DISCUSSION
GROUP
Arbor Drugs
Arbor Drugs opened its doors in Troy in 1974, when founder Eugene Applebaum combined several drug stores under the name. At the time, he owned a handful of pharmacies, including one in Ann
Arbor. Because the Ann Arbor store was the best of the bunch, he decided to use the second half of the city’s name for his business.
Atlas Beverage Company
Atlas Beverage Company for more than 60 years, Atlas Beverage Company produced carbonated beverages with names like Brownie Root Beer, Bulldog Ginger Beer, Cheer-Up, V-Mix, and Golden & Pale Dry Ginger Ale. A Polish immigrant in Hamtramck founded the company in 1929, and it closed in 1996.
Barthwell Drugs
When the pharmacy where Sidney Barthwell was employed failed during the Great Depression, Barthwell borrowed $500 from friends to open Barthwell Drugs in 1933. Barthwell Drugs grew to
become the largest chain of black-owned drugstores in the United States, with a total of nine stores and three ice-cream parlors. Although the chain no longer exists, the Barthwell
legacy remains in Detroit with the establishment the Sidney Barthwell Endowed Scholarship at Wayne State University 's College of Pharmacy.
Burroughs
The Burroughs Adding Machine Company moved to Detroit in 1904 and was once the largest adding-machine company in the United States . William Seward Burroughs founded the company when he
invented the Burroughs Registering Accountant in the 1880s; it was the first practical adding-listing machine that printed calculations on paper tapes. The company partnered with the Sperry
Corporation in the 80s and is now called Unisys. Although the company is now headquartered in Blue Bell, N.Y., it still occupies the old Burroughs factory and office space in Plymouth,
Mich.
B. Siegel Company
Siegel Company’s fine-clothing store in Detroit was originally Heyns Bazaar, until Benjamin Siegel purchased it in the late 1800s and changed the stores name. The Woodward Avenue shop was
reputed to be the finest and most complete suit and cloak store in America , until the company filed for bankruptcy in 1981.
Crowley Milner and Company (Crowleys)
When Detroit department store Partridge and Blackwell was struggling to stay in business, the Crowley brothers stepped in and took over. In the early 1900s, the store flourished by catering
to the city's affluent clientele, but by the end of the century, Crowleys had bowed out of the market.
Cunninghams
Andrew Cunningham opened Cunninghams Drugs in 1889 and had 11 stores in downtown Detroit when the company was purchased by Economical Drugs owner Nate Shapero in 1931. Cunninghams was
famous for its special promotions and used an elephant symbol to represent their jumbo sodas, sundaes, and photo-print services. The chains slogans included "Don't say drug store say Cunninghams"
and "We're a drug store and a whole lot more."
Farmer Jack
The story of Farmer Jack stores can be traced to 1924, when Russian immigrant Tom Borman opened Tom's Quality Meats in Detroit . Tom and his brother, Al, ran
grocery stores that were a metro Detroit staple, becoming Farmer Jack in 1966. The last remaining Farmer Jack stores closed in 2007 (some
were converted to A&P’s).
Federals
Steven West's spans a range of endeavors, from writing five self-help books to committing some major tax evasion. He's perhaps best-known in the Detroit area for taking over Federals
department store in the late 70s. In 1980, Federals dissolved.
F&M
Phar-Mor, Drug Emporium, and F&M were once the most powerful bargain drugstore chains in America . The industry was pioneered in Ferndale when Fred and Margaret Cohen opened the first
F&M in 1955. The Cohens business strategy was selling brand-name products at bargain prices, relying on word-of-mouth advertising, and banking on stock-up shopping popular in more affluent
areas. When the Cohens sold the business in 1977, their 9,000-square-foot store was grossing $13 million per year.
Fretters
Ollie Fretter opened his first self-titled electronics store in Livonia in the 1950s. He may best be remembered for his commercials, in which he promised, I'll
give you five pounds of coffee if I can't beat your best deal.
Gantos
Lebanese immigrant Theodore Gantos long dreamed of opening his own linen store, and when the devastation of the Great Depression ended, he did just that. With his wife, Haseebie, he opened
the first Gantos store in Grand Rapids in 1932. Over the next few decades, the store shifted gears to become a successful women’s-wear boutique before going out of business in 2000.
Grinnells Pianos
Once known as the largest piano factory on the earth, Grinnells Pianos opened its doors in Holly , Mich. , in 1913. The company lasted for nearly a century, thanks in part to its
quality pianos and to its consistent community involvement hosting annual statewide music festivals.
