1 · Position
Harry Gordon Selfridge, born in Wisconsin and trained at Marshall Field in Chicago, bought a six-storey building on Oxford Street for £400,000 and opened in 1909. The floors were laid out so goods could be handled rather than requested. There were restaurants at modest prices, a library, reading and writing rooms, a first aid room, and reception rooms kept for French, German, American and colonial customers.
2 · ⚑ The Silence Room
Soft lights, deep chairs, double glazing, and nothing for sale. Its stated purpose was to keep customers in the building longer, which is candid and also beside the point: a commercial building with a room in it that sells nothing is a hotel lobby, and it was built in 1909 by a retailer. Everything the trade now calls a third space was in that room.
3 · Why it is in the Library
Selfridge also moved cosmetics and perfume to the front of the store, where every department store on earth now puts them. But the authorship claim is the reframing: shopping for pleasure rather than necessity, promoted through paid advertising until it was true. That sentence built this group and a good deal of luxury hospitality with it.
4 · Candour
The Silence Room and the reception rooms divided by nationality belong to 1909 and read differently now. ⚑ Current ownership was not established here; the store has changed hands more than once in recent years and the entry does not state a present owner.