World Of Department Stores

"This is the first beautifully illustrated book on department stores, with photographs and ephemera from all over the world. Born in the Gilded Age in France, the department store grew up thanks to the industrial revolution, the rise of the middle class, and the invention of steel-frame architecture and the elevator. Spectacular entrances led to marble staircases and floor after floor of merchandise and amenities. These emporiums also inspired a whole new way of merchandising: shopping became an entertainment rather than a laborious grind; posters and advertisements were made by the great artists of the time; and elaborate shop windows attracted thousands of people during the holidays. The department store quickly spread through Europe and Asia and then the New World, and great architects were employed to build these temples of consumerism, where dreams were created and then fulfilled"--

The geography of American retail has changed dramatically since the first luxurious department stores sprang up in nineteenth-century cities. Introducing light, color, and music to dry-goods emporia, these "palaces of consumption" transformed mere trade into occasions for pleasure and spectacle. Through the early twentieth century, department stores remained centers of social activity in local communities. But after World War II, suburban growth and the ubiquity of automobiles shifted the seat of economic prosperity to malls and shopping centers. The subsequent rise of discount big-box stores and electronic shopping accelerated the pace at which local department stores were shuttered or absorbed by national chains. But as the outpouring of nostalgia for lost downtown stores and historic shopping districts would indicate, these vibrant social institutions were intimately connected to American political, cultural, and economic identities. The first national study of the department store industry, From Main Street to Mall traces the changing economic and political contexts that transformed the American shopping experience in the twentieth century. With careful attention to small-town stores as well as glamorous landmarks such as Marshall Field's in Chicago and Wanamaker's in Philadelphia, historian Vicki Howard offers a comprehensive account of the uneven trajectory that brought about the loss of locally identified department store firms and the rise of national chains like Macy's and J. C. Penney. She draws on a wealth of primary source evidence to demonstrate how the decisions of consumers, government policy makers, and department store industry leaders culminated in today's Wal-Mart world. Richly illustrated with archival photographs of the nation's beloved downtown business centers, From Main Street to Mall shows that department stores were more than just places to shop.

Originally published in 1999, Cathedrals of Consumption examines the history of the department store. After many decades in which it was almost exclusively historians of retailing and company biographers who were interested in the phenomenon, the department store has now come to attract the attention of historians of culture, consumption, gender, urban life and much more. Indeed, the department store in its classic era of expansive growth has often seemed better than anything else to embody the cultural and social modernity of its time. The articles in this book range widely in presenting the breadth of these new approaches to department store history. An introductory essay explores the questions that surround the department store from its appearance in the mid-nineteenth century, through its golden age in the decades before the First World War, to the challenges posed in the more competitive world of inter-war Europe. A dozen contributors - writing about Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and Hungary - then examine themes as varied as the new public space which department stores provided for women, the politics of consumption, the architecture of the new stores, the training of the workforce, the cult of shopping, advertising strategies, shoplifting, employer organisations, and the geographical spread of the new stores, while a comparison with eighteenth-century London raises the question of just how new the department store was.

Where, under one roof, can shoppers find Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Prada, Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen? And where, besides the great department stores of Europe, Japan and America, is it possible for shoppers to spend the day in an extraordinarily opulent setting, drifting from shoes to cosmetics with a stop for a light lunch on the seventh floor and a visit to the bookstore, florist or hairdresser? This is the first illustrated book on department stores, with photographs and ephemera collected from all over the world. Born in the Gilded Age in France, the department store grew up thanks to the Industrial Revolution, the rise of the middle classes, and the invention of steel-frame architecture and the elevator. This lavish book goes behind the fabulous window displays, eye-catching shopping bags and instore extravaganzas promoting everything from shoes to perfumes to the latest fashion sensation to reveal and celebrate the department store in richness and detail.

In the late nineteenth century, San Francisco's merchant princes built grand stores for a booming city, each with its own niche. For the eager clientele, a trip downtown meant dressing up--hats, gloves and stockings required--and going to Blum's for Coffee Crunch cake or Townsend's for creamed spinach. The I. Magnin empire catered to a selective upper-class clientele, while middle-class shoppers loved the Emporium department store with its Bargain Basement and Santa for the kids. Gump's defined good taste, the City of Paris satisfied desires for anything French and edgy, youth-oriented Joseph Magnin ensnared the younger shoppers with the latest trends. Join author Anne Evers Hitz as she looks back at the colorful personalities that created six major stores and defined shopping in San Francisco.

Publisher Description

In the late nineteenth century, the urban department store arose as a built artifact and as a social institution in the United States. While the physical building type is the foundation of this comprehensive architectural study, Iarocci reaches beyond the analysis of the brick and mortar to reconsider how the ‘spaces of selling’ were culturally-produced spaces, as well as the product of interrelated economic, social, technological and aesthetic forces.