Marshall Field's
Marshall Field & Company traces its antecedents to a dry goods store opened at 137 Lake Street in Chicago, Illinois in 1852 by Potter Palmer, (1826–1902), eponymously named P. Palmer & Company. In 1856, 21-year-old Marshall Field (1834–1906) moved to the booming midwestern city of Chicago on the southwest shores of Lake Michigan from Pittsfield, Massachusetts and found work at the city's then-largest dry goods firm – Cooley, Wadsworth & Company. Just prior to the American Civil War, in 1860, Field and bookkeeper Levi Z. Leiter, (1834–1904), became junior partners in the firm, then known as Cooley, Farwell & Company. In 1864, the firm, then led by senior partner John V. Farwell, Sr., (1825–1908), was renamed Farwell, Field & Company. only for Field and Leiter to soon withdraw from the partnership with Farwell when presented with the opportunity of a lifetime.
Sweepings
Daniel Pardway builds his Chicago department store, the Bazaar, from nothing into a major success, making him wealthy. After the birth of his fourth child, he is left widowed. He raises his three sons and one daughter the best he can, denying them nothing, dreaming of one day leaving his store in their hands. When they are all adults, he turns to each of his sons in turn (he dismisses his daughter because she is a girl), but all of them prove unwilling or unable to manage the store.The Daniel Pardway character, played by Lionel Barrymore is based on Marshall Field, American entrepreneur and founder of the Chicago-based department store chain.