Harmony House
Carl Thom opened the first Harmony House music store in Hazel Park in 1947. Known for its superb selection of Detroit music, the chain grew to 38 stores before finally closing in
2002.
Highland Superstores
In 1933, Harry Mondry founded the first Highland Appliance Store, named for its location in Highland Park. The company had a dramatic rise and fall in its time, expanding to three states
before finally liquidating in 1993.
Himelhochs
The first Himelhochs clothing store opened on Washington Boulevard in downtown Detroit in 1907. Fifty years later, the chain had
stretched across the country, and even to Paris . But in 1977, the company filed for bankruptcy and closed. Its original location on
Washington has been preserved as a historic landmark.
Hudsons
The J.L. Hudson Company was founded in 1881 by Joseph L.Hudson. The 29-story flagship store, located at 1206 Woodward in downtown Detroit , was the worlds tallest department store
throughout most of the 20th century, with 706 fitting rooms, 68 elevators, 51 display windows, five restaurants, a fine-art gallery, and a wine department. After
many changes n the retail sector, the chain was eventually folded into Macys.
Hughes & Hatcher
In 1910, Fred Hughes and Leslie Hatcher opened their clothing store in downtown Detroit , and it soon became the top name in gentlemen’s fine apparel. Aside from
its stupendously stylish suits, Hughes & Hatcher was known for having the largest display windows in town.
Jacobsons
In 1838, the first Jacobsons store opened in Reed City, Mich. The store catered to the fashion needs of upscale Michigan clientele, and eventually expanded to Florida and other states. The
store is still profitable in Florida , but the Michigan stores, after more than 150 years, remain closed.
Joshua Doore Furniture
In 1973, Harvey Leach opened the doors to Joshua Doore and, for years, drew in customers with the charming slogan “You've got an uncle in the furniture business.” A few years later,
amid the company’s transformation into Uncle Robinson Furniture, Leach was found dead in the trunk of his car, allegedly as a result of financial challenges.
Kerns
Where the Compuware building stands in downtown Detroit today once stood another grand retailer of the city's golden era, Kerns Department Store. Kerns opened in 1900 and competed
with J.L. Hudsons until closing in 1959. After much restoration, the famous Kerns clock was rededicated by Compuware in 2003.
Kinsel Drug Store
The next time you need a remedy for a late-night cough, you can thank Edward C. Kinsel, who opened Detroit ’s first 24-hour drugstore. Kinsels opened in 1894 and offered patrons everything
from cold remedies to cold cuts.
Klines
Eugene B. Kline founded Klines women’s fashion store in 1911. The chic-looking store on Woodward Avenue was called the most modern store in the country in 1940.
Merchant of Vino
Founded in 1974, Merchant of Vino was well known for its fine wine and gourmet foods. Although Eddie Jonna eventually sold his popular chain to Whole Foods Co., his sons Marc and Matthew
picked up where their father left off, opening the state-of-the-art Plum Markets now seen around metro Detroit .
New York Carpet World
Marvin Berlin opened New York Carpet World in 1967. Along with his partner, Irving Nusbaum, Berlin grew the chain to an impressive 250 stores in 17 states, including Michigan , making it
the top source for household flooring.
Perrys Drug Store
Jack A. Robinson founded the hugely successful Perrys Drug Store chain, which was taken over by Rite-Aid in the mid-90s. The first Perrys store opened in Pontiac in 1957, named for its
location on Perry Street.
Pfeiffer Brewing Company
Conrad Pfeiffer began brewing his own beer in 1882. His Art Deco red-brick brewery was built between Beaufait and Bellevue avenues on the east side
of Detroit, complete with a stable and hospitality area that offered tours, products for sale, and a beer garden. Pfeiffer Brewing Company began producing its olive-drab cans with black lettering for the government during World War II, soon after it began selling its yellow Johnny Fifer cans to the public.
R.H. Fyfe and Company
Detroit was once home to the largest shoe store in the world. Fyfes opened in 1865 and, by 1919, it had expanded to include 10 floors of shoes and service areas, as well as a miniature-golf
course. After closing, the headquarters at Woodward and Adams was converted into residential lofts.
Sams Jams
Opened in 1979, Sams Jams was a hip Ferndale record shop where customers could always find rare and vintage tunes. Sams frequently hosted album signings with popular and alternative bands
of the day. But much to the dismay of the local underground music community, Sams closed its doors in 1993.
