Terms Which Have Disappeared

[LizzieMaine]

Western Auto itself is no more -- it folded ten or fifteen years back, if I recall, but some of the remaining stores chose to continue using the name.

Like a lot of the "chains" established in the Era, and very much like Rexall, Western Auto wasn't actually a chain store in the sense that A&P was. It was a buying cooperative of independent merchants who pooled their resources to market goods under a series of recognizable brands -- the stores were locally owned and operated, but they all sold under the Western Auto sign, and the Western Auto cooperative acted as the wholesale supplier for their merchandise, which was manufactured by other companies for sale under the various WA brands. Western Flyer bicycles, for example, were actually made for the most part by Huffy or Murray, and Truetone radio and TV products were made by Detrola.

There was a lot of this in the Era, the idea being to give local merchants a chance to fight the buying and marketing power of the chains, and some of these operations, like Western Auto, Rexall, Trustworthy Hardware, Ben Franklin 5 & 10 stores, and IGA, were very successful for a long time before the big-box operations started crowding them out in the '90s.

 

[BobHufford]

I always wanted to sneak in there and put a life-size cardboard figure of myself thumbing my nose out that window.

I have a feeling that you have a stash of these cardboard "Lizzies" ready to go... (or, if not, you should)

 

[LizzieMaine]

Not quite, but we do have a bunch of I WANT YOU TO BECOME A MEMBER posters around the theatre with my face on them, doing the Uncle Sam bit. For a while we had a giant-size one in the lobby that I found very disquieting.

 

[BlueTrain]

The so-called big box stores all started out as "ordinary" main street retail stores, even including Wal-Mart. There was even a Lowes in our hometown in the 1970s located in the building that had been the only local lumberyard there that I know of. By the time we had moved into our first house, oh, I think in the early 1980s, the Lowes near there (not my hometown) was still pretty much the same and had not yet turned into a big box store.

In the 1950s and possibly earlier (or later), there were so-called fair trade laws intended to help local merchants compete against what were called at the time, discount stores. I suppose it was well meant but the end result was that consumers just paid more.

Another issue is that retailing (not so much big box stores, however) moved into malls, which were and are private spaces, not public spaces. I'm not sure how that enters into things but it has an effect on the community, to be sure, just that it's hard to pinpoint. But perhaps different people have different ideas about community. After all, we have gated communities these days that are clearly not public spaces and I guess that's what people want. Some people, anyway.

Although the big box stores all started out as main street retailers of one sort or another, not all companies managed to successfully transition to the format, although not for lack of trying. There was Woolco and Murphy-Mart to name a couple. I imagine that most failed simply because of poor management. This is all the result of competition.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The problem is "is paying less worth the damage done to communities?" I don't just mean towns, I mean the human community as a whole. If Joe Blow paying a few dollars less for a t-shirt means hundreds of people die in a slave-labor factory fire in Bangladesh, is that savings worth it? The time will come when we have to confront our own narrow view as a society -- the rest of the planet doesn't exist to allow a few people to reap the benefits of "low prices." And it's not just the working class -- who generally *have to* shop on the basis of price who are to blame for this -- you'll find the same sweatshop goods in upscale stores. Target is nothing more than Wal Mart for the bourgeoisie.

Woolco's problem was that it didn't give anyone anything they couldn't get in a dozen other similar stores. When the first Woolco showed up here, in the late 60s, it was bucking local and regional operations like Mammoth Mart and Zayre, along with other dime-stores-gone-big-time like W. T. Grant's and K-Mart. There was simply no need for another such chain, no matter what its pedigree. The market was oversaturated, and the only way another chain was going to get in here was to do what Wal Mart eventually did -- undercut everybody on the basis of price until all the local competitors were bankrupted.

The term "chain store" itself seems to be pretty much extinct. "Big Box" pretty much carries the same sense of opprobrium that "chain store" did in the twenties.

 

[HudsonHawk]

...the Western Auto cooperative acted as the wholesale supplier for their merchandise, which was manufactured by other companies for sale under the various WA brands. Western Flyer bicycles, for example, were actually made for the most part by Huffy or Murray, and Truetone radio and TV products were made by Detrola...

