The trades at mid-century, 1956

Polk's South Bend–Mishawaka Directory 1956 · the second sample

The selling, whole. The 1956 classified sorts the clothing trade by wearer. Men's clothing, five houses: Brown's Store for Men & Boys, 110 Lincoln Way W.; Maurice M. Nevel, 107 N. Main; Harry Rosen, 201 E. Mishawaka Ave.; Stein's Clothing Store, 517 N. Main; Fred A. Ullmann, 126 N. Main. Women's clothing, eight: Evelyn's Shoppe, 3708 Lincoln Way E. — the trade reaching out the highway; Teresa G. Herring, 206 N. Main; the Lo-Mar Apparel Shop, 124 N. Main; Lord's Dress Shop, 117 Lincoln Way E.; the Main Dress Shop, 212 N. Main; the Town Shop, 113 Lincoln Way E.; the Vogue, 3005 Lincoln Way E.; and the Winey Ray S. Co., 105 Lincoln Way W. Children's and infants' clothing, two: the Lad & Lassie Shop, 117 S. Mill, and the Menaugh Children's Wear Shop, 108–10 Lincoln Way E. Used clothing, one: the First Methodist Church Thrift Store, 224 S. Church — the charity shop standing in the classified beside the trade.

The making and mending, thinned. Against 1921, the custom trades of 1956 have thinned to single figures. Dressmakers: three — Mrs. Goldie Hodges, 306 W. 3d; Mrs. Pearl Kindy, 120 E. Marion; and the Sew & So Alteration Shop, 610½ N. Main, the home trade joined by an alterations shop. Milliners: one, the Hanna Mary Shop, 207 Lincoln Way W., where four houses stood in 1921. Tailors: one, Walter C. Herzog, 107 S. Church. The classified also carries a trade the 1921 sample does not name: Corsetieres, one entry, the Jamise Corset Shop, 506 N. Main.

Shoes, sold and repaired. The footwear trade stayed a trade of shops even as the works made the goods: four shoe dealers — the Brady Shoe Store, 510 N. Main; the Family Shoe Shop, 106 Lincoln Way E.; Futter's Shoe Store, 116 Lincoln Way E.; Schiff's Shoe Store, 106 Lincoln Way W. — and eight shoe repairers, from the Keiser Shoe Shop at 110 N. Main to the West End Shoe Repairs at 614 S. West and Violi Bros. at 118 E. Mishawaka Ave. Behind them stands the supply house that outlasted in the directories: the George C. Clark Metal Last Co., makers of the metal lasts the shoe factories worked over, at 1101 N. Main in 1956 and at 1107–11 N. Main in 1921 — thirty-five years of the trade's tooling at one address. Dry goods held five houses in 1956, the West End's VanVolsem Store among them; cloth for the house stood under its own heading, Curtains and Draperies — Piser's Drapery Store, 113 N. Main, the Piser name carried from the 1921 clothing and dry-goods listings at 225 Smith — and the cleaners' heading was headed by the Donnybrook Cleaning Co., at 204 N. Ironwood Dr. and 316 Lincoln Way W. Two directory samples, 1921 and 1956, are the whole of this count; the years between them are not a series, and nothing here is extrapolated across them.

Sources:

1. Polk's South Bend and Mishawaka City Directory 1956 (archive.org, 1956-polk-city-directory-south-bend-and-mishawaka-indiana) — the Mishawaka classified, read heading by heading (Clothing—Men's, —Women's, —Children's and Infants', —Used; Department Stores; Dressmakers; Milliners; Tailors; Corsetieres; Dry Goods—Retail; Shoe Dealers—Retail; Shoe Repairers; Shoe Manufacturers' Goods and Supplies; Cleaners).
2. Polk's Mishawaka City Directory 1921 (the Clark last works' first-sample address; the 1921 counts this entry reads against).