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

soon all the display figures had a Hepburn nose. A girl would go to the movies and admire Hepburn. Then she would see a dress on a display figure that looked like the girl she had admired on the screen, so she would buy the dress. Modern advertising and window display are examples of better understanding of psychology."

When he began work at Luckey Platt and Company, the store already had one large window in front of three of the typical 20 foot sections that it had remodeled as one unit. It also had two smaller windows in front of two additional sections.

On the inside, pillars were used instead of walls in the remodeled section but that part was still separated from the remainder of the store by partial walls. It wasn't until 1926, when the firm bought three additional sections, that the store was given its present appearance. Then all the dividing windows were removed and a new front and side were built. Luckey's, like other city stores of the period, was dimly lighted 1911. There were very few glass cases, so comparatively little goods were on display. Clerks brought out the goods, on request, and showed them on wooden counters. An overhead change trolley was then in use.

"We had electric light," Mr. Cary said, "but the old gas fixtures were still in place, too, for use in an emergency. We thought we were very good to have four foot-candles. Now you have to have 15 or it's just too bad, and some stores have 18 or 20."

He explained that store lighting is measured by foot-candles, the amount of light that reaches a counter. This is in direct relationship to the number of feet that counter is from the source of light. If a 25 or 40 watt bulb is used, you will have about four foot-candles of light at the counter.

When a clerk made a sale in 1911, she put the customer's money and a sales ticket in a little box that she placed on a constantly moving rope. This rope carried the box to the third floor where George Smith made change and sent the box back.

"That system was supposed to be very marvelous when the store put it in," Mr. Cary said. "Luckey's was always having the latest. It saved having eight cash boys, one of whom was Casper Koenig who's still in the store. If you bought a pair of stockings, one of these boys would take your money to the back of the store, 80 feet back, and set the change at

Luckey Platt Deparunent Store, Jounded in 1869. Numerous expansions saw the store swallow up several surrounding buildings in a drive to become the handsomest and most comprehensive department store between Albany and New York. Dutchess County Historical Society Collection.

a wicket very much like a teller's window in a bank. That was before my time. I thought the overhead trolley was pretty punk. It was replaced about three or four years after I came with the tube system."

„T~17LKE"a'y &?L~A`Y"'Y'8 Ct3

(Above) Luckey s before and (below) Luckey s after its final expansion in 1923 designed by architect Edward C. Smith.

"In 1911, Mr. Webster Knickerbocker kept all the silks wrapped in reddish brown paper, so that the light wouldn't fade them, on the shelves back of his counter, with three bolts to a shelf. When a customer asked to see these silks, Mr. Knickerbocker would seat her, then unfold bolt after bolt. Perhaps she wanted silk for a skirt,” Mr. Cary said. -(9 )! '41j "She would pay $3 a yard. Skirts were then 1 five yards around the bottom. She would buy six, seven or eight yards, depending on the number of furbelows she wanted. The swing skirts that the youngsters think are so new are based on those of 1911."

"You could buy a very good pair of stockings in those days for 29 cents. Lisle ones, of course. Shoes came up to here," Mr. Cary said, touching the top of his ankle, and skirts down to there, touching the ankle bone, "so there was no point in having anything but utility in stockings. These

stockings were usually black, although some women, for the sake of cleanliness or purity, wore white stockings with their white petticoats. Ball shoes might be colored, but street shoes were black and buttoned."

"Hats were all made individually," Mr. Cary said, "and $25 was a popular price. Such a hat was really a creation. A milliner was an artiste, a prima donna. She was one of the best paid people in the store, and worth it, too. When a woman came in for a hat," he said, "the milliner would seat her, then try on various shapes until one was found that suited the taste of the customer and the milliner. Then the milliner would try various ribbons until one was selected and its arrangement agreed upon. After that there was the problem of flowers or feathers and.. .position."

"It wasn't a matter of rush for style," he said. "People didn't copy the movie queens. There weren't any movie queens to co pY• The milliner and the individual worked out the best shape and trimming " i t

for the particular woman who would wear the hat. It was a matter of an hour and a half or two hours to make the selections, and when you had a hat like that it lasted two or three years. Yes, it must have been fun to make such a hat. It was fun to wear one too. When you went to church with a creation like that you made AN IMPRINT."

"Although Luckey Platt and company didn't, many stores of that period used secret cost or price marks," he said. "A triangle might indicate three, a square four. Or a code word such as Washington might be used, because it has 10 letters. In that case, ' wh 1' would indicate that the price of the article was $1.45. Only the clerks were supposed to know that."

He used to have a book with 10 secret cost marks in it, he said. He'd go from store to store to see which they were using. Sometimes a store would use one secret mark one year and another the next, to fool the public still more. Secret cost marks were used in several stores as late

as 1920.

But the changes aren't all on the credit side of the ledger. "The stores had lots of lovely things in 1911," he said, "genuine things. Real silk. Lovely damask tablecloths in six standard patterns. Nice jewelry, such as beautiful cameo brooches instead of costume jewelry. Lovely glass and china. Fine carpets."

"A store expected to carry 15 or 20 standard patterns of china," he said. "If a lady broke a cup, she could walk in and replace it. This was English bone china, bone because it was fired so heavily it was brittle as a bone. Of course, it was a terrific investment for a store."

"But you could plan on selling 1,000 sets of china or glassware, sit down leisurely with the manufacturer, select his patterns, schedule deliveries during the next two years, and know that you would receive unbroken merchandise on the agreed on dates."

"That seems fantastic in 1948," he said. "Mexican ware, domestic china and earthen ware have taken the place of English bone china. You buy whatever you can, wherever you can. Orders are frequently given for half as much again as you expect to receive. The date of shipment, sometimes the price is optional with the manufacturer. Breakage in transit is disgraceful and the quality-price relationship is constantly changing."

"Then take carpets. In 1911, people had pride in their carpets. They believed that a nice carpet was fundamental as the beautiful foundation for a room. Now they get along with a few throw rugs. If they have a 9 by 12 rug in their living room, they think it's wonderful."

"What use are carpets in a five room house?" he asked. "It's linoleum in the kitchen, linoleum in the bath, maybe linoleum in the dining room so a rug won't be spoiled if the children drop something. We're getting smaller and poorer all the tme. Grandeur and richness can't exist at our economic level. It all goes back to the waste and haste of war, two wars in our generation. Impatience, lack of continuity have gotten into our character. We don't want things that are fine and lasting any more. We want what's new and fashionable..."

(Helen Myers' work is reprinted by permission of the Poughkeepsie Journal.)