John Wanamaker
| John Wanamaker | |
|---|---|
 |
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| 35th United States Postmaster General; Merchant | |
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In office March 5, 1889 – March 4, 1893 |
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| President | Benjamin Harrison |
| Preceded by | Donald M. Dickinson |
| Succeeded by | Wilson S. Bissell |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
July 11, 1838 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | December 12, 1922 (aged 84) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Erringer Brown |
| Children | Thomas Brown Wanamaker Lewis Rodman Wanamaker Horace Wanamaker Harriett E. Wanamaker Mary Wanamaker Elizabeth Wanamaker |
| Profession | Politician, Merchant |
| Signature |  |
John Wanamaker (July 11, 1838 – December 12, 1922) was an American merchant and religious, civic and political figure, considered by some to be a proponent of advertising and a "pioneer in marketing". He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and served as U.S. Postmaster General.
Wanamaker was born on July 11, 1838, in a then-rural, unincorporated area that would in time come to be known as the Grays Ferry neighborhood of South Philadelphia. His parents were John Nelson Wanamaker, a brickmaker and a native of Kingwood, New Jersey and Elizabeth Deshong Kochersperger, daughter of a farmer and innkeeper at Gray's Ferry whose ancestors had hailed from Rittershoffen in Alsace, France, and from Canton of Bern in Switzerland.
In 1860 John Wanamaker married Mary Erringer Brown (1839–1920).
They had six children (two of them died in childhood):
John Wanamaker's son, Thomas B., who specialized in store financial matters, purchased a Philadelphia newspaper called The North American in 1899 and irritated his father by giving regular columns to radical intellectuals such as single-taxer Henry George, Jr., socialist Henry John Nelson (who later became Emma Goldman's lawyer), and socialist Caroline H. Pemberton. The younger Wanamaker also began publishing a Sunday edition, which offended his father's Biblically informed religious views.
His younger son Rodman, a Princeton graduate, lived in France early in his career and is credited with creating a demand for French luxury goods that persists to this day. Rodman was credited with the artistic emphasis that gave the Wanamaker stores their cachet and also was a patron of fine music, organizing spectacular organ and orchestra concerts in the Wanamaker Philadelphia and New York stores under music director Alexander Russell.
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