The Transformation of Shopping

The Transformation of Shopping is a collection of digitized primary source materials illustrating the sociocultural history of department stores from the mid-19th through late 20th centuries. The collection includes material from over 300 stores. Materials include company archives, union records, trade journals, advertisements, catalogs, business to business publications, business to consumer publications, and more. It is possible to browse by theme, featured store, or trade literature title or publication type. Materials illustrate the rise of consumer culture, history of advertising, social roles of workers and consumers, and the place of the department store in city life. 

Materials were sourced primarily from libraries and archives in the United States and Britain, but some materials were also sourced from institutions in Australia, Canada, Estonia, and France: 

• Archives of Manitoba
• Bibliothèque nationale de France
• British Library
• Fashion Institute of Technology
• Hagley Museum and Library
• Historical Society of Pennsylvania
• History of Advertising Trust
• National Library of Estonia
• Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University
• Selfridges Brand Archive
• State Library of New South Wales
• University of Glasgow
• University of Illinois Chicago
• Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library