Department Store History

 

I watched a fantastic documentary last night on SBS- Seduction in the City: The Birth of Shopping.  It showed that our lust for consumerism actually began in the 19th century not the 1950s as is often believed.  Here is the synopsis of the show:

:The story of the department store is the cleverest invention of the industrial revolution; surprisingly the genius idea of turning wants into needs not only created consumer culture, it also, paradoxically, sowed the seeds of female emancipation.

This two-part series reveals the foresight of store entrepreneurs such as Rowland H. Macy, Harry Selfridge, John Wanamaker, Aristide Boucicaut and Sidney Myer, who invented such revolutionary concepts such as easy credit, returns policies, window displays, changing rooms and Santa parades. These dynamic showmen created a theatre of shopping, and in doing so changed the world.”

Here is the link if you watch it.

Bennett's of Irongate in Derby is the oldest department store recorded in the UK, and possibly the world, founded in 1734 , and still stands to this day, trading in the same building.  Aristide Boucicaut founded Le Bon Marché in Paris in 1838 as a goods store, but it became more of a department store in 1852, with further refinements after Aristide got some great ideas at the World’s Fair in 1855.

Selfridges was opened in 1909 by Harry Gordon Selfridge, who eventually  handed it over to the board when he lost lots of money gambling.

Selfridges, London and their early perfume display.  Department stores were the inventors of this type of display.  They also made Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter major shopping events.  Santas were put on the top floor so that customers had to go through each floor to get there, browsing on the way.  Macy’s of New York started the Macy’s Thanks Giving Day Parade as a way of boosting sales, and it is still going today.  Below is a photo of Santa in the parade from the 1950s.

  

Mother’s Day was also basically a department store invention!  And as for sales……

Here is a lovely photo of the rush for the Myers sale in Melbourne, looks about 1930

Sidney Myers was a jew from Russia who came to Australia as a young man in 1899 and stated with a barrow selling goods in the gold town of Bendigo.  He established a shop the next year, and by 1914 had Myers up and running in Melbourne.

The Myer’s bargain basement, which apparently was a popular idea with many department stores, is alas no more.  When I visited there last week the basement had been renovated to contain teen and street fashion, and is ultra hip, modern, cold and hard and loud.  The Myers boxing day sale is still a major event though.

My favourite Australia department store is still David Jones – started in Sydney by a Welsh merchant of that name.  He had met Hobart businessman Charles Appleton in London, and established a partnership with him, moving to Australia in 1835.  The Sydney store became known as Appleton & Jones. The partnership was dissolved in 1838, and David Jones moved his store to new premises as well as starting up in Melbourne.  Jones survived the depression of the 1840s, and retired in  1856.  

 

The Melbourne Store exterior during the 1980s and the interior after renovations taken July 2011.

By 1887, the George Street store had been rebuilt and a mail order facility introduced, with the store’s own factory opened to reduce reliance on imported goods. David Jones makes a claim to be the oldest department store in the world still trading under its original name.

Most department stores had catalogues for a wider customer base.  Above are some pages from a 1914 New York Department Store catalogue.

Department stores actually stated declining in the 1950s, with more competition from specialist stores .  They did well again in the 60s, once people,especially women,  started having disposable income and wanted to spend it. By around 1990 Brands opened their own stores and discount retailers flourished.  Shopping was no longer a social activity, which is what department stores offered. People knew exactly what they wanted and where they could get it – no browsing necessary. 

These days department stores sell mainly clothes and cosmetics, with some china and linen.  A big change from the stores that  originally sold everything including furniture, whitegoods and hardware. Now there are discount stores for electrical goods, and discount stores such as Woolworths, Target and Walmart are getting people in with their cheap, made in China, goods.  Department stores no longer have their own factories, everything is outsourced.

Bring back the original department store please!

1950 Australian Home Journal

 

I have been collecting a few 1950s items when I find them, as well as clothes – table cloths,  tea towels,  aprons, dressing table items, books and magazines.  The magazines are perhaps my favourite – the ads are just as interesting as the stories!

These photos are actually from an April 1950 Australian Home Journal. Still on my eternal quest for 50s underwear, I love these ads.  Berlei is still one of Australia's best selling brands (and let’s not forget the men):

   

  

The magazine always came with a free pattern.  I have a few of these, just simple brown tissue paper, but I am yet to try them out.  The pattern features on the front cover - no celebrities here.  The back cover often featured an ad for Arnott Arrowroot biscuits, which are my children’s favourite store bought biscuit today. (My son would love a little school case like this little boy, especially when I told him that’s what I used to take to school when I was his age in the 1970s).

