Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890-1940

Department stores have been too long neglected in the field of U.S. cultural history and when they are examined, tend to be treated in terms of nostalgia or as studies of their wealthy founders. Benson finally gives us a more complete look at the web of relationships -- highly gendered relationships -- that made these emporiums so work. She not only reveals that it took an ever-changing balance of gendered roles to make the stores thrive, but that the department store played a much larger role in shaping American identities than historians typically consider. Thoroughly researched and wonderfully insightful.

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Benson writes about department stores' development as the new purveyors of mass culture and as the setting for a dynamic intersection of class and gender. She describes the encounters of saleswomen, managers, and customers in this retail environment between 1890 and 1940. Benson accomplishes this by combing through various journals and newspapers, and the results of this research are placed into perspective through comparison with other labor historians' work. Although the juxtaposition of Benson's work with others' reveals some flaws, _Counter Cultures_ nevertheless presents an important and vivid picture of a service industry, a neglected area of labor history