The Bookshop For Boys & Girls
It does not seem possible that there can be any profession with greater satisfactions, a higher daily excitement or a more vital sense of the surging tides of life than that of a bookman in a bookshop.
— Bertha Mahony, qtd. in Ross, 1973.
The Bookshop for Boys & Girls opened in the beginning of October, 1916. It originally displayed only children’s literature of various kinds. The bookshop held all kinds of children's programs, including reading contests. In 1917, Mahony published Books for boys and girls: suggestive purchase list, another first of its kind. In the summer of 1920, Mahony reached out to the community and started the first-ever traveling bookshop. The Book Caravan was a branch of The Bookshop for Boys & Girls, which traveled all around New England. However, it was not able to turn a profit and was disbanded shortly thereafter, despite Mahony’s pleas to her backers.
The Bookshop for Boys & Girls was also given a second look due to profit. In 1921, the bookshop moved down the street into a larger area. The wrap-around balcony displayed children’s books, while the ground floor contained adult literature. The new sign read ‘The Bookshop for Boys and Girls--With Books on Many Subjects for Grown-Ups.’ The hope was to bring children in by adding an adult presence.
Read more about this topic: Bertha Mahony
Famous quotes containing the words boys and/or girls:
“By school age, many boys experience pressure to reveal inner feelings as humiliating. They think their mothers are saying to them, “You must be hiding something shameful.” And shucking clams is a snap compared to prying secrets out of a boy who’s decided to “clam up.””
—Ron Taffel (20th century)
“... the girls who came at dawn
To pay a visit to the young child, and how, when he grew up to be a man
The same restive ceremony replaced the limited years between,
Only now he was old, and forced to begin the journey to the sun.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)