, fre- quently several full pages in a single issue, has progressively increased. There are reciprocal benefits in this relationship. In the daily and Sunday news- papers the stores find their most potent medium for the publicity upon which they so much depend; and the newspapers in turn have found their largest customers and therefore the biggest contributors to their gross income in the great department stores. The advertising appropriations of the latter fre- quently run from three to six per cent of their sales, which is relatively high in comparison with the advertising budgets in most other lines.
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