Finding Thalhimers

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If you’ve read Finding Thalhimers or attended one of my lectures, then you already know how devoted I am to recording the history of Thalhimers so it isn’t lost forever. So it is with enormous pleasure and pride that I announce the birth of a new Thalhimers book: Thalhimers Department Stores by Emily Golightly Rusk (Arcadia Publishing, 2014). It’s part of Arcadia’s Images of America series, which preserves local and regional histories using archival photographs, so each book is a vivid walk down memory lane.

My dear friend Emily Rusk spent years piecing together the history of Thalhimers, and — much like in ballet — her painstaking work pays off in the effortless beauty of this book. Each deliciously vintage image and its caption allows readers to peer through a window into a different part of Thalhimers.

Thalhimers Department Stores includes these tidbits and many, many more…

• Did you know Thalhimers had showers for its shoppers in the downtown Richmond store?
• Did you know a series of Surrealist window displays at Thalhimers paid homage to Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali in 1948?
• Did you know Thalhimers had a pet shop in the 1960s?
• Did you know that there was a tiny train for Thalhimers’ youngest customers on the roof of the downtown store in the early 1950s?

If memories of Thalhimers spark any sense of nostalgia for you or your family, then you’ll want to add this book to your collection. Buy a copy from your local bookseller, order one online, or pick one up anywhere Arcadia books are sold (I see them at Barnes & Noble all the time). I couldn’t be prouder to have Thalhimers Department Stores on my bookshelf! Sending enormous gratitude and respect to Emily for birthing this book. Thanks, Emily!

All photos reprinted with permission from Thalhimers Department Stores, by Emily Golightly Rusk. Available from the publisher online at http://www.arcadiapublishing.com or by calling 888-313-2665.