Review: The American Department Store Transformed, 1920–1960, by Richard Longstreth

Abstract

Richard Longstreth. The American Department Store Transformed, 1920–1960 . New Haven, Yale University Press, 2010, 352 pp., 15 color and 243 b/w illus. $60, ISBN 9780300149388. With his previous books and articles, Richard Longstreth has already established himself as an authority on the subjects that lie at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, and consumer culture. His latest work, The American Department Store Transformed, 1920–1960, will only cement this reputation. The book has a magisterial sweep that owes as much to the density of the information and the richness of the illustration as it does to the broad purview of the argument. The nine chapters take the reader on a tour of the twentieth century retail landscape, beginning after World War I with the postwar expansion of the great downtown stores and store chains. The chapters continue with “the embrace of modernism in design and display” (34), the addition of remote service buildings and parking garages, the development of branch stores and shopping centers, the emergence of regional malls, and the largely failed attempt to use the mall idea to reinvigorate the urban core. Looming over this history are the challenges presented by suburbanization and automobilization and the threats posed by “competing distribution systems”—specialty stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and chain stores like the J. C. Penney Co., Sears Roebuck & Co., and F. W. Woolworth & Co. (9). It is a big, comprehensive story that …