Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–4
store—Silver’s [Isaac Silver & Brothers] in Birmingham, or in the Birmingham area. He did
well: He discovered that you could actually have innovative ideas and people might adopt them.
He discovered that the store had display windows, but they didn’t do much with them. He got
free posters and so forth from travel agencies to give the displays a bit more life; and he changed
them often so that people would notice them.
ASPATURIAN: What era are we talking about?
TOMBRELLO: We are talking about somewhere in the twenties. He was born in 1908, so he must
have been a teenager when the storeowners or managers discovered that this kid had some talent.
They shipped him to New York, where the company headquarters were—again to manage
stockrooms. And when a store became available out in Brooklyn, somebody said, “Why don’t
you try the kid?”
ASPATURIAN: So your father had shown a precocious ability in various areas of—
TOMBRELLO: Retail merchandising. When that Brooklyn store, a small one, opened up, he was
sent out there. In those days, stores stayed open a long time. They stayed open at least six days
a week, and in this particular section of Brooklyn, for reasons that should be obvious, they were
open on Sunday and closed on Saturday. It was a Jewish neighborhood. The company was a
nationwide chain, similar to but smaller than Woolworths, and quite adaptable. They knew how
to work the environment. My father learned a lot in New York. Remember, he had never
finished high school. Sicilian immigrant families didn’t prize education that much; they prized
business success. So he learned a lot in New York. There were museums; there were things to
see. Being there was an education in its own right. But then the Depression came. Silver’s had
trouble like everybody else, and they were going to have to close some stores across the country.
My father had a good job during the Depression, but in some ways an awful job, in that it was to
get in his car, drive to a town that had a branch of the store, sell the merchandise in the store, sell
the counters, whatever he could, get out of the lease, fire the employees, and drive to the next
town.
ASPATURIAN: Oh, my.
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