Holidays in Des Moines, 1911

One hundred years ago, holidays in Des Moines apparently involved as much shopping as it does today. Advertisements in the Des Moines Tribune for holiday gifts were plentiful, a couple from stores with names we still recognize.  Younker Brothers had hand bags for $1.29 and wallets for 23 to 69 cents.   At S. Joseph and Sons, “reliable watches can be purchased as low as $10.”  You could buy a “quarter sawed oak finely finished rocker” for $6.45 at Bard & Hammer, and Harger & Blish was your “headquarters for Victrolas and Edisons.”  The Grand was giving “S&H double stamps” all week.  ”Children’s Wash Dresses” were as low as 69 cents at J. Mandelbaum & Sons, and at the Iowa Seed Company you could purchase a Christmas tree holder for 25 cents.  And, as if plucked straight from today’s newspaper, one story’s headline read “Slippers will be popular presents.”

There were pictures of the “new municipal building soon to be occupied.” The Knights Templar ball was held at the Shrine Temple and was “a brilliant affair and one of the notable events of the holiday season,” and there was an abundance of Christmas parties on the Society Calendar. At the same time, the Men’s League for Woman Suffrage started a campaign to organize the state efforts to “grant political rights to women.”

Seven inches of snow covered the city the day after Christmas.  Roads were then unpaved, but if you could get to the Rock Island station, you could travel to Chicago on one of five trains leaving daily.  On the way to the station in your motorcar, you would have to adhere, of course, to the ten miles-per-hour speed limit.

And don’t get the idea that after-holiday clearance sales are anything new.

Des Moines and Polk County City Directories – Online

Checkout our online city directory collection. We’ve uploaded Des Moines and Polk County City Directories from 1866-1922 to Archive.org.

I’ve embedded instructions for optimal online viewing below (you may want to click the fullscreen view button to make the instructions easier to read). Here is a link directly to our City Directory collection on Archive.org.

Enjoy!

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ROADSIDE SETTLEMENT HOUSE

People passing by the large brick building at Seventh and Scott streets in Des Moines may not realize its significance in Des Moines history. The structure, listed as one of “Des Moines Seven Most Endangered Buildings” by the Des Moines Rehabbers Club (2008), was the longtime home of the Roadside Settlement House.

Founded in 1896 by the Kings Daughters Union, a group of church women, the settlement house provided services to the poor, at various times including a nursery school and kindergarten, a public laundry and baths, the city’s first branch library, and a gymnasium. In addition, the 1911 Handbook of Settlements lists the following Roadside activities: employment agency, savings bank, classes in cooking and sewing, dramatic clubs, and Sunday afternoon concerts. Roadside also had one of the few telephones in the neighborhood and residents were free to use it.

When the Depression hit in the 1930s, Roadside developed its own relief programs, which included paying women 25-cent credits for each hour in sewing class. Credits could be exchanged for food and clothing. Unemployed men completed renovation of the building in 1938.

In 1949, Roadside Settlement marked the 50th anniversary of its 1899 incorporation and it continued to offer services to the neighborhood until the 1970s. By then, government agencies had taken over many of the programs previously offered by the Settlement. United Way took over funding of the Settlement in 1968, but withdrew this funding in 1973 and the Roadside Settlement House closed. The name of the house was inspired by a poem by Sam Walter Foss which included the lines:

Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
And be a friend to man.

Sources:
The Des Moines Register, April 11, 1993, page 1C.
The Des Moines Register, June 19, 2002, page 2AT.
Brigham, Johnson. History of Des Moines and Polk County.
Chicago: The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1911.