It’s Black Friday mania, not to mention Pre-Black Friday, Extended Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. How did all this pre-Christmas chaos begin?
It’s not as recent as you might think, and not entirely related to a desperate rush by retailers to close out the business year “in the black.” According to the History Channel’s website, it was a football game that spawned the annual day-after-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy. Philadelphia police officers used the term “Black Friday” in the 1950s. It was their description of the late November weekend when a dreaded onslaught of crowds from the suburbs arrived for the annual Army-Navy football game.
Whatever its origin, it’s now firmly tied to a massive shopping kickoff, and every generation fashions Christmas memories around the search for just the right gift … hopefully, at a bargain price.
Holiday newspaper ads for Lewiston-Auburn stores offer an interesting picture of shopping habits. It’s not hard to discover similarities from decade to decade.
Let’s take a look at the mid-1960s. As sure as Black Friday now follows Thanksgiving Day, the advertisements were signaling a seasonal change. Some L-A stores were announcing, “Open Evenings Now Through Christmas.” Others were open the extra hours up to 9 p.m. on Fridays, and a few more were open Monday nights. Fifty years ago, through most of the year, almost all stores locked their doors around 5 p.m.
In 1964, the W. T. Grant Co. store at Northwood Park Shopping Center in Lewiston wasted no time in declaring its Christmas Gift Sale on Nov. 27.
Reid and Hughes, a popular store for women on Lisbon Street, called itself “Your One Stop Christmas Store.”
Color TV was a much-wanted item, and Cressey and Allen, 39 Lisbon St., offered Zenith models starting at $449. That was a very big-ticket item at that time. The store offered a free three-day home trial, and a free home installation with purchase.
Stores used all kinds of inducements to bring in customers. One of the most popular was trading stamps, and S&H Green Stamps were the biggest of several types. The stores printed coupons worth “DOUBLE GREEN STAMPS,” or other bonus points. Lots of youngsters had the job of licking those stamps and pasting them into the booklets to be redeemed for all kinds of merchandise.
Moving back a few years to 1952, the Lewiston Daily Sun and Lewiston Evening Journal ads also featured special deals, but the pitch had a more subdued tone. Leblanc’s on Lisbon Street suggested, “He will appreciate Arrow Shirts for Christmas.” Just about all the stores were pushing the Sunbeam Shavemaster. Dube’s Flower Shop brought attention to their line of Slovak and Lithuanian Christmas cards.
The holiday season in 1927 was an even more gradual approach. As the big day drew near, the ads were starting to offer Christmas sales. Star Millinery and Cloak Co. on Lisbon Street had coats at half price. Ehrenfried’s advertised “Thursday Thrift Sales,” and they suggested, “Give handkerchiefs when in doubt.”
An ad from The Twin City Beauty Shop operated by Viola Ziegler told husbands they could “Give your wife that wonderful Christmas present … a permanent wave done with the new automatic winders.”
While most of the advertisements of the 1920s maintained a certain understated dignity, there was one particularly eye-catching outburst that filled most of a page on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 1927.
“YES! We Are Leaving Lewiston. We Are Through. In Plain Words — No Maybe!” it said. Merit Shoe Co. Inc., 133 Lisbon St., was going out of business. “We have reached a decision to let go of our entire stock and do it now.”
Christmas advertising played a significant role for L-A shoppers 115 years ago, too. In a large ad just a week before Christmas in 1900, Drew’s Reliable Jewelry Store at 73 Lisbon St. said, “The Earliest Christmas Shopper Gets the Choicest Selection.”
And the A.W. Fowles Co., dealer in fur coats, muffs and other clothing, said, “Why not allow us to show you what you can do with your Christmas money?”
Today, shopping malls have replaced many of the downtown stores, and the Internet, coupled with smartphones, gives shoppers a nearly instantaneous means for making their holiday purchases. It may seem like a whole new world, but a fascinating comparison of those old-time Christmases and the holidays of today might show us that things mostly stay the same from year to year.
Dave Sargent is a freelance writer and a native of Auburn. He can be reached by sending email to davidsargent607@gmail.com.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
