The Great American Shopping Experience by Stephen H. Provost

Author:Stephen H. Provost [Provost, Stephen H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub

BLUE SUNDAY

To the new breed of discounters, rules were made to be broken: rules like closing up shop after dark, refusing to sell products like alcohol and playing cards, and “blue laws” that required shops to stay closed on Sundays.

Devout Presbyterian George Dayton, founder of Dayton’s department store in Minneapolis, ran his business the way he ran his life; his devotion to punctuality, prudence, and sobriety helped define the store’s image. It didn’t sell liquor on the premises, even after Prohibition was lifted. And the company wouldn’t even run ads in any newspaper that accepted liquor ads. In Detroit, Hudson’s didn’t even allow references to the colors “burgundy” and “champagne” because of their associations with alcohol, and cocktail dresses were referred to as “after-five” apparel.

Not only did Dayton’s keep its doors locked on Sundays; employees weren’t allowed to travel on that day. But it wasn’t just store policy that kept stores shuttered on Sundays, in many places, it was the law.

Blue laws had been in place since colonial times as a means of enforcing the Fourth Commandment in Exodus: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates.”

Blue laws weren’t always universally popular. Indeed, the term itself appears to stem from sarcastic reference to rigid moral codes that were common in the eighteenth century. Sticklers about enforcing the laws were derided as “bluenoses.” Nonetheless, they were widely accepted during the first part of the twentieth century. Sporting events weren’t played on Sundays in Pennsylvania until 1931, when the Philadelphia Athletics baseball team was granted an exemption for baseball. It wasn’t until two years later that the legislature passed a bill allowing football games on Sundays, paving the way for the Pittsburgh Steelers (then called the Pirates) and Philadelphia Eagles to join the National Football League.

But shopping was a different matter. Sporting events in the forties—even pro games—were still viewed more as leisure activities than big business. So were cinemas, most of which were showing movies by that time. Stores, on the other hand, were in the business of making money. There wasn’t any ambiguity there, and although laws varied from state to state, stores generally stayed closed on Sundays. The fact was, there were other reasons to stay closed one day a week. Most owners and store managers liked the idea of having a regular day off, and so did unions, which supported the laws as friendly to labor. But more to the point, it didn’t make business sense to keep the lights on and pay employees to show up when most people were in church anyway. (Even today, pro football games don’t start until 1 p.m. on Sundays, giving devout fans enough time to attend morning worship service and make it back before kickoff.

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