Here are some excerpts and links:
From the Harvard
Business School:
Carter developed the
first suburban shopping center in 1947 in Los Angeles and popularized regional
chain stores. Carter started with three regional stores in Los Angeles in 1946,
and by 1980, had grown that number to 47. Carter expanded the company
nationally through acquisitions, such as the Weinstock stores, Neiman-Marcus,
and Waldenbooks. When Carter took over the Broadway Company, annual sales were
$30 million. By 1980, the chain under a new name, Carter Hawley Hale, was the
nation’s fourth largest department store chain with sales of $2.4 billion.
From LACMA:
In Los Angeles, the
presence in the community of a museum devoted entirely to art was little more
than a hope before 1945. Only in 1965 did a proper building, LACMA, open its
doors to the public. The late Edward W. Carter was a successful businessman and
philanthropist, and an indefatigable promoter of cultural institutions in Los
Angeles. It was Carter who negotiated with the County of Los Angeles for the
new museum’s site in Hancock Park, for the funds to maintain the new museum,
and for the transfer of art from the museum’s parent institution, the Los
Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art. Carter was LACMA’s founding
president (1961–66) and trustee (1962–96). In these capacities, and as chairman
of LACMA’s board of trustees, Carter exercised profound influence on the
museum’s creation and evolution. In 1989, the year he was replaced as an active
trustee by his wife, Hannah Locke Carter, Edward Carter was named Honorary Life
Trustee.
From the New York
Times:
He was appointed to
the University of California's Board of Regents in 1952 by Gov. Earl Warren. He
served for 36 years, helping guide the university through the student unrest in
the 1960's and advising it on financial matters and investments.
From the LA Times:
A Hollywood High
School graduate, Carter attended UCLA while working 40 hours a week at
Silverwoods on Wilshire Boulevard, becoming in his own words "a damned
good salesman." By 1932, he rang up about 25% of the store's sales. Carter went on to Harvard Business School,
where he received his master's degree cum laude in 1937.
Even before joining
the Broadway Department Store as executive vice president in 1946, Carter was
well known in retailing circles. Besides his six years with Silverwoods, he
also spent eight years at May Co., rising to the post of divisional merchandise
manager. In addition, he was an account manager with the Scudder, Stevens &
Clark investment firm in Boston. Carter
became president of the three-store Broadway chain in 1947, taking charge of a
concern that he later said ranked "last among Los Angeles department
stores in both size and in stature."
Within months, Carter
built one of the nation's first suburban shopping centers, the Crenshaw Center,
on a former golf course. (The Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Plaza sits there now.)
During the boom years after World War II, Carter studied the freeway map and
built his stores accordingly. To finance
his ambitious expansion plans, Carter sold stock to Hale Bros. Stores of San
Francisco in 1949, and the two chains merged in 1950 to become Broadway-Hale
Inc. As with all of Broadway's later acquisitions, the Hale operation retained
its name and management and was run as a separate division. Other acquisitions followed with such
respected names as Emporium Capwell, Neiman Marcus, Waldenbooks and Bergdorf
Goodman. Carter was considered well versed in consumer trends and an innovative
merchant who chose a decentralized approach to retailing that allowed
Broadway-Hale's various chains to operate independently with substantial
autonomy.
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