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

by Jan Whitaker

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 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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Fashion, Business, Research, Economics, American History

352 pages, Hardcover

First published August 22, 2006

About the author

In a sense I backed into writing books via a postcard collection. After years of collecting postcards of restaurants and tea rooms, I wanted to learn more about them and began sending around a proposal for a book on tea rooms. I love doing research and visiting libraries and archives. When I published Tea at the Blue Lantern Inn: A Social History of the Tea Room Craze in America in 2002 it had not yet become possible to do historical research online like it is now so I had to really search for anything about old tea rooms from the teens and 1920s. My next book, on the social history of department stores (Service and Style: How the American Department Store Fashioned the Middle Class) had a chapter on tea rooms in it too. Both books were illustrated with postcards and menus that I had collected.
My most recent books is The World of Department Stores (2011) and is beautifully illustrated and designed. In this case, though, the picture editors were in Paris!
The book "that got away" may be the one I'd love to do now, on the social history of American restaurants. Alas, I don't think there's a place for it under the new realities of publishing! So in the meantime I am consoling myself with my blog "Restaurant-ing through history." I have to say that I love handling the editorial, illustrating, and writing roles all at once, as well as hearing from people from all over the world.

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent my semester researching a historic department store in Baltimore, and I used this book. Perhaps a bit heavy on the nostalgia, but Whitaker is correct in pointing out that department stores were considered to be a threat to small dry goods dealers, and were viewed much as some view Walmart today. Because of this book, I wasn't surprised to find that the Maryland legislature repeatedly brought forward an "anti-department store bill," starting in the 1890s.

I don't know whether it was a nationwide thing, but many of Baltimore's department stores discriminated against African Americans. I believe Whitaker touches on this issue. Some books on the history of the department store don't address this at all--would that ruin the image of the "good old days" so often portrayed in these sorts of books?

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jan Whitaker has cornered the market on documenting retail history. This was a really fascinating look at the history of the department store. Lighting and air conditioning played a big part in its early success and its view of how "the other half" lived was available for everybody to see and buy.

[Leslie Goddard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptionally well-researched and insightful book covering the broad history of department stores. I rank this book highly based on the amazing depth of research done and how well it pulls together strands of insights from so many stores from all across the country.

What is curious to me about this book is why the publishers chose to market it to a general public audience. Yes, of course, I know, it’s for sales. And I won’t knock it for that.

But this really isn’t a nostalgia book. And in my experience, many people’s interest in department store history is highly local (most department stores were local or at most regional) and deeply nostalgic.

Sure, there are some great nostalgic photos and reminiscences about individual stores but anyone looking for a happy trip back in time to experience, say, Dayton’s or Rich’s or Marshall Field’s in any depth, will likely be disappointed. There are only a few references to any particular store. It’s more a broad survey of many, many department stores. Breadth, not depth, matters here and that’s likely to disappoint many general readers.

This is much more a book that’s useful to scholars/historians/academics in its content, but with no footnotes or citations, it’s less helpful to other historians than it could be.

Still, this is my go-to source in understanding how American department stores rose and evolved, how they helped Americans grasp what it meant to be “middle class,” and why they receded in the later years of the 20th century.

[Bexan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the history of the American Department store as told by Jan Whitaker! I've been info dumping super hard to all of my friends as of late about the different parts of this book. Weirdly I found the sections about how department stores handled the social hang ups of the 1870s-1960s in the American mindset, such as calling cocktail dresses "After-Five Dresses" or firing employees who wore horse themed ties to avoid a gambling obsessed employee.
The only negative things I have to say about this book is that there were a few sentences that were very confusing to read, either due to poor editing or simple typos in printing, and that the book didn't have enough of the men's departments. The last may not have been Mrs. Whitaker's fault, however, as menswear has never been a leader in the fashion industry and she simply couldn't find enough good information to include. Still, the short blurbs she did have on men's relationships with department stores were absolutely FASCINATING to me!!!

[Vandy Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating history about an essential element of 20th century America.

The writing is a little too dry and textbooky for my taste.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Coincidentally, this book found me as Masterpiece Theatre is between two series set in department stores: Mr. Selfridge and The Paradise. Both are relatively mediocre series, but that's beside the point. This book is great background and detail on the development of department stores, back when they were way more than department stores as I know them. I can't say I'm nostalgic for them, as the author seems, but I do miss companies investing money in really attractive architecture. Tar-jay, eat your heart out.

MHC sighting: "The first college shop in a department store was opened in August 1930 at Stern's in New York City, at the inspiration of the store's advertising head, Estelle Hamburger, who got the idea from a Mount Holyoke student. The student informed her that department stores had no idea what college women liked. We dislike 'S.S. and G. stuff,' she said - 'sweet, simple, and girlish' things, which she dismissed as 'coy clothes that nobody wants.' Give us sweaters in subtle colors, Harris tweed coats, saddle oxfords, warm bathrobes, and chic red evening dresses, she proposed." Ah, where would American prep clothing be without Mohos!! (It goes without saying that I endorse this wardrobe.)

[Yvonne O'Connor · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book takes a look at the development of the American Department store from the late 1800's to present day. We see how independent mercantile's evolved into giant chains and how these mega-stores learned to adapt with the tinsel to outlive war, the Depression and changing needs and wants of consumers. At 321 pages, every possible aspect is covered, from food service to lines of credit, to children and teen departments, to the buildings themselves.

Although I am a huge fan of department stores and was nostalgic at the loss of Field's, this book was really too long to be enjoyable. Certain chapters were extremely dry and boring (like "Everything for the Home" and "Fashioning the Teen Market"). I would have liked more detail on the founders and families who built the stores and made the changes rather than page after page detailing sizes of buildings and details on cash to credit business.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the history of retailing. I just finished "Look to Lazarus", the sole purpose of which was to indulge baby boomer nostalgia: oh we loooved our department store downtown, things were so much better then...
By page 12 of this book I am disabused of the notion that department stores were universally adored. In the late 19th century people slammed them just the way we do malls and chain stores now. they were said to be putting small merchants out of business, mistreating employees, selling shoddy goods at cut-rate prices and encouraging the evils of consumerism and instant gratification. Sound familiar? And yet somehow millions of people managed to hold their noses and shop there. As we do now. This is going to be good.

[Tera · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to know how things used to be before the malls and big box stores then read this book. The author breaks it all down socially, economically and historically. She really sums it up in the end: yes, we have come full circle. If you are into the retro world, you'll appreciate this book.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read on how an American business segment adapted to the current needs of their customers, and at the same time "taught" their customers what was "proper" about shopping. Too much detail for the casual reader, but easy to skim.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great illustrations.

[Liza · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was boring.