Selling Hartsville is nothing new

Mac Williams, a Spanish professor at Coker, was doing some research this week using microfiche copies of old Hartsville Messengers. He copied a couple of pages for me from something he came across in his research. If this does not show that there is not much new under the sun, maybe nothing would. Thursday, November 3, 1938 was the final message of a campaign that had been running weekly in the paper since the first of September that year. One of the prominent messages: "What helps business helps you."

Another prominent message, "You can buy these in Hartsville to your advantage..." Under that heading was a long list of things that could be purchased in Hartsville from men's clothing to Refrigerators and from beauty treatments to banking services.

The major message that was carried in these three-quarter page ads were the message of shopping at home. "In each message, an effort was made to shw that by spending money at home the community would be built up to the advantage of all the people who live in it..." Another line noted, "...it is certain that the more money there is spent in Hartsvile, the better aplace it will be in which to live."

From the tone of the 'Final Message' is appears there may have been some resistance to the earlier messages in people thinking they were only to benefit the businessmen of the community. So, the people writing the ad wrote this paragraph: "You are not asked to deal in hartsville to help the business and professional men here. The appeal is made to you in order that you may help yourselves and your families. Incidentally, you will be helping others , too, but the prime thing is that you are increasing the value of YOUR property, are providing more opportunities for YOUR children and YOURSELF. It is YOU who are being benefitted as well as others."

The plea for more people to be involved and for more visibility to our community is one that appears to need constant reinforcing. We hope Hartsville - The Art of Good Living will reawaken all of us on the need to shop Hartsville first!