1 See the ‘introduction’ to Fox, R.W. and Lears, T.J. Jackson (eds), The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, 1880–1980 (New York, 1983), ix–xviizGoogle Scholar. See also McKendrick, N., Brewer, J. and Plumb, J.H., The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England (Bloomington, 1982);Google Scholar Forty, A., Objects of Desire: Design and Society 1750–1980 (London, 1986);Google Scholar Harris, N., ‘The drama of consumer desire’, in Mayr, O. and Post, R.C., Yankee Enterprise: The Rise of the American System of Manufactures (Washington, DC, 1981);Google Scholar Marchand, R., Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940 (Berkeley, 1985);Google Scholar Williams, R.H., Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth-Century France (Berkeley, 1982);Google Scholar Bowlby, R., Just Looking: Consumer Culture in Drieser, Gissing and Zola (New York, 1985).Google Scholar Further references can be found in ‘Women and consumer culture: a selective bibliography’, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, II (1989).Google Scholar

2 An important exception focusing on one critical store is Miller, M.B., The Bon Marché: Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store, 1869–1920 (Princeton, NJ, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 There is, however, a growing body of work on women and the urban environment. See, for example, the essays in Stimpson, C., Dixler, E., Nelson, M. and Yatrakis, K. (eds), Women and the American City (Chicago, 1981).Google Scholar

4 For a brief business history of the Higbee Company, see Van Tassel, D.D. and Grabowski, J.J. (eds). Encyclopedia of Cleveland History (Bloomington, 1987), 502.Google Scholar

5 Katznelson, I. delineates the relations between geographical and social space with respect to the realms of work and community in City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Patterning of Class in the United States (New York, 1981):Google Scholar see in particular the discussion of literature on class and class formation, 193–215. See also Blumin, S., ‘The hypothesis of middle-class formation in nineteenth-century America: a critique and some proposals’, American Historical Review, 90 (1985), 299–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 The population of Cleveland in 1930 was 900,429; its combined city and county population was 1,201,455, making it the nation's third-most-populated city, after New York and Chicago: Miller, C.P. and Wheeler, R., Cleveland: A Concise History, 1796–1990 (Bloomington, 1990), 131.Google Scholar

7 Boorstin, D., The Americans: The Democratic Experience (New York, 1973), 108, 107, 104;Google Scholar Barth, G., City People: The Rise of Modern City Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (New York, 1980), 123, 144;Google Scholar Leach, W.R., ‘Transformations in a culture of consumption: women and department stores, 1890–1925’, Journal of American History, 71, 2 (Sept. 1984), 319–42: 320, 333, 320, 327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Benson, S.P., Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890–1940 (Urbana, Ill., 1986).Google Scholar See also McBride, T., ‘A woman's world: department stores and the evolution of women's employment, 1870–1920’, French Historical Studies, X, 4 (Fall, 1978), 664–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Abelson, E.S., When Ladies Go A-Thieving: Middle-Class Shoplifters in the Victorian Department Store (New York, 1989), 11.Google Scholar In Just Looking, R. Bowlby examines the interpretation of the department store as dream, and the male exploitation of ‘woman’ as both consumer and commodity. Trachtenberg, A. views the department store in terms of both spectacle and factory within the emerging urban environment in The Incorporation of America (New York, 1982), 130–36.Google Scholar

10 Samson, P., ‘The department store, its past and its future: a review article’, Business History Review, LV (1981), 26–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Siry, J. echoes this concern in Carson-Pirie-Scott: Louis Sullivan and the Chicago Department Store (Chicago, 1989), 13–63.Google Scholar Duncan, H.D. relates the department store to the social structure and urban environment in Culture and Democracy: The Struggle for Form in Society and Architecture in Chicago and the Middle West During the Life and Times of Louis H. Sullivan (New York, 1965), 113–39.Google Scholar Harris, N. discusses differences between downtown and neighbourhood retail venues in ‘Shopping—Chicago style’, in Zukowsky, J. (ed.), Chicago Architecture 1872–1922 (Munich, 1987).Google Scholar Boyer, M.C. deals with the stores along New York City's Ladies Mile in Manhattan Manners: Architecture and Style 1850–1900 (New York, 1985), 87–120.Google Scholar Works on retail location by historical geographers include: Shaw, M.T. and Shaw, G., ‘Locational behaviour of urban retailing during the nineteenth century: the example of Kingston-upon-Hull’, Institution of British Geographers, 61 (1974), 101–18;Google Scholar Conzen, M.P. and Conzen, K.N., ‘Geographical structure in nineteenth-century urban retailing: Milwaukee 1836–90’, Journal of Historical Geography, 5 (1979), 45–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 For instance, Cohen, L. discusses department stores catering to the working-class trade in Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (New York, 1990), 114–15.Google Scholar

