Rodman Wanamaker

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Rodman Wanamaker
Rodman Wanamaker

Lewis Rodman Wanamaker (February 13, 1863 – March 9, 1928, Atlantic City, New Jersey) was the second son of Philadelphia department store founder John Wanamaker and Mary Brown. He was a Republican and was a Presidential Elector for Pennsylvania in 1916.

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[edit] Education

He entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1881, graduating in 1886. In college he sang in the choir, and was a member and business manager of the Glee Club. He was a member of The Ivy Club (founded 1879), the first eating club at Princeton University.

[edit] Aviation

Rodman Wanamaker was a pioneer in sponsoring record-breaking aviation projects and an early backer of transatlantic flight. Commander Richard E. Byrd piloted Wanamaker's airship America across the Atlantic days after Lindbergh's historic solo crossing.

[edit] Liturgical arts

Rodman Wanamaker was a patron of many important commissions in the field of liturgical arts, and his legacy includes a sterling silver altar and silver pulpit at the chapel of the Queen's estate in Sandringham, England, as well as a massive processional cross for Westminster Abbey and important additions to his Philadelphia parish of St. Mark's Church, notably the lavishly appointed Lady Chapel where his first wife Fernanda is buried.

[edit] Business career

In 1886 he joined his father's business, and married Fernanda Henry of Philadelphia. He went to Paris as resident manager in 1889, and lived abroad for more than ten years. When his father purchased the former A.T. Stewart business in New York in 1896, he helped revolutionize the department store with top quality items.

Wanamaker was content to live in his father's shadow and did not actively seek the limelight except for some official, largely ceremonial positions he held in the City of New York toward the end of his life. Before John Wanamaker died in 1922 he turned all his holdings of the two stores over to Rodman. John Wanamaker had been the sole owner of the business, with his death in 1922, complete control and management passed from father to son. No other retail merchandising business on so large a scale in the world was in the hands of a single man. The Wanamaker Organ in Wanamaker's (now Macy's) department store at 13th and Market Streets in Philadelphia, was substantially enlarged by Rodman Wanamaker in 1924. It is presently the world's largest playing pipe organ.

Rodman Wanamaker sponsored elaborate recitals in the Grand Court of the Philadelphia Store, often featuring Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra. As many as 15,000 people attended these admission-free events, at which all display counters and fixtures were removed by an army of workers so that seating could be put in place. Under Wanamaker's guidance famous organists were brought to play the famous Wanamaker Organs in Philadelphia and New York, including Marcel Dupré, Louis Vierne, Marco Enrico Bossi and Nadia Boulanger. Toward the end of his life he put together a huge collection of stringed instruments, known as The Cappella, that featured violas and violins from such masters as Guarnerius and Stradivarius. The orchestra concerts ended with Mr. Wanamaker's death in 1928, and the stringed instruments were also sold at that time.

Rodman Wanamaker suffered from kidney disease in the last decade of his life and the toxins from this condition slowly took their toll on his health. Rodman Wanamaker had a son, Captain John Wanamaker, and two daughters. The son had a number of personal problems that made his choice as successor to the father increasingly problematic. After his death control of the stores passed to a board of trustees charged with serving the interests of the surviving Rodman Wanamaker family.

Rodman Wanamaker was also famous for carrying extremely large life-insurance policies, totaling in the millions of dollars.

[edit] Wanamaker-Millrose Games

In 1908 Rodman Wanamaker initiated the Millrose Games, which became widely known as perhaps the most prestigious indoor track-and-field event in the world. They are now held at Madison Square Garden in New York City. (Millrose was Wanamaker's country estate near Jenkintown, Pennsylvania) He also inaugurated the Wanamaker Mile, and reportedly began the tradition of playing The Star Spangled Banner at a sporting event.

[edit] Indian photographs

Between 1908 and 1913, Wanamaker sponsored three photographic expeditions to the American Indians intended to document a vanishing way of life and make the Indian "first-class citizens" to save them from extinction. At that time, Indians were viewed as a "Vanishing Race," and efforts were made to bring them increasingly into the mainstream of American life, often at the expense of their culture and traditions. Joseph K. Dixon was the photographer. On the first expedition, he made many portraits and captured scenes of Indian life. Dixon published them in a book, "The Vanishing Race." Sadly, original copies of the book is becoming scarce as people break it up to sell the photographs individually. The expedition climaxed on the Crow Indian Reservation with the filming of a motion picture about Hiawatha. The second expedition in 1909 involved a motion filming a reenactment of the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

In 1913, Wanamaker sponsored the groundbreaking for a National Memorial to the First Americans on Staten Island. The monument was never built. The third expedition, the "Expedition of Citizenship," took place in 1913. For it, the American flag was carried to many tribes, and their members were invited to sign a declaration of allegiance to the United States.

The resulting large bromide prints were presentation photographs, such collections having been placed in several museums. Mostly, the subjects are Blackfeet, Cheyennes, Crows, Dakotas, and other northern plains tribes. Dixon's negatives are at the Mathers Museum of Indiana University.

The Wanamaker photographic expeditions are fictionally treated in the novel "Shadow Catcher" by Charles Fergus.

[edit] PGA

On January 17, 1916, Wanamaker invited a group of 35 prominent golfers and other leading industry representatives, including the legendary Walter Hagen, to a luncheon at the Taplow Club in New York for an exploratory meeting, which resulted in the formation of the Professional Golfers' Association of America (PGA). During the meeting, Wanamaker hinted that the newly formed organization needed an annual all-professional tournament, and offered to put up $2,500 and various trophies and medals as part of the prize fund. Wanamaker’s offer was accepted, and seven months later, the first PGA Championship was played at Siwanoy Country Club in Bronxville, N.Y.

Since 1916, the PGA Championship has evolved into one of the world’s premier sporting events. Each summer, one of the nation’s most outstanding golf facilities hosts golf’s best professionals, as they compete for the Wanamaker Trophy.

[edit] World War I

He accepted an appointment during World War I as Special Deputy Police Commissioner in New York City, greeting distinguished guests from around the world and helping organize the victory parade for General John J. Pershing and the returning doughboys. He purchased more World War I bonds than anyone else in the United States, and generously allowed the use of his residences for the war effort, "virtually putting his enormous wealth at the disposal of the United States." After the war Wanamaker acted as something of an official greeter for the City of New York, often lending his Landaulette Rolls-Royce for ticker-tape parades.

[edit] Family

Mr. Wanamaker had three children: Fernanda Wanamaker, John Wanamaker, Jr., and Marie Louise Wanamaker

[edit] Homes

His Palm Beach, Florida winter home, La Guerida (or "bounty of war"), was built in 1923 by Addison Mizner It was which was later purchased by Joe Kennedy for a paltry $120,000 in 1933 would later become John F. Kennedy's “Winter White House.” The house gained notoriety from the headline-grabbing William Kennedy Smith rape trial. Smith was acquitted of the charges by a jury in 1991. It sold to When John K. Castle, chief executive of Castle Harlan, and his wife Marianne, in 1995.

[edit] External links