John Benson - Cultures of Selling: Perspectives on Consumption and Society Since 1700

CULTURES OF SELLING

Cultures of Selling

Perspectives on Consumption and Society since 1700

Edited by
JOHN BENSON and LAURA UGOLINI
University of Wolverhampton, UK

First published 2006 by Ashgate Publishing

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 4RN

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

First issued in paperback 2018

Copyright John Benson and Laura Ugolini 2006

John Benson and Laura Ugolini have asserted their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:

Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Cultures of selling : perspectives on consumption and
society since 1700. (The history of retailing and consumption)

1.Retail trade History 2.Consumption (Economics) History

I.Benson, John II.Ugolini, Laura

381.109

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cultures of selling : perspectives on consumption and society since 1700 / edited by John Benson and Laura Ugolini.

p. cm. (The history of retailing and consumption)

Includes index.

ISBN 0-7546-5046-4 (alk. paper)

1. Retail trade History. 2. Shopping History. I. Benson, John, 1945 July 23-II. Ugolini, Laura, 1970- III. Series.

HF5429.C755 2006

339.47 dc22

2005024150

ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-5046-1 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-26278-2 (pbk)

Contents

John Benson and Laura Ugolini

Bronwen Edwards

Victoria Morgan

Gareth Shaw, Louise Hill Curth and Andrew Alexander

Dilwyn Porter

Clive Edwards

Avram Taylor

Joy Cushman

Elizabeth Anne Rothenberg

Christina Schrder

Susan Lomax

The History of Retailing and Consumption

It is increasingly recognised that retail systems and changes in the patterns of consumption play crucial roles in the development and societal structure of economies. Such recognition has led to renewed interest in the changing nature of retail distribution and the rise of consumer society from a wide range of academic disciplines. The aim of this multidisciplinary series is to provide a forum of publications that explore the history of retailing and consumption.

Gareth Shaw, University of Exeter, UK

Andrew Alexander

Andrew Alexander is Senior Lecturer in Retail Management at the School of Management, University of Surrey. Andrew Alexander has published widely on the theme of retail history and related consumption patterns and processes. He is particularly interested in retail change during the twentieth century and is currently working with Gareth Shaw on an AHRC funded research project entitled Reconstructing consumer landscapes: Shoppers reactions to the supermarket in early post-war England.

John Benson

John Benson is Professor of History at the University of Wolverhampton. His recent books include Prime Time: A History of the Middle Aged in Twentieth-Century Britain (Longman, 1997), Japan 1868-1945: From Isolation to Occupation (with Takao Matsumura, Longman, 2001) and Affluence and Authority: A Social History of Twentieth-Century Britain (Arnold, 2005). He is currently working on a study of class, gender and murder in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Wolverhampton.

Joy Cushman

Joy Cushman received her PhD in Economic and Social History from the University of Glasgow in 2004. Her thesis, entitled Negotiating the Shop Floor: Employee and Union Loyalties in British and American Retail, 19391970, laid out a theoretical framework for understanding loyalty as a historical phenomenon and outlined major trends in retail management and labour relations in mid twentieth-century Britain and America. She has published on British and American retail labour and business history. She is now an organiser on economic and social justice campaigns for the Merrimack Valley Project in Northeast Massachusetts.

Bronwen Edwards Bronwen Edwards is a lecturer in the Geography Department at Hull University, and also lectures at the University of the Arts, London. Her recent research is on the architectures and geographies of fashion and shopping. She is involved in the Shopping Routes project on the post-war West End of London, part of the ESRC/AHRC Cultures of Consumption Programme.

Clive Edwards

Following a career in retail house furnishings, Clive Edwards wrote his PhD at the Royal College of Art on nineteenth-century furniture making and technology. Clive Edwards is Reader in Design History at Loughborough University. He has published widely in the field of furniture history, technology and consumption, and has a particular interest in the retailing and economics of home furnishings. His most recent major publications include the books Encyclopaedia of Furniture Making Materials Trades and Techniques (Ashgate, 2000) and Turning Houses into Homes (Ashgate, 2005) as well as contributions to the Oxford Encyclopaedia of Economic History, History and Change, and the Journal of Design History.

Louise Hill Curth

Louise Hill Curth is Senior Lecturer in Health Studies at Bath Spa University. Her interdisciplinary work focuses on popular medical beliefs and practices in early modern and modern England. Recent publications include essays on almanacs, early modern medical books, early modern veterinary medicine and the medicinal uses of wine. Forthcoming works include From Physick to Pharmacology: 500 Years of British Drug Retailing (Ashgate, 2006), Almanacs, Astrology and Popular Medicine 1500-1700 (MUP, 2006) and The Care of Brute Beasts: A Social and Cultural Study of Veterinary Medicine in Early Modern England (Brill, 2007).

Susan Lomax

Susan Lomax received her MA in 2001 and PhD in 2005 from the University of Essex. The chapter in this book is drawn from her dissertation on retail display and its relation to department store organisation and shop labour. She is a tutor in British social history for the Workers Educational Association and is currently working on a historical novel, which has developed from her research.

Victoria Morgan

Victoria Morgan gained her doctorate at the University of Coventry. Her thesis examined consumer spaces in the eighteenth-century provincial town from the perspective of different geographical scales. In particular, it considered the relationship between socio-spatial practices, retail and urban change. Her forthcoming book, co-authored with Jon Stobart and Andrew Hann, explores the nature of shopping and leisure in the English town, c.1680-1830. She now works as a barrister in London and maintains a strong interest in eighteenth-century urban development and local history.

Dilwyn Porter

Dilwyn Porter is Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for Sport History and Culture, De Montfort University, Leicester. He has worked mainly on topics that link business and cultural history, and more recently on the social history of British sport. Recent publications include