Enterprise and Society Advance Access originally published online on June 21, 2008
Enterprise and Society 2008 9(3):457-486; doi:10.1093/es/khn047
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"The Biggest Small-Town Store in America": Independent Retailers and the Rise of Consumer Culture
VICKI HOWARD is an assistant professor of history at Hartwick College
Contact information: Department of History, Hartwick College, Arnold Hall #239, Oneonta, NY 13820. E-mail: howardv{at}hartwick.edu.
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.
Research for this article was funded by a Hartwick College Faculty Research Grant, 2007–2008. The author wishes to thank Marc Bresee, Phil Bresee, Sean Kelley, members of the Susquehanna Research Seminar, and Hartwick archivist Rebekah Ambrose-Dalton.