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Overlooked No More: Margaret Getchell, Visionary Force at Macy’s
As the store’s first female executive, she helped turn it into what it is today, paving the way for other women to hold senior positions in retail.
This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.
In 1860, Margaret Getchell traveled to New York to introduce herself to a distant cousin — Rowland Hussey Macy, the founder of R.H. Macy’s. She was just 19 years old, and hoping he would give her a job.
Macy had opened his Manhattan department store two years earlier, selling an assortment of gloves, hosiery and millinery.
Getchell had a facility with numbers, so Macy hired her as a cash clerk. She excelled, and before long she was training other clerks. Within three years she was promoted to head bookkeeper.
But it was her ability to anticipate customers’ wants and needs that helped transform R.H. Macy’s into what it is today.
Quiz: Let’s Go Shopping!
The following items appeared in the 1877-78 Macy’s mail-order catalog. Can you guess their original price?
Are You a Savvy 1870’s Shopper?
Margaret Getchell became the first female executive at Macy’s, where she expanded the inventory beyond millinery, gloves and hosiery shortly after joining the store in 1860.
Get a feel for Getchell-era Macy’s by guessing the prices of some popular items.
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