Wednesday afternoon business Holiday?

donbosco

donbosco

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When I was a kid in my small town in #DeepChatham most stores closed on Wednesday afternoon. I’m talking about the 1960-70s.



As best I can gather this appears to have been, at least in my neck of the woods, something that began just prior to World War 2 - perhaps Great Depression related or a New Deal idea?



Evidence

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Note this is from 1973…

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Do any of y’all have recollections of this - or thoughts or speculations on the ‘Why?’
 
I remember it well in South Orange in the 60s Don't know the origin sorry.I will add , every couple months the GF and I will go out to eat on a Moday-only to find our deignation is closed on Mondays
 
The Monday restaurant closing has always seemed to be a custom of sorts - I remember actually coveting the Monday night bar shift because so many cash-rich service workers had that night off after a long weekend. I actually managed the bar in a restaurant that closed Monday’s (the owner/chef wanted a night off) - I convinced him to let me open up at 9 on Mondays, serve very simple food that could be prepped by one person, and have lowkey live music. Some weeks that night could rival a Thursday or Friday for business.
 
donbosco said:
The Monday restaurant closing has always seemed to be a custom of sorts - I remember actually coveting the Monday night bar shift because so many cash-rich service workers had that night off after a long weekend. I actually managed the bar in a restaurant that closed Monday’s (the owner/chef wanted a night off) - I convinced him to let me open up at 9 on Mondays, serve very simple food that could be prepped by one person, and have lowkey live music. Some weeks that night could rival a Thursday or Friday for business.
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My daughter has a restaurant in Southern Village Thank goodness she gets one day a week off............
 
Used to live over on Dogwood Acres - would trek through to woods to SV often. Remember when Sam Schaffer’s (Sam Troll) wife Cindy ran a place over there. This was after Sam died. Gary Crunkleton tended bar there. The name escapes me.
 
donbosco said:
Used to live over on Dogwood Acres - would trek through to woods to SV often. Remember when Sam Schaffer’s (Sam Troll) wife Cindy ran a place over there. This was after Sam died. Gary Crunkleton tended bar there. The name escapes me.
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There was a half Pizza place-half Italian restaurant with a bar?? Right across the iside street from the Movie Show House Now it is Market and Moss-which has a bar The only other bar was at Town hall-and pretty sure that was a different crowd that ran it-runs it now
 
donbosco said:
When I was a kid in my small town in #DeepChatham most stores closed on Wednesday afternoon. I’m talking about the 1960-70s.
Do any of y’all have recollections of this - or thoughts or speculations on the ‘Why?
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I can’t explain why, but everything was closed on Wednesday afternoons in Concord when I was a kid. Downtown shut down at noon, as did doctors offices, car dealerships, and banks. It was my understanding that tee times at Cabarrus Country Club were impossible to get on Wednesday afternoons. I always thought it was related to how retail worked back then. The blue laws kept retail establishments closed on Sundays, and Saturday was a big shopping day. Rather than hire extra people and schedule them to cover 40 hour weeks, it was the custom to give the help a half day off during the week to compensate for working Saturdays.

Interestingly, in Cabarrus County if you needed to shop for something on a Wednesday afternoons you could just drive a couple miles up the road to Kannapolis, which closed down on Tuesday afternoons.


Tom Poland: A Southern Writer

“Wednesday afternoons have long been sacred in small towns. Round about noon places close and the infamous slow Southern life style crawls to a stop. How did this custom begin? Nothing clearly explains how the tradition started but a few theories are out there.

Farmers would come to town Saturdays to buy supplies and transact business. Stores opened half a day Saturdays to accommodate the farmers. It was the week’s biggest payday.

Wednesday was a night for church and prayer meetings, and years ago a big dinner around 5:30 preceded the evening service. Folks needed time to cook and get ready for church.

Another explanation is the fact that stockyards had their big auctions Wednesday afternoons and anyone with market-ready cattle headed to the stockyard. Put all three together and you have good reason to take the afternoon off.

Still, after reading these reasons I still wasn’t sure why Wednesday ended up being “the day.” I appealed to my Georgialina readers for answers. Here’s what others have to say.

McCormick South Carolina’s Bob Edmonds: “In farm-based towns in the early times merchants were open 12 to 14 hours on Saturday. The Wednesday afternoon closing gave them a break.”

Lincolnton, Georgia’s Daryl Bentley, said, “I was always told by Dad that small town communities enjoyed Saturday as the main business day when country folk came to town for their shopping. Taking a half of a day Wednesday prevented businesses from having to work six full days a week.”

Brenda Holloway Sanders of Lincolnton said, “I always thought things closed on Wednesday because of the cattle sales in Washington and something about bankers having to be there to approve money for the purchases.”

