| Behind the Counter: Shop Lives from Market Stall to Supermarket Contributor(s): Horn, Pamela (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 1848688849 ISBN-13: 9781848688841 Publisher: Amberley Publishing OUR PRICE: $14.40 Product Type: Paperback Published: January 2015 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Business & Economics | Industries - Retailing - History | Modern - 20th Century - History | Social History |
| Dewey: 381.1 |
| LCCN: 2015487583 |
| Physical Information: 352 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 20th Century |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Behind the Counter reveals the largely hidden personal stories of shopworkers. Corner shops, 'high-class' grocers, dress shops and department stores are brought to life through letters, records and the workers' own diaries and memoirs. For the most part, shopworkers were expected to work extremely long hours, to be obedient and subservient, and even to 'live in' as if they were domestic servants. Shop life was not easy, even in the twentieth century. Although the trade union movement, the co-operative movement and the concerns of some enlightened employers made life a good deal better for workers, they remain among the lowest paid even today. Their history, spiced with personal anecdotes and everyday humour, provides a fascinating and lively insight into social change and working conditions. It is also a telling portrait of our changing relationship with shopping as it becomes less a service industry than a branch of the entertainment world. |
Contributor Bio(s): Horn, Pamela: - Dr Pamela Horn lectured in economic and social history at Oxford Polytechnic, (now Oxford Brookes University), for over twenty years. She had written a number of books on social history topics covering the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century life. That includes several books on child life and schooling during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Pamela sadly passed away in 2014. |