Grand Emporium. "The main entrance opens into a rotunda of oblong shape, extending the whole width of the building, and lighted by a dome seventy feet in circumference. The ceilings and sidewalls are painted in fresco, each panel representing some emblem of commerce. Immediately opposite the main entrance . . . , a flight of stairs which lead to a gallery running around the rotunda. This gallery is for the ladies to promenade upon." Thus did one wide-eyed visitor describe the opening of the nation's first department store in September 1846, A. T. Stewart's at Broadway and Chambers Streets in Manhattan. With its marble floors, mahogany furniture, graceful chandeliers, and clerks dressed as gentlemen, A. T. Stewart's was (in the words of the aristocratic Philip Hone), "one of the 'wonders' of the Western World."

Revolution in Retailing. Alexander Stewart's "marble palace," with its two acres of retail floor space, was...