A Fun Afternoon You Might Try

pastperfect2

pastperfect2

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I spent the afternoon at the Main Public Library in my city. Great fun. It turns out they have files of newspaper clippings going back to the 30s on most of the local clothing and department stores.

It was great - I was able to find when most were founded, locations and closings, and when they changed hands and names. Handy Info! Of course, I have sent in the labels I have photos of to our renowned Label Resource team.

Phase 2 will be to start looking through newspaper microfilm to see if I can find ads with what lines they carried.

If you had local stores in your area and a good library, check it out and consider sharing! You may have some information that would be really helpful to others in dating garments.

Hollis
 
AND I BET YOU HAVE BLACK HANDS NOW...AND CANNOT WAIT TO GO BACK!!! GOOD ON YOU!!
 
Sounds like my idea of a good day, too. City directories are also useful. I've already mapped out many of the ones in Ashevilleup through about 1964. It's really fascinating!
 
What is sad is how the stories on the stores keep being upbeat through the 60s and even early 70s - then it's a long slow slide in the later 70s and 80s.

The store personnel kept talking bout 'how Lousiville is different' and sat on their butts instead of getting out in front of retail trends. Not that they wouldn't all be gone by now anyway. There is virtually no retail clothing in downtown Louisville now.
And even some of the malls and shopping centers have closed.

Hollis
 
You know, Seth and I took a trip to Louisville back in 2002. We had never been there before, and I was really surprised at how little retail there was downtown. I remember driving (seemingly) forever to get to a specific Spanish restaurant I wanted to try.

Sadly, I think most downtowns are like that. Cincinnati is the only nearby city I can think of that still has a lot of retail shopping downtown. After the workday, Cincinnati pretty much shuts down. Dayton is nearly dead. Columbus probably has more stores, but I rarely go there, so I'm not sure.

Laura
 
There's actually a big retail center right in the middle of Indianapolis. It's all chains, but it's there. And Lexington still has shops downtown.

Hollis
 
Lexington and Indy are about 3 and 2 hours from me, respectively, so I didn't even think of them. Good to know that they still have some business.

Laura
 
Our library has a Wyoming room. It has totally proven to be wonderful for researching old stores. It does help with dating to because if you know when a store was in operation you can rule out the dates when it wasn't.
Ours has city directories from the late 1800's to about 1960.
I go through phases...sometimes it fun to research and sometimes it not! ;)
 
In the early 70s when the fisrt mall opened, downtown Asheville was a ghost town. It was dangerous to even be there!

Today, it's thriving, but all the businesses are very different from the traditional idea of a downtown - lots of antiques stores, book stores, restaurants, boutiques, high end craft stores. It's a very nice shopping area.

The only store remaining from before the bust is a pawn shop.

Other downtowns in the area have not been so lucky. Unless towns are smart enough to see that they have to have something different to attract buyers, they just dry up. My favorite downtown is Kingsport, Tennessee. All the old department stores are now antique mall!
 
I'm going to do some research this summer on some local Missouri and Omaha Nebraska (my two homes) stores. One of the tags I want to search about is Bea Young. I'm coming up with a lot of her stuff lately in both places, seems to be the affordable day dress brand for the regular gal.
I'm going to work on Hartzfeld's from KC, Brandeis, Goldsmith-Chapmans and some others from Omaha.
Might not mean much to most, but the people that shopped these places are departing us, I think having it recorded in one place would be a great thing.
 
So do I, Jenn. This is an area in which we can really improve the label resource. Anyone who has a yen to learn more about thier local vintage store scene is encouraged to join in! We,ve already added some of Hollis's labels and information.

Lizzie
 
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