When I was about 5 years old, we took a trip down the El to Marshal Fields in downtown Chicago. It was below zero and the wind was blowing. My little cheeks got so red, Mom bought me a beautiful red tartan wool scarf in Marshall Field's to keep me warm. I still have that scarf 50 years later.
I worked for Marshall Fields in the summer of 1953 on my way to Purdue University as a transfer student from the Univ of Hawaii and again during Christmas vacation. I bought a 100% wool overcoat for $70, which was on sale and minus my employee discount. MF helped me when I needed help on my finances. I will always be grateful to Marshall Fields.
I was a buyer at Daytons when we bought Marshall Fields. State street and Water Tower place were more amazing than any Daytons or Hudson's at the time. Although we said we were going to be able to continue with providing the products they offered. I don't think that we did but it really tanked when May took over and eventually sold to Macy's.
@@markanderson6787 I often wondered what happen to Marshall Fields. I used to leaf through its catalog in Hawaii back in the Forties never knowing that one day, I will be working for it. I took the elevator train from Wilson Ave that became a subway to the underground station at MF. I took the elevator at the station directly to the 11th floor, where I worked. I never saw the streets of Chicago while I was working at MF.
The architecture of the State St. location was unbelievable (see the pictures 2:20 minutes in) Just imagine what it would look like in color. Decorated for Christmas made it seem magical. You didn't have to purchase a thing, just having a browse was an experience...true old world elegance. Sad it is gone.
When I was a child, we would take the train down from Wilmette at Christmastime to see the beautiful Christmas windows of the downtown department stores. Carson's were okay, but Marshall Field's were awesome! You just didn't notice the snow and the cold. Daddy would hoist me up on his shoulders so I could see over the crowds. When I was a little older, we'd go inside to have something to eat as well. Later, as a young adult, I remember well visiting a friend living in Chicago who had heard that the city wanted to do a New Year's Eve celebration like New York's, and that it would happen at the Marshall Field's clock. We traveled downtown on the El on what was probably one of the coldest New Year's Eves in recent memory. There were, I believe, ten of us. Each face of the clock had a slightly different time, so we all voted on which one we'd declare was the 'official' time. At midnight, one person gave a blatt on their big plastic horn, we yelled "Happy New Year" to each other and bolted for the taxi stands (the trains had stopped running so we had to grab a cab home). Best (and silliest) New Year's Eve ever, and every time I see that clock I think of it!
I've watched like ten of these videos but Marshalls fields stabbed me in the heart and reduced me to tears...growing up in chicago,it was always me and grandma going to state street to see the beautiful magical windows,going up the escalator to look down at the tree in the center,and eating in the walnut room...I still laugh how we would always get lost finding the right exit "Wabash" to take the bus/eL...we were never scared, of downtown,it was "HOME" a memory to make every christmas.my Gram liked nice clothes so even though my parents couldnt afford, it she dressed me in Fields clothes using one of the very first issued fields credit cards,she also had one date with one of the fields brothers,didnt work out,imagine a marshall fields owner as a grandpa lol!! But just so you know "Big shot""Macys-you will never be that store,those windows are fields,that tree is fields,that big green clock is fields,frango mints are fields...take your new york store back to new york with your Bloomies...That beautiful store sitting at the corner of state street will always be our Marshall Fields... to us chicagoans! Anybody from chi-town in the 60s-70s sharing this same memory please share with me thanks!
I remember the first time I went to Marshall Fields on State Street my mom feel in love with the store. I been going to Chicago for over 40 years every time I pass the old building I get teary eyed.
I am not from Chicago but I had cousins in Lake Forest and while visiting we’d hop on the train to downtown Chicago, visit the museums, and shop at the State Street Marshall Field’s. For a kid from Denver, it was all quite impressive. And of all the big-city splendors of those visits to Marshall Field’s, you know what I remember the most? Frango mints!
@@BarnabasCollinsXIII @Barnabas Collins XIII What a wonderful memory! 💗 Fields holds a special place in the heart of people from so many generations! It was such a special store. Your Mom was probably so excited to see your face light up as bright as those lights!
@@juliemarchese-temple7749 It's probably royalty free stock music. Most RU-vid videos want loud blaring music to get your attention. With this music and the content makes a bigger impact on my viewing than the other stuff.
