Background
Potter Palmer was born on May 20, 1826 in Potter Hollow, New York, United States. He was the fourth son of Benjamin and Rebecca (Potter) Palmer, both Quakers.
Businessman merchant real-estate developer
Potter Palmer was born on May 20, 1826 in Potter Hollow, New York, United States. He was the fourth son of Benjamin and Rebecca (Potter) Palmer, both Quakers.
Potter Palmer's formal education was confined to the elementary school.
At eighteen years of age Potter Palmer became a clerk in a general store at Durham, New York. After three years he opened a dry-goods store for himself in the neighboring community of Oneida, from which, a little later, he removed his business to Lockport. When he looked about for greater merchandising opportunities, Chicago attracted his attention. Assisted by his father, he opened, in 1852, a dry-goods store on Lake Street, which was then the commercial center of the city. His methods of carrying on his business were so out of the ordinary as to surprise his competitors. He permitted customers to inspect merchandise in their own homes before buying and to exchange purchases already made for other merchandise or for the price paid. This method of retailing finally prevailed among the larger stores in Chicago and came to be known as the "Palmer system. " He led the way also in other business innovations, especially in laying increased stress on advertising and on attractiveness in displaying goods for sale.
In the fifteen years following his arrival in Chicago he amassed a large fortune, as fortunes were measured at the time in the Central West. This he did, however, at the expense of his health. On the advice of his physicians he retired, in 1867, from active participation in business, turning over the management and control of his store to his partners, Marshall Field and Levi Z. Leiter. After three years of rest and travel abroad he returned to Chicago as an active business man, now directing his interest to real-estate development. These improvements caused the removal of the retail business of the city to State Street from Lake Street, where it had been established for years.
When the great fire of 1871 swept away a large portion of his fortune, he bravely began to recoup his losses. He built even larger and more permanent buildings than before. On a new site on State Street, at the corner of Monroe, he erected the second Palmer House, a hostelry that was to become internationally famous. He spent large sums of money in transforming waste lands along the lake shore, north of the Chicago River, into beautiful building sites and drives. There he built a magnificent home, still a monument to the dominant taste of the day. He was not too much engaged in his own affairs to give attention to the needs of his community; he was a vice-president of the first board of local directors of the World's Columbian Exposition, the first president of the Chicago Baseball Club, a commissioner during the early years of the South Side park system.
During the Civil War he supported the government by buying heavily of bonds and by cooperating with his fellow townsmen in meeting the requirements for soldiers. He believed in young men, and many were the times that he helped them most generously in business and social ventures. He died in his home in Chicago on May 4, 1902.
Potter Palmer was an early supporter of the Chicago Young Men's Christian Association. He was also one of the original incorporators of the Chicago Association of Commerce.
In 1871 Potter Palmer married Bertha Honore Palmer, the eldest daughter of a prominent capitalist and real estate owner of Chicago. They had two sons.
