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For anniversary purposes the company dates from 1887 when Joseph Schaffner threw in his lot with his distant cousins the Hart boys. After 17 years as a bookkeeper and credit man in a Chicago dry-goods house, Joseph Schaffner decided that the opportunities were limited and, at 40 was about to start afresh in the mortgage business in St. Paul. Joseph Schaffner always said the Hart boys were "wizards' but the rise of Hart Schaffner & Marx tc its present status as a national institution is generally credited to wise, scholarly Mr. Schaffner.
He it was who began to spend money for advertising, a move which has made Hart Schaffner & Marx a household name and a music hall gag for the last third of a century. Hart Schaffner & Marx copy forms a faithful record of what the U. S dandy has believed were the styles of the times. Best advertising stunt in the company's history was to plaster France with $50,000 worth of banners right after the Armistice, announcing to the A. E. F.: "Stylish clothes are ready for you in the good old U. S. A.—All-wool guaranteed—Hart Schaffner & Marx."
For its regular customers Hart Schaffner & Marx looks to the man making between $2,500 and $6,000 per year and living 11 cities of 200,000 to 500,000. Always close to its retailers, Hart Schaffner & Marx often helps them out with advances, sometimes has to take over a store to protect its involuntary investment. Occasionally it buys out a retailer who is going out of business, to preserve a good outlet. Wallach's with nine stores in and around Manhattan is now a Hart Schaffner & Marx subsidiary, having been bought after the original owners announced that they intended to close. Useful as retail laboratories, the stores last year contributed about one-half of total profits ($484,405). During Depression the Hart Schaffner & Marx volume dropped 55% in number of suits & coats, even more in dollars because of the demand for cheaper lines. The decision to enter the low-priced field caused a major management upheaval and cost the company some of its swankier outlets but President Cresap's drive for volume has been successful.
Occasionally Hart Schaffner & Marx also helps out its suppliers. After the post-War inflation, American Woolen Mills went to the company cup in hand, requesting $200,000. Mr. Schaffner drummed his desk when asked what he thought about it, then said: "Times are pretty hard. Better let them have a million."
In its time Joseph Schaffner's recognition of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers was no less spectacular. Any dealings with unions were regarded, particularly in Chicago, as little short of treason. In 1910 the whole clothing trade was in the midst of bloody strikes, the Hart Schaffner & Marx workers being led by Sidney Hillman. With a sharp sense of the value of goodwill and a social conscience so precocious that even before the War he was speaking of the employer as the workers' trustee, Joseph Schaffner decided to experiment in industrial democracy.