Greenbelt Consumer Services
Greenbelt Consumer Services
When citizens first began moving into Greenbelt,
Maryland they had a sense of importance. It was intended
for the residents to put as much into the town through
social, political, and economic cooperation as the planners
had through the design of the physical aspects. To ensure
this, the families were chosen in part for their interest in
community affairs. Will Alexander, deputy administrator in
the Suburban Division of the Resettlement Administration,
dubbed the Greenbelters "pioneers...on a new frontier."(1)
The citizens felt like pioneers and banded together as a
result. The Greenbelt Citizens Association was founded on
November 8, 1937 only a month
after residents beganmoving into Greenbelt. It was the first of many
organizations that helped to define the community in Greenbelt.
An important group of organizations in Greenbelt were
the co-ops.
One of the first organizations formed in Greenbelt was the
Cooperative Organization Commitee. The COC helped people with common
interests and goals educate themselves and organize to form
cooperatives. These
organizations allowed members of the community to join together
to
benefit the community. One of the most notable co-ops in Greenbelt, and
even in the
surrounding areas, was the Greenbelt Consumer Services. In this article,
I will describe
the first 20 years of its operation. The accompanying timeline gives a
concise sequence of
events.(2) Various hyperlinks in the text will
automatically scroll you
to the date you are looking at to give you an idea of surrounding events.
The Consumers' Distribution Corporation was an
organization established by Edward
A. Filene
with the
purpose of helping consumers organize to form their own
co-op department stores.(3) Filene endowed the
corporation with an initial one million dollars. It was
planned to form co-ops in each of the "green" towns, but
the project came to be under different jurisdiction and the
Farm Securities Administration (FSA) could not get the
funds to loan to the residents. The FSA looked to Filene's
corporation to aid the residents in the formation of the co-
op. The CDC agreed and formed the Greenbelt Consumer
Services which would organize and manage all commercial
facilities in Greenbelt until the citizens could take over
management. The CDC advanced the sum of fifty thousand
dollars towards the
construction
of a supermarket, drug
store, barber shop, beauty parlor, movie theater, filling
station, and laundromat. A grocery store at a temporary
location was opened on October 3,
1937. It made $11.45
from 24 customers on the first day. In 1938 Walter
Volckhausen and a large number of citizens began to
organize a co-op. The co-op would take over GCS once
half of the town's families became members. By 1939, 400
residents had bought stock at ten dollars a share to amass
five thousand dollars in the co-op's treasury. Finally, the
Greenbelt Consumer Co-op purchased
the GCS from the
CDC for $40,000 on January 2, 1940. 5,000 dollars was
paid in cash and the other $35,000 was to be paid back at
four percent interest over the next few years. On this day
the former board of directors under the jurisdiction of the
CDC stepped down from their positions and nine new
members were elected as the first Board of Directors of the
Greenbelt Consumer Services under the ownership of the
Greenbelt Consumers Co-op. Walter Volckhausen, a math
professor, at the University of
Maryland, was selected as the
first president less than a month
later.
The co-op was in strong financial position from the
beginning. Greenbelt initially had little competition and a
large town which depended on GCS for many services. One
key element to GCS success was its expansion in response
to competition. In 1945 the Co-op launched a huge stock
drive to fund the construction of a large, modern
supermarket. The attempt was a success, raising $53,000
which allowed the Co-op to pay of its debt to CDC and
build the supermarket. The citizens unity helped to keep the
GCS in business. The GCS also experimented with
different services. GCS purchased a bus and ran a
transportation service for residents. During the
construction of the new
supermarket the bus was converted
into a traveling store.
For the next few years GCS expanded into the
surrounding towns and counties. Shopping centers were
opened in Takoma Park and
Wheaton. The opening day
crowd in Wheaton was the largest in the Washington area to
that date and the sales totaled $127,000 during the first
week.
The Greenbelt Consumer Services provided a
variety of valuable services to the people of Greenbelt and
later to much of the Washington area. For the first thirteen
years GCS sold its services for good prices and accumulated
savings for its patrons totaling $595,000 (3). This is an
example of how a co-op can be successful even when faced
with private competition.
Are co-ops good or bad for the
U.S.?
A look at links to Greenbelt.
Bibliography
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