Shopping, Seduction & Mr. Selfridge (38 page)

As he looked up at his great store in those desperate days of the war, Selfridge had no idea that deep below the ground, in the sub-basement he had had blasted out of the London clay, men from the US Army Signal Corps were on round-the-clock shifts protecting a top-secret telecommunications installation. Bell Telephone’s X-system, codenamed Sigsaly and at the cutting edge of cryptography, was housed in what High Command felt was one of the most secure sites in London. Scrambled conversations between the men of war plotting and planning D-Day, indeed almost all communications on behalf of the British Government and the Allied forces, took place in that guarded room deep below Selfridges. How proud he would have been.

He would also have been proud to know that a perspiring subaltern returned to Company HQ after marching his platoon for many hot and weary miles on ‘training’ somewhere in England, to find his company commander and the CO sitting looking very pleased with themselves, holding a piece of paper. It turned out to be
The Times
crossword. ‘Just finished it,’ said the CO. ‘We thought it had beaten us though, eh Major?’ ‘One blessed word,’ replied the Major, ‘but we rang up Selfridges Information Bureau and they knew.’ Of course they
did. Shortly thereafter, Mr Holmes closed the Information Bureau down.

Harry Gordon Selfridge died peacefully in his sleep at Ross Court on 8 May 1947. He was 91. Following his funeral, held at St Mark’s Church, the local newspaper reported on the many floral tributes. Among them was a large wreath of red and white roses from Miss Rosie Dolly, the message simply saying ‘from Rosie and Jenny’, and a huge bouquet with a card saying, ‘In memeory of a great citizen of the world who loved humanity’ from the President, directors, vice-presidents and executives of Marshall Field and Co., Chicago, USA.

In his will, Harry left jewellery and what remained of his sculpture collection to his three daughters. He had once said: ‘When I die, I want it said of me, “He dignified and ennobled commerce”.’ His family had no money for a headstone to honour the man who did just that – and it never occurred to Selfridges to pay for one. Instead, he lies in a humble grave near his beloved wife and mother in the quiet churchyard of St Mark’s in Highcliffe, where leaves from the overhanging trees gently fall around their tombs.

I have been fortunate to be able to draw from the magnificent Selfridges Archives (which at the time when this book was originally written were held at the History of Advertising Trust – hereafter referred to as HAT – but have now returned to Selfridge’s). The detailed documents, letters (both to and from H. G. Selfridge), ledgers, staff records and press cuttings collection (1907–75) have been an invaluable source for this book. I have also studied correspondence and documents made available to me by the House of Lords Library; Keele University; the University of Nottingham; the Baker Library at Harvard University; the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, Austin; Princeton University; Stanford University; and the University of Chicago. I am grateful to Simon Wheaton-Smith, Harry Gordon Selfridge’s great-grandson, who not only provided many family anecdotes but also made available his exceptional collection of treasured family memorabilia. The letters between Miss Elizabeth Arden and her London Managing Director, Teddy Haslam (1922–47 in author’s possession), have been a most helpful source in respect of the personality and business practices of H. G. Selfridge and the store. I would also like to thank Gordon Honeycombe for permission to draw from his book
Selfridges: Seventy-Five Years: The Story of a Store.

Early twentieth-century fashion detail was researched at the Condé Nast Library. On a personal note, I have found Elizabeth Ewing’s books
Dress and Undress
and
The History of 20th Century Fashion
of inestimable help in researching the fashion of the period and must also recommend Fashion-era.com (text by Pauline Weston Thomas), which has been a fascinating and informed source. For those interested in the history of British retailing, I would recommend
Shops and Shopping
by Alison Adburgham as essential reading.

Chicago as a city during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries came alive to me both through Emmett Dedmon’s superlative book
Fabulous Chicago
and Perry R. Duis’s equally evocative essays collated in ‘
Challenging Chicago’: Coping with Everyday Life, 1837–1920.
Authoritative documentation from experts in Chicago has included Trish Morse’s wonderfully descriptive ‘
Midway Plaisance Walking Tour’
, which enabled me to trace Rose Buckingham’s property development project. Further information was provided by the Hyde Park Historical Society, the Chicago Public Library and the Chicago History Museum.

During the time he lived in London, in relation to his business dealings, Harry Gordon Selfridge was generally known as Gordon Selfridge. His family and close friends, however, always referred to him as Harry. For the main part, he signed his letters to friends both in England and America as Harry. I have chosen to refer to him by that name.

