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Edgar Kaufmann Sr.
Edgar Kaufmann, jr.
Liliane S. Kaufmann
Wright's Patrons and Friends
Kaufmann's Department Store |
 Kaufmann’s Department Store
Kaufmann’s Department store began as a men’s store in 1871, located in downtown Pittsburgh where the flagship store remains today. By the 1910’s, the store had gained broad appeal to Pittsburghers of varied economic classes and ethnic backgrounds. Competitive prices and wide selection were the primary attractions. A popular anecdote recounted how even the famously rotund William Henry Taft was able to find trousers in his size at Kaufmann’s.
By 1913, Edgar Kaufmann Sr. had gained the majority of the shares in the business, and was effectively running it. Making the most of Pittsburgh’s robust economy during World War I, he tripled the store’s net sales to $30 million by 1920. He became President in 1919.
To continue this remarkable growth, Kaufmann’s created marketing strategies intended to stimulate desire for new products, create tempting opportunities for impulse purchases, and above all – make the sale. Education became increasingly important for manager s and sales personnel alike. In 1918, Edgar Kaufmann led a consortium of local department store merchants and representatives from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) and the University of Pittsburgh in founding the Research Bureau for Retail Training. He chaired the program’s executive committee from 1929-1953, and in 1943 he received an honorary doctor of science from the University of Pittsburgh in recognition of his contributions.
An innovative series of special program from the 1920’s into the early 1950’s identified the store with technological and scientific progress. In 1928, for example, a year after Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic, Kaufmann’s staged an aircraft exhibit that attracted 50,000 visitors in one week. In 1935, inspired perhaps by the recent Century of Progress exhibition in Chicago, the store inaugurated an annual "Peaks of Progress" festival that included exhibitions, lectures, and essay contests.
Image was as important then as now, and in 1925, Kaufmann placed the responsibility for a major remodeling of the store in the hands of his longtime architect, Benno Janssen, who had enlarged the store in 1913 and designed the Kaufmanns’ Fox Chapel home.
The result, completed in April 1930, was dramatic and set the store apart from all others in Pittsburgh . The walls, elevators, and interior columns had facings of black reflective marble and Carrera glass, a new product of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. Lighting fixtures were contained within glass moldings that began at the top of each column and traced the beams supporting the ceiling.
Underneath this grid stood white mahogany display cases, which had their own hidden lighting sources. Seeming to float on the walls above the merchandise were ten large murals, each measuring approximately 7 ft high by 14 ft wide, depicting the History of Commerce by Boardman Robinson (1876-1952). The Kaufmann commission provided Robinson with his first opportunity to put his ideas into practice and would be the first of a series of ambitious murals realized in the 1930’s by artists such as Benton, Jose Clementa Orozco, and Diego Rivera.
Robinson’s murals and Janssen’s interior finishes created an elegant environment for the store’s customers, whose well being was enhanced by technical systems that were as sophisticated as the decoration was chic. Among these was the introduction of air conditioning, improved vertical circulation provided by three sets of escalators an sixteen passenger elevators, and the state-of-the-art electrical wiring that included provisions for the emerging technology of television, which Edgar Kaufmann must have felt would soon be an integral part of retailing.
In 1933, Liliane Kaufmann took control of the store’s unprofitable 11th floor and established the Vendome Shops. With the Vendome shops, she sought to offer sophisticated customers a similarly interesting and tasteful selection of quality goods, including designed dresses, furnishings, bedding and gifts. In setting the tone for the house wares and furniture departments, Liliane stressed quality, rather than stylistic homogeneity, and forms and antiques, high-style design and folk crafts.
By the 1930’s the Kaufmanns were actively using the department store as a way to promote modern design. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City model, funded in part by Edgar Kaufmann Sr., was displayed at the store in 1935. In 1938, Kaufmann’s joined other department stores in a campaign sponsored by Life Magazine intended to create model modern houses in all price ranges. In 1940, Edgar jr. and his mother presented an exhibition of Mexican antiques and folk art, entitled "Below the Rio Grande." The following year, Edgar jr. brought the Museum of Modern Art’s traveling exhibition "Organic Design" to the department store.
On its 75th anniversary in 1946, Kaufmann’s merged with the May Department Stores of St. Louis. Edgar Kaufmann remained as president of Kaufmann’s, and became a vice president of the May Company. The merger made May Co. the second largest purchaser in merchandising history.
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