Spiegel (catalog) - The Early Years

The Early Years

For the first 100 years of its history, Spiegel was primarily a family business. The company was founded in 1865 by Joseph Spiegel, the son of a German rabbi. After spending the final few months of the Civil War in a Confederate prison camp, Spiegel settled in Chicago, where his brother-in-law, Henry Liebenstein, ran a successful furniture business. With Liebenstein's assistance, Spiegel opened J. Spiegel and Company, a small home furnishings retail operation located on Wabash Avenue in Chicago's loop.

The business was quite successful in its early years. In 1871, however, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed most of the area's business district, including the Spiegel store. After the fire, Spiegel and a partner named Jacob Cahn rebuilt the business, and by 1874 the company was prospering again under the leadership of the two men. Cahn retired from the business in 1879, at which time the company was growing impressively. In 1885 Spiegel began running regular advertisements in several Chicago newspapers, and the following year the company moved to a larger building on State Street. Spiegel's two oldest sons, Modie and Sidney, were brought into the business during this time.

Spiegel issued its first catalogs in 1888. The catalogs were made available to potential customers who lived outside the city. Because a mail order system did not yet exist, the catalogs served instead to lure people into the downtown store. By 1892, however, business had taken a turn for the worse, as many customers were slow to pay for their purchases. With debts mounting, the company went bankrupt. At Modie Spiegel's urging, the company reinvented itself as Spiegel House Furnishings Company of Chicago in 1893. The principal difference was that the new company, like many others in the furniture business, sold on credit. The decision to offer installment plans, and the timing of the decision, made possible Spiegel's remarkable expansion over the next several decades.