GENERAL STORES OF CANADA
MERCHANTS and MEMORIES


The General Store is just the place for all the needs of the human race.
-Anne Shirley in the musical Anne of Green Gables.


Interior of the Argyle General Store, Argyle, Ontario (c. 1912). Storekeeper Andy McIntyre, right, and clerk weighing sugar or spices on elaborate scales that are no doubt perfectly accurate. Behind on shelves are items such as corn flakes, tinned food and a sign for Royal Yeast. A kerosene lamp sits on the counter at left. Hydro did not come to Argyle until the mid-1930s. At the time of this photo, Delco generators produced electrical power.

Some of the themes in
GENERAL STORES OF CANADA

General Store Architecture
Canadian products
Credit and Barter
Storekeepers and Inside the General Store
Pedlars, Clerks and Commercial Travellers
The Darker Side of Storekeeping

 

A poster advertising Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, which promised to cure "All Female and Kidney Complaints." In the 1870s, Mrs. Pinkham made a fortune cooking up various roots and then preserving the brew in 18 percent alcohol. Women believed in the cure which sold briskly in North American general stores for almost a century.

One day in 1949, Leo Manning, manager of the Hudson's Bay Company trading post at Coppermine, NWT, records various purchases such as Fort Garry coffee, tobacco and a tin of pablum on a bill. The negotiated value of the customeršs furs (left) would also have been entered.
Filled to the brim with groceries and clothing, these stores had so much more to offer. They were the centre of the community, where people told stories, shared news and advice, and even borrowed money. In General Stores of Canada: Merchants and Memories, Rae Fleming explores our relationship with the general store, once an institution at the heart of every Canadian town. Indeed, many towns and cities were first established by a store, Quebec and Vancouver among them. The book explores the eclectic architecture of general stores, and it ponders their history, from the barter of butter and eggs to the occasional murder.

Richly illustrated with over 300 photos from general stores across the country, the book offers a nostalgic trip back to products such as J.T. Swyers' ''Tasteless'' cod liver oil, and inventions such as Lydia Pinkham's compound cure for ''All Female and Kidney complaints.'' And there in Fleming's stories, squeezed between rubber boots and the kegs of nails, you will hear the whispers of rumour and legend, revealing the humour and the truth about who we once were.

208pp. photos $24.95
ISBN 1-894073-29-0

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Can you guess the most loathed of all Canadian products? >




The Commercial Stores (c. 1910), in Trinity, Newfoundland,
a well-stocked merchant store with a self-confident owner.
This postcard was probably a Christmas gift. On the back,


Second Empire exuberance at Saint-Casimir, Quebec
(near Trois-Rivieres). This is the store and residence of
Napoleon-H. Tessier, designed and built (1904-05) by M.
Gosselin. The store features galleries on upper floors and
an imposing tower, a feature sometimes found on Second
Empire buildings. Tessier was one of five generations of
merchants. The edifice was destroyed by fire in 1929.

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