Robert Stakeley of the Senator John Heinz History Center gives a presentation Saturday to the Bethel Park Historical Society about the window displays at Kaufmann\u2019s Department Store in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n
When thinking about the window displays at the old Kaufmann\u2019s Department Store in downtown Pittsburgh, most people\u2019s memories probably drift off to the Christmas season and gifts for sale.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s November, so you\u2019re starting to think about holiday gifts,\u201d said Robert Stakeley of the Senator John Heinz History Center. \u201cThat\u2019s what Kaufmann\u2019s would want (us) to do. Sell. Sell. Sell.\u201d<\/p>\n
But despite that rich holiday sales history for Kaufmann\u2019s at its prime location at Fifth and Smithfield in the heart of the Golden Triangle, Stakeley said the display windows also held utilitarian purposes and even promoted civic projects.<\/p>\n
During the early 1940s, one window touted as the \u201cVictory Center\u201d offered visitors updates on the country\u2019s involvement in World War II. The window gave information on soldiers, battles and even periodically hosted radio broadcasts relaying updates on the war effort. Nearby there were displays showing off stationary for families to purchase in order to send letters to loved ones fighting overseas.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they\u2019re still selling stuff,\u201d said Stakeley, who visited the Bethel Park Schoolhouse Arts and History Center on Saturday through the History Center\u2019s Affiliates Program and spent more than an hour speaking to visitors at the event organized by the Bethel Park Historical Society.<\/p>\n
Some window displays showed maps and listed the financial cost to build planes and ships. Others dressed mannequins up in military uniforms to mimic war scenes or had blue jeans-clad women working in the factories, all as a way to advertise for recruitment opportunities or to sell war bonds.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo or three years ago, they were using these mannequins to sell clothing,\u201d Stakeley said. \u201cNow, they\u2019re using them for war displays.\u201d<\/p>\n
None of this was easy work, of course. Stakeley said Kaufmann\u2019s had a team of nearly 30 employees whose only job was to design and create the window displays, regularly changing them depending on the sale or season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had a full-time team,\u201d Stakeley said. \u201cImagine doing those windows every single month, every single season, every single event.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1946 \u2013 just one year after the end of World War II \u2013 a new display called \u201cPittsburgh in Progress\u201d anchored one of the windows. That display touted the city\u2019s renaissance projects in post-war America that also named a \u201cwho\u2019s who\u201d of civic leaders. The following year, a display with the title \u201cPeaks of Progress\u201d showed off the marvels of futuristic prosthetic limbs with a neatly-dressed man framed by the shadow of a one-legged person standing behind him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not all happy go lucky, Santa Claus and toys,\u201d said Stakeley, although he chuckled that the annual Christmas window display always directed children to take their parents to the toy department on the ninth floor.<\/p>\n
Other \u201cPeaks of Progress\u201d window displays showed the power and perils of atomic power or had presentations of local historical sites. One display touted the promise of \u201ccoast-to-coast\u201d television programs, which Stakeley thinks was a clever way to sneak in an advertisement. <\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, they have an appliance section,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But sometimes they weren\u2019t selling anything at all. In 1926. Kaufmann\u2019s created an \u201cinternational exposition\u201d on the sales floor in which nothing was actually for sale. Instead, it gave shoppers a glimpse into the future, including a \u201cphotoradio machine\u201d that would be akin today to a fax machine.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing is for sale,\u201d Stakeley said of the expo display. \u201cImagine just going to Walmart, to Target \u2026 and not being able to buy something on the floor. Can you imagine going there and saying you could see something from the future?\u201d<\/p>\n
People can imagine what it would be like to shop at Target since the big box chain store now occupies the first floor of the former Kaufmann\u2019s in downtown Pittsburgh. While the upper floors of the building are now used as luxury apartments or hotels, that ground level still utilizes the windows to entice shoppers to come inside.<\/p>\n
In the age of online sales, people still like to shop with their eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey didn\u2019t put shades up,\u201d Stakeley said of Target. \u201cThe windows still exist. They want people to see in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Stakeley of the Senator John Heinz History Center gives a presentation Saturday to the Bethel Park Historical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[15363,182,73,75,74,15364],"class_list":["post-23029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-bethel-park","tag-local-news","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-south-hills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}