Word: lincolnisms
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Died. Lincoln Filene, 92, dean of American retail merchants, chairman of William Filene's Sons Co. in Boston; in Marstons Mills, Mass, (see BUSINESS...
...retailers have ever had such a flawless grasp of supply and demand as Boston's famed brothers, Lincoln and Edward Filene. The last of the 19th century merchant princes, they made William Filene's Sons Co. into the world's largest specialty store (clothing and accessories only) and a bargain mecca admired from Paris to Peking. But Lincoln Filene, who survived his brother by 20 years, made Filene's into something much more: the hub of a nationwide Federated Department Stores network of 38 outlets with annual net sales of $601.5 million, the fountainhead...
...serene, twinkle-eyed little Bostonian, Lincoln Filene was already busily at work in a haberdashery founded by his father, a Prussian immigrant tailor, by the time he was ten, and he never had another job. In 1891 he took over the business with his brother, and promptly set out to prove a new idea for U.S. retailers. "If we were to create contentment in front of the counter," he said, "we had first to create contentment behind...
...employee-directors did not work out. But other benefits took firm hold: an employee restaurant, a clinic, a library, a clubhouse, a credit union. Profit-sharing, retirement benefits, summer Saturday closings, systematic job evaluations, even sending executives to the Harvard Business School-all were pioneered by the Filenes. Said Lincoln: "Every release of the worker to more use of his mind, every addition to his skill, means steadily better wages. Society can well afford to pay a steadily rising wage bill so long as it is steadily enriched by new intelligence...
Coolness & Civics. To end wasteful secrecy in merchandising, Lincoln Filene in 1916 persuaded major U.S. stores to open up their books for the benefit of all, went on to help form Associated Merchandising Corp. for cooperative bulk buying from Europe and Asia (now more than $1.5 billion a year). Lincoln wanted to expand Filene's nationwide by merging with other stores; Edward was stubbornly against it, and eventually dropped out of the company's active management...