eBook - ePub

Service and Style

Name: Service and Style
ISBN: 9781429909914

How the American Department Store Fashioned the Middle Class

Jan Whitaker,

368 pages
English
ePUB (mobile friendly)
Available on iOS & Android

eBook - ePub

Service and Style

How the American Department Store Fashioned the Middle Class

Jan Whitaker,

About this book

A comprehensive history of America's downtown department stores and their influence on culture and society—from careers and consumerism to technology.

From Boston to San Diego and Miami to Seattle, department stores symbolized a city's spirit, wealth, and progressiveness. Situated at busy intersections, they occupied the largest and finest downtown buildings, and their massive corner clocks became popular meeting places. Their locations became the epicenters of commerce, the high point from which downtown property taxes were calculated. Spanning the late nineteenth century well into the twentieth, their peak development mirrors the growth of cities and of industrial America when both were robust and flourishing.

The time may be gone when children accompany their mothers downtown for a day of shopping and lunch in the tea room, when monogrammed trucks deliver purchases for free the very same day, and when the personality of a city or town can be read in its big stores. But they are far from forgotten and they still have power to influence how we shop today.

Service and Style recreates the days of downtown department stores in their prime, from the 1890s through the 1960s. Exploring in detail the wide range of merchandise they sold, particularly style goods such as clothing and home furnishings, it examines how they displayed, promoted, and sometimes produced goods. It reveals how the stores grew, why they declined, and how they responded to and shaped the society around them.

Includes photographs and illustrations

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Yes, you can access Service and Style by Jan Whitaker in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Business & Business History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.