The Chicao flagship store reminded me of Bonwit Teller, Lord & Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman-Marcus and a time when mega department stores with all their grandeur reigned supreme.
Good old days....of big department stores, curtiuos sales staff. Even the people who ran the elevators had personality, politeness and character . And those stores were so clean, all encased in beautiful architecture. As a family, we all went downtown together. It was more fun during the holidays with those exciting decorations. As a kid, I felt like I was in a magic wonderland; an extension of those Christmas TV specials.
What?! Thank god for Macys in this instance. Who knows what would’ve happened to the store if someone else bought it out. Have you seen it these days? They did a wonderful restoration. It’s stunning and kept much of the original stuff. It’s a mix of modern with the old. I felt they did the best job to respect its origin
As a child I can remember my Aunt would always receive a box of Marshall Field confectionary candy during the Christmas holiday season from her sister in Chicago.
My Grandmother’s favorite store was Marshall Fields. She collected the gold string and green paper from the packages. Her favorite candy was from there also.
LOVELY,, SO, SAD,, WHAT Became of it,, I love the old department stores, they always had a personal touch. not nowadays they don't care about the customer, they just care about the dollars,,
They used to have delivery trucks all over town. If you bought even a single item (say, a tie), they would personally deliver it to your home at no charge. The original location on State Street, while it says Macy's, still has a lot of what Marshall Fields was (including the Frango Mints, Walnut Room, huge decorated Christmas trees, etc.). Absolutely nothing like it.
LMAO you are so naive its as if you were born yesterday. It has always about the dollars, earlier they just put a facade on and pretended they cared, now they are honest about it and there are no pretenses.
Video killed the Radio star. Just as Field's good friend, George Pullman, didn't live long enough to watch the industry he once built take a back seat to automobiles, Marshall was long removed from the death of the industry he once helped to build. It is both a blessing and a curse to watch new industries arise out of the ashes of the dying ones. For the new technologies that are unveiled in today's world don't go obsolete after our deaths, they become obsolete right before our eyes. The minute we touch a new technology, we rush to the edge of our seats to wait for the next one.
As kids in Chicago in the '60s to early '70s we'd take the "L" train downtown with mom, sometimes to shop and others just to see the amazing Christmas window displays. It was also good for people watching, as the well dressed people seemed to shop there.
I worked for Mervyns it and target were owned by Marshallfields it was one of the only jobs I loved I was the display person for two stores I really miss I t and we had really good benefits such a good company to work for
In the cities of Lakewood and Long Beach, Los Angeles County, we had the May Company (my fave), Buffums, Bullocks’s, and The Broadway department stores in the 1950s, ‘60s, and early’70s.
Don't forget, In the LA area, we also had Ohrbach's, JW Robinson, I Magnin, Bullocks Wilshire, and Joseph Magnin right up until the mid-90s. May, Robinson's, and Broadway all had flagship stores in downtown LA. Then there were the two architectural masterpieces on Wilshire: the streamline moderne May Co (now the Academy of Motion Pictures Museum) and the Art Deco Bullocks Wilshire (now the law library at Southwestern Law School).
I am in my mid fifties...and was brought up in Toronto, Canada. I was fortunate to have been in a career which allowed me to travel the globe. I have visited many of the "Grand Department Stores" in Continental Europe and other parts of North America. Nothing compared to Marshall Field's original store at 111 North State Street in Chicago's Loop. The store really was the "Cathedral of all the Department Stores...The Grande Dame." The only store we has close to this was a store named Simpsons in Downtown Toronto....which like Marshall Field's was merged into another chain...HUDSON'S BAY!!! Like macy*s, they ruined that Simpsons store. I lived in Southwestern Ontario for a while and if I had three days off...I would drive over the border and via the I-94 drive to Chicago and spend a couple of days shopping in that grand store. I happy I did because macy*s ruined it. However, at least they kept The Walnut Room Restaurant intact. I don't think they had much choice. I believe at 115 years old it is considered a National Landmark. They're also kept the nice original Westinghouse AluminumSided Escalators as well. Thanks for doing that macy*s.
