Books in Brief

And the Price Is Right, by Margaret Case Harriman (World, $4.00). Witty and well-paced, Margaret Case Harriman’s account of R. H. Macy’s and how it grew begins with characters and closes with bureaus. “A stubborn, rosy- cheeked, seafaring Quaker,” having failed four times (one accountbook ends: “I have worked Two Years for Nothing—Damn. Damn. Damn.”), founded the store in 1858; thirty years later Isador and Nathan Straus, German Jewish immigrants who had Macy’s china concession, took over and by their showmanship and drive transformed the enterprise (in the words of a buyer) from “an account into a territory.” When the American Publishers Association tried to keep the brothers from selling books at a discount, they fought the case to the Supreme Court, and won it. But as Macy’s grew, it grew less individualistic. While a price war had once so infuriated a competitor that he published a recriminatory ad which opened with “Some folks are so wrapped up in their own conceit . . .,” in 1952 a Gimbel’s ad advised the world “to get to Macy’s for the greatest flower show 34th Street has ever seen.” When the book is done, it no longer describes a territory and its conquerors, but merely the workings of the biggest department store in the world.

M. L. BUCKLEY

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And the Price Is Right, by Margaret Case Harriman (World, $4.00). Witty and well-paced, Margaret Case Harriman’s account of R. H. Macy’s and how it grew begins with characters and closes with bureaus. “A stubborn, rosy- cheeked, seafaring Quaker,” having failed four times (one accountbook ends: “I have worked Two Years for Nothing—Damn. Damn. Damn.”), founded the store in 1858; thirty years later Isador and Nathan Straus, German Jewish immigrants who had Macy’s china concession, took over and by their showmanship and drive transformed the enterprise (in the words of a buyer) from “an account into a territory.” When the American Publishers Association tried to keep the brothers from selling books at a discount, they fought the case to the Supreme Court, and won it. But as Macy’s grew, it grew less individualistic. While a price war had once so infuriated a competitor that he published a recriminatory ad which opened with “Some folks are so wrapped up in their own conceit . . .,” in 1952 a Gimbel’s ad advised the world “to get to Macy’s for the greatest flower show 34th Street has ever seen.” When the book is done, it no longer describes a territory and its conquerors, but merely the workings of the biggest department store in the world.

M. L. BUCKLEY