Back in black
This vintage advertisement for L. Ochs & Co. department store in Washington mentions new labor laws governing the working hours of “salesgirls” as well as the “big Christmas store.”
The front page of the Nov. 29, 1912, edition of the Washington Reporter trumpets the fact that there are only 26 days until Christmas.
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A full-page newspaper advertisement shows Santa Claus with a sack full of gifts proudly highlighting the year’s hottest toys before the kickoff to Christmas shopping season right after Thanksgiving.
But the decade in which this Black Friday advertisement ran might surprise modern-day shoppers.
The advertisement by Ochs at 122 W. Chestnut St. in Washington’s business district was published in the Washington Reporter the day after Thanksgiving in 1913 and encourages children to “bring your mamma and papa” to the store to greet Santa Claus for the “Big Day of Days in Toyland.” Free candy is offered to each child who brings “an escort.”
Audrey Guskey, a marketing professor at Duquesne University, says it shows that Black Friday sales might be a relatively new phenomenon that began in the 1980s, but the early Christmas shopping season and robust advertising campaign certainly isn’t.
“Consumers can get coupons electronically and elsewhere today, but those Black Friday ads have survived all these years,” Guskey said. “And they’re still encouraging people to shop and shop early. Some things just don’t change.”
Labor laws in the early 20th century following the Industrial Revolution might have changed the way customers shopped and indirectly led to Black Friday sales. Another Ochs ad the day before Thanksgiving in 1913 alludes to the new Department of Labor cabinet-level position, which was formed earlier that year, and how it could affect store hours.
“This year the new labor laws, which govern the hours of salesgirls make it almost a necessity to do your Xmas shopping real early,” the Ochs advertisement reads. “This, Washington’s one Big Xmas Store, is making every possible effort to make early shopping easy and profitable.”
John Russo, an emeritus professor of labor studies at Youngstown State University, doubted new federal labor protection laws governing work hours or child employees had much of an impact on holiday shopping. It was more about sales figures, he said.
“I think it was a sales pitch to get people in the stores early,” Russo said. “There’s a long history of that in America. For most retailers, the time from Thanksgiving to Christmas was the heaviest for sales.”
Ochs was not the only prominent local business to make the sales pitch. Morris Chairs at 137 S. Main St. shows Santa standing by a comfortable recliner proclaiming, “They all want one.” An unsponsored ad that ran on the front page of the Washington Reporter the day after Thanksgiving in 1912 notes “The Drum is Booming. So is Christmas Trade. SHOP NOW.”
“For them to have that advertising 100 years ago is awesome,” Guskey said. “But I’m guessing the average shopper didn’t start until the week before Christmas. It wasn’t as big of a retail holiday as it is now. Now, a lot of people have their shopping done already. I think retailers have been pushing it for a while. They’ve been pushing the envelope with Christmas creep.”