Rodman Wanamaker - Biography

Biography

He was born on February 13, 1863 in Philadelphia to John Wanamaker and Mary Erringer Brown.

He entered 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, the first eating club at Princeton University. He was a member of the 1885 Tiger football team that won the national championship when a dramatic last-minute punt return bested the Yale Bulldogs.

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 Alexander Turney Stewart business in New York in 1896, he helped revolutionize the department store with top quality items and is credited in particular with fueling an American demand for French luxury goods.

In 1911 he bought the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph.

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.

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.

He died on March 9, 1928, Atlantic City, New Jersey. He was interred in the Wanamaker family tomb in the churchyard of the Church of St. James the Less in Philadelphia.