If baby needs shoes Don't buy booze

Thursday, 30 September 2010 00:00

September 29, 1921. "If baby needs shoes, don't buy booze," an occasional barroom sign once is said to have once warned improvident bar flies, apparently to little effect. So when prohibition closed the barrooms, was there a boost in the sale of shoes?

Yes, indeed, said Arthur Congdon, president of Congdon Marsh, wholesale shoe dealers, in a talk to the Forum at a Winnipeg Shoppers' Exhibition. As reported in the Winnipeg Free Press:

"The abolition of the bar, said Mr. Congdon, had resulted in a tremendous increase in the demand for children's boots and shoes and for footwear of that nature of a far superior quality to that purchased some years ago. The people, he believed, were able to spend the money they formerly handed over the bar, for good boots and shoes for the kiddies and that alone was a great blessing and a very satisfactory result of the abolition of the bar."

"Rain in torrents… failed to stem the tide of people visiting the exposition" to see a fashion show and product displays and demonstrations, while "The Forum entertainments were heavily patronized last night," the Free Press reported. Entertainment consisted of movies and two lectures, the one by Congdon and another by an advertising executive. The cinematic delights featured "pictures showing various operations in many Canadian industries and the manufacturing processes of a large number of goods."