The notes that follow show the principal sources (other than those indicated above) on which I have drawn in order of appearance in the text. Books are listed by author and title only, but further details may be found in the Bibliography.

Accurate valuations on the correct value of the pound and dollar in the early part of the twentieth century to today are hard to pinpoint. I have followed official guidelines, which indicate that pre-First World War, £1 was worth £65 today. It subsequently dropped to £40 and settled at £25 post-war, until the Great Depression. Throughout this period, the exchange rate for the dollar was approximately $5 to £1. For further information, see Measuring Worth
www.measuringworth.com
and the Inflation Calculator
www.westegg.com/inflation

Selfridges have kindly granted permission for use of many of the photographs reproduced in this book. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to clear copyright permission. If notified, the publishers will be pleased to rectify any omissions in future editions. Any omissions of fact or errors are the author’s own.

Emile Zola,
Au Bonheur des Dames
; Alison Adburgham,
Shops and Shopping
; Reginald Pound,
Selfridge
; Lois Banner,
American Beauty
; Erika Rappaport,
Shopping for Pleasure
; Lloyd Wendt & Herman Kogan,
Give the Lady What She Wants
; Axel Madsen,
The Marshall Fields
; Lloyd Morris,
Incredible New York
; Michael B. Miller,
The Bon Marché
; Selfridges Archives.

Stephen N. Elias,
Alexander T. Stewart
; Lloyd Morris,
Incredible New York
; Lloyd Wendt & Herman Kogan,
Give the Lady What She Wants
; Robert W. Twyman,
Potter
Palmer
; Emmett Dedmon,
Fabulous Chicago
; Family Archives of Simon Wheaton Smith; The George Washington Masonic National Memorial; Robert W. Twyman,
The History of Marshall Field & Co
.; Selfridges Archive; John Tebbel,
The Marshall Fields
; Nancy F. Koehn,
Brand New
; Ishbel Ross,
Silhouette in Diamonds.

Diana de Marley,
Worth
; Gail MacColl & Carol Wallace,
To Marry an English Lord
; Elizabeth Ewing,
The History of 20th Century Fashion
; Elizabeth Ewing,
Dress and Undress
; Madge Garland,
A History of Fashion
; Elizabeth Ewing,
The History of 20th Century Fashion
; Alistair Horne,
The Paris Commune, 1871
; Emmett Dedmon,
Fabulous Chicago
; Notes from Gordon Selfridge Jr, Selfridges Archive; Lloyd Wendt & Herman Kogan,
Give the Lady What She Wants
; Robert W. Twyman,
The History of Marshall Field & Co
.; Nigel Nicolson,
Mary Curzon
.

Gordon Honeycomb,
Selfridges
; Reginald Pound,
Selfridge
; Robert Hendrickson,
The Grand Emporiums
; Axel Madsen,
The Marshall Fields
; About Inventors.com: Light-bulbs, Lighting and Lamps; Letter from D. H. Burnham & Co., Selfridges Archives; Emmett Dedmon,
Fabulous Chicago
; Brenda Warner Rotzoll, ‘The Other Bertha Palmer’,
Chicago Sun-Times
, 16 March 2003; Perry R. Duis,
‘Challenging Chicago’
; Lois W. Banner,
American Beauty
; Nancy F. Koehn,
Brand New
; (on Rosalie Villas) Jean F. Block,
Hyde Park Houses
(text extracts courtesy of the Hyde Park Historical Society, Chicago; further information provided by Trish Morse, University of Chicago); Family Archives of Simon Wheaton Smith; Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington, DC; Author visit to Ely Cathedral;
Chicago Tribune
, 12 November 1890, p. 3.

Emmett Dedmon,
Fabulous Chicago
; David F. Burg,
Chicago’s White City of 1893
; James William Buel,
The Magic City
; Dennis Bell, ‘The Man Who Invented the Wheel and Paid the Price’, retrieved from the Internet; Rita Kramer, ‘Cathedrals of Commerce’,
City Journal
, New York, Spring 1966; Lois W. Banner,
American Beauty
; Lindy Woodhead,
War Paint
; Robert D. Tamilia, ‘The Wonderful World of the Department Store’, Ph.D., University of Quebec; Reforming Fashion, 1850–1914, costume.osu.edu/Reforming-Fashion; John Burke,
Duet in Diamonds
; Morell Parker,
Lillian Russell
; Peter Kurth,
Isadora
; Nigel Nicolson,
Mary Curzon
; Family Archives of Simon Wheaton Smith; Axel Madsen,
The Marshall Fields
; Vincent Vinikas,
Soft Soap, Hard Sell
; Duke University Advertising Research Project.