Western Auto also sold guitars under their "Truetone" label. They were made by Kay Musical Instruments out of Chicago, who also made guitars for Sears to be sold under their "Silvertone" label (as well as their own label). Like their cousins, old 60's era Truetone guitars are quite collectable today.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We were big Western Auto customers in our family. My first bike was a Western Flyer, we had a Truetone TV for years after the Philco died (we used it as a table to put the Truetone on) and I still have a Wizard electric fan in my kitchen. And I used to buy points there for my old VW Beetle, so they even still sold actual auto parts!

 

[Trenchfriend]

Nice article from 2013:
Meet Your Maker: Cone Mills Of Greensboro, North Carolina

http://www.heddels.com/2013/03/meet-your-maker-cone-mills-of-greensboro-north-carolina/

 

[HudsonHawk]

The thing I remember most about our local Western Auto was the tube tester they had near the front counter. I thought that was the coolest thing on the planet.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We had one of those too. I always suspected it was rigged.

The guy who ran our Western Auto was a unique personality. He posted long political screeds in the front window of the store, hand-printed in big angry block letters on long sheets of wrapping paper, and he carried a gun which he would wave menacingly at anyone who took his favorite parking spot. This type of thing Just Wasn't Done in Maine in the old days, but I imagine he'd feel right at home in the 21st Century.

 

[HudsonHawk]

One of our favorite family stories between my sister and I is the only time we ever heard my father use the "F word". He was sitting behind the TV with the back panel off, trying to figure out which tubes to pull to go have tested. Of course the TV was plugged in, and my mother thought it the perfect time to sneak up behind him and pop a balloon. Ah...good times.

 

[BlueTrain]

Speaking for the petite bourgeoisie, I have no solution, other than to refuse to shop at a given store. The ultimate problem, perhaps, is that people do not see the big picture and do not act in either their own best interests or the best interests of the country or their community. What those best interests might be is arguable.

I have probably stated before what some of the problems might be, regarding the big box chain retailers, and it don't necessarily include the possibility that some of the products are made by essentially slave labor or people working for below minimum wage (which includes farm workers, legally).

When the local market is dominated by big stores owned by someone somewhere else, the money leaves town the next day, literally. It doesn't sit around in the local bank, which is probably also a chain these days as well. Management of the local branches of the chain stores are not exactly prominent local businessmen. Now, you may not have liked the big shots who built the fancy houses on top of the hill where the well-to-do lived, but you probably have no idea who the manager of the local Wal-Mart is or where he's from. He probably has no interest whatsoever in anything local, other that what is reflected in sales for his store. This would be true no matter where the stuff in the store came from. It wasn't true for New England but before the Civil War some states had more slaves than free people. Frankly, it might be hard to overcome that concept and to care anything about the condition of the workers. And just think about how often you read references to union thugs.

It isn't like nothing can be done about this but there is no political will to do it. The reason for that is that, I think, the rich people that run the country are benefiting from current conditions and would be unlikely to want it changed.

None of this necessarily has anything to do with the decay of the traditional small-town main street.

 

[2jakes]

Fond memories of Western Auto & my first bicycle when I was 9.
X-53 Western Deluxe for $59.99.

My mother put it on layaway until Christmas

Ace Hardware badge, courtesy of Schwinn .
Later the Schwinn badge was used.

Schwinn Black Phantom

 

[LizzieMaine]

Tire companies used to rebrand a lot of merchandise as well. We sold Firestone and B. F. Goodrich tires at our station, and this gave us access to the whole line of merchandise handled by those companies in a kind of a catalog-order deal. My grandparents had a Firestone console radio in the living room, and my mother's first bike was a 1948 Schwinn rebadged as a B. F. Goodrich. She still has it, and still rides it, and doesn't care what the neighbors think.

 

[2jakes]

^^^^^
Tell your mother that I envy her.

The B.F.Goodrich badged Schwinn is rare & coveted by most that know about
these bikes of the past.

 

[Fading Fast]

Tire companies used to rebrand a lot of merchandise as well. We sold Firestone and B. F. Goodrich tires at our station, and this gave us access to the whole line of merchandise handled by those companies in a kind of a catalog-order deal. My grandparents had a Firestone console radio in the living room, and my mother's first bike was a 1948 Schwinn rebadged as a B. F. Goodrich. She still has it, and still rides it, and doesn't care what the neighbors think.

