Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II, Part 53

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716

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THE PASSING OF MAIN STREET-Providence continued to be a one-street city, in the sense that the larger mercantile establishments faced Westminster Street, until almost the beginning of the twentieth century. Except the novel advertising devices used by retail clothing merchants in a period in which competition amongst them was keen, business methods were conservative. Department store advertising in Sunday newspapers is comparatively of recent origin, and even "window shopping" on Sundays was not practiced in Rhode Island a few years ago, because shop window curtains were drawn closely from Saturday evening until Monday morning. Merchandising was almost completely different in 1890 in essential practices from merchandising in 1930. The older type of merchant, and the department store in early activity followed the established customs, carried standard lines of goods, and as

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stores increased in size beyond the possibility of employing skilled salespeople, introduced the one-price system and seldom changed his prices. A "mark-down" sale was an extraordinary event, to be anticipated by extensive advertising. The merchant depended, as a rule, in offer- ing a complete and varied stock, and a reputation for being able to supply his customers' wants at reasonable prices, as the best methods of attracting buyers and holding their patronage.

A change came about, beginning in the last decade of the nineteenth century, a period during which the United States experienced an almost unprecedented disturbance of economic activities-agricultural, manufacturing, mercantile and financial. Political issues for the time being were almost exclusively economic, acrimonious debating of tariff questions preceding the discussion of bimetalism which culminated in the campaign of 1896. Business failures were unusual in number, and stocks of mercantile establishments and of mills and factories were offered in the market at prices far below standard. The period produced a type of mer- chant fitted to deal with the situation in a practical way; he was the forerunner of the mod- ern buyer for the department store. His function in the nineties was to purchase bankrupt stocks for cash, or on bank credit, and to dispose of them to the public at price reductions that would stimulate buying. The buyer for the modern department store is always in the market seeking bargains for purchase-the latter to become bargains again when offered for sale. Now he takes the entire stock of a factory at a price concession consistent with the manufacturer's saving of selling costs; occasionally he offers a manufacturer a "dull season" contract, assuring the factory barely an operating profit, and the buyer a stock to be offered to customers at a price so much below standard as to stimulate buying in advance of needs. The buyer must keep his department stocked with standard merchandise for sale at standard prices ; he must also provide the stock for advertised "sales." Because the department store is a vast organization, with many employes and large overhead expenses, the buyer must provide salable goods in quantities and of a type so attractive that the process of selling shall be continuous.

The Samuels brothers came to Rhode Island in the nineties, practically unknown and with little of economic resources. They hired a vacant store, and, wanting ordinary store furni- ture, set up planks on barrels and displayed a stock consisting principally of ready-made clothing for men bought at bankrupt sales. Both were keen merchants and they sold at prices that kept their stock moving rapidly, and gained them a reputation. Their earliest ventures were successful beyond expectation, and they felt encouraged to remain in Rhode Island and to extend their business. They sought permanent quarters and chose a store off Westminster Street, for what they called the Manufacturers' Outlet Company. They advertised in the public press, asserting ability to sell at lower prices because of lower rent. Classes at Brown University at the time discussed this heterodox denial of the teachings of political economy that economic rent cannot affect prices, inasmuch as rent is the money paid for more advan- tageous location, or, conversely, that low rent measures disadvantage in location. The broth- ers persisted in business, in spite of the philosophical demonstration that they could not do exactly what they were actually doing. For some reason, which the publishers never dis- closed to the general public, newspapers, after a short time, refused to accept for printing the advertising matter offered by the two brothers, even when the price was tendered with the copy. The brothers were constrained to resort to other measures for attracting the attention of customers, and were successful ; they even capitalized a question as to why the newspapers refused to sell them space for advertising. They had already demonstrated that the mouse- trap philosopher was wiser than John Stuart Mill, by proving that customers will go to a place where a better article for the same price or the same article at a lower price is offered for sale. Their motto was "always more for less." They proved conclusively also that unexplained exclusion from a public advertising medium may be made a most effective type

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of advertising. But, for the most part, as alert merchants, the brothers were busy with buy- ing and selling, and building up a patronage and reputation for their store. Curious as it may seem in the telling, Providence people in large numbers went from Westminster Street to Weybosset Street to visit the new store and to make purchases there. This was the beginning of a second important business street in Providence, developed as the two brothers extended their original venture in such manner as to attract thousands daily. Other merchants located on Weybosset Street, the type of store there improved, and shops replaced property that had been used for other purposes. Meanwhile the newspapers had relented, and the brothers became newspaper advertisers on an almost unprecedented scale. They used modern methods of advertising, and of merchandising, and the retail dry goods merchants generally did likewise.

