Service and Style: How the American Department Store Fashioned the Middle Class [Hardcover]

Jan Whitaker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 22, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0312326351 | ISBN-13: 978-0312326357 | Edition: 1st

      Downtown department stores were once the heart and soul of America's pulsing Broadways and Main Streets. With names such as City of Paris, Penn Traffic, The Maze, Maison Blanche, or The Popular, they suggested spheres far beyond mundane shopping. Nicknames reflected the affection customers felt for their favorites, whether Woodie's, Wanny's, Stek's, O.T.'s, Herp's, or Bam's.
      The history of downtown department stores is as fascinating as their names and as diverse as their merchandise. Their stories encompass many themes: the rise of decorative design, new career paths for women, the growth of consumerism, and the technological ingenuity of escalators and pneumatic tubes. Just as the big stores made up their own small universes, their stories are microcosmic narratives of American culture and society.
      The big stores were much more than mere businesses. They were local institutions where shoppers could listen to concerts, see fashion shows and art exhibits, learn golf or bridge, pay electric bills, and plan vacations - all while their children played in the store's nursery under the eye of a uniformed nursemaid.
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 19th century well into the 20th, 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The American department store is "not quite a dinosaur," says Whitaker (Tea at the Blue Lantern Inn), but it has certainly seen better days, and it's that robust era—from the turn of the 20th century to the 1960s—that she chooses to celebrate in this lively pop history. At their peak, department stores were the nation's largest booksellers and many major chains also sold groceries. But it was clothes that made the stores a prime destination for women of all social classes, and Whitaker discusses at significant length the subtle movements through which major chains from one end of the country to the other cultivated their reputations for being up-to-date with the latest Paris fashions, then tapped into additional markets for young adult and children's wear. More than 100 photographs and illustrations are integrated into the text, aptly demonstrating the lengths to which stores went in order to present themselves as elegant yet modern and convenient. Legendary New York chains like Macy's and Gimbel's get much of the attention, but outposts from other regions, such as San Francisco's Emporium or Philadelphia's Lit Brothers, also get due notice, adding an additional aura of comprehensiveness to Whitaker's richly detailed account. 8-page color insert. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School–This well-written book presents a thorough picture of department stores from their beginnings in the late 19th century through their heyday. Readers are treated to all aspects of the stores' histories, from financing to marketing to merchandising; their employment of women, layout, display windows, and architecture; store competition; and, particularly, the move from home sewing to ladies' ready-to-wear. These independent establishments were instrumental in defining and catering to a rising middle class and an integral and hugely important part of urban centers. Then, around 1970, Sears and Penney's stores and discounters in suburbia made the going too rough. Now the big independents with the proud old names are hardly recognizable. The illustrations include photos of store exteriors and interiors and copies of ads. Chapters are broken up by topic. This is an invaluable resource for students of marketing, fashion design, and U.S. history/social studies.–Judy McAloon, Potomac Library, Prince William County, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (August 22, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312326351
• ISBN-13: 978-0312326357
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 8.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #642,916 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am a consumer historian who is fascinated by the intersection of commerce with our everyday lives. I am particularly interested in department stores and restaurants.

Although I had previously written about U.S. department stores, research for this book proved to be quite challenging. It was lucky that I had the free services of a German speaking translator! I think many readers will find the German department stores of special interest since they have received much less attention than the French and English.

One of the things I discovered when I wrote the book is that, despite their individual characteristics, the world's department stores have always had a great deal in common and have all borrowed and shared ideas.

The book is beautifully illustrated with photographs and memorabilia on every single page, many of them in color.

At the moment I am taking a break from preparing a talk I will give next week on the topic of department store tea rooms. As you might expect, I'll be talking about well-known stores such as Marshall Field's, Wanamaker's, and Altman's -- along with too many others to list. Tea rooms actually are the bridge between my first book about the history of tea rooms, Tea at the Blue Lantern Inn, and my second book on the history of American department stores, Service and Style. About three years ago I started a blog called Restaurant-ing through history which is about the history of American restaurants, including tea rooms of course.

Look up my website on the history of department stores (www.departmentstorehistory.net), on which I have a Q&A page. Believe me, the questions posted there keep me on my toes!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From the Up-to- Date in Downtown Troy through Alexander's to A&S in Brooklyn, October 26, 2006

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Service and Style: How the American Department Store Fashioned the Middle Class (Hardcover)

Christina Larsen in her highly favorable review of this book in 'Washington Monthly' notes that one major reason people shop is for 'the experience'. Jan Whitaker chronicles how the Department Store became a central element in American life. She tells of how the great movement from farm to City in the late nineteenth - century , combined with new developments in communication and transportation helped make Department stores the center of American commercial life. Here is Larsen's description of of what Whitaker does in the book.

" She details how department stores, which dominated American retail in the early 20th century, helped give "material expression to vague ideas of what success, femininity, citizenship, and popularity might mean," then put the identifying accessories (briefcase, lingerie, top hat, tennis racket) within reach of most customers. The secret to the stores' success was that they were always selling more than the thing itself."

The Department Store drew the masses into the heart of town. It democratized fashion, and made goods available to the many which were once for the exclusive enjoyment of the wealthy. Though Department Stores sold many different kinds of product, once for instance were a central vendor of books, their major product and great attraction was clothing.

This book will bring a lot of insight into an American institution , and I think for older folks like myself much nostalgic enjoyment. I grew up in the world of Department stores from the 'Up-to- Date' in downtown Troy New York Alexander's in Manhattan and Abraham and Strauss Brooklyn where my Aunt Molly Zeibert of blessed memory was for many years a 'buyer'(Dresses) .

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dead but Not Forgotten, August 3, 2007

By 

Randall L. Wilson "Randy Wilson" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Service and Style: How the American Department Store Fashioned the Middle Class (Hardcover)

Service and Style has a lot going for it. A great mostly unexplore subject, the history of the American Department Story, a great historical theme, the role these stores played in forming middle class style and great photos. Its well written, organized and researched. I have a family connection to Hess's a department store in Allentown and was pleased to find several references to the store and its owner Max Hess. Many of the things my family talked about that made his store special were shared among other stores as well.

Too bad it didn't take it to the next level and show how the stores transformed the American middle class into sophisticated and pampered consumers. Still, it was well-worth reading and for gazing at all the great photographs of a bygone era.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything you ever wanted to know about DEPARTMENT STORES: Late 1800's to 1980's, July 25, 2007

By 

LinAnne "Lin22" (Puget Sound) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Service and Style: How the American Department Store Fashioned the Middle Class (Hardcover)

This book is about the history of the American Department Store, from the late 1800's to the early 1980s.

The author of this book is emphatic about the fact that Department Stores are quite different from the "Catalog Stores" (eg: SEARS), or different from the huge "National Chain Stores" (eg: WAL-MART). So please note that this book is only about "Department Stores" (as stated in the book's title) and NOT about Chain Stores,nor the very huge National Catalog Chains.

Anyhow, this book is very well-written. The photos are mostly in black-n-white, since at that time, most photos were not in color.

The author does a wonderful job at categorizing each chapters into sub-categories, and the author goes into great detail in explaining the issues and experiences that affected the American Department stores (be it, their evolution, but also their demise).