Lewis Rodman Wanamaker ^{1 2}

  General Notes:

See http://www.wanamakerorgan.com/rodman.html

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~apassageintime/johnwanamakermerchant.html


Lewis Rodman Wanamaker

Much has been written about the merchant prince John Wanamaker, but little mention about his son Rodman. During his lifetime Rodman Wanamaker avoided the press and kept out of the limelight as much as possible.

He was committed to bringing art and beauty into the stores. His influence extended to the finest merchandise, pioneering imports of French fashions, richness of Store architecture, decor and music. Which continues today in the artwork that adorns Wannamaker's, the now named Lord & Taylor Department Store, in the Holiday Light and Fountain Show and daily sounds of the Wanamaker Organ, became the hallmark of the Wanamaker empire.

It was Rodman Wanamaker who enlarged the Wanamaker Organ. He undertook the medieval style Lady Chapel at Philadelphia's St. Mark's Episcopal Church, with silver altar. Similar decorations in the chapel of the English Royal family at Sandringham; the processional cross he gave to Westminster Abbey; and the great bell he cast in memory of his father.

He was born February 13, 1863, and entered Princeton University in 1881, graduating in 1886. In college he sang in the choir. A member and business manager of the Glee Club. He suffered the early death of his first wife, leaving him a widower with 3 children. His second marriage ended unhappily, and he suffered from kidney disease the last eight years of his life.

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 A.T. Stewart business in New York in 1896, he helped revolutionize the department store with top quality items.

He returned from Europe in 1899, keeping his Paris residence. After the death of his brother Thomas in 1908 and retirement of Robert C. Ogden, he was his father's chief lieutenant. Before John Wanamaker died he turned all his holdings over to Rodman of the two stores. 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.

Like his father, Rodman Wanamaker always had many outside interests. But, he was not a public man like his father John Wanamaker. The life he lived outside his business was like a recluse. At home he surrounded himself with beautiful furniture and priceless tapestries. He loved jewelry. He spent many hours reading books. He collected rare musical instruments.

He went to great lengths to care for the thousands who worked for him. He loved music, pictures, flags and uniforms. He shared great passion for beauty with all those who worked for him and knew him.

Orville Wright, once called Rodman Wanamaker's idea of a trans-Atlantic flight "impracticable and foolhardy." But Wanamaker persisted. His first "America," which was wrecked in a storm, was the largest airplane ever built in the United States. His second "America" was purchased by the British Admiralty when the outbreak of the World War made an attempt at flight impossible. His third "America," in 1927, met with an accident, just as it was ready to take off before Lindbergh and Chamberlain started their flights. The "America" made a new page in the history of aviation when Commander Richard Evelyn Byrd piloted it, with three companions, from New York to France in the early summer of 1927.

Lewis married Fernanda Antonio Dehenry in 1886. (Fernanda Antonio Dehenry died in 1900.)