In Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, we learn that for a few years now, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib have been going Christmas shopping together on the first day of Christmas vacation. Their shopping trips are loaded with traditions; chiefly, that while they visit many stores, they do not purchase anything until the very end. This year, they invite friend and occasional adversary Winona Root to join them, and they share and explain (and require compliance with) every tradition along the way. Winona is prominent in Downtown, inviting Betsy, Tacy, and Tib to the theater, joining them at a fancy party at Mrs. Poppy’s, and surreptitiously arranging to have one of Betsy’s poems published in her father’s newspaper.

The shopping expedition lays bare the girls’ vivid imaginations. They do not allow their meager funds (ten cents apiece) to constrain their fun, for until they arrive at the last store on their list, they do not shop to buy. They shop to shop! They approach this rather like “window shopping,” except that as they venture through Deep Valley’s bookstores, toy stores, and department stores, they examine and handle the merchandise that appeals to them. Tib even sits atop a seven-foot wooden horse. They then each select one item at each store– not to buy, but simply to select! Then they explain and defend their choice to the others, and have fun imagining its use.

With the advent of online shopping, or e-commerce, it is common and easy for an online shopper to click through many stores and items before choosing what will be purchased. The process can certainly take hours, as does the girls’ shopping trip. But generally, online shoppers shop to eventually BUY, and at a consistently increasing pace and volume. In 2025, online buyers spend an average of $5381 in the United States, while by 2026 that amount will likely rise to over $7000, and will surely continue to increase in the future. Even allowing for inflation (ten cents in 1907 would be worth about $3.42 in 2025), that’s a lot more spending than our four girls are prepared to do!

They do make a purchase at their final stop, though; a ten-cent Christmas ornament to adorn their respective trees, which will become a fine collection over the years as the tradition is faithfully repeated year to year. Nothing, Tacy explains, “is so much like Christmas as a Christmas-tree ornament,” while Tib adds, with her usual sensible perspective, “You get a lot for ten cents” (p. 126, Harper Trophy paperback edition, 1993). Given a multi-hour shopping trip, ice cream treats provided at the end of the day by their fathers, and the recommendations that some of the shop clerks will make to the girls’ parents when they embark on their Christmas shopping, that seems inarguable.

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For some e-commerce shopping statistics, see: https://www.yaguara.co/online-shopping-statistics/

An inflation calculator: https://www.in2013dollars.com/

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Modern technology comes to the Betsy-Tacy universe as Mr. and Mrs. Poppy, “city people” transplanted from Minneapolis to Deep Valley, stun the small town with their acquisition of an early model automobile; a “horseless carriage.” Driven proudly (and bravely, some say) by Mr. Poppy, the horseless carriage draws a crowd wherever it goes.

Betsy, Tacy, and Tib had heard rumors of, and seen pictures of, such a vehicle, but had never really expected that one would come to their town. Betsy and Tacy are simultaneously afraid of, confused, and awestruck by the technology. “If there isn’t a horse to say ‘whoa’ to, how do you stop the thing?” Tacy wonders, sensibly (p. 17, Harper Trophy paperback edition, 1993). Tib, however, is unafraid. She angles to be the first child to ride in it (even though classmate Winona Root, daughter of the town’s newspaper editor, generally gets to do the coolest things first via her father’s connections, and has decided to add getting the first ride to her list).

Automobiles were invented in the 1890s, with the 1901 Mercedes considered the first modern motorcar. It could go 53 miles per hour, but was far too expensive for all but the wealthiest consumers. In 1908, Henry Ford’s Model T, and the General Motors company founded by William Durant, disrupted the industry, producing more cars at a lower price point. In the 1910s, “modern” mass production techniques such as the moving assembly line, brought prices down even further, and by 1925, three-quarters of new cars were bought on credit. Starting in the 1920s, the purchasing of expensive goods on credit became established as a middle-class American habit. Of course, cars are now a mainstay of transportation as the technology continually advances. Self-driving cars are the next automobile frontier in the digital age!

