I think as time goes on, simple pictures like this will be polarizing for many reasons, and they'll be increasingly absurd. You can read a lot into this, and since it brings up The Past, this will make people angry. The people who find in this image a collection of oppressions and exclusions will be angered by the thought of people who do not find it Hell, and I suppose vice versa - although the people who don't think it's Hell regard the angry people with amusement.
I mean, if you can't say what's right about this, even though you think it's wrong, then you've no business entering the discussion. And vice versa.
I’ve been working on a project that spans four subsites, from the 40s to the 70s. Get ready for some thrilling stuff, friends: we’re talking annual reports from chain stores. If you’re thinking great, can’t wait for all those charts and graphs and projections, well, sorry. I am not interested in the financials. Nor will you get projections of future income if potato prices stabilize, or hymns to the acquisition of a new business so far from the company’s core competency it cannot help but end in tears. (“We’re good at selling dishtowels. Why don’t we go into banking?”)
You’re going to get pictures from the company archives about post-war retail into the 70s. Every single picture - from the housewares to the clothing department to appliances to the gorgeous exteriors and bright interiors - is a long-gone world, because every single one of these massive chains died.
They left behind embassies in every city:
In case you're curious: 2019.
At some point they shaved the top. 2022:
The annual reports have things that bring great joy to my heart:
You look at the stately boardrooms full of wise old men, the pictures of new stores stuffed with goods - how could they perish, with such steady hands on the helm, such bounteous shops? You marvel at the maps with innumerable dots representing all the stores. The pictures of the vast rooms where young women toil at computers, the architectural plans for the new distribution centers - it's American business at its managerial and technological apex, an institution unrivaled in human history. But they all died.
I thought I’d mention this because I saw a story about the Last K-Mart in America. It closed. No one cares. Usually the death of a retail outlet gets some nostalgia, but K-Mart has been gone so long we’ve already mourned it and moved on.
Mourned it? You ask. Where did we mourn it? In the most unexpected place, I think: archive.org compilations of K-Mart background music. All the people who were 12-21 within 1974 to 1984 have weighed in with bittersweet memories of the place, none of which have anything to do with K-Mart itself, really. Same thing with the comments on YouTube easy-listening compulations. It's all about being young and supposedly unsullied by the depredations of adulthood, going shopping with Mom (which they probably resented at the time, depending on the age) and hearing that easy-listening music (which they probably loathed at the time, because it wasn’t cool). The music brings back the whole lost world of the mall, the vast parking lots at twilight, the old logos, the settled sense of a working world, a common space where they felt as if they fit in. It’s all projection.
Well, it’s mostly projection. I understand. If you had a reasonably uneventful upbringing without serious problems, you recap the era with indulgence and benevolence, forgetting all the botherations and worries that were part of the braided rope of adolescence. That’s fine. It’s good to be kind to your past and the people and places in your past who helped you along. Just don’t think that K-Mart was some lost utopia. It was dumpy and jumbled.
This would’ve pained its founder, whose death at 98 was memorialized in the 1966 Kresge annual report.
"Sebastian Spering Kresge was an honest man.
"He believed in God. He believed in the dignity of man. He believed in hard work. He believed in sharing his blessings. Upon these simple principles he built an historic life and bequeathed a noble heritage."
His life and his heritage reflect his philosophy: "Keep God in mind. Don't let anything get your goat. Tend to your own business."
One of the annual report had a picture of the new corporate HQ, and hooo-boy we got some 70s going on here:
The interior: a style we will never see again. If we're lucky.
If you buy the three-bedroom, two-bath, 2,100-square-foot home on the Intracoastal Waterway that Kelly Cisarik and John Pfanstiehl are selling in Indian Rocks Beach, the car is included in the asking price of $365,000.
But what a car.
Reposing in unblemished glory in an air-conditioned, humidity-controlled garage is a 1959 Cadillac El Dorado Seville _ white with silver-blue interior and fabric-covered hardtop _ with the original batteries, tires and exhaust system, even the original air filter, and only 2,232 miles on the odometer.
And you might ask . . . what does this have to do with anything?
The car's original owner was Maurice Gagnon, a flamboyant jewelry manufacturer from Lincoln, R.I., near Providence. In October 1958, police stopped three men in a car near Gagnon's lavish mobile home and found some of Gagnon's possessions in the back seat.
Now he’s also a jewelry maker?
Lavish mobile home?
The three were charged with robbery, and a newspaper account of the time indicates that someone was putting heavy pressure on Gagnon not to testify against them: harassment, bribery, offers of prostitutes.
In February 1959, two days before the trial, star witness Gagnon was found slumped in his Cadillac in a parking lot in Nashua, N.H.
That’s about it for this one. Northing but sports and weddings after the fun of the front page. Maybe I can find a comic of note . . .
Ah hah hah she left him for a better man with more looks and money
“Freckles and his Friends” debuted in 1915, and ran until 1971. As for its creator:Merrill Blosser (May 28, 1892 – January 9, 1983) was an American cartoonist, the creator of the comic strip Freckles and His Friends, which had a long run (1915–1971).[1] Although his strip was set in the small town of Shadyside, it was obviously based on Blosser's hometown of Nappanee, Indiana, since Blosser often referenced real Nappanee locations, such as Johnson's Drug Store.
Now get this.
Growing up in Nappanee, where he was born, Blosser was encouraged by his parents to take drawing lessons, and he signed up for Charles N. Landon's correspondence course. Six successful cartoonists lived in Nappanee as children, including Fred Neher (Life’s Like That) and Bill Holman (Smokey Stover).
That’s a lot of talent to come out of one town.
When Blosser was 12 years old, National Magazine held a writing competition, and he was a winner with his essay, "The Best Way to Spend $300." The prize was a trip to Washington, D.C.
Touring the city, the prizewinners were taken to the White House to meet President Theodore Roosevelt. Lagging behind, Blosser drew a sketch of Roosevelt which prompted the President to exclaim, "Bully!" He then kept Blosser with him for half a day, advising him to continue in the field of art.
The incident has a citation, but the link is dead.
We’ll have to take his word for it.
That will do! Midweek miscellany for Substack subscribers. Chain Store Age for all.
