BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — Former University of Pennsylvania water polo player Bernard Feustmann Gimbel made a name for himself outside the water and in the arena of retail as he ranks as one of the founding fathers of today’s retail/department stores.
Gimbel (1885–1966) is best known as an American businessman, retail innovator and president of the Gimbels department store which was the predominant competition for Macy’s.
Born to a Jewish family, the son of Rachel (née Feustman) and Isaac Gimbel, his grandfather was Adam Gimbel, founder of the Gimbels chain of department stores. In 1907, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia following a tenure at the school that included being a member of the school’s water polo team.
Gimbel went to work for his family’s company by starting as a shipping clerk and working his way up to vice president in 1909.
In 1910, Gimbel convinced his family to open a department store in New York City at the cost of $17 million ($425 million today). In 1920, he made history by helping to start the Gimbel’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in Philadelphia – the oldest Thanksgiving Day parade in the country. Still continuing today under different sponsorship, the the event features balloons, floats, high school marching bands, and celebrities. The Gimbels wanted their toyland to be the destination of holiday shoppers everywhere. They had more than 50 store employees dressed in costume and sent to walk in their first Thanksgiving Day parade. The parade featured floats and marchers paraded down Market Street, with the finale consisting of Santa Claus arriving at the eighth-floor toy department at Gimbels by climbing the ladder of a Philadelphia Fire Department ladder truck. The parade would lead to the creation of another iconic parade in New York City later in the 1920’s sponsored by Gimbel’s chief competition – Macy’s.
In 1922, he convinced his family to list Gimbels on the New York Stock Exchange although with the family maintaining a controlling interest. In 1923, Gimbels purchased a controlling interest in Saks (then known as Saks 34th Street) for $8 million from Horace Saks, son of Andrew Saks, using the money from the Gimbel’s stock issuance. Gimbel rebranded the store and opened an uptown location known as “Saks Fifth Avenue”.
Also in 1923, Gimbels purchased the Kaufmann & Baer’s store in Pittsburgh. In 1924, he brought the Gimbels Thanksgiving Day Parade (which his family had sponsored in Philadelphia since 1920) to New York City – causing Macy’s to begin sponsoring a parade too and to bring in balloons to differentiate between the two brands.
Gimbels and Macy’s – which were located a block apart in Manhattan – created a saying as people state, “Does Macy’s tell Gimbels?”, an idiom used to brush off any query about matters the speaker didn’t wish to divulge. To distinguish itself from Herald Square neighbors, Gimbels’ advertising promised more: “Select, don’t settle.”
The owner of three radio stations – WCAE in Pittsburg, WIP in Philadelphia and WGBS in New York – Gimbels was primed to become a national brand. However, the Great Depression ended that prospect although Gimbel did increase the number of the more upscale (and enormously profitable) Saks Fifth Avenue stores in the 1930s, opening branches in Chicago, Boston and San Francisco.
In 1926, Gimbel took over exclusive control of the company after his father was partially paralyzed after being thrown from a horse. The store boomed under his watch as Gimbels had seven flagship stores throughout the country by 1930 and sales of $123 million ($1.9 billion today) across 20 stores; this made Gimbel Brothers Inc. the largest department store corporation in the world. By 1953, sales had risen to $300 million ($2.9 billion today).
His key weapon in growing the store – despite its limited national presence – to make Gimbels well-known nationwide was a carefully cultivated rivalry with Macy’s. The New York store received considerable attention as the site of the 1939-40 sale of art and antiquities from the William Randolph Hearst collection. Gimbels also gained publicity from the 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street, the 1967 film Fitzwilly, and was frequently mentioned as a shopping destination of Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz on the hit 1950s TV series I Love Lucy.
Gimbel was a mastermind of retail as he stocked up on consumer products he felt would be scarce if a war were to erupt immediately prior to World War II. Further, he introduced “The Slinky” at his Northeast Philadelphia Gimbels store and made Gimbel’s the first department store in the world to move customers from floor to floor via the escalator.
In 1953, Gimbel retired handing control to his son Bruce Alva Gimbel; at the time, Gimbel’s had $300 million in sales.
In 1962, Gimbels acquired Milwaukee competitor Schuster’s, and in that region operated stores from both chains for a while as Gimbels Schuster’s. By 1965, Gimbel Brothers Inc. consisted of 53 stores throughout the country, which included 22 Gimbels, 27 Saks Fifth Avenue stores, and four Saks 34th St.
The company remained in family hands until 1973 when Brown & Williamson, the American subsidiary of British American Tobacco, a diversified conglomerate based in Louisville, Kentucky, acquired Gimbel Bros. and the Saks Fifth Avenue brand. BATUS closed Gimbels in 1986 and divested itself of Saks Fifth Avenue.
The father of five children, Gimbel died in 1966 from cancer. He is buried at Mount Sinai Cemetary in Philadelphia.