Family Archives of Simon Wheaton Smith; Chicago Public Library; Author interview with Nancy F. Koehn, Harvard Business School; Grace Lovat Fraser,
In the Days of My Youth
; Thomas Yanul, ‘The Untold Story of Schlesinger & Mayer’, retrieved from the Internet;
Encyclopedia of Chicago
, entry on Carson Pirie Scott & Co.; Nancy F. Koehn,
Brand New
; Reginald Pound,
Selfridge
; Selfridges Archives; Lloyd Wendt & Herman Kogan,
Give the Lady What She Wants
; Perry R. Duis,
‘Challenging Chicago’
;
Saturday Evening Post
, Chicago, March 1935; Emmett Dedmon,
Fabulous Chicago
; (on gold mine) Family Archives of Simon Wheaton Smith; Selfridges Archive.

Selfridge Archive; Notes from Eric Dunstan, Selfridges Archive; (on Charles Yerkes) ‘A Brush with History’, National Portrait Gallery; John T. Slania, ‘Loop Dreams’, retrieved from the Internet; ‘Receiver Named for Yerkes Estate’,
New York Times
, 7 April 1909; Peter Watts, ‘London’s Underground History’,
Time Out
, 17 April 2007; ‘Mrs Harry G. Selfridge’,
Chicago Daily News
, 8 June1907; Emmett Dedmon,
Fabulous Chicago
; Reginald Pound,
Selfridge
; Gordon Honeycombe,
Selfridges
; (on Footscray House)
The Great Estates: Six Country Houses in the London Borough of Bexley
(Bexley Council, 2000), p. 52; J. B. Priestley,
The Edwardians
; Article on James Gilbert White,
Cornell Alumni News
, retrieved from the Internet; Selfridges Archive; J. B. Priestley,
The Edwardians
; (on Kreuger & Toll) Notes in Selfridges Archive; Letters from Waring & White to H. G. Selfridge, Selfridges Archive; Susan Mary Alsop,
Lady Sackville
; Kate Jackson,
George Newnes and the New Journalism in Britain
; Simon Jenkins,
Newspapers: The Power and the Money
; (on the store’s opening) Selfridges Archive; The Library and Museum of Freemasonry, London (correspondence with Emily Greenstreet).

Selfridges Archive; Reginald Pound,
Selfridge
; Author conversation with Oliver Musker; John K. Winkler,
Five & Ten
; Grace Lovat Fraser,
In the Days of My Youth
; (on Violette) Notes from Eric Dunstan, Selfridges Archive; J. B. Priestley,
The Edwardians
; Elizabeth Ewing,
The History of 20th Century Fashion
; W. Somerset Maugham,
Of Human Bondage
; Alison Adburgham,
Shops and Shopping
; (on Bertha Palmer and Anna Pavlova) Museum of London; Judith R. Walkowitz, ‘Cosmopolitanism and Erotic Dancing in Central London 1908–18’, American Historical Review, Vol. 108, No. 2, April 2003; (on Blériot) Reginald Pound,
Selfridge
; Notes from Gordon Selfridge Jr, HAT; Gordon Honeycombe,
Selfridges; The Globe
, 26 July 1909;
www.bleriot.org
.

Project on ‘The City’, Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping; J. B. Priestley,
The Edwardians
; (on Pavlova), Staff notes, Selfridges Archive; Letters between Sir Edward Holden and H. G. Selfridge, Selfridges Archive; Reginald Pound,
Selfridge
; Lindy Woodhead,
War Paint
; W. J. MacQueen-Pope,
Gaiety
; International Perfume Museum, Grasse; Eugene Rimmel, Evanion Catalogue, British Library; The Letters of Ralph Blumenfeld, House of Lords Library; Letters between Ralph Blumenfeld and H. G. Selfridge, Selfridges Archive; Meredith Etherington-Smith & Jeremy Pilcher,
The ‘It’ Girls
; Richard Fisher,
Syrie Maugham
; Gerald McKnight,
The Scandal of Syrie Maugham
; Notes from Eric Dunstan, Selfridges Archive; Selfridges Archive; (on Sir Oliver Lodge) Staff notes, Selfridges Archive; Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington DC; A. H. Williams,
No Name at the Door
; Selfridges Archive; J. B. Priestley,
The Edwardians
.