Carried Away : The Invention of Modern Shopping

Asserting that a history of shopping was, until recently, a history of women, Rachel Bowlby trains her eye on the evolution of the modern shopper. She uses a compelling blend of history, literary analysis, and cultural criticism to explore the rise of department stores and supermarkets of the United States, France, and Great Britain. Bowlby recalls the fascinating early days of these institutions. In the mid-nineteenth century, when department stores first developed, their fabulous new buildings brought middle-class women into town, where they could indulge in what was then a new activity: a day's shopping. The stores offered luxury, flattering women into believing that they belonged in a beautiful environment. It is here, Bowlby argues, that the idea of the modern woman's passion for fashion and shopping took hold. Developed in the twentieth century, supermarkets took an opposite tack: they offered functionality, standardization, and cheapness. However, Bowlby claims, despite their differences, the two institutions belong together as emblematic of their respective eras' social developments: the department store with the growth of cities, the supermarket with the proliferation of suburbs. With their dazzling lights and displays, both supermarkets and department stores were thought to produce in females an enhanced or trance-like state of mind. For readers who regard shopping as a spectator or participatory sport, and for those who wish to understand our culture and the psychology of women, or those who simply enjoy a witty, literate romp through the aisles, Carried Away is the perfect purchase.

Asserting that a history of shopping was, until recently, a history of women, Rachel Bowlby trains her eye on the evolution of the modern shopper. She uses a compelling blend of history, literary analysis, and cultural criticism to explore the rise of department stores and supermarkets of the United States, France, and Great Britain.

Bowlby recalls the fascinating early days of these institutions. In the mid-nineteenth century, when department stores first developed, their fabulous new buildings brought middle-class women into town, where they could indulge in what was then a new activity: a day's shopping. The stores offered luxury, flattering women into believing that they belonged in a beautiful environment. It is here, Bowlby argues, that the idea of the modern woman's passion for fashion and shopping took hold.

Developed in the twentieth century, supermarkets took an opposite tack: they offered functionality, standardization, and cheapness. However, Bowlby claims, despite their differences, the two institutions belong together as emblematic of their respective eras' social developments: the department store with the growth of cities, the supermarket with the proliferation of suburbs. With their dazzling lights and displays, both supermarkets and department stores were thought to produce in females an enhanced or trance-like state of mind.

For readers who regard shopping as a spectator or participatory sport, and for those who wish to understand our culture and the psychology of women, or those who simply enjoy a witty, literate romp through the aisles, Carried Away is the perfect purchase.

Asserting that a history of shopping has been, until recently, a history of women, Bowlby trains her eye on the evolution of the modern shopper. She examines the curious history of our ideas about women and consumption — from the glamorous nineteenth-century department store to our own functionalist superstores, using a compelling blend of history, literary analysis, and cultural criticism to explore the rise of department stores and supermarkets in the United States, France, and Great Britain.

Booknews

Bowlby (English, French, and American literature, U. of York) looks at some of the turning points of 20th-century consumer history, examining phenomena such as department stores giving way to supermarkets, packaging making everyday items into objects of desire, and self-service creating a new relationship between shoppers and merchandise. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

"In this book, Rachel Bowlby looks at some of the turning points of twentieth-century consumer history: when department stores gave way to supermarkets; when packaging made everyday things into objects of desire; when self-service created a close, new relationship between shoppers and merchandise. Carried Away looks at arguments about chocolate boxes and bars of soap, at modernist shop windows and supermarket shelves, at Stepford Wives and Rupert Bears - at the many extraordinary ways that modern shopping and shoppers have been imagined and invented."--BOOK JACKET. Rachel Bowlby teaches English, French, and American studies at the University of York. She has written Just Looking: Consumer Culture in Dreiser, Gissing, and Zola; Still Crazy After All These Years: Women, Writing, and Psychoanalysis; and Shopping with Freud. It is late in the afternoon and the lines of wide carts loaded up with flatpacks of future furniture stretch back from the row of checkouts.