Category: Broida Family

Broida Family (Click for Family Tree)

Buyers have long traveled to New York City, the capital of fashion, home decor, and other products. Due to its ports it offered a wide variety of goods, and buyers would make the pilgrimage by train or airplane in order to learn the latest styles and to place orders so they could provide the latest to their customers.

These notices were actually provided to the paper by the buyers themselves, so we can be reasonably sure about their accuracy. The entries tell us the city, name of the company/store, buyer’s name, what items the buyer was interested in, and even the NY hotel they were staying in! (In the above case, it was the Broadway Central.) Wholesalers could easily contact the buyers with this information available.

Directly below this listing was “Buyers’ Wants,” which included “cotton goods” and “SILKS Wanted.” Below that, “Offerings to Buyers” were such items as “1,200 Oxford Gray Camp” blankets, as well as help wanted ads for ‘buyers of silks and dress goods,’ a manager for a knitting mill, salesmen, dictaphone operators and stenographers, etc. Wholesale beer was big business in NYC, and still is!

Buyers generally made 1-2 trips per year to NYC.

It is interesting to look at other headlines in the papers at the time, to see what was happening in the world and in the US, as well as to see the ads for various clothing items and home fashions.

In the 1917 paper, for instance, one headline on the front page was, “England Moves to Block Egress of Enemy Ships into North Sea”- this of course refers to World War I, which the US would not get involved in until April of that year. Another headline stated “Pershing Retiring; Villistas Advance.” Brigadier General John J. Pershing had taken troops to Mexico to capture Pancho Villa, a Mexican revolutionary who commanded forces that murdered 16 American Nationals, then crossed into the United States and attacked Columbus, New Mexico and the Army Camp there.

Some things never change: “House in Debate on Revenue Bill…Fight Opens the Week.” Other headlines show us how far we have come, such as “Mrs. Byrne Now Fed by Force; Birth-Control Prisoner, Near Collapse, Revives After Food is Administered.” Mrs. Ethel Byrne was in the workhouse serving a sentence for her protest, had gone on a hunger strike, and was force-fed. At this time 100 years ago, women did not have the right to vote and this was happening to those who protested the inequality, however Mrs. Byrne’s transgression was insisting that women should have control over when they got pregnant. Mrs. Bryne’s sister was the more famous birth-control advocate, Mrs. Margaret Sanger.

People still wanted the newest styles for themselves, their families, and  their homes despite the latest news. Buyers like Sam Broida, of Broida Brothers Jobbing Company, worked hard to provide the nicest products for the customers of their St. Louis store.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. See captions.

Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.

Original content copyright 2013-2017 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.