A-Ward Winning Deals!

Hi, and welcome back to Pleasant Family Shopping, where we’re all about the “two RM’s” – Retail Memories and Revenue Maximizing! Time for another look at good old Montgomery Ward!You know, the crowd scene in that first photo reminds me of the scene that breaks out at my local Target whenever they introduce another one of their cool designer collections, like their great line-ups from Orla Keily

Wards - Fort Worth, Texas, Early 1930's

Pictured above is Montgomery Ward’s Fort Worth, Texas “Mail Order Catalog House”, opened in 1928, as it appeared in an early 1930’s photo. This was the company’s fourth major mail order plant, preceded by their Chicago, Oakland and Baltimore units. Wards, who claimed a customer base of “500,000 Texas families, or more than half the customers in the state”, according to a December 1927 Wall Street

Wards, America's Cheapest Cash House

The 1872 founding of Montgomery Ward & Co. was not just the beginning of a company, but of an entire industry – one that thrives today, years after Wards ceased to be a major part of it, or to exist at all. Mail order pioneer, Chicago legend, and nationwide department store fixture, Montgomery Ward is part of the American story – mention the name “Monkey Wards” and most folks will know what

Ready For Take-off With Wards, 1967

I’ve been more than a little swamped in this week leading up to spring break, and I’d hoped to have begun a decent history of Montgomery Ward on here by now. Sorry about that, but we’ll be ready for take-off soon!In the meantime, here’s a look at the height of Wards fashion, in a great circa 1967 scene. This photo was taken in the ticketing area of the United Air Lines terminal at Chicago’s

The Golden Age of Montgomery Ward

High on the list of late, lamented retail chains would have to be Montgomery Ward & Company. For nearly 130 years Americans shopped at Wards, both through their legendary mail-order catalog and at their store locations.The early years of Montgomery Ward are well documented in history books – a young entrepreneur starts a mail-order catalog business, supplying even the remotest areas with

Matchless Memories of Mammoth Mart

The word “mammoth” calls to mind something big, huge, out of the ordinary. So the giant new discount stores must have seemed to folks who were used to shopping at the traditional “five and ten” - type variety stores that were a fraction of their size. It only makes sense, then, that one of these new “discount houses”, the upstarts of the retailing world, would adopt a “mammoth” as its trademark.

General Cinema's Feature Presentation

Here are a few scenes from various General Cinema theatres from 1976 through 1980. If you grew up going to any of their theatres during or around that era, these photos should resonate.General Cinemas were an appropriate fit for the “New Cinema” of the early 1970’s, meaning the Hollywood trend toward “relevant” films as opposed to the popular sugar-coated fantasies of the preceding decades.

General Cinema Refreshments, 1966

Prior to the 1960’s, concession sales in theatres were not a universal thing, and before the 1950’s, they were rare indeed. It was thought that eating or drinking inside a theatre violated a sense of decorum. General Cinema was no exception to this practice, selling refreshments in its drive-ins but not in its enclosed theatres, or “hardtops”, as they were nicknamed within the industry by that