Kirk argues that the John Wanamaker Department Store's architecture, employee education programs, and art exhibits extended his religious mission while promoting new business practices ... She may be right. After all, the store's religious iconography did leave many customers deeply moved. That said, Kirk does not, in my judgment, effectively refute the consensus among historians that, consciously or unconsciously, Wanamaker 'did not put the Lord's business first.' She mentions, but only in passing, Wanamaker's role in creating refund policies and easy credit to generate impulse buying. She describes organ recitals at Wanamaker's in detail, but not the possibly relevant context—skyrocketing sales of keyboard instruments—for presenting them. Nor does she connect Wanamaker's sumptuous Christmas and Easter decorations to the holiday shopping season ... Almost 100 years after his death, it seems equally clear that, more than anyone before him, he invented ways to exert control over the twin 'pliers of appetites and desire.'
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