Nov 3, 2025 By Mike Jones 4 min read

When thinking about the window displays at the old Kaufmann’s Department Store in downtown Pittsburgh, most people’s memories probably drift off to the Christmas season and gifts for sale.

“It’s November, so you’re starting to think about holiday gifts,” said Robert Stakeley of the Senator John Heinz History Center. “That’s what Kaufmann’s would want (us) to do. Sell. Sell. Sell.”

But despite that rich holiday sales history for Kaufmann’s at its prime location at Fifth and Smithfield in the heart of the Golden Triangle, Stakeley said the display windows also held utilitarian purposes and even promoted civic projects.

During the early 1940s, one window touted as the “Victory Center” offered visitors updates on the country’s involvement in World War II. The window gave information on soldiers, battles and even periodically hosted radio broadcasts relaying updates on the war effort. Nearby there were displays showing off stationary for families to purchase in order to send letters to loved ones fighting overseas.

“But they’re still selling stuff,” said Stakeley, who visited the Bethel Park Schoolhouse Arts and History Center on Saturday through the History Center’s Affiliates Program and spent more than an hour speaking to visitors at the event organized by the Bethel Park Historical Society.

Some window displays showed maps and listed the financial cost to build planes and ships. Others dressed mannequins up in military uniforms to mimic war scenes or had blue jeans-clad women working in the factories, all as a way to advertise for recruitment opportunities or to sell war bonds.

“Two or three years ago, they were using these mannequins to sell clothing,” Stakeley said. “Now, they’re using them for war displays.”

None of this was easy work, of course. Stakeley said Kaufmann’s had a team of nearly 30 employees whose only job was to design and create the window displays, regularly changing them depending on the sale or season.

“They had a full-time team,” Stakeley said. “Imagine doing those windows every single month, every single season, every single event.”

In 1946 – just one year after the end of World War II – a new display called “Pittsburgh in Progress” anchored one of the windows. That display touted the city’s renaissance projects in post-war America that also named a “who’s who” of civic leaders. The following year, a display with the title “Peaks of Progress” showed off the marvels of futuristic prosthetic limbs with a neatly-dressed man framed by the shadow of a one-legged person standing behind him.

“It’s not all happy go lucky, Santa Claus and toys,” said Stakeley, although he chuckled that the annual Christmas window display always directed children to take their parents to the toy department on the ninth floor.

Other “Peaks of Progress” window displays showed the power and perils of atomic power or had presentations of local historical sites. One display touted the promise of “coast-to-coast” television programs, which Stakeley thinks was a clever way to sneak in an advertisement.

“Of course, they have an appliance section,” he said.

But sometimes they weren’t selling anything at all. In 1926. Kaufmann’s created an “international exposition” on the sales floor in which nothing was actually for sale. Instead, it gave shoppers a glimpse into the future, including a “photoradio machine” that would be akin today to a fax machine.

“Nothing is for sale,” Stakeley said of the expo display. “Imagine just going to Walmart, to Target … and not being able to buy something on the floor. Can you imagine going there and saying you could see something from the future?”

People can imagine what it would be like to shop at Target since the big box chain store now occupies the first floor of the former Kaufmann’s in downtown Pittsburgh. While the upper floors of the building are now used as luxury apartments or hotels, that ground level still utilizes the windows to entice shoppers to come inside.

In the age of online sales, people still like to shop with their eyes.

“They didn’t put shades up,” Stakeley said of Target. “The windows still exist. They want people to see in.”