"Give the lady what she wants!"-- Marshall Field

This Week:

This class will focus on the role of the department store in shaping the culture of consumption in Chicago during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We will examine a variety of primary materials in order to sharpen our understanding of consumption from a variety of vantage points, from the consumers to the department store managers and owners (taking Marshall Field & Co. as our prime example) to the employees who worked in the stores, and finally to the popular and scholarly writers who have observed these institutions and events.

Readings:

• In course packet:
  Newspapers:
  "Chicago's World-Famous Institution," Chicago Journal, September 26, 1903
  Advertisements: (special pull-out section)
  Chicago Tribune, February 1, 1892, p. 8.
  Chicago Times, August 8, 1893, p. 8.
  Chicago Inter-Ocean, September 29, 1902, p. 12
  Chicago Inter-Ocean, September 30, 1902, p. 12
  Chicago Tribune, October 1, 1902, p. 16
  Chicago Tribune, July 27, 1903, p. 7.
  Pamphlets issued by by Marshall, Field & Co.:
  Hamilton Hull, "Impressions of a Great Store," from Marshall Field & Co., The World's Greatest Merchandisers (Chicago: Marshall, Field & Co., 1907), pp. 9-35.
  "How to Choose Toys for a Child," (Chicago: Marshall, Field & Co., 1911)
  Imaginary letter from Martha Freeman Esmond to Julia Boyd, April 15, 1890 (Chicago: Marshall, Field & Co., 1940)
  "Labor Saving Exhibition, November 11 to 20, 1920," (Chicago: Marshall, Field & Co.1920)
  "Man and His Wardrobe: An Historical Impression of Attire," (Chicago: Marshall, Field & Co., 1920), pp. 1-31.
  "Marshall Field and Company," (Chicago: Marshall, Field & Co., 1913)
  Trade publications:
  L. Frank Baum, The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows and Interiors (Chicago, 1900), pp. 82-91, 97-100.
  "A Marvelous Equipment for Ideal Merchandising," Chicago Dry Goods Reporter (October 11, 1902), pp. 2-16
  "A Marvelous Equipment for Ideal Merchandising," Chicago Dry Goods Reporter (October 11, 1902), pp. 2-16
  Scholarly literature:
  Annie W. MacLean, "Two Weeks in Department Stores," American Journal of Sociology, VI (May 1899): 721-741.
  Neil Harris, "Museums, Merchandising, and Popular Taste: The Struggle for Influence," Cultural Excursions: Marketing Appetites and Cultural Tastes in Modern America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 56-81. (first published in 1978). Note: this is in the course packet from American Studies C01-1
  Fiction:
  O. Henry [William Sidney Porter], "The Trimmed Lamp," The Trimmed Lamp and Other Stories of the Four Million (New York, 1906, 1915), pp. 3-21.
• Electronic Resources: Week 6 Notebook
  
  The advertisements and newspaper article are drawn from major daily newspapers from around the turn of the century. The souvenir pamphlets were issued by Marshall, Field & Co. as promotional tools, to supplement their newspaper advertising and window displays. The Chicago Dry Goods Reporter was one of the major local trade publications for retailers. L. Frank Baum is most widely remembered as the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and a whole series of related books, but for many years he earned his living as a journalist, traveling salesman, and window dresser. In 1897 he began publishing The Show Window, a "monthly journal of decorative art" dedicated to show windows and interior display strategies. The following year he founded the National Association of Window Trimmers, the first trade organization of its kind, whose goal was "the uplifting of mercantile decorating to the level of a profession." The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows and Interiors is a compilation of articles that first appeared in The Show Window. Annie W. MacLean received her PhD from the University of Chicago, and she wrote frequently about social problems. A member of the faculty at Adelphi College in New York, she was also suffrage activist and director of sociological investigation for the newly founded YMCA. Neil Harris is a prominent American historian who has written extensively about the culture of Chicago. He is a professor of history at the University of Chicago. O. Henry, the pen name of William Sidney Porter, was born in New York, dropped out of school at age fifteen, and was prosecuted for embezzling funds from a Texas bank. He published his first short fiction while serving a prison term in Columbus, Ohio. His stories chronicling the lives of the urban masses became popular in the early years of the twentieth century.

Questions to consider:

• Much of the writing on department stores crystallizes around three themes: the cultivation of taste, the whetting and satisfaction of consumer desire, and the saving and spending of money. How do these themes relate to one another? How does does consumer desire relate to the other forms of desire that are expressed in these readings? How does the cultivation of taste within department stores like Marshall, Field, & Co. compare to that practiced by the other institutions Helen Horowitz and Neil Harris have written about (museums, the World's Columbian Exposition, the symphony orchestra)?
• What is the role of visual artistry -- from store architecture to merchandising design to advertising graphics -- in consumer culture?
• How and why do merchants target specific groups of consumers? How might this targeting effect the consumers' sense of identity?

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Last Updated: 02/04/99