Branding with a Bang

Most of us today have heard of the retail clothing outlet Abercrombie & Fitch, most likely because of a string of nationally publicized controversies including sexualized advertising to teens, the sale of t-shirts displaying racist and offensive slogans, and a statement in 2006 by then-CEO Mike Jeffries that Abecrombie & Fitch clothing is only for "good-looking people." Although this statement is offensive for its elitist and exclusionary stance, it's also in keeping with the organization's founding vision. In 1892, the Abercrombie Company opened its doors in the Tribeca neighborhood of lower Manhattan, bent on catering only to an elite clientele. Instead of teen clothing, however, the company's focus was on a different sort of lifestyle: sporting and excursion goods for the wealthy and well-to-do. Abercrombie Co. was an outfitter for expeditions by Theodore Roosevelt, Richard E. Byrd, and Ernest Hemingway, among other notables.

Abercrombie became Abercrombie & Fitch in 1900 when Ezra Fitch, a wealthy lawyer and avid client of the store, bought a major share in the company. Fitch eventually bought out Abercrombie in 1907 and pursued his vision for the company by making it more accessible to the public and not just to high-brow, would-be explorers and adventurers. To that end, he published the company's first mail-order catalog in 1909. Fitch quickly became known as an innovator and, under his leadership, the company flourished. Here in Special Collections, we have a letter written by Ezra Fitch to Vilhjalmur Stefansson in 1908, soon after Fitch took the helm of the company. Stefansson, a rising star in the field of polar exploration, was ostensibly preparing for his five-year ethnological survey of North American Central Arctic coasts. For that excursion, he needed a rifle, and so he visited Abercrombie & Fitch. In the letter, Fitch continues a conversation that must have begun in person at the store: he provides Stefansson with specifications for a Mannlicher-Schönauer rifle, which was very popular at the time with big game hunters (including Ernest Hemingway, who mentions the rifle in The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber).

To see the letter, come to Special Collections and ask for MSS-196, Box 2, folder 27.