The Great Divide

In 1894 President Grover Cleveland designated Labor Day, the first Monday in September, as a legal holiday. But while the day still honors the U.S. workingman, it has evolved over the years into a much more significant date in the life of the American consumer. No seasonal divide so sharply separates the living and buying patterns of men, women and children across the land. Summer is over, no matter what the calendar says, and change reaches deep into the nation's habits, mood and marketplace.

Before Labor Day is a time of fun in the sun in cool cottons and top-down convertibles, of air-conditioned havens in the city or breeze-cooled retreats in the country, of long weekends and skeleton staffs, of foaming beer, dripping ice cream, and dads in funny aprons presiding over barbecues. After Labor Day means back to work, back to school, back to the kitchen.

And as the hunting season opens, the high point of another hunting season is ending: 3,893,521 girls who did not get themselves engaged during the past three months now must begin adjusting their thinking to 1963.

More Stews. Most other adjustments of the season are not so painful. The lady of the house takes over in earnest again on the family range. After a summer of salads, barbecue meats and cold cuts, supermarkets suddenly begin to sell more potatoes, carrots, turnips and stew meats, while small steaks tend to give way in popularity to roasts, ribs and the heavier cuts of meats. Tea slumps, and coffee, cocoa, soups and chili rise. Candy sales --both low-calorie and weight-increasing --jump about 40% in the fall. At the same time, down goes the lowly frankfurter; after Labor Day First National Stores, a chain of supermarkets in New England, New York and New Jersey, sell 50% fewer frankfurters and 65% fewer hot dog rolls.

The liquor industry hails the change of season as the time when people begin to think about restocking their bars, perhaps stimulated by more formal fall entertaining. People switch from gin to whisky.

Wine's popularity increases slightly; the continental airs and graces acquired by summer travelers abroad hike the sales of liqueurs.

Worn-Out Carpets. At the first hint of the shortening day, light bulb sales zoom --even before the bulbs are really needed.

With the onset of cooler weather and a new season, television sets reach their biggest sales; the last four months of the year account for 42% of U.S. yearly sales of TV sets by distributor to retailer.

People begin buying furnishings of all kinds for their houses. "They move back inside the house and start noticing their beat-up lamps and worn-out carpets," says a department store executive in Dallas. "And as people start entertaining more, china and silverware start selling better." The return to school is one of the most potent factors at the turn of the season.

Mothers stock up on steam irons and starch, on lunch meats and cookies, and wax paper and aluminum foil to wrap them in. With schoolchildren's summer freedom restricted, toothpaste sales undergo a sudden spurt. Perhaps because the family once more sits together around the breakfast table, where mom can systematically put a pill by each plate, vitamin sales rise dramatically. And as children again come into close association with each other at school, and colds and contagious diseases rise, druggists also do a booming business in antibiotics, cold remedies, prescriptions and allergy pills.

Then there is, of course, the purchase of school clothes and supplies--one of the biggest splurges of the merchandising year.

For women, the disappearance of the bathing suit only serves to make the beauty business suddenly important: there are roughened elbows to be smoothed, stringy hair to be nourished, tans to be pampered right up until the first snow.

Lipstick shades darken and perfumes change from light mists and colognes to heavier, more "sophisticated" scents. "In August it's Bluegrass," says an Elizabeth Arden executive; "then suddenly it's September and it's Memoire Cherie. Like overnight!" Pipe Time. Department stores do the major part of their business during the last months of the year--right across the boards--but clothing usually leads the way. Back from vacation or their summer resorts, women are ready to spend on the new fall fashions with their usual abandon. Hats and furs come back, edging off the counters the waning summer sales.

Men tend to wait for cold weather before buying heavier clothes, and consider it illogical that women should suddenly eschew white after Labor Day (especially in the Midwest, where white accessories are selling at fire-sale rates).

But men, on the other hand, are often equally arbitrary about the season. Tobacconists--particularly those in college towns--note a considerable rise in the sale of pipes and pipe tobacco during the autumn months. Sports change in a predictable pattern. "We have beautiful autumns in Kansas City," says Golf Pro Darrell Wilson. "It's a surprise to me that fellows who play all summer on Thursday afternoons and weekends, no matter how hot it gets, will put away their clubs after their Labor Day round and not get them out again until Decoration Day." If golfers tend to fade, the return in force of the city hotelkeeper's best friend --the traveling salesman--is eagerly anticipated and heartily welcomed. Says the Sheraton Hotels' Phil Shea: "Labor Day marks the beginning of the prime conventions and the pickup in commercial traveling. As far as we're concerned, it's the beginning of the good season." To greet the good season, Manhattan's Four Seasons restaurant has under way perhaps one of the most elaborate preparations for fall (the restaurant changes its decor and ample indoor foliage four times a year to match the change of season). Since nature is not quite ready to do the job, the Four Seasons now has a small grove of maple trees under refrigeration at a New Jersey nursery to bring them to just the right shade of autumn red.

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