Marshall Field & Company was the Grande Dame of Grande Dame American department Stores. Macy’s may have had the larger building, and Neiman Marcus had more exclusivity, but Field’s was the standard-bearer for the industry on account of its reputation for quality, its status as a civic institution, and because of its beautiful, iconic store building in Chicago. A slogan used by the store in national advertising was “There’s nothing like it back home,” and that was largely true. There were fine stores across the country, but Marshall Field & Company embodied all that was the best about the industry, and threw in its own cachet for good measure.

The store was described in a long-forgotten article as being “like a wonderful old Aunt who always treats you like you’re special to her” and “a place where you’d find the most expensive couture fashion but also a replacement for that rubber ring at the bottom of your blender.” It was aristocratic . . . it always (until the late 1970’s, when the store’s status began a slow decline) referred to itself as Marshall Field & Company. It officially never used the word ‘department’, referring to the store’s ‘sections’ instead. Likewise, it felt that pricing sale or clearance merchandise at values like $21.99 or $15.97 was below its stature. Instead, sale prices were marked down to $21.90 or $15.90. The store also did not refer to “regular prices” in sale ads, so as to say that regularly priced merchandise was still of good value to customers. In fact, the store didn’t have “sales,” but referred to a “special selling” in ads. These small details made Field’s just a little different from everyone else, and along with a million others, made the store seem just a cut above.