Backgrounders Connecting Headlines with History
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Department Stores
As department stores became central to retailing in American cities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Philadelphia played a major role. Led by John Wanamaker, whose store was a national model, the giant "Big Six" stores on Market Street helped create a new consumer culture.
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The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia is a civic project to increase understanding of one of America’s greatest cities.
Produced by the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH) at Rutgers-Camden, the Encyclopedia as a digital resource and in print volumes will offer the most comprehensive, authoritative reference source ever created for the Philadelphia region.
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The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia is produced by the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH) at Rutgers-Camden. Gifts to this project are made through the Rutgers University Foundation.
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