12 Strasser, S., Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (New York, 1989), 139.Google Scholar For a British example see Forty, , Objects of Desire, 76–9.Google Scholar

13 See Barber, B. and Lobel, L.S., ‘“Fashion” in women's clothes and the American social system’, in Bendix, R. and Lipset, S.M. (eds), Class, Status and Power (Glencoe, Ill., 1953), 323–32.Google Scholar

14 Ibid. Particularly relevant in this context is Bourdieu's, P. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Nice, Richard (Cambridge, Mass., 1984).Google Scholar

15 Mills, C. Wright deals with the complexities of class for salesclerks in White Collar: The American Middle Classes (London, 1951), 161–88.Google Scholar

16 Johannesen, E., Cleveland Architecture 1876–1976 (Cleveland, 1979), 177;Google Scholar Miller, and Wheeler, , Cleveland, 129.Google Scholar

17 ‘Letter from the Editor’, Plain Dealer, 9 September 1931, 14.Google Scholar Chernow, R., The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and The Rise of Modern Finance (1990), 309.Google Scholar

18 Rose, W.G., Cleveland: The Making of a City (Cleveland, Ohio, 1950), 874.Google Scholar Also Tassel, Van and Grabowski, , Encyclopedia, 1010;Google Scholar Miller, and Wheeler, , Cleveland, 116–17, 129–30.Google Scholar

19 Tassel, Van and Grabowski, , Encyclopedia, 279, 502;Google Scholar Miller, and Wheeler, , Cleveland, 129–30;Google Scholar Chernow, , House of Morgan, 309.Google Scholar A US Post Office would be constructed in 1934, completing the group of buildings. Chicago architects Graham, Anderson, Probst and White (D.H. Bumham's successor firm) designed the complex: see Johannesen, , Cleveland Architecture, 177–83.Google Scholar

20 Plain Dealer, 8 September 1931, 1.Google Scholar

21 Rose, , Cleveland, 896.Google Scholar

22 Plain Dealer, 9 September 1931, 20.Google Scholar

23 Plain Dealer, 26 August 1931, 1.Google Scholar

24 Memo from E.H. Stewart, 6 July 1968, ‘Higbee Co. Inventory’ file in ‘Higbee Co., Papers RE: Survey and Reorganization 1933–34’, MSS 77b. 1932–1944, H 634, Special Collections, Baker Library, Harvard Business School. This collection of Higbee Company documents is hereafter referred to as the Higbee Papers.

25 Business Week, 16 September 1931, 11;Google Scholar Plain Dealer, 9 September 1931, 1.Google Scholar

26 Plain Dealer, 7 September 1931, 4.Google Scholar

27 Total Store Sales' chart in ‘Higbee Co. Sales 1932–43’ file; and ‘General Report and Recommendations’, 1, Higbee Papers.

28 Chernow, , House of Morgan, 325.Google Scholar Eventually, in 1935, the Van Sweringens defaulted on $48 million in Morgan & Co. loans. Tassel, Van and Grabowski, , Encyclopedia, 1010.Google Scholar

29 Letters, ‘Correspondence RE: initial survey 1932’ file, Higbee Papers. Both Pridday and Stewart had been involved in previous store reorganizations: ‘Hahne & Co.’ file, Higbee Papers.

30 ‘General Report’, 8.Google Scholar

31 ‘General Report’, 8.Google Scholar

32 ‘Comparison Bureau Report on General Summary: Higbee as Compared with Halle, Lindner, The May Co., Taylor and Bailey’, 1–68. Higbee Papers. Standard methods of department store organization dictated that the square footage allotted to each department be determined monthly by dividing the amount of net sales by the amount of selling area: Letter, F.E. Abbott to Stewart, 20 October 1932, ‘Comparisons Questionnaire’ file, Higbee Papers.

33 For instance, the Radio and Sporting Goods buyer was earning $192 a week, and the buyer for Men's Clothing was paid $288 per week: ‘General Report’, 11–14. All seven of the company's merchandise managers were men: ‘Higbee Co. Miscellany’ file.

