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≡ My Brown Purse ≡

 
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  • Store Descriptions
  • Life explanation
  • Name that movie!
My Brown Purse
 
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shopping for shoes

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Shopping for shoes at Buster Brown's was a whole other experience all together. I felt pampered and treated like royalty. I was seated on a high cushioned leather chair and a salesperson would come along and measure my foot in length and width to determine what size shoe I needed. My mother would then pick out the usual mary janes that would differ in style every year. Sneakers were also purchased which I would never take the initiative to take care of. I was always given a free gift of somesort before we left. It was like a trip to the denist but without someone pulling and tugging into your mouth. I would always stare at the logo of the little boy and his brown dog on the shoe box.


 
Buster Brown - one of the nation's oldest existing children's shoe trademarks - originated as a character in one of the earliest newspaper cartoon strips.

Created in 1902 by Richard Fenton Outcault, "Buster" was a mischievous youngster who, with his sister Mary Jane, and his dog, Tige, were as famous in their time as Orphan Annie and Charlie Brown became for succeeding generations. Buster's Lord Fauntleroy clothes and antic behavior were as familiar to those who read the "funnies" at the turn of the century as Annie's blank eyes or Charlie's inability to coach a winning baseball team.

The late John A. Bush, who at that time was a rising young sales executive with Brown Shoe Company, saw the value of the Buster Brown name as a juvenile shoe trademark. He persuaded the company to purchase the rights to the name from Outcault, and the brand was introduced to the public in 1904 during the St. Louis World's Fair. John Bush went on to become president of the firm in 1915 and Chairman of the Board in 1948.