Food - Drink
The Gender Dilemma That Almost Prevented Grocery Carts From Existing
By CYRENA GOURDEAU
You likely can't imagine buying tons of groceries without a shopping cart, but these carts didn’t even exist until 1937, when Sylvan Goldman, an Oklahoma-based owner of the Humpty Dumpty grocery chain, invented the earliest version. However, American men and women were hesitant to adopt its usage — each sex for different reasons.
Goldman's first carts were based on a folding chair with wheels and large baskets that could hold large quantities of goods, but women, who were largely housewives at the time, already spent most of their days pushing strollers. They were not particularly enamored with the idea of having to push a cart around to buy food, as well.
Meanwhile, some men felt that using a grocery cart to lessen their load would be an admission of weakness, and preferred to use their own brawn to carry groceries. To close this gap, Goldman used the power of influence to change consumers' minds and secretly hired attractive models to push the new grocery carts around stores.
Goldman's campaign using models of different sexes and ages made the new carts look trendy and appealing to all sorts of Americans, and evidently, it worked like a charm. Today, it's hard to imagine stocking up at a grocery store without a cart, no matter your gender, role in your household, or physical capabilities.