Sanders
Frederick Sanders opened his first retail shop in downtown Detroit on June 17, 1875.. At one time, Sanders had over 57 stores around town selling an assortment of candy, fudge toppings, and
baked goods. Sanders sold his first Ice Cream Soda in 1876, when he substituted ice cream for the sweet
cream used in his Sweet Cream Soda.
Sebastian S. Kresge/Kmart
With his humble beginnings, historic philanthropist Sebastian S. Kresge likely couldn't have imagined that the city of Detroit would turn his modest five-and-dime store into the gargantuan
enterprise it became. S.S. Kresge Co. opened in Detroit in 1899, and later expanded into Kmart Corporation, before merging with Sears, Roebuck & Co.
Sibleys Shoes
Aaron Ross and Norm Rosenfeld opened the first Sibleys shoe store in Detroit in 1920 and soon expanded to various locations throughout Michigan and Ohio. Headquartered in the Fox Building
and, for a time, the Renaissance Center, the chain was finally dismantled in 2003.
Strohs
In 1850, Bernhard Stroh established what would become a Detroit institution, then referred to as Lions Head brewery. During Prohibition, the company stayed afloat
by producing ice cream and near beer and selling it in grocery stores and ice-cream parlors (Strohs Ice Cream can still be found today). With its headquarters at Grand
Park Centre near Grand Circus Park, Strohs was family-owned and operated for more than 145 years.
Thorn Apple Valley
After miraculously escaping from a Polish concentration camp during World War II, Henry Dorfman immigrated into the United States and opened his own butcher shop in Detroit in 1949. The
small company, originally called Frederick Packing Company, expanded nationwide and was renamed Thorn Apple Valley in 1984.
Towne Club
In the mid 1960s, Harold Samhat began selling Towne Club soda at various pop center around Detroit . Towne Club, sold in wooden crates with 24 glass bottles in each, was more affordable
than Coke or Pepsi and was famous for its wide variety of flavors.
Twin Pines Dairy Farm
It's been a long time since fresh milk, cream, and cottage cheese were delivered right to your milk chute, but for almost 20 years, Twin Pines was perhaps Detroit 's finest creamery. Before
the emergence of convenience stores, Twin Pines was such a success that it even had its own children’s television show, Milky's Party Time, from 1950 to 1967.
Vernors
Legend has it that Vernors ginger ale was created in 1866 when Detroit pharmacist James Vernor returned home from the Civil War and found that the syrup he'd created and stored for four
years had transformed into a deliciously different drink. Combined with a scoop of vanilla ice cream (preferably Strohs), the distinctly Detroit soda created a Midwest delicacy: the Boston
cooler, believed to be named after Detroit 's Boston Boulevard.
Winkelmans
The first Winkelmans store was built in Detroit in 1928. The founders, brothers Isadore and Leon Winkelman, were born and raised in the Upper Peninsula, but fell in love with the
city and stayed to open their successful clothing stores.
Woolworths
Perhaps the best-known of the old five-and-dimes was Woolworths, which expanded into a larger discount store chain and thrived for most of the 20th century. After the stores demise in the
80s, the company broke off into several parts, including a sportswear division now known as Foot Locker.
Fri
13
Nov
2015
Are Languages Products of their Environment?
DISCOVER MAGAZINE published this very interesting article:
Languages Are Products of Their Environments
The characteristics that make each language unique may actually be adaptations to the acoustics of different
environments.
Tue
03
Jun
2014
The Case for Reparations
The Case for Reparations
Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
By Ta-Nehisi Coates
May 21, 2014
Chapters
- I. “So That’s Just One Of My Losses”
- II. “A Difference of Kind, Not Degree”
- III. “We Inherit Our Ample Patrimony”
- IV. “The Ills That Slavery Frees Us From”
- V. The Quiet Plunder
- VI. Making The Second Ghetto
- VII. “A Lot Of People Fell By The Way”
- VIII. “Negro Poverty is not White Poverty”
- IX. Toward A New Country
- X. “There Will Be No ‘Reparations’ From Germany”
Mon
02
Jun
2014
A Look At 19th Century Children In The USA
PHILADELPHIA — DINNER with your children in 19th-century America often required some self-control. Berry stains in your daughter’s hair? Good for her. Raccoon bites running up your boy’s arms? Bet he had an interesting day.