I had a Marshall Field's Charge Account...which I have kept. The first one was their Forest Green with Gold Lettering and embossed numbers on it. The second one...near the end was White Coloured with the State Street/Washington Street Clock etched in Green on the card with Gold Lettering and a barcode. I will keep them forever to remember the happy memories that store brought!🙂
111 State ... Loved that brand. Style and moderately priced..quality also. In the Detroit area, our Hudson stores became Marshall Fields. They are Macy's now...not like it used to be.
And we had Dayton's department stores in Minneapolis (another wonderful store), which also became Marshall Field's and then sank to Macy's. Now there isn't a store in either downtown Minneapolis or St. Paul.
I recognized in one of the shots of Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, the last time I was there was eons ago, that place has changed so much I’d probably need GPS just to get around, but it would be a real trip, because remembering what was where would be a test of memory
The Woodfield location was a beautiful store. Anything you purchased here felt special, because the atmosphere added to the shopping experience...now we have Walmart and Amazon...hmmmmm
Great video! Grew up in Chicago and Fields was the flagship store on State Street. was so disappointed when it became “Macy’s”.... Thank you for bringing back some wonderful memories...., You should do one on Coast to Coast hardware stores!
Fields was iconic for Chicago. When Macy's first took over the flagship location, many Chicagoans boycotted, at first. How dare a New York based store stomp on a Chicago legacy LOL...anyway there was quite a bit of upset.
You can blame then Mayor Daily for letting that happen. He, the owners of the whole store franchise, and Macy's saw $$💰💰💵💵 You flash that around to talk business and they'll hover all over it like flies on a trash heap. Marshall Field's was iconic to Chicago. Now Chicago has nothing. Macy's belongs in New York. Marshall Field's belongs in Chicago. The only thing I do that has Macy's written all over it is watch their parade on Thanksgiving Day and that's as far as I can go.
I loved the downtown Marshall Field's store on State Street, must have been there 100 times as a kid. Everyone who was anyone headed downtown to Field's at 'Christmas time' (Thanksgiving to Dec 24th). Not so much to shop - Marshall Field's was expensive - but to gaze into the Christmas Themed Window Displays, they were in each window along State Street, and unlike any store anywhere! Then when I got married the 1st Place that my new bride & I headed to shop for the furniture we needed to 'last a lifetime' was Marshall Field's (we actually started buying our 'stuff' before the wedding), and 45+ years later we still have our Bedroom Set. BTW, Mayor Richie M Daley (the stupid kid) doomed Marshall Field's - and every other department store on State Street -- when the numbskull closed State Street to Car Traffic into a 'Pedestrian Mall' in the 1980s - that was the 'in thing' cities did in that era.
There was no other store like Fields. High end goods and high end service. Kudos to Target for not ruining Fields like Macys did. I hardly shop there now.
Marshall Field's should not be confused with "Marshalls". The former (Marshall Field's) is much older and more upscale, as stated in the video. Marshalls is an unrelated, younger discount/mark off clothing store chain.
Before long there will be no more department stores at all. Most blame Amazon and Walmart but the truth is these department stores were never able to adapt to the changing times. Such a large percentage of their sales came from clothing and accessories. People used to dress for success; now most people dress casual for work. Very few men wear suits today compared to fifty or even thirty years ago. Women wore dresses to work and men wore suits. They dressed in dress shoes and women wore makeup. All of those things could be purchased at these department stores. Even going to church meant dressing up in one's Sunday's best. Today, going to church is like going to work. You just dress casual if you go at all. The loss in sales from men's suits to women's clothing to shoes and purses, along with all of the cosmetics has just been too much for these stores to remain in business, especially when they are paying such high rent in these malls. It's sad. Sometimes I think we were better off in times past, but we are here now.
Why do we have to wear a suit every where? I'm all for dressing right for the right situations. But just a trip to the grocery store, what is wrong with sweatpants?
