Meantime Mr. Wanamaker was interesting himself in Sunday school work,
as well as in Christian Association matters. He established a Sunday
school in one of the most unpromising of the down-town sections, and
there built up the largest school of the kind in the world,—with a
membership of something like three thousand. This school proved a
powerful factor for good.
He was also active in general philanthropic work. He was making his
mark on almost every phase of the city’s life. Such activity and
forceful good sense are always sure to make their mark.
When the great store was started in 1877 at Thirteenth and Market
streets, Mr. Wanamaker announced certain fundamental principles that
should mark the course of the enterprise. The one-price thought was
continued, of course. But he went far beyond that. He announced that
_those who bought goods of him were to be satisfied with what they
bought, or have their money back_.
To the old mercantile houses of the city this seemed like committing
business suicide. It was also unheard of that special effort should be
made to add to the comfort of visitors, to make them welcome whether
they cared to buy or not, to induce them to look upon the store as a
meeting-place, a rendezvous, a resting-place,—a sort of city home,
almost. Yet these things that were thought to forebode so much of
disaster to the old generation of merchants, have completely overturned
the methods of retailing throughout the United States. That “Wanamaker
way” is now almost the universal way.
When asked what he attributed his great success to, Mr. Wanamaker said:
“To thinking, toiling, trying and trusting in God.” Surely, his life
has been crowded with work. Even now, when wealth and honor have been
heaped upon him, he is likely to be the earliest man at the store, and
the last to leave at night,—just as when a boy at Tower Hall.