34 Saleswomen averaged $17 to $24 per week: ‘General Report’, 14. These wages appear commensurate with those at department stores in other cities during this period: see Bezanson, A. and Hussey, M., Wage Methods and Selling Costs: Compensation of Sales Clerks in Four Major Departments in 31 Stores (Philadelphia, 1930);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Sullivan, M.L., Employment Conditions in Department Stores in 1932–33: A Study in Selected Cities of Five States (Washington, DC, 1936).Google Scholar Benson discusses the vast difference in saleswomen's and salesmen's salary scales in Counter Cultures, 190–3.Google Scholar

35 In 1931 the stores as a whole saw a 9 per cent decrease from the previous year's sales, while by September 1932 the decrease had dropped to 25 per cent below the 1931 sales for those months: ‘Department Stores City of Cleveland (6 Stores Reporting)’, 6 October 1932 in ‘Higbee Co. Sales’ file.

36 ‘Number of Sales and Average Sale, 1927–1932’, in ‘Higbee Co. Sales’ file.

37 Letter, E.H. Stewart to J.P. Morgan, 31 October 1932, p. 4, ‘Correspondence’ file, Higbee Papers. On the importance of rapid stock-turn, see Strasser, , Satisfaction Guaranteed, 230–1.Google Scholar

38 Benson, , Counter Cultures, 46, 90.Google Scholar

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40 Tassel, Van and Grabowski, , Encyclopedia, 666–7;Google Scholar General Report', 2–3.Google Scholar

41 The Bailey Co. was found to operate with ‘A very cheap type of merchandise and operation; purly price appeal’, ibid. The store had expanded operations in 1929–30, opening branches at Euclid and East 105th (on the northern border of the city's African-American neighbourhood), and in the city-suburb of Lakewood: Miller, and Wheeler, , Cleveland, 135, 142.Google Scholar

42 Cleveland Gazette, 1929–1933.Google Scholar

43 384 miles of street railways were in operation in 1920: Tassel, Van and Grabowski, , Encyclopedia, 930.Google Scholar

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45 Tassel, Van and Grabowski, , Encyclopedia, 930–1.Google Scholar

46 ‘General Report’, 4.Google Scholar The 1930 census corroborates that the affluent areas surrounding the City of Cleveland were primarily in those eastern districts of Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights, and East Cleveland, while lower income, unemployed, foreign-born and black residents were more likely to live in the southern and western areas, as well as the lower east side: Green, H.W., Population Characteristics by Census Tracts, Cleveland, Ohio, 1930 (Cleveland, 1931), 55, 60, 62, 64, 73.Google Scholar See also Tassel, Van and Grabowski, , Encyclopedia, 933, 941–3.Google Scholar

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48 Hungerford, E., The Personality of American Cities (New York, 1913), 190.Google Scholar

49 Pencilled notations on c. 1930 map, ‘City of Cleveland and Greater Cleveland’, used by the New York group, Higbee Papers.

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54 Ibid., 4–5.

55 ‘Public Opinion’, 1. On service shoppers, see Benson, 156–8, 262–3.

56 ‘Comparison Bureau report on General Summery’, 1. Marchand discusses the ‘woman's viewpoint’ as a role for women copywriters in Advertising the American Dream, 34–5.Google Scholar

57 On the use of surveys and questionnaires in this period, see Converse, J.M., Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence 1890–1960 (Berkeley, 1987), particularly 87–111.Google Scholar

58 ‘General Report’, 1.Google Scholar

59 Ibid., 2.

60 ‘Public Opinion’, 1.Google Scholar

61 Ibid., 2, 4–5.

62 Ibid., 2 and pages titled ‘Higbee Increased/Higbee Decreased’.

63 ‘Higbee Decreased’ sheets in ‘Public Opinion’.

64 ‘Public Opinion’, 6.Google Scholar

65 Ibid., 2.

66 ‘Public Opinion’, 2.Google Scholar

67 ‘General Report’, 5.Google Scholar

68 ‘Public Opinion’, 5.Google Scholar

69 Ibid., 3.

70 Ibid., 3.

71 ‘General Report’, 3.Google Scholar

72 ‘Comparison Bureau Report’, 7, 25, 2, 47, 7, 17, 28Google Scholar, and passim.

73 Ibid., 8, 5, 4–5, 16.

74 Ibid., 18, 2, 36.

75 Letter, Stewart, to Morgan, J.P. & Co., 29 October 1932, ‘Correspondence’ file: ‘General Report’, 7.Google Scholar The wisdom of locating a retail business near its closest competitor, long understood by savvy merchants, was pointed out to economists by Hotelling, Harold in ‘Stability in Competition’, Economic Journal, 39 (1929), 41–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

76 ‘General Report’, 3.Google Scholar It is interesting to note that this apparent attempt at establishing a monopoly on its class of business in the new location is a logical move to have been made by men with railroad, rather than retail, experience.

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79 Letters, Stewart to J.P. Morgan & Co., 27 and 29 October 1932, ‘Corresopondence’ file; ‘General Report’, 7–8.

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