For the Love of Murphy's
The Behind-the-Counter Story of a Great American Retailer
256 pages | 71 illustrations | 8.5 x 10.5 | 2008
ISBN 978-0-271-03370-9 | cloth: $29.95 tr
Paperback edition is not available
A Keystone Book®
Five-and-ten stores were immensely popular during the middle fifty years of the twentieth century, selling cheap, dependable goods to people from all walks of life. Now the product of a bygone era, these stores were revolutionary in their time, but few today appreciate how important they were in creating our present-day consumer culture. In this caring but honest look at one of the best-known chains of five-and-tens, Jason Togyer traces the history of the G. C. Murphy Company, headquartered in McKeesport, Pennsylvania.
Though not the largest chain, nor the first, Murphy's is remembered today as a commercial trailblazer, a corporation run with honesty and integrity, and, at its peak, a retailer whose more than 500 stores managed to outsell those of the giant F. W. Woolworth Company by a factor of three to one. Making extensive use of both the company archives and anecdotes from former employees and customers, McKeesport native Togyer recreates with outstanding detail the world in which the G. C. Murphy Company emerged; its survival and growth during the Great Depression; its response to a strained economy during World War II; its fight against rapidly expanding competitors such as K—Mart; its struggle and recovery in the 1970s; and its unsuccessful battle to stave off Wall Street raiders in the 1980s.
Though modern-day shoppers may not know the Murphy name, they know the legacy it left behind. From its adventurous selling tactics to its strict code of corporate ethics, the G. C. Murphy Company should be remembered not as a dusty relic, but as a pioneer in the American business world.
Jason Togyer is managing editor of The Link, the magazine of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University
Contents
List of Illustrations
Foreword
Preface and Acknowledgments
1 Bethel Park, 1970
2 A Revolution in Retailing
3 The Macy's of Appalachia
4 Can You Spare a Dime?
5 The Murphy Girls
6 At War at Home and Abroad
7 Meals at Murphy's
8 The Fabulous Fifties
9 The Pride of the Chain
10 McKeesport Yankees in Dixieland
11 Determination and Diversion
12 Happy Holidays
13 Home Runs and a Few Errors
14 Triumph and Trial
15 Aftermath and Legacy
Notes on Sources