Newspapers increased in the number of pages, as the volume of advertising grew, and the city of Providence awakened to the possibility of extending the business area and its own prosperity by developing new streets. Washington Street, which had been a back street, little frequented by day and less by night because of a not altogether good reputation, was widened and became an important business street. Fountain, Empire and Franklin streets eventually were developed, so that Providence entered the second quarter of the twentieth century with a still compact and convenient business area, which was, however, served by parallel and intersecting streets. The taboo on locating off Westminster Street had been dissipated, and when the selling of automobiles necessitated large salesrooms, extensive floor space for dis- play of models, and broad windows for exhibitions to attract the attention of window shop- pers, both Broad Street and Elmwood Avenue became important business streets.

What the future holds for the retail department store is a matter for conjecture. For a time the small shop specializing in a particular line seemed doomed to extinction as the depart- ment store proprietor extended his business by taking on new lines; in recent years the number of smaller shops has increased, and the proprietors, by using the intensive methods of advertising and merchandising introduced by department store buyers apparently are con- ducting prosperous enterprises. Chain stores, national advertising of commodities sold under guaranty of particular quality, and the price regulations imposed by manufacturers-these are factors of recent development which tend to affect the department stores and their busi- ness practices.

TRADING CENTRES-Providence, as Rhode Island's most populous municipality and as a centre for an unusually large urban and suburban population, tended to become the trading centre for Rhode Island, much of southeastern Massachusetts and parts of eastern Connect- icut. The commercial development of the city at the head of Narragansett Bay was promoted by transportation systems on water and land, the latter including the confluence of steam railways and electric tramways. Within the area inside a line fifty miles from the centre of the city, however, at locations convenient for large groups of people, are other important centres for retail trade, fostered by local tradition and an aspiration to maintain community identity. Thames Street in Newport, once the busiest thoroughfare in Rhode Island, and the old Parade, now known as Washington Square, continue to be the principal business streets in Newport, on which front retail stores and shops, restaurants, banks, theatres, newspaper offices, the Post Office and the Court House. There have been extensions on Franklin Street, Bellevue Avenue, and Broadway, the latter close to the City Hall. Newport, though a centre of population, has not become, as have most large Rhode Island communities, a manufacturing city. Except the enterprises conducted by the United States Government, which gives employ- ment to hundreds of mechanics, Newport has few industrial enterprises. Newport has remained, after the departure of much of the commerce which made it a great seaport, a

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popular summer resort, noted for the magnificence of the estates of perennial visitors. Thames Street is as busy, probably, as it ever was, but the atmosphere is different from that which prevailed when Newport grandees superintended the preparation at the wharves of their vessels for voyages, or the unloading and sale of returning cargoes.

Pawtucket, formed by the union of a Rhode Island village with its own extension beyond a narrow river boundary into Massachusetts, though only four miles (between centres) from Providence and actually in contact with the larger city along the political boundary line, has maintained a distinctive existence, in spite of Providence allurements. Directly west and also in contact is the twin city of Central Falls, served by the same railroad station. Main Street and Broad Street, the latter in both cities, are fine business thoroughfares in Pawtucket and Central Falls, lined with shops of every kind. Pawtucket and Central Falls have their own department stores, markets, newspapers, hospitals, and theatres, and the manufacturing enterprises in the combined cities exceed the total in several American states.

Straddling the Blackstone River as the latter crosses the state boundary line is Woon- socket, also a most important manufacturing centre, with a main street lined with shops of all kinds. Woonsocket has its own large department stores, newspapers, theatres and hos- pital. Its stores serve an urban population within its own limits, and a population living under urban conditions beyond the state border line, as well as the people of villages north and south.

