I was at that quaint little hamlet in the late '90s. The family was giving tours during which they talked about the company's history. They also offered you the chance to roll out your own dough, double twist it in one fell swoop, then into the giant pot for boiling, followed by some time in the oven for baking. Quite tasty!

Many years ago I made a repair call at a cookie & cracker manufacturer. Walking across the production floor, which looked identical to the floor in a bowling alley, I made a comment to the maintenance supervisor that it must be really expensive to maintain the floor.

He put me in my place with the comment "You've never worked for a living on your feet, have you?"

Yeah, up to that point in my working career, I didn't have to spend hours a day on my feet.

All this talk of gloves and bare hands and germs and wood floors and sanitation comes from a place where one assumes the olden days were filled with ignorance and disease whereas we enlightened contemporary folk have beaten all filth and nastiness away with science and warning labels and perfect hygiene. I would like to suggest that the change has been as much due to the gradual evolution of our society towards overwhelming litigiousness.

I love wood floors but this would never do today.

Kinda hard to see, on the right side of the tin.

Following up on Sagitta's comment, son Bob, or Robert Eugene Haines would live to 80 years old passing away four days after his birthday on May 25, 2002. He must have joined the Army shortly after this photo was taken as his obituary mentions his service with the 79th Division in the Africa, Italy and European campaigns. He was on one of the first landing craft to hit Utah Beach at Normandy on D-Day Bob was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/54799060/robert-eugene-haines

Notice the five used pretzel cans sitting by the scales. I assume these will be refilled and returned to their owners who probably retail the pretzels at a store or bar. Our local potato chip factory allowed you to purchase a large tin that could be refilled at the factory. This practice continued until just a few years ago.

Those were the days, my friend, before contamination was rampant. Truly hand made! Probably "packed by weight, not volume" too.

So was Mom down with the ovens? A family operation!?!

I'm not sure the original factory was still in use in 1942 -- actually, I rather doubt it

was -- but no matter, it seems like the original production methods still were: if anyone had seen a picture of this and thought it was a typical American manufacturer, their hopes of us winning the war would certainly have plummeted.

Nowadays, everyone would be wearing latex gloves. But it seems there weren't as many germs back then.

Lewis Haines lived at the 'rear' of 14 North Broad Street in Lititz. It looks like it was a smallish company, so with Lewis being 52 and his son Robert 17 that year, there is a good chance this is them. Its hard to tell from Lewis's obituary photo in 1953, but that looks like him in this photo. He'd run the pretzel company for 35 years at that point.