There's a kinda reverse rebranding going on today where established companies, like say Herr's, let other companies (sometimes quite large ones, like Shop Rite) private label out their product.

So, you might go into a Shop Rite whose generic house brand could be called something that sounds like a real brand or something that sounds like Shop Rite's house brand (today, it seems, companies sometimes like to make their house brands appear to be real separate companies, sometimes not), but either way, you will be able to buy Herr's-made pretzels (but, again, labeled under Shop Rite's brand) much cheaper than the bag of Herr's-branded pretzels it sits next to on the shelf.

This happens quite frequently and is a good way to save money. I'm surprised it doesn't dilute the value of the original brand as it does in my mind - I always want the less-expensive-and-made-in-the-same-factory-with-the-same-ingredients version. That said, sometimes the generic is a cheaper version, but many times not.

I'm amazed this goes on so frequently - but it does and, we, the consumer who spends a little time with labels, wins.

 

[BlueTrain]

I am sometimes a little irritated by the use of the word "brand." Sometimes it is even used to refer to an individual, like say, some sports figure does something awful and someone will say it reduces the value of the brand, as if the individual were a product. In sense, I suppose that's true in that the individual is being marketed as a product, sort of.

On the other hand, it gets a little fuzzy when what are basically generic products are branded, like water. Once upon a time, a community was careful with its water and they, the town or city or county, operated the water works. Well, nobody can get rich that way and when that's important, nothing else matters. It ceases to be a public utility.

 

[HudsonHawk]

There's a kinda reverse rebranding going on today where established companies, like say Herr's, let other companies (sometimes quite large ones, like Shop Rite) private label out their product.

So, you might go into a Shop Rite whose generic house brand could be called something that sounds like a real brand or something that sounds like Shop Rite's house brand (today, it seems, companies sometimes like to make their house brands appear to be real separate companies, sometimes not), but either way, you will be able to buy Herr's-made pretzels (but, again, labeled under Shop Rite's brand) much cheaper than the bag of Herr's-branded pretzels it sits next to on the shelf.

This happens quite frequently and is a good way to save money. I'm surprised it doesn't dilute the value of the original brand as it does in my mind - I always want the less-expensive-and-made-in-the-same-factory-with-the-same-ingredients version. That said, sometimes the generic is a cheaper version, but many times not.

I'm amazed this goes on so frequently - but it does and, we, the consumer who spends a little time with labels, wins.

I had a small nightmare with "reverse branding" on my last tractor. It was green and yellow alright, but it was made by Yanmar specifically to be sold under the John Deere badge. The problem was years later both companies effectively disowned these models, JD saying "we didn't make that, it just had our name on it" and Yanmar saying "hey, we made that for JD, take it up with them". Not that's there's anything wrong with either John Deere or Yanmar, only that getting parts and service on their little joint venture is now next to impossible.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I am sometimes a little irritated by the use of the word "brand." Sometimes it is even used to refer to an individual, like say, some sports figure does something awful and someone will say it reduces the value of the brand, as if the individual were a product. In sense, I suppose that's true in that the individual is being marketed as a product, sort of.

Athletes as a "brand" is an interesting phenomenon, and it started with Michael Jordan. Athletes have been endorsing products since there have been athletes, everything from shaving cream to cigarettes to panty hose. But Nike and Jordan creating the distinctive Jordan brand was truly revolutionary in the marketing circles. You're not just buying Nike basketball shoes, you're buying "Air Jordans"...or "Tiger Woods Golf" apparel.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Pretty much any household consumer appliance you buy today with an Era-vintage "American-made" brand name is an example of trick branding -- RCA, Philco, Westinghouse, Crosley, GE (depending on the item), Zenith, anything like that, are all ghost brands made by obscure overseas companies who bought or leased the rights to the logos from whatever consortium controls the IP rights today. The trouble starts when you own such an item, something goes wrong with it, and you want to track down the manufacturer for parts. Not that anyone ever does that anymore.