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Spring 1939. "Drugstore window in Washington, D.C." Medium format acetate negative by David Moffat Myers for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
At least four of the books shown are still in print. I think I have a couple in my library from roughly the date of this photo.
Even adjusted for inflation those whisk brooms are a deal at $1.84 in today's dollars. Cheapest whisk brooms I could find on Amazon cost $4.32.
[$2.83 at Walmart. - Dave]
From a 1937 TIME magazine article: “The 541 cigar stores of United Cigar-Whelan Stores Corp., which dot the country like an attack of measles, have long been filled to bursting with Mickey Mouse watches, G-Man automatics, shoe trees ... ”
I also recognize the Fitch's Shampoo. That line of products was a staple in the barber shop when I was a kid. Fred Fitch also developed one of the first types of anti-dandruff shampoos.
I've noticed Shorpy has not featured drugstore photos recently, so I was delighted to see this one. Thanks! Also, I wonder when "films" lost the "s"? I presume the word refers to the item you put into a camera and took back to have developed.
Those three-part items (reamer, tamper, pick) for 10¢ or 25¢, lower right, between what I take to be zippered pipe/tobacco pouches for a buck.
At that price, I’d resume smoking. Also, I’ll take one of those whisk brooms for a dime, please.
According to one obscure chart I found, the average annual salary for a public school teacher (for example) in Washington DC in 1939 was $2,350.
[Indeed. Relative to 1939, the number of hours (or minutes) the average person has to work in 2019 to buy something like a toothbrush or a whisk broom is so inconsequential, no store would bother advertising them, much less create a window display. - Dave]
Interesting history of Whelan Drugs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Cigar_Stores
... is a good five-cent cigar at 25 for 69 cents!
I'm not quite 70 but I recognize two products in the window. They're both at left: Lavoris, which I remember as the palatable mouthwash, as opposed to the intensely medicinal Listerine. The other is Castoria, which I vaguely recall, only from TV commercials, as Fletcher's Castoria.
The bottle of vitamins at $1.49 would go for almost $26 today, and $18 for the 98 cent pan.
Of course everyone will remark on the prices, but I notice there's not a single brand name in the whole store window (not the signs in the window, the window itself) that I recognize and I'm 70, so it's not like they are before my time.
I do like how they have posted the newspaper ad in the window along with the items advertised so that you can know you are getting the advertised price.
I give those 98-cent drugstore frypans about a week to last.
Now if I could just figure out what a "public telephone" was --
I love these old store photos. Shows you how much inflation we have really had.
From the Amazon description of the book in the display window:
Ruined in the stock market crash of 1929, Selden Seaforth is on the verge of homelessness and starvation when he gets a lucky break: an old school friend, Ormond Ormes, hires him to catalogue the collection of rare books in the library at the mansion of Ormesby.
The mansion has a reputation for being haunted by ghosts, but Seaforth quickly finds out that ghosts are the least of his worries: the house is also inhabited by a bizarre family of madwomen, not to mention possibly vampires, werewolves, and the undead ...
[J.U. Nicolson was evidently big on alliteration. - Dave]
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