Progress on State Street

Chicago's Marshall Field & Co. is a 101-year-old pioneer in retailing practices; charge accounts, low-priced basement floor, free deliveries, and a money-back policy for dissatisfied shoppers. One area where Field's did no pioneering was race relations; in its century and more, the store had never hired a Negro in its huge retail operations.

In early 1950, the American Friends Service Committee launched a new "job-opportunities program" in Chicago, headed by Thomas Colgan, whose first step was to talk hiring practices with Field's the bellwether of State Street's big four (the other three--Mandel Brothers, Inc., The Fair, and Carson, Pirie Scott & Co.--also hired no Negroes). Field's would not budge, though, ironically, Colgan's program had financial backing from Marshall Field Jr., grandson of the store's founder and president of the Chicago Sun-Times. Undaunted, Colgan worked quietly on the other stores. In July 1950, Carson's cracked the color bar by hiring a Negro administrative aide, then some other Negroes as office workers, and finally even Negro sales clerks. Most other State Streeters followed, though some of the biggest (Mandel's, The Fair and Charles A. Stevens) drew the line at Negro sales clerks. Field's remained adamant.

Last winter a Pittsburgh Negro, Richard S. Dowdy, complained to Colgan that he had written to Field's, asked for a job in finance or merchandising, stated his qualifications (B.S. and M.A. degrees in research economics from Duquesne University), but neglected to say that he was a Negro. After encouraging replies, Dowdy went to Chicago only to be told by Field's that it was "lamentable but true" that the store hired no Negroes. Dowdy's complaint was handed to Chicago's Commission on Human Relations, whose enforcement powers are limited to public contract but whose public hearings can be powerful in dealing with private business. Field's, faced with an implied threat of public hearings and a supertight labor market, relented and wrote the commission that it had decided to give "a number of jobs, some menial, some not so menial," to qualified Negroes.

Last week the word leaked out that slim, taciturn Audrey Harper has been working as a clerk-typist at Field's since mid-July as the store's first Negro employee (Dowdy was not hired), and that five other Negroes had followed her on the payroll. Mrs. Harper, 26, a high-school graduate with three years of business-school training, said: "It's a great achievement for Negroes, but I don't think it's anything to talk about too much. Fuss makes trouble, not progress."

Said a Field's spokesman: "The community appears to be ready for this development, and it is still the Field & Co. policy to 'give the lady what she wants.' "

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