Carol Nabers: “When I was younger, Newberry closed at noon on Wednesday afternoons.” Author and Rome, Georgia, native Batt Humphreys grew up in Shelby, North Carolina. He offers an explanation I’ve heard more than a few times. “It was all a construct of the doctors and bankers to get tee times and play golf mid-week, at least, in my small town.”
 
Where I grew up, pretty much everything but the gas stations closed down Wednesday afternoon, including my father's store. But, pretty much everything was open on Saturday mornings. In my father's case, the four hours from Wednesdays were shifted to Saturday mornings. This shift preserved the 40 hour work week and allowed for being open on Saturday mornings without having to pay overtime.

I had always assumed that this shift of 4 hours from Wednesday afternoon to Saturday morning occurred because of the Fair Labor Standands Act (FLSA) of 1938, which was amended in 1940 to require overtime for any work over 40 hours per week. The 1938 version of the FLSA required overtime pay after 44 hours.

Of course there were lots of employers who had 40 hour weeks before this, perhaps most noticeably, Henry Ford, anti-Semite and fair labor pioneer.

ETA: Of course, it is entirely possible the FLSA and its subsequent amendment(s) were merely codifying existing business practices rather than striking a blow for the working man.
 
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Yep in Southern Pines Wednesday afternoon many businesses would have a "Gone Fishing" sign. Most of them were open until noon on Saturday.
 
mpaer said:
There was a half Pizza place-half Italian restaurant with a bar?? Right across the iside street from the Movie Show House Now it is Market and Moss-which has a bar The only other bar was at Town hall-and pretty sure that was a different crowd that ran it-runs it now
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Remember it...very good pizza in fact. Wasn't much of a bar back in those days but I can certainly see it.

The Town Hall was the place of Cindy/Crunkleton. One of my favorite things about living in that area was folks from out of town would call me if they had an extra basketball ticket and I would tell them to meet me at The Town Hall for a beer and then we'd walk down to the buses and head to the Dean Dome. I got to see a lot of ball games that I didn't have on my schedule when I awoke that morning.
 
@O5C40 wrote: "...Fair Labor Standands Act (FLSA) of 1938, which was amended in 1940 to require overtime for any work over 40 hours per week. The 1938 version of the FLSA required overtime pay after 44 hours."


Great lead...I think you're on to something there. Look up top at that clipping from The Chatham Record of 1939 for some slight corroboration.

@farce©'s comment about tee times is something that I had also heard -- but would most likely have been a result of the policy I suspect.

I've also read that since Wednesday night was such a big church night (The ACC did not have basketball games on Wednesday nights in its early years of existence because of church) and many of those services were preceded by pot lucks that some time was needed of an afternoon to prep dishes.
 
Got a wrench in the works...now I have found evidence of the "Wednesday Afternoon Holiday" mentioned as far back as 1913 and being apparently in place in some towns as early as 1917-1918.

In 1913 a Catholic priest, Rev. Ambrose Roche, made national news speaking at the American Federation of Catholic Societies meeting in Milwaukee, by urging that Wednesday afternoons be given over to free time for workers to tend gardens and do other chores. There is also the intimation that Wednesday afternoons would be a good time for recreation, specifically baseball games, as apparently piety and worship were suffering on Sundays because of home work and entertainment.

Interesting to see is the degree to which Merchants Associations are concerned that everyone in a town adhere to the same rules for shop hours excepting most commonly pharmacies and hardware stores (which helps to explain why my father never closed up on Wednesday).
 
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Businesses closed in Rowland NC on Wednesday afternoon in the 60's and early 70's. All the businesses were local merchants who knew each other and I assumed they collaborated to do so.
I think the entry of chain retailers like Walmart, Family Dollar,etc. meant lost sales for the locals and ended the practice.
 
I work with lots of people in Belgium, where employers are mandated by law to let workers choose a 4-day work week if they desire (same amount of hours, just over 4 days). Almost everyone takes Wednesday off. Schools in Belgium have traditionally had half days on Wednesday, so it allows for extra time with family. They seem to really like it.
 
nrsair said:
I work with lots of people in Belgium, where employers are mandated by law to let workers choose a 4-day work week if they desire (same amount of hours, just over 4 days). Almost everyone takes Wednesday off. Schools in Belgium have traditionally had half days on Wednesday, so it allows for extra time with family. They seem to really like it.
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About 50 years ago, my brother-in-law worked at the UNC Press and had the option of working either 5 eight hour days (M-F) or 4 ten hour days (M-Th). He picked the 4-ten schedule. He said getting up on Thursday morning, knowing he had a 10 hour day a head of him, after three previous 10 hour days, was tough. But he also said having a beer on Saturday night after having been off for two full days and realizing he still had another day off to go made it all worth it.
 
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