Photo: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

• COFOUNDER of the FIRST DEPARTMENT STORE in Paris
• She and her husband bought out the owner of a small store, Bon Marche, and by the time they died it was one of the world's LARGEST retail enterprises
• Strayed from traditional model of a specialized shop by offering a variety of goods
• Marketed shopping as a social activity and glamorously decorated the interior
• Provided FREE health care, meals, and schooling for employees
• Marguerite managed the store after her husband's death, expanding multiple times and establishing a pension plan for employees​
• ​While she partnered with others, she always MAINTAINED legal control of the business
• Left her fortune to Bon Marche employees, charities, and scientific and artistic organizations
• Also willed that some of her money be used to build a hospital and support single mothers (she never knew her father, and her mother died when she was thirteen years old)

Bibliography: Kreisel, Cynthia S. "Boucicaut, Marguerite." The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Vol. 1, Oxford University Press, 2008, 249-250.

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