So true. Culture has changed. It seems like culture and dress has shifted. I think some of it is that millennials and Gen Z have less disposable income, costs went up, climate change has affected dress, etc. People went for fast fashion and cheaper, less formal clothing. Another part of department stores was furniture and home goods. A lot of people used to go to department stores for furniture back in the day. Nowadays, the dominant furniture dealer is Ikea. Others buy it online from stores like Target and others. Not many use fine china anymore. These used to be staples of department stores years ago. Other departments inside department stores have lost sales too. For example, most of the electronics stores went out of business due to smart phones, internet streaming of movies, music, and software app downloads, etc and sales on Amazon. Before this revolution, people bought electronics and the content that goes with them on physical media at department stores like Sears and Montgomery Ward, and smaller stores like Electronics Boutique, Babbages, Egghead Software, Radio Shack, Sharper Image, Circuit City, CompUSA, AT&T Phone Centers (Landline), Camelot Music, Sam Goody, The Wherehouse, Tower Records, Suncoast Motion Picture Company, Silo, Computer City, Fry's Electronics, Media Play, and others. The decline of the department store is also the result of mergers. Stores have merged with others. Macy's alone has taken over 20 or 30 department store chains, not just Marshall Fields. Some of the others taken over by Macy's include Hecht, Lazarus, Filene's, Filene's Basement, The Broadway, May Company, Robinsons, Robinsons-May, Thalheimers, Liberty House, Denver Dry Goods Company, Jordan Marsh, Rich's, Bullocks, Bullocks Whilshire, Burdines, and others. A similar thing happened with Bon-Ton (now just online) taking over Carson Pieire Scott, The Boston Store, Younkers, Elder Beerman, and Herebergers. Others were acquired by Dillards. People used to buy tools and home repair goods at department stores but nowadays that business has shifted to dominant players like Home Depot, Lowe's, Harbor Freight, and others leading to a decline of the department store model in terms of home goods. Lastly, some store chains have failed because of debt from leveraged buyouts by private equity firms. Such buyouts are debt based, and what happens is that a private equity firm will buy a store chain with the full intent to run it into the ground as an attempt to flip or sell off some or all of its real estate as opposed to running or continuing the store chain operation. This is what happened with Sears, Kmart, Haggen, Toys R Us, Guitar Center, and others. In reality, many shopping malls are now struggling and some are even being demolished today. To see the real extent of that damage, see the RU-vid channels "This is Dan Bell", "Ace's Adventures", "Sal", "Doomie Grunt", "Retail Archaeology", "WallieB26", and others. To add seriousness to this, Simon Property Group and Brookfield, two mall operators had to buy JCPenney to save anchor stores. It is really sad the state of our malls.
I was on a youth group road trip in 2001 and we went to Chicago and our youth pastor took us to Marshall fields as a reward and treat it was amazing and a beautiful old building..i believe we even had lunch at this historic lunch counter they had..it was like stepping back in time.
I collect Marshall Field Dresses~ the buttons and embroidery are *awe* some :) I also like their recipe book~ Swiss Almond Cake:) Thank you for sharing and keep it jazzy~~~~~>💓°•○☆💕
I know many people from Chicago are still upset about Macy’s buying Marshall Field’s. Look, I grew up in northern New Jersey just outside of New York City where Macy’s has always had a strong presence. Even long before Macy’s bought Marshall Field’s, they were known for acquiring numerous regional department store chains including: Abraham & Strauss, Bamberger’s, Burdines, Filene’s, Jordan Marsh, Liberty House, and Sterns to name a few. Please respect the fact that this decision was a business decision and sometimes you can’t always get what you want.
I remember as a child going shopping at MF in downtown Chicago in the 1960's. The escalators and multi-storied open air in the middle of the building were great.
Dayton-Hudson changed all their store names to Marshall Fields due the the higher branding aspects. Eventually, they divested all their department stores to focus on Target which were earns hand over foot. All those stores were sold off to May Company or closed down - Macy's came in and bought May Co. Marshall Fields had a decent presence in the Pacific Northwest with the Crescent and Frederick & Nelson - you could tell from those stores logo script which looked similar to MF's.
Its flagship store was near Carson Pirie Scott (State and Madison) and Wieboldt’s (State and Lake). Carson’s was in a beautiful Louis Sullivan building. Wieboldt’s was a downmarket retailer that our family made the rounds of, especially during White Sales. Carson’s was nice but not as big a draw for us as Fields.
A couple of the shots were at Columbus (OH) City Center. I had the fortune to see that mall and the Field’s there before it all went downhill in the mid-2000s, largely thanks to the mall sprawl with Easton and Polaris stealing away City Center’s business. The Field’s stores in Columbus got rebranded as Kaufmann’s after Target sold off Field’s to May. Then of course, Federated bought May, and rebranded almost everything, including itself, as Macy’s...
