Aug29

no cart and buggy.

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During the Great Depression in the 1930s, most Americans were just trying to get by, and few had the luxury of coming home from the grocery store with extra items. But that didn’t stop an Oklahoma grocer from coming up with the idea of a shopping cart, an invention that started out almost as disdained as it was practical.

The man behind the idea was Sylvan N. Goldman, owner of the Humpty Dumpty grocery chain. Interested in increasing his sales, he often paid close attention to how people shopped. One thing stood out: Customers would stop shopping once their handheld baskets got too heavy. Goldman started thinking: What if there were a way for shoppers to carry more with less effort? As an experiment, he took a folding chair, added wheels to the legs, and placed a basket on the seat. He then attached a platform between the chair’s supports to hold a second basket, creating a two-tiered cart that shoppers could push.

When he rolled out these new grocery carts in 1937, he expected a runaway hit, but the reaction wasn’t exactly enthusiastic. Women, already used to pushing strollers, weren’t eager to push another one at the store. Men, on the other hand, preferred not to push something stroller-like at all, they felt it was too feminine. To get people on board, Goldman got creative. He hired store greeters to hand shoppers a cart, and even paid female and male actors/models to walk around shopping with them. Slowly, the idea caught on, and once it did, there was no going back.

—

‘why do I always choose the shopping cart with the squeaky wheel?

it is my bad luck, or are all the carts dysfunctional?’

-rachel nichols

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source credits: history facts, npr, mallory yu

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83 responses »

  22. So, that is another interesting and funny fact. I never thought that there was a time without baskets or shopping carts in the store. However, I had not thought either that people needed to be introduced to them with such tricks.

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  23. Interesting but also a little sad that the reason he came up with the idea of a shopping cart was to make more money and not to make shopping easier for people. And yeah, who wants to push around something that resembles a stroller…that’s only for women. :( Chris

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  25. I love this SO MUCH. I don’t know if it’s a Michigan thing, Beth, or just my rural Ohio roots coming through, but it never mattered how far away Sue was from her small-town days. Any time she was out shopping and needed a cart she’d bellow for a “buggy”. Let’s just say she was quite the spectacle in some of the swankier gourmet food shops when she and Sonny moved to California. Thank you for prompting a fun memory and offering a history lesson, too! 🥰😜🥰

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  26. Men are so fragile…pushing a cart too feminine. Glad that’s over, now if we could change a LOT of other things about them…. I can’t even imagine shopping without a cart. And a lot of carts pull to one since, or make noise, or just don’t work at all. So funny. :)

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  27. Such a practical idea.
    “So tell me about your acting experience.”
    “Well, I’ve never been on stage or in the movies, but I gave an award-winning performance at the Humpty Dumpty pushing a shopping cart around last week.”

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  38. This was so fascinating to read about, Beth! I never ever thought before about how shopping carts were invented. From humble beginnings to now something we take for granted. I love the cleverness of which the inventor overcame the initial resistance to using carts too!

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