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Shopping for Pleasure : Women in the Making of London's West End / Erika Rappaport.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2021]Copyright date: ©1999Description: 1 online resource (344 p.) : 20 halftones, 2 mapsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9781400843534
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 658.8/342 21
LOC classification:
  • HF5415.33.E542 L667 2000
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INTRODUCTION. "To Walk Alone in London" -- CHAPTER ONE. "The Halls of Temptation": The Universal Provider and the Pleasures of Suburbia -- CHAPTER TWO. The Trials of Consumption: Marriage, Law, and Women's Credit -- CHAPTER THREE. "Resting Places for Women Wayfarers": Feminism and the Comforts of the Public Sphere -- CHAPTER FOUR. Metropolitan Journeys: Shopping, Traveling, and Reading the West End -- CHAPTER FIVE. "A New Era of Shopping": An American Department Store in Edwardian London -- CHAPTER SIX. Acts of Consumption: Musical Comedy and the Desire of Exchange -- EPILOGUE. The Politics of Plate Glass -- NOTES -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX
Summary: In Shopping for Pleasure, Erika Rappaport reconstructs London's Victorian and Edwardian West End as an entertainment and retail center. In this neighborhood of stately homes, royal palaces, and spacious parks and squares, a dramatic transformation unfolded that ultimately changed the meaning of femininity and the lives of women, shaping their experience of modernity. Rappaport illuminates the various forces of the period that encouraged and discouraged women's enjoyment of public life and particularly shows how shopping came to be seen as the quintessential leisure activity for middle- and upper-class women. Through extensive histories of department stores, women's magazines, clubs, teashops, restaurants, and the theater as interwoven sites of consumption, Shopping for Pleasure uncovers how a new female urban culture emerged before and after the turn of the twentieth century.Moving beyond the question of whether shopping promoted or limited women's freedom, the author draws on diverse sources to explore how business practices, legal decisions, and cultural changes affected women in the market. In particular, she focuses on how and why stores presented themselves as pleasurable, secure places for the urban woman, in some cases defining themselves as instrumental to civic improvement and women's emancipation. Rappaport also considers such influences as merchandizing strategies, credit policies, changes in public transportation, feminism, and the financial balance of power within the home. Shopping for Pleasure is thus both a social and cultural history of the West End, but on a broader scale it reveals the essential interplay between the rise of consumer society, the birth of modern femininity, and the making of contemporary London.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781400843534

Frontmatter -- Contents -- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INTRODUCTION. "To Walk Alone in London" -- CHAPTER ONE. "The Halls of Temptation": The Universal Provider and the Pleasures of Suburbia -- CHAPTER TWO. The Trials of Consumption: Marriage, Law, and Women's Credit -- CHAPTER THREE. "Resting Places for Women Wayfarers": Feminism and the Comforts of the Public Sphere -- CHAPTER FOUR. Metropolitan Journeys: Shopping, Traveling, and Reading the West End -- CHAPTER FIVE. "A New Era of Shopping": An American Department Store in Edwardian London -- CHAPTER SIX. Acts of Consumption: Musical Comedy and the Desire of Exchange -- EPILOGUE. The Politics of Plate Glass -- NOTES -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

In Shopping for Pleasure, Erika Rappaport reconstructs London's Victorian and Edwardian West End as an entertainment and retail center. In this neighborhood of stately homes, royal palaces, and spacious parks and squares, a dramatic transformation unfolded that ultimately changed the meaning of femininity and the lives of women, shaping their experience of modernity. Rappaport illuminates the various forces of the period that encouraged and discouraged women's enjoyment of public life and particularly shows how shopping came to be seen as the quintessential leisure activity for middle- and upper-class women. Through extensive histories of department stores, women's magazines, clubs, teashops, restaurants, and the theater as interwoven sites of consumption, Shopping for Pleasure uncovers how a new female urban culture emerged before and after the turn of the twentieth century.Moving beyond the question of whether shopping promoted or limited women's freedom, the author draws on diverse sources to explore how business practices, legal decisions, and cultural changes affected women in the market. In particular, she focuses on how and why stores presented themselves as pleasurable, secure places for the urban woman, in some cases defining themselves as instrumental to civic improvement and women's emancipation. Rappaport also considers such influences as merchandizing strategies, credit policies, changes in public transportation, feminism, and the financial balance of power within the home. Shopping for Pleasure is thus both a social and cultural history of the West End, but on a broader scale it reveals the essential interplay between the rise of consumer society, the birth of modern femininity, and the making of contemporary London.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)