If you think January sales are a phenomenon of our times, read this advertisement in the Norfolk Almanac, published annually from 1856 to 1860 in the tradition of the Farmer’s Almanac. Shepard & Dewell billed itself as a Cheap Cash Store, offering an assortment of household goods and popular medicines such as Merchant’s Gargling Oil for man and beast. I wonder which 19th century beasts gargled. Ann Havemeyer
