From Main Street to Mall: The Rise and Fall of the American Department Store (American Business, Politics, and Society) by Vicki Howard

Author:Vicki Howard [Howard, Vicki]
Language: eng
Format: azw, epub
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2015-04-21T16:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 25. In addition to the well-known Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized sit-ins at segregated department stores throughout the South. This particular protest, which was not associated with CORE, took place outside the lunchroom at Burdines department store in Miami. After the police blocked a group from entering the luncheonette, a leading minister, Rev. Carl E. Yaeger, produced his metal Burdines Charga-Plate and asked if he could use it to enter. After he was refused, Yaeger crumpled it in his fist, threw it to the ground, and stated: “Then I have no further use for this” (“Police Bar Burdine’s Sitdown,” Miami News [March 4, 1960], 3A). Florida Photographic Collection, State Archives of Florida.

Throughout the early 1960s, department store leaders hammered out their relationship with the liberal state. The summary of resolutions adopted at their annual convention in 1962 reveals an industry forging a combative relationship with federal policy makers. From their resolutions, it is clear that the “free enterprise” perspective could flex in a different direction when regulations gave the industry a competitive edge. Department store executives put their foot down on all federal policies or measures except for changes to parcel post regulation. They voiced opposition to the Credit Control Bill, the use of federal funds for health and unemployment benefits, and even the creation of a federal agency for consumer protection. States’ legislation on Sunday closings, however, received strong support.82

Invited speakers also split on the issue of regulation. Senator Barry Goldwater, who was chairman of his family’s Phoenix department store, spoke out against an activist state and advocated a market-driven economy. Specifically, Goldwater criticized the Kennedy administration’s fiscal policy and pushed for a balanced budget. That year, the firm founded by his grandfather was acquired by the massive department store chain Associated Dry Goods, following an increasingly familiar trajectory in the industry.83 In contrast, Senator Hubert Humphrey, who was also the president of a family-owned drug store and advocate of the small businessman, pushed for regulations or policies that fought bigness. Addressing a large audience at the convention, he advised independent retailers on ways to compete with discounters and also commented on the hearings being held with Senator John Sparkman on shopping centers. An advocate of protection for independent businesses, Humphrey stated that he wanted “to see that the old family enterprises get a chance to compete in the new central selling locations.” Shopping center developers were notorious for favoring national chains and large department stores at the expense of smaller retailers who could not receive the highest AAA credit rating required by the lending institutions financing new developments. On a related issue, John E. Horne, head of the Small Business Administration (SBA), addressed the session of the smaller stores division and outlined the efforts of his agency on behalf of independent merchants.84 Humphrey’s and Horne’s agenda failed. Big department stores and chain stores, with their AAA credit ratings required by lending institutions, dominated suburban shopping centers at the expense of downtown department stores and small-town Main Street firms.

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