LaborArts


Photograph

Item no. 22014
1957
New York
Occupation: Retail and wholesale - department stores, grocery stores, warehouses
Collection: Wagner Labor Archives

Photograph of Gimbels sales woman with customers.  Eighth-floor sales at Gimbel's department store. About a quarter of the city's workforce was employed in the retail and wholesale trades at midcentury, and that figure held steady throughout the century.

In 1947 Labor Arts co-historian Henry Foner co-authored with Norman Franklin a musical comedy, "Thurdsays 'Til Nine," which was presented by the CIO's Department Store Employees' Union.  The play depicted a slice of life in the R.H. Maybe department store.

Image from the District 65 Collection.

See this image in the Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives exhibit.

Item image not found

View other items in the thematic sets:

1950s

All Photographs

Henry Foner

Photographs of Interior Scenes

Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives

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