PILLS, PETTICOATS AND PLOWS: The Southern Country Store

by Thomas D. Clark ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 3, 1944

This is not a ""country store-keeper"" -- but rather a graphic picture of the South from 1884 to 1918, viewed through the invoices, records, etc. of the country store. Here are community tastes, rural psychology, the account of changes as they occured during these years; the methods of business, the merchandise, the credit system and the storekeeping behind it, the staples. Here are the politics discussed as the store becomes the center of the neighborhood; the crops, the orders, the Post Office business, the traveling salesman, Christmas stock, schools and the sale of equipment and books, clothes for women and men, medicines and the businesses behind them, funerals and what they entailed, heavy farm machinery. This is the story of the business of self sufficiency, the conservative progress that developed, the solace of a community meeting place in small settlements before standardization and chain stores took over, -- this makes an interesting approach to regional rural enterprise, the everyday life of the South.

Pub Date: April 3, 1944

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Bobbs-Merrill

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1944

Categories: NONFICTION