Jan Whitaker's Consumer Society

Worlds of Department Stores

Less brief description goes here

Selected Works

Department Store History Books

A round-the-world tour of major department stores from their 19th-century origins to their continual reinventions in the 21st. Emphasizing the well known stores of France and less well known examples in Germany.

Service and Style: How the American Department Store Fashioned the Middle Class

An examination of the buildings, people, merchandise, show windows, parades, and hoopla that made the big-city American department store so memorable.

Tea Room History Book

Tea at the Blue Lantern Inn: A Social History of the Tea Room Craze in America

From Greenwich Village and the New England roadside of the 1920s to the Gypsy tea rooms of the Depression, running small tea rooms provided a new occupation for women.

Essay in Magazine

"Quick Lunch"

Gastronomica article on the country's first fast food eateries which got their start in the 1880s.

Essay in Book

"Domesticating the Restaurant"

Explores women's impact on the 20th century restaurant industry (UMass Press).

Quick Links

Jan's restaurant history blog

NPR Marketplace interview

WHYY Radio Times interview

Amazon (direct to my Dept. Store book)

Powells Books (to my Dept. Store book)

Amazon (direct to my Tea Room book)

More department stores

More tea rooms

University of Massachusetts Press

Gastronomica

Authors Guild

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