15 Facts About Marshall Field

1.

Marshall Field was an American entrepreneur and the founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores.

2.

Marshall Field's business was renowned for its then-exceptional level of quality and customer service.

3.

Marshall Field was born on a farm in Conway, Massachusetts, the son of John Field IV and Fidelia Nash.

4.

Marshall Field's family was descended from Puritans who had come to America as early as 1629.

5.

Marshall Field left Massachusetts after five years of working in the dry goods store in search of new opportunities in the rapidly expanding West.

6.

Marshall Field survived the Panic of 1873 because of relatively low levels of debt.

7.

Marshall Field took an early 19th-century consumer landscape that was centered around the principle of caveat emptor, or "let the buyer beware", and transformed it into a plush shopping experience fit for the Gilded Age.

8.

Marshall Field's employees were instructed not to push products on uninterested customers, a common practice in stores of the period.

9.

Marshall Field was highly suspicious of organized labor throughout his career and prohibited unionization among his employees.

10.

Marshall Field would oppose organized labor during the 1905 Chicago teamsters' strike.

11.

Marshall Field avoided political and social intrigue, instead focusing on his work and on supporting his family and his favorite philanthropies.

12.

Marshall Field was a very active member of the Commercial Club and the Jekyll Island Club, known as the Millionaires Club, on Jekyll Island, Georgia.

13.

In 1904, Marshall Field married longtime friend Delia Spencer, the widow of Arthur John Caton.

14.

Marshall Field died in New York City, New York, on January 16,1906, at age 71 of pneumonia contracted after playing golf on New Year's Day with his nephew, his secretary and Abraham Lincoln's eldest son Robert Todd Lincoln.

15.

The year after his death the Marshall Field Museum received a further $8,000,000 in accordance with his will.