Commerce and Poetry Hand in Hand: Music in American Department Stores, 1880-1930

Abstract

Department stores emerged as central institutions in the expansion of the consumer culture in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and music played an unusually prominent and varied role in these new palaces of consumption. Over the half century from 1880 to 1930 a wide range of music was presented in the stores, including elegant evening concerts conducted by such luminaries as Richard Strauss and Leopold Stokowski, afternoon programs given by professional and amateur musicians in large in-store concert halls, performances by choruses and bands made up of store employees, background music played by pianists or string quartets, and phonograph demonstrations. Trade papers published for department store retailers reveal the marketing strategies that largely motivated this impressive patronage of music. Music's range of cultural associations worked to the retailers' advantage by investing the stores with excitement and drama, by imbuing commonplace goods with luxury and status, and by encouraging leisurely shopping among women. The commercial setting, in turn, left indellible marks on the music: in the length of concert programs, in the types of works commissioned by the stores, in the mixing of popular and classical repertories, and in the reduction of music to a commodity. The department stores proved a crucial testing ground for the widescale commercialization of music in twentieth-century America.