As this year’s summer vacation begins, many parents contemplate how to rein in their kids. But there was a time when Americans pushed in the opposite direction, preserved in Mark Twain’s cat-swinging scamps. Parents back then encouraged kids to get some wildness out of their system, to express the republic’s revolutionary values.
The New York Times
Sunday Review
By JON GRINSPAN MAY 31, 2014
American children of the 19th century had a reputation. Returning British visitors reported on American kids who showed no respect, who swore and fought, who appeared — at age 10 — “calling for liquor at the bar, or puffing a cigar in the streets,” as one wrote. There were really no children in 19th-century America, travelers often claimed, only “small stuck-up caricatures of men and women.”
This was not a “carefree” nation, too rough-hewed to teach proper manners; adults deliberately chose to express new values by raising “go-ahead” boys and girls. The result mixed democracy and mob rule, assertiveness and cruelty, sudden freedom and strict boundaries. Visitors noted how American fathers would brag that their disobedient children were actually “young republicans,” liberated from old hierarchies. Children were still expected to be deferential to elders, but many were trained to embody their nation’s revolutionary virtues. “The theory of the equality” was present at the ballot box, according to one sympathetic Englishman, but “rampant in the nursery.”
Boys, in particular, spent their childhoods in a rowdy outdoor subculture. After age 5 or so they needed little attention from their mothers, but were not big enough to help their fathers work. So until age 10 or 12 they spent much of their time playing or fighting.
The writer William Dean Howells recalled his ordinary, violent Ohio childhood, immersed in his loose gang of pals, rarely catching a “glimpse of life much higher than the middle of a man.” Howells’s peers were “always stoning something,” whether friends, rivals or stray dogs. They left a trail of maimed animals behind them, often hurt in sloppy attempts to domesticate wild pets.
And though we envision innocents playing with a hoop and a stick, many preferred “mumbletypeg” — a game where two players competed to see who could throw a knife closer to his own foot. Stabbing yourself meant a win by default.
Left to their own devices, boys learned an assertive style that shaped their futures. The story of every 19th-century empire builder — Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt — seems to begin with a striving 10-year-old. “Boy culture” offered training for the challenges of American manhood and a reprieve before a life of labor.
But these unsupervised boys also formed gangs that harassed the mentally ill, the handicapped and racial and ethnic minorities. Boys played an outsize role in the anti-Irish pogroms in 1840s Philadelphia, the brutal New York City draft riots targeting African-Americans during the Civil War and attacks on Chinese laborers in Gilded Age California. These children did not invent the bigotry rampant in white America, but their unrestrained upbringing let them enact what their parents mostly muttered.
Their sisters followed a different path. Girls were usually assigned more of their mothers’ tasks. An 8-year-old girl would be expected to help with the wash or other physically demanding tasks, while her brother might simply be too small, too slow or too annoying to drive the plow with his father. But despite their drudgery, 19th-century American girls still found time for tree climbing, bonfire building and waterfall-jumping antics. There were few pretty pink princesses in 19th-century America: Girls were too rowdy and too republican for that.
So how did we get from “democratic sucklings” to helicopter parents? Though many point to a rise of parental worrying after the 1970s, this was an incremental change in a movement that began a hundred years earlier.
In the last quarter of the 19th century, middle-class parents launched a self-conscious project to protect children. Urban professionals began to focus on children’s vulnerabilities. Well-to-do worriers no longer needed to raise tough dairymaids or cunning newsboys; the changing economy demanded careful managers of businesses or households, and restrained company men, capable of navigating big institutions.
Demographics played a role as well: By 1900 American women had half as many children as they did in 1800, and those children were twice as likely to live through infancy as they were in 1850. Ironically, as their children faced fewer dangers, parents worried more about their protection.
Instead of seeing boys and girls as capable, clever, knockabout scamps, many reconceived children as vulnerable, weak and naïve. Reformers introduced child labor laws, divided kids by age in school and monitored their play. Jane Addams particularly worked to fit children into the new industrial order, condemning “this stupid experiment of organizing work and failing to organize play.”
There was good reason to tame the boys and girls of the 19th century, if only for stray cats’ sake. But somewhere between Jane Addams and Nancy Grace, Americans lost track of their larger goal. Earlier parents raised their kids to express values their society trumpeted.
“Precocious” 19th-century troublemakers asserted their parents’ democratic beliefs and fit into an economy that had little use for 8-year-olds but idealized striving, self-made men. Reformers designed their Boy Scouts to meet the demands of the 20th century, teaching organization and rebalancing the relationship between play and work. Both movements agreed, in their didactic ways, that playtime shaped future citizens.
