The Scandalous Story of Selfridges Department Store: Built on Stolen American Fortune скачать в хорошем качестве

The Scandalous Story of Selfridges Department Store: Built on Stolen American Fortune

In 1909, American retail millionaire Harry Gordon Selfridge opened London's grandest department store—but the £400,000 fortune that built Selfridges came from embezzling funds from his Chicago employer Marshall Field, fleeing to England before he could be prosecuted, and reinventing himself as a British gentleman. The store's revolutionary design—open floors, perfume at the entrance, the phrase "the customer is always right"—was actually stolen from Marshall Field's innovations, and Selfridge spent the next 30 years desperately keeping his criminal past secret while hosting royalty in his store. He eventually lost everything to gambling and mistresses, dying broke in 1947, but the store still stands as London's shopping monument—built on fraud, sustained by theft, and celebrated as British innovation when it was really American crime.