Store wars : shopkeepers and the culture of mass marketing, 1890-1939 / David Monod.

Author
Monod, David, 1960- [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
Toronto ; Buffalo : University of Toronto Press, ©1996.
Description
viii, 438 pages ; 24 cm

Availability

Copies in the Library

Location Call Number Status Location Service Notes
ReCAP - Remote StorageHF5429.6.C2 M666 1996 Browse related items Request

    Details

    Subject(s)
    Summary note
    • Historians have traditionally argued that economic change before the Second World War destroyed the world of the independent storekeeper, and have consequently interpreted protest by the independents as a desperate counter-attack against the emergence of a society based on mass production and mass consumption. In Store Wars David Monod counters that myth by showing that the rate of small-business growth in retailing remained relatively constant into the 1930s despite rising competition by the mass marketers.
    • Monod finds that independent retailing, rather than being destroyed by modernity, was transformed by it, as the success of small-business people came to depend on the store owners' ability to adapt to the demands of an economy increasingly predicated on 'bigness.' Shopkeepers had to modernize their stores, improve their accounting, retreat from open-book credit, develop closer relations with their suppliers, and depend more on manufacturers for advertising, pricing, and promotion. Monod describes the profound impact of this adaptation on retail unity, on small-business values, and on shopkeepers' political and associational activities, and reveals how trade associations were used by 'progressive' merchants to fight for trade reforms that hurt marginal competitors.
    Bibliographic references
    Includes bibliographical references (p. [363]-426) and index.
    Contents
    • Introduction: The Shopkeeper, the Historian, and the Petite Bourgeoisie
    • 1. Shopkeeping's Divided World
    • 2. The Folklore of Retailing
    • 3. The Development of the Mass Market, 1870-1930
    • 4. Progressive Retailing
    • 5. The Survival of the Fittest
    • 6. Resale Price Maintenance
    • 7. The Politics of Folklore
    • A Closing Balance.
    ISBN
    • 0802006507 ((bound))
    • 9780802006509 ((bound))
    • 0802076041 ((pbk.))
    • 9780802076045 ((pbk.))
    LCCN
    96172262
    OCLC
    35094792
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