When I was a small child my parents took me to Field's to see the REAL Santa Claus. In later years my mother and I would drive from the burbs (Mt. Prospect) to spend happy Saturdays in that amazing store - and then a show at the Chicago.
From tvstations.fandom.com WFLD, virtual channel 32 (UHF digital channel 24), is a Fox owned-and-operated television ... Field Enterprises-owned by heirs of the Marshall Field's department store chain, ... Channel 32 was christened the "Station of Tomorrow" by an April 1966 ... Fox Television Stations created an in-house news department for WFLD. From Wikipedia.
In the last ten years or so it seems the stores I go into could give a shit less if I ever come back, I usually don't. They wanted your business back then. Sadly I buy as much as I can online.
By the time my income was high enough to shop at Marshall Field's (for more than just a box of frangos), it had both become Macy's and seriously gone downhill.
Does anyone remember any on the designer woman’s clothing shop to Fields? I have been racking my brain and I can’t remember it. I think it had a number in it. I remember the shop was located next to the escalators at the Woodfield location. I like to say they specialized in wool woman’s suites. Can anyone help? I figured out the name. It was St. John’s.
Sad to see this great department store is all gone. It was always a family favorite for high quality. I did not see (and it's not your fault) that, in all the photos of Marshall Field's in Chicago, any black people. Very curious, as there are many black people in Chicago now, as well as then.
Marshall Field 🏑 would turn over in his grave that his name 📛 been taken down 🔻⬇️ and his store 🏬🏪 have been vandalized,he wouldn't be pleased!I hope his descendants will speak 🗣️ up, after all , this is their grandfather's store 🏬🏪 NOT 🚫 Macy! Macy lives in New 🆕 York NOT Chicago. RH Macy is like an Emperor spreading his Empire across the United States! Marshall Field won't forgive Macy for what happened to his store 🏬🏪, I enjoyed Christmas 🌲🎄 window decorations! Blessings and Hugs 💖🤗🙏🤗🙏!
Macy's is not the problem. The real issue is the fact that products from other countries are allowed to freely enter and under American products. People are actually dying in camps in China for cheap bits of plastic sold in US shops.
@@bighands69 Chinese are nonunion workers! Sometimes, they made our clothing and shoes good. Sometimes shoddy including mislabeled. I do buy their plastic Chinese made containers at dollar stores. Plus, I have lot of their Imported oriental rugs, lamps, vases, furnishings, and arts without any problem.
@@rbsmith3365 If the Chinese good you are buying is suppose to be a Chinese made product such a rug or vases then that is not the issue. The issue is buying bit of plastic junk with a US brand name on it made by some Chinese person in a concentration camp. People have found Chinese made products with notes inside them from people in the camps. Tons of wigs were found to have human hair from the camps and god knows what else is out there. Chinese concentration camps have killed more people than the Nazis and Gulags combined. If they are willing to do that to their own people what do you think they intend for the rest of the world?
Many people like to purchase inexpensive items for various reasons, but many would purchase higher quality at higher price points if the pricing vs. the quality was equitable. Brick and mortar stores needed to up their profit margins in order to stay/try to stay in business, which, essentially became price gouging.
Our needs have changed. The American society has lowered their formality of dress at work! Business casual for men and women was the beginning of the downfall. Also, many people choose not to dress up for church!
It's hard to get a sense of the splendor of all that. It wasn't just comparable to La Samaritaine -- it outdid it. The spread of wealth into the middle classes and beyond was not only a result of postwar American dominance, it happened way before that, as this video says, in the last decades of the 19th century, as the States consolidated its power after the Civil War. We're in a matrix now of surveillance capitalism and I can't wait for it to collapse, so we can get back to stuff like this. I hate this world right now, I detest it.
Marshall Field’s was also one of Chicago’s most racist department stores in the 1950’s and 1960’s. When a lawsuit was filed against the store for refusing to hire salespeople of color, Field’s defense was that black salesclerks would create a negative atmosphere in the store. The bigotry at Marshall Field’s was so well known that in 2020 Jordan Peele’s hit series “Lovecraft Country” devoted one segment to a black lady who is summarily denied a sales position until she is transmogrified into a white lady. My family experienced Field’s racism too.
