There Was Bustle But No Hustle by Helen Myers (Poughkeepsie New Yorker, May 9, 1948) Merchants who talk about the good old days of 40 years ago must see the past through a rosy haze, Edward F. Cary of 24 Garfield Place says. It's a far cry from the dingy shops of 1911 to the brilliant places of today, from the 60 hour week to 40 hours, from secret cost marks to plain and honest price tags... "Just consider our hours," Mr. Cary said. "We used to begin work at 6 or 6:15 or 6:20. Monday night we worked until 9. Saturday night until any time after 10. With us it was theoretically a 59-hour week. Most of them had a 60-hour week." Mr. Cary retired as vice president of Luckey Platt and Company in February [of 1948]. He began work there July 1, 1911, as buyer of first floor merchandise, helping the buyers and managers of various departments. All the Main Street stores were constructed by genial architects of their period in 20 or 22 foot sections, about 80 feet deep, Mr. Cary said. Most of the stores used half of their frontage for a display window in 1911, the other half for an entrance. "Of course the display windows were smaller than they are now," he said. "There wasn't the emphasis on display or advertising that there is now. No one thinks anything today of two pages of advertising. At that time, if you had two columns you had a lot. A four-column ad was really big." "For your window decorations you made a T stand and draped your goods on that. Or you had a form with a head that could be screwed on. By my time they had pretty good forms, anatomically good. The faces were well-made." "There are styles in display figures just as there are in everything else... About eight or ten years ago Katharine Hepburn became famous. Pretty
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