 

The magazine was also like a catalogue for patterns – you could order the patterns through them.  Even for underwear!

  

There were also patterns for young ladies (teens) and adorable little patterns for children.

  

And here is a lovely little story to read with a cuppa. The last page has little snippets about celebrities, including Cary Grant.  Enjoy!

 

  

The Cocktail Hour & Martinis

  

Jane Mansfield and Tom Cruise do cocktails (how cute was he?!)

6pm. The dinner is under control, the table set, the kids are in the bath or still playing happily outside. We are just waiting for the man of the house to return.

The stereotypical image of the1950s housewife is that she had a martini ready for her husband as he walked through the door of an evening. If she was anything like me, she would have it made by 6pm and if he wasn’t home, she would drink it herself! Goodness knows I need one by then, after three hour of noisy children, being at the office all day, housework, helping with homework/craft/whatever, laundry, dog walking and bike riding, dinner preparation and tidying. Of course if he is home before dinner he gets one too, and so do the neighbours if they ‘happen’ to pop in at that time. What used to be the ‘arsenic hour’, that crazy hour before dinner, is now the ‘cocktail hour.

The martini is an iconic 1950s drink, but it was popular too during the 1920s prohibition era in America. The addition of vermouth to gin helped to hide the taste of the illegally back garden or bath-tub brewed alcohol. As the gin got better, more was used and martinis became drier, and colder.

The citizens of Martinez, California claim that in 1870 a bartender named Julio Richelieu concocted a glass of gin, vermouth, orange, bitters and an olive for a miner who was unhappy with the whiskey he had paid a gold nugget for. So was born the Martinez, pronounced Martini.

However, the Oxford English Dictionary credits the liquor company Martini e Sola (now Martini and Rossi) with the invention of the martini. In 1871 the company shipped 100 cases of red vermouth to New York, although it is also said that a bartender at the Knickerbocker Hotel named Martini di Arma di Taggia invented it in 1911 for John D. Rockefeller. This recipe was London Dry Gin, dry vermouth, bitters, lemon peel and one olive.

  

The 1928 silent movie and the Thin Man from 1934

Some people like their martinis dry, or extra dry, that is with more gin. Some are made 6 parts gin to 1 part vermouth, or even 12 to 1. Some people prefer vodka to gin, and other recipes call for both. I prefer equal parts of gin and vermouth, and just ordinary London dry (Gordon’s) gin and dry (cinzano) vermouth, as I find some vermouths, such as noilly prat, to have too much flavour (nice on it’s own). Mind you, my husband calls it the ‘super model’ of vermouths, and derides me for wanting something else. I am not an olive person, so I also like to substitute the olive garnish for just a lemon twist.

 

As to shaken or stirred – I use a shaker and add ice, before straining into a glass. James Bond used to prefer shaken, not stirred, but as Daniel Craig as James Bond in Casino Royal changed that. When asked his preference by the bartender he replied “Do I look like I give a damn?” (I some how prefer the suave and tidy Pierce Brosnan).

  

And the glass? Martini glasses are designed with a long stem in order to keep the drink cold without the use of ice, and the wide mouth is said to bring the bouquet of the drink to your nose. My children say they smell like perfume, so why not?! Another theory is that during prohibition the wide mouth made the drink easy to drink quickly if there was a raid. From experience I can also say that drinking a martini makes you sit up elegantly – there is no slouching aloud – as the shaped of the glass makes it easy to spill, and dribble down the sides of your mouth.

 

Mae West - This is the movie she introduced the famous one-liner, "You should get out of those wet clothes and into a Dry Martini."

Movies, film stars and singers such as Jack London, Dean Martin,James Stewart, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mae West and of course James Bond from the 1960s helped bring the martini to Australia.

Down Argentina Way in 1940, Betty Grable orders a Martini.

In the Philadelphia Story in 1940 Cary Grant Katherine Hepburn and James Stewart drink Martinis.

In Sabrina in 1954, Walter Hampden makes a Martini but then has trouble getting the last olive out of the jar. He finally pours his Martini into the jar.I can see his point!

In the The Seven Year Itch from 1955 Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell drink Martinis,  and she also mentions that she watered the plants with a cocktail shaker.  Well, I water mine with the teapot.

 

Dino and NCIS recently

However you like it, with your martini in hand and a loved one (or gorgeous one) beside you, is there a better end to the day (and start to the evening) than sitting and sipping, watching the sunset?

Have a lovely 50s evening, cheers, Deb xxx