“The Biggest Small-Town Store in America”: Independent Retailers and the Rise of Consumer Culture

Vicki Howard

Enterprise & Society, 2008, vol. 9, issue 3, 457-486

Abstract: The case study of Bresee's Department Store in Oneonta, New York, suggests that small-town department stores were not necessarily fully “modern” by the early twentieth century. This article demonstrates how modern, big-store, business methods came later and documents how earlier modes of trade, such as credit and bartering, persisted into the early twentieth century, even in non-rural, northern contexts. Preliminary findings suggest that eliminating the urban bias in much historiography by including small-town retailing practices may lead to a later periodization of American consumer society.

Date: 2008
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:entsoc:v:9:y:2008:i:03:p:457-486_00

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