Retail and Community

Business, Charity and the End of Empire

George Campbell Gosling, Alix R. Green, Grace Millar

• Publisher: Bristol University Press
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781529235258
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business History
• Index: Business

Retail has never existed in a vacuum.

This interdisciplinary volume explores how English commercial, co-operative and charity retailing were shaped by and in turn influenced their social and political environments, from the local to the global, between the late nineteenth and early twenty-first centuries.

Historians, sociologists, archivists and heritage professionals engage with current debates on the rise of modern business and the decline of the high street, class and credit, professionalisation in the voluntary sector, migration and the end of empire.

This book will be a key resource to better understand retail and community in an era defined by social change, shedding new light on the enduring centrality of community relationships to modern retailers.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• 1 Retail and Community: English Experiences and International Encounters in the Long 20th Century
• 2 The Commodification of Japanese Culture in Transcultural Charity Bazaars: The Mikado Festival and Feast of Lanterns in Darlington, 1887
• 3 Hall and Spindler, Bespoke Tailors and Outfitters of Leamington Spa, 1878–1895: A Study in Retail Credit, Trust and Loyalty
• 4 Shopkeeper and Educator: Aspects of the Co-operative Movement in England, 1870–1914
• 5 ‘By the Army, for the Army’: The Salvation Army’s Early Retail Activities, Criticisms and Responses in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries
• 6 A Labour of Love: The Role of Retail in Salvation Army Rescue Work for Women
• 7 Much More than a Gossip Shop: Black Country Independent Womenswear Retail, Family and Community
• 8 Charity, Community and Trade: The British Charity Shop, 1940s–1970s
• 9 Empire of Charity: The British ‘Helping Hand’ in South African Charity Shops, 1971–1972
• 10 Race, Retailing and the Windrush Generation: Principle and Practice in the John Lewis Partnership’s Recruitment of Commonwealth Arrivals, 1950–1962
• 11 Encounters at the Counter: Race, Class and Belonging in the British Asian Corner Shop
• 12 ‘The Grocer Carried Me for Three Months’: Retail Support for Workers Involved in Extended Industrial Disputes
• 13 Understanding the ‘Gift’ in the Post-Economic Downturn Charity Shop
• 14 Reflections
• Index