Does the overprotected child articulate values we are proud of in 2014? Nothing is easier than judging other peoples’ parenting, but there is a side of contemporary American culture — fearful, litigious, controlling — that we do not brag about but that we reveal in our child rearing, and that runs contrary to our self-image as an open, optimistic nation. Maybe this is why sheltering parents come in for so much easy criticism: A visit to the playground exposes traits we would rather not recognize.
There is, however, a saving grace that parents will notice this summer. Kids are harder to guide and shape, as William Dean Howells put it, “than grown people are apt to think.” It is as true today as it was two centuries ago: “Everywhere and always the world of boys is outside of the laws that govern grown-up communities.” Somehow, they’ll manage to go their own way.
________________________________
A National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the Massachusetts Historical Society who is writing a book on the role of young people in 19th-century American democracy.
Mon
21
Apr
2014
Investigating Family's Wealth, China's Leader Signals a Change
From The New York Times
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and JAD MOUAWAD
APRIL 19, 2014
HONG KONG — His son landed contracts to sell equipment to state oil fields and thousands of filling stations across China. His son’s mother-in-law held stakes in pipelines and natural gas pumps from Sichuan Province in the west to the southern isle of Hainan. And his sister-in-law, working from one of Beijing’s most prestigious office buildings, invested in mines, property and energy projects.
In thousands of pages of corporate documents describing these ventures, the name that never appears is his own: Zhou Yongkang, the formidable Chinese Communist Party leader who served as China’s top security official and the de facto boss of its oil industry.
But President Xi Jinping has targeted Mr. Zhou in an extraordinary corruption inquiry, a first for a Chinese party leader of Mr. Zhou’s rank, and put his family’s extensive business interests in the cross hairs.
Even by the cutthroat standards of Chinese politics, it is a bold maneuver. The finances of the families of senior leaders are among the deepest and most politically delicate secrets in China. The party has for years followed a tacit rule that relatives of the elite could prosper from the country’s economic opening, which rewarded loyalty and helped avert rifts in the leadership.
Zhou Family Ties
Fri
13
Nov
2015
Are Languages Products of their Environment?
DISCOVER MAGAZINE published this very interesting article:
Languages Are Products of Their Environments
The characteristics that make each language unique may actually be adaptations to the acoustics of different
environments.
Tue
03
Jun
2014
The Case for Reparations
The Case for Reparations
Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
By Ta-Nehisi Coates
May 21, 2014
Chapters
- I. “So That’s Just One Of My Losses”
- II. “A Difference of Kind, Not Degree”
- III. “We Inherit Our Ample Patrimony”
- IV. “The Ills That Slavery Frees Us From”
- V. The Quiet Plunder
- VI. Making The Second Ghetto
- VII. “A Lot Of People Fell By The Way”
- VIII. “Negro Poverty is not White Poverty”
- IX. Toward A New Country
- X. “There Will Be No ‘Reparations’ From Germany”
Mon
02
Jun
2014
A Look At 19th Century Children In The USA
PHILADELPHIA — DINNER with your children in 19th-century America often required some self-control. Berry stains in your daughter’s hair? Good for her. Raccoon bites running up your boy’s arms? Bet he had an interesting day.
As this year’s summer vacation begins, many parents contemplate how to rein in their kids. But there was a time when Americans pushed in the opposite direction, preserved in Mark Twain’s cat-swinging scamps. Parents back then encouraged kids to get some wildness out of their system, to express the republic’s revolutionary values.
The New York Times
Sunday Review
By JON GRINSPAN MAY 31, 2014
Mon
21
Apr
2014
Investigating Family's Wealth, China's Leader Signals a Change
From The New York Times
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and JAD MOUAWAD
APRIL 19, 2014
HONG KONG — His son landed contracts to sell equipment to state oil fields and thousands of filling stations across China. His son’s mother-in-law held stakes in pipelines and natural gas pumps from Sichuan Province in the west to the southern isle of Hainan. And his sister-in-law, working from one of Beijing’s most prestigious office buildings, invested in mines, property and energy projects.
In thousands of pages of corporate documents describing these ventures, the name that never appears is his own: Zhou Yongkang, the formidable Chinese Communist Party leader who served as China’s top security official and the de facto boss of its oil industry.
Write a comment
u=16898 (Sunday, 28 April 2013 06:43)
This is an excellent article! Thank you for sharing with us!