Southwest, separated from Woonsocket by almost the longest distance across which a straight line can be drawn in Rhode Island, lies Westerly. The Westerly Post Office serves also the thriving Connecticut town of Pawcatuck, immediately across the river, and many of the inhabitants of Westerly are employed in factories which have been located in the Con- necticut town, as well as in others within its own limits. Westerly is an enterprising commu- nity, with fine schools, well-paved streets and a civic centre bordering a beautiful park. It is the natural trading community for a population within and beyond its borders in Rhode Island and Connecticut, and it has fine stores of every type, besides its own newspaper, hos- pital and theatres.

In the heart of the Pawtuxet Valley lies Arctic, sometimes called also "Jericho," the val- ley metropolis. Arctic is central for a large number of mill villages strung along the winding Pawtuxet River, and it has become a trading centre with excellent stores. Other smaller commercial centres serving communities are located at Thames Street, Bristol; Main Street, Warren; Watchemoket Square, East Providence; Broad Street, Valley Falls, Cumberland ; Smith Street, Centredale, North Providence; Apponaug, Warwick; Main Street, East Green- wich; Wickford, North Kingstown; Wakefield-Peacedale, South Kingstown. Within the city of Providence are notable community business centres at Olneyville Square, on Atwells Avenue, on Charles Street, at Elmwood, and at Washington Park. The city banks and trust companies have recognized the importance of these business centres in choosing sites for branch banking houses. The increase of fares on trolley cars, and the curtailment of service on railways and tramways no doubt have affected shopping and promoted the interests of home community centres, although the vast increase in the number of automobiles and the development of gasoline driven omnibus service affect the situation in a way that is diamet- rically opposite. Other factors contributing to the prosperity of city retail stores are the tele- phone, parcel post and rural free delivery, and the convenient delivery systems maintained by large city stores, extending over an area within a fifty-mile radius.

RETAIL MARKETS-The modern grocery store and market, offering for sale every type and kind of food, is of comparatively recent origin. The larger grocery stores and markets in Rhode Island resemble department stores in the dry goods trade as they combine under a single roof and unified administration and management the offerings of what were separate

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establishments in the old order. The standard commodities sold in early grocery stores were butter, cheese, sugar, molasses, tea, coffee, spices, crackers, tobacco, and rum. Flour and other cereals were sold by millers rather than by grocers. Vegetables were raised in quantities by consumers in home gardens or rented farm lots, or sold by farmers or produce merchants in barrel or box lots rather than in the small quantities common now. Meat was sold by the butcher, who was a specialist. The fish market was a separate store. Fruit, except winter apples, which were sold by farmers and produce men, was also a specialty. Citrus and other semi-tropical fruits, except dried raisins, dates and figs, were not commonly on sale and prices were also prohibitive. A Yankee sea captain who loaded his vessel home coming with green plantains when no other cargo was available started the prosperous banana trade. Canned goods were introduced long after 1850 and had not been accepted as staple for common use until the last quarter of the century. The public bakery as a source of supply for table bread and later cake and pastry, appeared about 1850, although long before that public bakers had manufactured the hard bread and hardtack crackers which were carried by whalers and other vessels on long voyges. It required years to accomplish the change which has substituted bakery bread for homemade bread generally. The delicatessen, with its offering of cooked foods, is very recent in Rhode Island.

