Henry takes on the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (13 June)

[Joseph Nebus]

I realize that _Henry_ strips are all reruns from indeterminate
dates in the past, but, man, self-service supermarkets of this kind were
old even when _Henry_ was a new comic strip. Well, maybe not quite old,
but *still*.

http://dailyink.com/shared_comics/86d5c625-3230-4177-8564-e81e716119c3
(or) http://dailyink.com/features/Henry/comics/2013-06-13

(I do, honestly, like the strip's deliberate choice to be set
in Vaguely Nostalgic 40s, but sometimes marvel at just *how* strongly
that setting's enforced.)


--
http://nebusresearch.wordpress.com/ Joseph Nebus
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[Evan Kirshenbaum]

nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) writes:

> I realize that _Henry_ strips are all reruns from
> indeterminate dates in the past, but, man, self-service supermarkets
> of this kind were old even when _Henry_ was a new comic strip.
> Well, maybe not quite old, but *still*.
>
> http://dailyink.com/shared_comics/86d5c625-3230-4177-8564-e81e716119c3
> (or) http://dailyink.com/features/Henry/comics/2013-06-13
>
> (I do, honestly, like the strip's deliberate choice to be set
> in Vaguely Nostalgic 40s, but sometimes marvel at just *how* strongly
> that setting's enforced.)

If the "By Carl Anderson" is to be believed, that would put it between
1934 and 1948. Self-service grocery stores date back to the first
Piggly-Wiggly, in 1916, but according to Wikipedia, the first "true
supermarket"[1] didn't open until 1930. I don't see the word
"super[-]market" in Google Books (other than spuriously) until 1938,
and it doesn't even show up in the _NY Times_, presented as something
new, until 1933. So if that's a reasonably early strip, it's quite
possible that supermarkets were something that would be considered a
novelty (and perhaps a somewhat resented one) for much of _Henry_'s
audience. And perhaps for Anderson, as Wikipedia implies that he
lived in Madison, Wisconsin.

[1] As determined by the Food Marketing Institute and the Smithsonian,
using the attributes of "self-service, separate product
departments, discount pricing, marketing and volume selling"

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
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|
evan.kir...@gmail.com | a) 25% c) 0%
| b) 50% d) 25%
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[John W Kennedy]

New-York-based Mad Magazine was poking fun at the supermarket
innovation in the 50s, and I can say from my own observations that they
have only become comfortable in the city in the last few years -- and
still not in Manhattan.

--
John W Kennedy
"The pathetic hope that the White House will turn a Caligula into a
Marcus Aurelius is as naīve as the fear that ultimate power inevitably
corrupts."
-- James D. Barber (1930-2004)