Is Marshall fields still named Marshall fields
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Executive summary
Marshall Field’s as an independent retail name no longer exists: Federated Department Stores (now Macy’s, Inc.) acquired Marshall Field’s in 2005 and replaced the Marshall Field’s brand with Macy’s in 2006, including renaming the famous State Street flagship to Macy’s at State Street [1] [2] [3]. That corporate rebranding ended the chain’s commercial use of the Marshall Field’s name, though Chicago memory and selective nods to the brand persist in the building, marketing and local conversation [3] [2] [4].
1. The legal and commercial reality — the name was retired in 2006
The corporate fact is straightforward: Federated Department Stores acquired Marshall Field’s in 2005 and as part of its consolidation moved hundreds of regional names under the Macy’s banner; Marshall Field’s ceased operating under its historical name on September 9, 2006, when the flagship and chain were officially converted to Macy’s [1] [2] [3]. Encyclopedic and historical sources note that the Marshall Field & Company corporate identity that had endured for more than a century was effectively eliminated at that point, and the landmark building’s retail identity was changed to “Macy’s at State Street” [3] [1].
2. The iconic building and civic memory — Field’s survives as a place and a story
Although the commercial name was retired, the Marshall Field and Company Building remains a Chicago landmark and many physical and cultural traces of the Field name survive: the building’s history, the famous clocks and the Walton Room/Walnut Room traditions are still tied to the Field legacy in public memory and preservation efforts [3] [5] [6]. Reporting on local architecture and preservation points out both the emotional attachment Chicagoans feel and the way the building itself was rebranded while retaining historic fabric that links back to Marshall Field's century-plus presence on State Street [4] [3].
3. Local resistance and nostalgia — people still “call it Field’s”
The renaming provoked visible civic pushback in 2006 and has never completely erased public usage: coverage at the time recorded protests and widespread sentiment that the corporate decision was a blow to Chicago civic pride, and even years later many die-hard Chicagoans refer colloquially to the store as Field’s rather than Macy’s [2]. Preservation-minded articles and local historians document how that nostalgia shaped later moves to preserve or celebrate the Field name and history [4] [7].
4. Corporate gestures and partial revivals — the name appears, but not as a corporate identity
Recent actions illustrate that while the corporate brand remains Macy’s, the Marshall Field’s name can be resurrected in limited ways for local goodwill and marketing: in 2025 Macy’s renamed the Walnut Room “The Marshall Field’s Walnut Room,” an explicit nod to the original brand intended to placate local sentiment and leverage nostalgia without restoring the original corporate structure or chain name [8]. This demonstrates a distinction between a full business identity and symbolic or heritage uses of a historic name.
5. What this does — and does not — settle
The available sources make clear that Marshall Field’s as a company and retail brand no longer operates under that name; the flagship is Macy’s at State Street and the corporate entity was folded into Federated/Macy’s [1] [3] [2]. What the sources do not settle — and cannot be definitively asserted here without additional reporting — is whether private plaques, local signage, or legal historic-name protections still carry the Field name in any municipal or landmark registries beyond the commonly reported instances; the cited material documents the commercial renaming and the selective cultural revivals but does not provide a comprehensive inventory of every remaining public use [3] [4].