Yet, with the exception of rum, the modern grocery store and market offers all of these and more, if it assumes to carry a complete line. To its butter and cheese department it has added eggs, cream, milk, lard, substitutes for butter and lard, besides supplementing American cheese by cheese from other lands in a dozen to twenty varieties. Its sugar line includes not only the older brown and coffee sugars, but also granulated, powdered, confectioners in sev- eral finenesses, cube and other forms of loaf sugar. Its stock of molasses includes old lines of standard syrups identified by the name of the place of origin, besides refined syrups from cane, maple and corn or mixtures; molasses and syrup sold from or .by the barrel or keg, and molasses and syrup sold in cans, bottles or jugs. Tea and coffee are offered in classifica- tions identified by color or name of place of origin, as well as in blends and under special trade names, and both are sold in cans and packages. The tea and coffee department offers also, usually, chocolate and cocoa. Spices, whole and ground, are sold by weight in bulk, and also in boxes or shaker or bottle containers convenient for use on table or in the kitchen. The same department may offer also extracts of various flavors, some derived from natural oils, but many also which are synthetic or otherwise artificial; in modern practice the laws require that labels on packages or other containers declare their artificial content. The cracker line was once restricted to hardtack, soda biscuits, lunch, milk and wine crackers, besides the dot oyster used with chowders and stews; the modern cracker department includes a variety of sweetened biscuits almost limitless in number, and approaching classification as confectionery. With tobacco in plug and roll form were sold cigars and snuff, and cigarettes at a later period ; some modern markets do not sell tobacco in any form. Rum and all related fermented and distilled alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises were banished from retail stores and markets under the provisions of legislation regulating sales, although, until prohibition became effective, some markets sold alcoholic beverages in original packages as part of their trade in groceries. The groceries offered in many markets in 1930 included yeast, malt, malt syrups, hops and other commodities which are used extensively in the brewing of homemade fermented beverages, some of which have a larger alcoholic content, both volumetric and gravimetric, than the beers and ales forbidden by the Eighteenth Amendment and the Vol- stead Act. In the fruit department of a city market in July, 1930, the offerings included apples, pears, peaches, apricots, plums, cherries, pineapples, grapes of several types, strawber- ries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, gooseberries, bananas, plantains, oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit, canteloup melons, watermelons, casaba melons, honeydew melons, Persian

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melons, prickly pears, pomegranates, nectarines, and ripe figs, besides dried fruit, including raisins, prunes, apricots, apples, pears, citron, dates, figs and currents, and candied ginger, lemon peel and orange peel. Later in the season the grapes would include Concord, Catawba, Niagara and Delaware from northern vineyards, and Malaga, Muscatel and Tokay from warmer climates. The fall trade in sweet grapes of the Tokay variety is heavy, as tons are used in making household wine.

The development of both wholesale and retail trade in food and food substances paralleled the change in the economic and industrial life of Rhode Island. Assuming agriculture as the prevailing industry, the farmer had few food wants that were not satisfied by the products of his own husbandry. The beginning of shipping and commerce, involving long voyages, neces- sitated provision for food preserved by various processes, including smoking, salting and drying. The inauguration of the factory system, and the rise of a population which did not produce its own food, involved the development of an extensive trade in food and food sub- stances. The grocery and market rose to supply the need, and new lines were introduced gradually. When the mill or other tenement house became the habitation of a majority of Rhode Islanders, when because there were no facilities for home storage food must be brought in relatively small quantities to supply necessity from day to day, and when because most members of the family worked outside the home there was little opportunity for home cooking, successive problems in supplying food were met and solved. The grocer and market- man carried and offered for sale food for those who did not produce food, food in small quan- tities for those who could not buy and store, and cooked or semi-cooked food for those who could not or would not prepare food at home. Grocers who had no refrigerators or iceboxes added salted, smoked and dried meat and fish to staple lines. Flour, meal and other cereals were introduced as an accommodation for customers who otherwise must visit the miller. The sale of flour by grocers was increased tremendously with the coming of flour from the mills of St. Louis and Minneapolis, and local sales by Rhode Island millers became negligible as Rhode Island stopped raising wheat. Both butchers and grocers offered winter vegetables, and sometimes also fresh vegetables for sale. Occasionally a butcher and a grocer formed a partnership; butchers added groceries to their line of meats, and grocers sold meat in addi- tion to groceries. The idea of the food shop, selling all foods, was gaining ground. Some carried also the line of the baker as an accommodation for customers until the development of the trade indicated profit. Milk and eggs, previously sold by farmers if not raised by the consumers, were added to standard lines for similar reasons. Canned goods were almost welcomed by food merchants because no risk of spoiling attached. Pickles and preserves, soaps and cleaning powders and liquors, clotheslines and clothes pins, pails and tubs, brooms, mops, matches, candy, a few household medicines, pens, pencils and paper, thread and needles, tape and buttons, other small wares and notions, these were only a few of the com- modities that might be found in the grocery and market, the merchant in village or small community tending to carry more of the extra lines for the accommodation of customers than the city grocers and marketmen.

