Lewis Rodman Wanamaker (February 13, 1863 – March 9, 1928) was an American businessman and heir to the Wanamaker's department store fortune. In addition to operating stores in Philadelphia, New York City, and Paris, he was a patron of the arts, education, golf, athletics, a Native American scholarship, and of early aviation.
In 1916, he served as a presidential elector for Pennsylvania, and was appointed Special Deputy Police Commissioner of New York City under Richard Enright in February 1918. In this capacity, he founded the world's first police aviation unit and oversaw reorganization of the New York City Reserve Police Force. In 1916, Wanamaker originated the proposal for the Professional Golfers' Association of America.
Early life and education
Wanamaker 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 Princeton Glee Club. He was a member of the Ivy Club, Princeton University's first eating club. He was a member of the 1885 Princeton Tigers football team that won the national championship with a dramatic last-minute punt return over the Yale Bulldogs.
Career
In 1886, Wanamaker joined his father's business. He married Fernanda Henry of Philadelphia and went to Paris as resident manager in 1889, where he lived for more than ten years. When his father purchased the former Alexander Turney Stewart business in New York City, 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 with his third cousin Samuel Martin Broadbent, who was also a Princeton University alumnus.
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 New York City toward the end of his life. In 1922, before his death, his father turned over his holdings of the two Wanamaker's stores to Rodman. It represented one of the largest transfers of a retail merchandising business to a single person.
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. He had a son, Captain John Wanamaker, and two daughters. The son had health problems that made his choice as successor to the family business 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.
Wanamaker died on March 9, 1928, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He was interred in the Wanamaker family tomb in Church of St. James the Less in Philadelphia.
Music
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 fully functioning pipe organ (An organ with more pipes but fewer ranks is undergoing restoration at Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey). 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 Wanamaker Organs in Philadelphia and New York, including Marcel Dupré, Louis Vierne, Marco Enrico Bossi and Nadia Boulanger. Wanamaker also sponsored a Concert Bureau to book European organists on trans-American concert tours.
In 1926 Wanamaker commissioned a 17-ton bell from founders Gillett & Johnston. It was eventually placed atop the Wanamaker Men's Store at Broad Street and Penn Square in the Lincoln-Liberty Building (one block from then-Wanamaker's main store). Named the "Founder's Bell" in honor of Rodman's father John, founder of the store, it was the largest tuned bell in the world when it was cast.
Toward the end of his life, Wanamaker gathered a huge collection of stringed instruments, known as The Cappella, that featured violas and violins from such masters as Guarnerius and Stradivarius. They were heard at the Wanamaker Philadelphia store and at the White House on December 15, 1927. The orchestra concerts ended with Wanamaker's death in 1928, and the stringed instruments were also sold at that time.