While new iterations of cars will continue to figure prominently in the Betsy-Tacy books, this first appearance of the horseless carriage may be the most memorable. Not only do we get to see a brand new technology through the eyes of an amazed crowd of Deep Valley citizens in real time, we are provided a fascinating profile of those early adopters, the Poppys. And we get to see Tib’s bravado shine. Tib boldly asks for a ride, to Winona’s chagrin, and to Betsy and Tacy’s astonishment. Permission granted, she jumps in with the Poppys and rides through town waving to all triumphantly, rather like the queen of summer that she had sought to be a few years prior. The crowd is thrilled. Betsy and Tacy are beside themselves with excitement.

Later, Tib describes in detail the miraculous experience of riding in a carriage pulled not by a horse, but by nothing at all. Julia’s boyfriend Jerry dashes off madly to see it. Betsy’s father tosses his hat in the air, looking rather like a young boy, Betsy notes. A game-changing technological moment had arrived in Deep Valley.

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For photos of automobiles from this era, see: https://www.supercars.net/blog/cars-by-decade/1900s-cars/. From Lois Lenski’s illustration in the book, it seems like the 1906 Cadillac Model M might be a close match to the Poppys’ car.

On the history of the automobile, see: https://www.history.com/articles/automobiles

Upon discovering that Betsy has been reading the dime novels belonging to the family’s “hired girl” Rena, Betsy’s parents develop a plan to ensure that she can more easily access, and hopefully be inspired by, quality literature. They permit Betsy to visit the Carnegie Library and to take herself out to lunch — a first-ever solo expedition downtown that will be repeated bi-weekly. When Mr. Ray presents the plan to Betsy, she is thrilled. Her sisters (Julia and Margaret), Tacy, and Tib are just as excited for her.

On her first visit, Betsy is enchanted by the beautiful new library and its “orderly forest of bookcases, tall and dark” (p. 83, Harper Trophy paperback edition, 1993). She and the young librarian, Miss Sparrow, strike up a friendship that will last through high school. Miss Sparrow recommends some classics for Betsy to read, including Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Tanglewood Tales and the soon-to-be-classic (Miss Sparrow predicts) Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

Betsy digs in and becomes immediately, joyfully, immersed. A broad smile remains on her face throughout her noon lunch break at Bierbauer’s Bakery. She realizes, correctly, that she is experiencing nothing less than a sojourn into adulthood.

The earliest American libraries were generally private or academic collections of books. In 1731, Benjamin Frankin and some of his Philadelphia associates invented the subscription library, purchasing books that would be available to all members. Other subscription libraries followed. Andrew Carnegie funded almost 1700 library buildings between 1886 and 1919, essentially forcing those towns to fund and supply the books and library operations that the buildings had been built for. Betsy frequented one of these. The U.S. library system continued to expand.

Today, there are nearly 125,000 libraries of various types across the United States, in municipalities, schools and colleges, government, the armed forces, and other settings. Libraries provide all kinds of essential services in addition to loaning books, periodicals, and other media. Increasingly, many library services are offered digitally, and are networked together to share resources. Libraries ensure that access to knowledge can be available to all, regardless of wealth. The physical spaces of libraries remain critical in the digital age; they are essential hubs of a community.

The relationship that Betsy forms with the Carnegie Library proves transformative for her. It becomes a source of comfort, friendship, intellectual stimulation, freedom, and belonging. Many of us have been similarly influenced by the libraries that have been part of our lives. While accessing library materials and services digitally is extraordinarily efficient, and has become indispensable for modern researchers and readers, there remains something special and serendipitious about browsing through stacks of books in physical libraries, about working and relaxing in a space filled with their brilliance and beauty. The physical environment of a library is just as meaningful in a digital age as in Betsy and Tacy’s pre-digital world. Maybe more.

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On the early history of libraries, see: https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/library-america

On modern libraries, see: https://libguides.ala.org/c.php?g=751692&p=9132142

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