New England's General Stores: Exploring an American Classic

by Ted Reinstein Author of Before Brooklyn, Anne-Marie Dorning (Contributor)

Explore the fabric of America over hot coffee and penny candy. Step through the wooden doors of a New England general store and step back in time, into a Norman Rockwell painting and into the heart of America. New England’s General Stores offers a nostalgic picture of this colonial staple and, fortunately, steadfast institution of small towns from Connecticut to Maine. This is where children of each generation take their first allowance to buy their very own penny candy. Locals have swapped stories at these counters from gossip to whispers of revolution. In tough times, the general store treated customers like family, extending credit when no one else would. Stubborn as New Englanders themselves, the general store has refused to become a mere sentimental relic of an earlier age.

Genres: Travel, Local History, Nonfiction

210 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 13, 2017

Reviews

[Jeanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

The New England States. I love them. Always have. And now I live here.

My daughter came to visit and so we went to the library. And I found this book. And I sat in a sunny window reading about a very nostalgic NE thing, the General Store.

We have one of those stores wrote up in the book, The Harvard General Store. A true gem and the only business that exists, in a rural town some 50 miles outside of Boston. It is the heart, lungs, and brain of where I live. We would be sadly lost without it. Little Women, 2019, was filmed here.

But then there are some more famous stores, like The Vermont Country Store. Or the most uniques store in Windsor ME where they sell guns, wedding gowns, and beer.

It’s a fun book to read full of interesting stories. If you ever visit NE, do try and visit a GS. Where the walls speak and time marches on.

[Pat Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book on the whys, where’s, declines and now restoring of general stores as an important part of a community. Liked that Ted wrote stories and background about these stores that go back 100 years or more and how they have stayed in business Went to his program at our public library and it was so interesting that my friend and I stopped into our Brewster General Store that we have passed many times. No more passing!! What an enjoyable step into the past that we will revisit each time in Brewster.