This is not a book of dates. It does not abound in statistics. It avoids controversies of the past and prophecies of the future. The motive is to present in plain, newspaper style a narrative of the rise and progress of St. Louis to the fourth place among American cities. To personal factors rather than to general causes is credited the high position which the community has attained. Men and women, more than location and events, have made St. Louis the Fourth City. The site chosen was fortunate. Of much greater import was the character of those who came to settle. American history, as told from the Atlantic seaboard points of view, classed St. Louis as «a little trading post.» The settlement of Laclede was planned for permanence. It established stable government by consent of the governed. It embodied the homestead principle in a land system. It developed the American spirit while «good old colony times» prevailed along the Atlantic coast. Home rule found in St. Louis its first habitat on this continent. This is volume two out of four, continuing the historical review from the founding of the town to its great days.
Оглавление
Walter Barlow Stevens. St. Louis - The Fourth City, Volume 2
CONTENTS:
CHAPTER XVII. THE MEDICAL PROFESSION
CHAPTER XVIII. THE PRODUCTIVE COMMERCE
CHAPTER XIX. THE DISTRIBUTIVE COMMERCE
CHAPTER XX. THE RELIGIOUS LIFE
CHAPTER XXI. THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS
CHAPTER XXII. IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION
CHAPTER XXIII. ST. LOUISANS IN THE PUBLIC EYE
CHAPTER XXIV. THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE
CHAPTER XXV. THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS
CHAPTER XXVI. THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS
CHAPTER XXVII. ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE USEFUL CITIZEN
CHAPTER XXIX. THE WORLD'S FAIR
CHAPTER XXX CENTENNIAL WEEK
Отрывок из книги
St. Louis – The Fourth City
1764 – 1911
.....
William L. Vandervoort came into the St. Louis firm in 1860. He was a merchant by the blood. His great uncle, Peter L. Vandervoort, brought the first camel's hair shawls, four of them, to this country. He conducted the first "one-price" dry goods store in the United States. That store was where the shadow of Trinity church now falls. The first four shawls were sold to the four wealthiest ladies in New York city. The Vandervoorts were merchants a hundred years before William L. Vandervoort began at the bottom in a Baltimore store at one dollar a week and table board. A bad season cut the salary to fifty cents a week. The twelve-year-old clerk tried another store and congratulated himself on a salary of two dollars a week and full board. He swept the store at five o'clock in the morning and put up the shutters at ten o'clock at night. He carried the parcels. In 1860 Mr. Vandervoort had his choice between partnership with McClelland and Scruggs at St. Louis and one of the most responsible positions in the house of "the merchant prince of America," Alexander T. Stewart. He chose the St. Louis connection.
The great grandmothers of the generation of 1911 shopped on Market street. From the Levee to Third street was the retail district. Ubsdell, Pierson & Co., of New York, established a St. Louis dry goods store at Third and Market streets. The fire of 1849 swept the retail district. Merchants opened new stores on Fourth street. The property owners on Market street rebuilt hastily, but not well. The merchants refused to move back. Fourth street became the shopping center. The Ubsdell, Pierson & Co: branch had located temporarily on Fourth and Olive, where the Merchants-Laclede bank now is. It was removed in 1857 to Fourth between Vine and St. Charles streets, and remained there until 1880. William Barr and James Duncan were the managers. During the war Mr. Barr, Mr. Duncan and Joseph Franklin bought out the New York partners. In 1870 Mr. Duncan retired. Twenty-eight years ago, following the westward trend, the firm removed to Sixth and Olive. This was the genesis of "Barr's," an institution which within the current year will celebrate its sixtieth anniversary of continuous retail business in St. Louis.