I hear what you're saying, but I think racism is too general a word to describe it. These department stores wanted to attract the upper middle class, and those who strove to show their status, and this meant the store catered to these customers. I didn't grow up in Chicago, but in Ohio, and my mother and other female members of her family would talk about how in the 1940a and 1950s they would go to Lazarus in downtown Columbus for a special day of shopping, with the most elegant dining in the Chintz Room. Few blacks or even poor whites were to be seen. In the 1970s I worked at Lazarus at Christmas holidays and on other college breaks, assigned either to sporting goods or men's clothes. I'd wear a sport coat, dress shirt and tie, and would walk up to greet people and ask if there was anything I could help them find. I'd like to think think this approach led to a better shopping experience, and that I was helping people find what they really wanted. We live in a more equitable world today, but it's hard for me not to think something special has been lost.
@@chrisburnett9905 Ah, but here’s the rub, Chris, as Shakespeare would say. You seem to assume that all Black people were poor. Hardly. My family was upper middle class, white collar and Black. My Dad was an award winning graphic artist/designer (Thomas Miller. -Google him) and my Mom’s field was sociology having studied under renowned scholar W.E.B. DuBois during her collage days at Spelman. We had more disposable income than did many of the Whites shopping at Fields, and we were not alone. MANY Blacks and other people of color were and are very well off,stereotypes notwithstanding. Also, why do you automatically equate Black people with poor whites? Stereotype #2, Chris. I grew up in an integrated upper class Chicago neighborhood, Beverly/Morgan Park (Google it) and among my White friends were wealthy people such as Illinois artist Jack Simmerling (yep. Google if interested). There is no acceptable reason or excuse for racism or racist treatment, Chris-and Marshall Fields was archly racist.
When I got my first job in 1986 at AT&T, Robert Allen who was the chairman at the time said that gone were the days when you would start with a company and retire without ever making a change before retiring.
@@marieb3630 So true a lot of good jobs are gone. Farming is a million-dollar industry that takes year's to adopt you can't make it on a million dollars On a farm to compete. All the timber industry slowly Closed.The people who Think burning man or the grateful dead is going keep them alive. Yes the more you retire on inflation and Heath issues. Real tomatoes are hard to find Anymore. People don't fish like they used to. Alot of the quality of food has disappeared. The company's that have it Want too much.Seamstress Would fix clothes or anything that's all gone. America needs large gardens again not canned.
Ander Ander: Sputter, sputter, cough, cough, hork, hork and gag!!! All for Amazon...They have taken all the beauty and grace from what used to be wonderful excursions with great destinations to hold dear in our lives, never to be forgotten. The bricks and mortar that held the building's together, sidewalks, window displays, mahogany counters, nylon counters, perfume counters, furs department, ladies intimate apparel, hair ribbon and hair net counter, shoe department, beautiful ornate cash registers, sales ladies and gentlemen, floorwalkers. And, so many more departments I have to leave the rest to your imagination...If you can think it, and you needed it, it was there for you to purchase. Now I must mention the beautiful restaurant that Mama would take me to back to mid 1940's after WW2 had ended. The most delectable, delicious fresh made foods made from scratch by trained Chefs, and not just cooks. You just pointed at the menu what you wanted, and the Waitress would write it on her sales pad. In the early 50's I got a job there, and new hires were trained for three days before we actually went out on the floor to serve. My favorite was always the Maurice Salad, Toasted Cheese Bread, Hot Fudge Sundae or a big hunk of the Chocolate Cake from the Bakery Department, and 2 scoops of Fudge Ripple Ice Cream that was made fresh everyday in the vast kitchen. You may be wondering to yourself, "Well, what store is this person talking about?" The J.L. Hudson Store, on Woodward Avenue, downtown Detroit, Michigan. You may have seen our Christmas Parade on Thanksgiving Day, as it is broadcasted throughout the United States. So many other memories that I didn't write about would be the beginning of another , but not fiction. And, so I say thumbs down to Amazon. They just toss the box on the front porch, rain or shine, and jump back in the truck. Thanks for listening, and have a great rest of the summer. ,
