the.com/welcome wagon
Small-town hospitality with a casserole dish and a secret agenda to sell you Tupperware.
means A service or program—often volunteer or commercial—that greets new residents in a neighborhood with gifts, information, and introductions to local businesses.
from Comes from an actual mid-20th-century American company, the Welcome Wagon service, founded in the 1920s-30s, which sent hostesses to greet new homeowners with baskets of gifts and coupons from local merchants. The name stuck as a generic phrase long after the literal 'wagon' (really a car, then just a representative with a basket) disappeared, becoming shorthand for any organized neighborly welcome—genuine warmth tangled up with a sales pitch.
- origin
- literal horse-drawn wagons in 1920s American towns
- real purpose
- local businesses sponsored visits to gain new customers
- company name
- Welcome Wagon Inc founded 1928, still exists today
- modern form
- now mostly gift baskets and neighborhood Facebook groups