Marshall Field & Company: a legacy inspiring loyalty - and protests

Meet the timid man who became the Merchant Prince

Each week, discover an historic Chicago landmark and meet the people who built the Windy City. Includes audio recorded by the amazing Jim Goodrich.

When Macy’s renamed Marshall Field's in 2006, people protested. They picketed and blocked sidewalks. The protesters didn't get riled up because the New York giant had purchased the beloved chain: the Field family hadn’t owned the department store since the 1960s and in those intervening forty years the brand had gone through multiple owners. No, people protested because Macy’s changed the store’s name.

What kind of department store engenders that level of loyalty? How did Marshall Field & Company become such a part of the Chicago vernacular that a name change drew ire, protests, and boycotts?

The story begins with Marshall Field himself. He was born on August 18, 1834, on a farm near Conway, Massachusetts. When Marshall was seventeen, he struck out for Pittsfield and he and his brother Joseph lived together and worked at separate dry goods stores. It took some time for Marshall to display his retail charms; he was so timid that the store owner, Deacon Davis, declared he’d never be much of a merchant.

But, the ladies liked the handsome and courteous young man, and by the time Marshall left Pittsfield five years later, he was such a success Davis offered him a partnership. Marshall declined; in 1856 he, like many of his fellow New Englanders, was lured west by the prospects of a rapidly growing town named Chicago.