FUN WITH MAPS ISSUE 2024-168

By Steve Kovacs (Introduction by Chuck Gibson)

LOVELAND, OH (September 6, 2024) – In this edition of Fun with Maps we learn about putting food on the shelves for shoppers.     

MAKING SHOPPING EASIER

Grocery shopping changed forever when the first “supermarket” opened in 1916 in Memphis, Tennessee. 

The Piggly Wiggly store on Jefferson Street became the model for the future and the world.

Clarence Saunders’ novel idea was to give shoppers a basket and allow them to pick their own items off the shelves.  Previously people had bought food at specialty shops – like butchers, bakeries, produce stands, or farmers markets.  For other items, they were all stocked behind a counter and the customers would request them from the grocer at the dry goods store. 

Saunders believed that customers would enjoy choosing their own items — and maybe even buy more when it was readily accessible.  So, he incorporated all purchases together, arranged by category, on open shelves right at the customers’ fingertips.

The idea began to catch on around the country and was so interesting that when Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip visited the US in 1957, a grocery store was on their list of cultural stops.

Cram’s map of Memphis is presented here from 1898.

Steve Kovacs and his wife Theresa reside in Loveland, Ohio where they raised their two children. He is a passionate collector of antique maps.

Visit his antique map boutique world-on-paper online. Watch for his daily feature Steve Kovacs: Fun with Maps here on Loveland Beacon.