37. Hatbox

This black-and-white cylindrical pasteboard hatbox, with a black cord handle, was made for the Woodward & Lothrop department store in the mid-20th century. Images of the U.S. Capitol and the D.C. monuments appear around the sides, while the lid is decorated with cherry blossoms and logo “Woodward & Lothrop, Washington, D.C.” This hatbox might have been acquired at its downtown flagship store, but also possibly at its early suburban branches in Montgomery County at Chevy Chase (1950) or Wheaton Plaza (1960).

Samuel Walter Woodward (1848-1917) and Alvin Mason Lothrop (1847–1912) moved from Boston to Washington in 1880, opening a successful Boston Dry-Goods Store. In 1887, they established their Woodward & Lothrop department store at 11^th and G Streets, NW, gradually expanding this flagship store to occupy most of the block. Many Montgomery County shoppers, arriving by automobile or streetcar, would patronize Woodies and the other stores of the downtown shopping core.

Alternative options to shopping in downtown Washington began in 1950, when this Washington-based retailer built its first suburban store in Montgomery County at the District Line (its second store was actually a small leasehold inside the Pentagon). Located on Wisconsin Avenue at Western Avenue, this free-standing “Chevy Chase store” had a colonial brick exterior and a modern interior designed by the Raymond Loewy design firm. The opening ribbon was cut by Margaret A.C. Welsh of Rockville, who had been one of the first customers of the partners’ Boston Dry-Goods Store. At the time of the company’s bankruptcy in 1995, this first Montgomery County store was sold to Hechts. In 2006, it was demolished for the creation of the Wisconsin Place shopping area with a new Bloomingdale’s occupying much of the former parking lot.

Woodies also expanded into Montgomery County with anchor stores at Wheaton Plaza (1960), Montgomery Mall in Bethesda (a 1976 expansion of the mall), and Lakeforest Mall in Gaithersburg (1978). The Wheaton and Lakeforest stores were sold in 1995 to J.C. Penney’s.

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