Seven significant changes affecting modern food merchandizing have been (I) the intro- duction of package goods, replacing sales by weight or measure from bulk; (2) health pro- grams emphasizing the need for fresh vegetables and fruit in balanced diets to replace pre- served foods or foods devitalized in preparation for market ; (3) insistence upon cleanliness in containers, and facilities for handling and dispensing food; (4) cheaper refrigeration, and increasing sales of fresh meats and fish; (5) improved transportation with an increase in the quantity and variety of fresh fruit and vegetables offered for sale; (6) larger sales of cooked food ready for the table including not only bakery products, but also meat and fish in various forms ; (7) improvement in the quality and increase in the variety of foods sold in tin, glass

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or other sealed containers. The larger groceries and markets are departmentalized, with expert buyers heading departments, watching markets, and, in some instances, advertising "sales" of the type conducted in dry goods stores. The buyers canvass wholesale markets thoroughly, note supplies of food from day to day as determining prices, are alert to oppor- tunities to attract customers by price reductions, and utilize storage warehouses as temporary depositories of goods bought under low price market conditions until such time as they may be sold advantageously. On these buyers rests the responsibility for keeping their houses supplied always with food to meet the requests of retail buyers.

Rhode Island, because only a small quantity of the food necessary to support its large population can be raised within its borders, derives its food supplies from all parts of the world. Rhode Island is a buyer of most foods. The population of Rhode Island is cosmo- politan, and people of recent immigrant origin retain some of their homeland customs, includ- ing preferences for food. Older Rhode Islanders, too, as travelers abroad or because of con- tacts with newcomers, have learned the flavor of foreign foods and cookery. The market offerings of food substances include many lines not found in colonial food shops, and in sec- tions in which immigrant stock predominates the stores cater to the homeland tastes by carry- ing and displaying the foods sold in foreign countries. A visitor to one of these sections, window shopping or buying, might believe himself transported on a magic carpet to the mar- ket quarter of a European city. The development in Rhode Island includes stores and mar- kets, restaurants and bakeries, delicatessen and factories for processing or making food sub- stances. Rhode Island farmers find ready sale for vegetables which are new to New England.

CHAIN STORES-A retail dry goods store, which once claimed to be and was then the largest in Rhode Island, within twenty years after its establishment had become, in 1886, the mother of more than forty dry goods stores established in as many communities smaller than Providence by men who had learned the dry goods business as clerks in the older store. These men and their enterprises had been encouraged by the proprietors of the original establish- ment ; the smaller stores became customers of the larger in its flourishing wholesale business. The system resembled the "chain store" introduced later, except in the detail that the men in charge of the smaller stores were proprietors rather than hired managers or clerks. A New England shoe manufacturer sold a large part of the product of his factories through small stores, the proprietors of which were authorized agents for a limited territory ; later he was one of the first shoe manufacturers to establish a shoe store in Providence selling his shoes exclusively. The chain store in the shoe trade has not been uncommon; most shoes sold under the manufacturer's name reach the customers through chain stores. Rhode Island had had several "five-and-ten-cent-stores" before the first extra-state proprietor of a chain of low-priced stores bought out a similar local store in Providence and advertised his customers by wrapping his wares in lurid green paper. The popularity of the store was proved easily by the large number of green bundles seen on the streets and in street cars. The large size of some of the bundles carried from the ten-cent store was an important factor in the psychol- ogy at work. A corporation that had sold tea and coffee for many years through salesmen who canvassed from door to door, and which offered premiums as inducements for sales, closed the central retail store which it had maintained on Westminster Street in Providence ; within a short time afterward the name of the corporation was observed as applied to scat- tered smaller stores in large number, offering tea and coffee and standard groceries for sale. The new stores established a reputation for low prices, and achieved a large patronage. They have been extended until they cater to almost every community in Rhode Island, and cover most of the United States. A restauranteur whose initial venture with coffee and doughnuts had been so successful that he had established a chain of lunch rooms in Boston, tried one

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Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II, Part 53

Author: Carroll, Charles, author Publication date: 1932 Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716