MORE goods are sold in this building at than anywhere else on earth. It is the Chicago Merchandise Mart, a mammoth storekeepers' store where manufacturers can display their wares on 3,400,000 sq. ft. of floor space. Last year 265.000 professional buyers, chiefly from the great and small stores of the Middle West, visited the Merchandise Mart to buy $448,400,000 worth of goods. January and July are the Mart's big months. On Jan. 16 the Mart wound up a record two-week furniture show during which 10,000 buyers from every State and nine foreign countries bought $45,000,000 worth of goods. On Jan. 25 the Women's & Children's Dresswear Show will open.
Exhibitors in the Merchandise Mart find that pr-fessional buyers are just as susceptible as retail consumers to the wiles of showmanship. The Home-furnishings Division dressed its salesmen up as Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt et al. But as usual the chief aid to sales was feminine beauty. Even the curtain manufacturers, after some hard thought, found a way to use a girl in their exhibit. She appears adjusting her garter behind a lacy curtain.
LIFE Magazine, Jan 25, 1937
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