History & Classics
“Teach Them to Serve and They’ll Learn How to Sell:” Developing a Hierarchy of 1920’s Salesgirls, Departments Stores, Customers, and the Modern Retail World
Document Type
Oral Presentation
Location
Indianapolis, IN
Subject Area
History & Classics
Start Date
11-4-2014 1:15 PM
End Date
11-4-2014 2:45 PM
Sponsor
Vivian Deno (Butler University)
Description
In the 1910s, the American public referred to the position of the department store salesgirl as "the Cinderella of occupations," defined by dichotomous extremes of toil and glamour, service and autonomy. The first salesgirls were predominately young women of low-class and undignified manners, lacking in both education and social grace, but the position of department store worker introduced them to a world of fashion and upper class customers. However, when store management noticed falling profits, they connected it to the salesgirl's uncultured demeanor, and implemented training and welfare programs to improve her morals, teach her selling techniques, and instill in her a professional comportment that emphasized service and customer satisfaction. Almost a century later, the position of salesperson still stands subject to both managerial influence and customer desire. Salespeople learn and implement proper selling and service techniques that emerged in the 1920s as methods of regulating the salesgirl's social and professional identity, but that now, in 2013, are established modules of sales work. Through archival records of the L. S. Ayres department store in Indianapolis, Indiana, this project establishes turn of the century historical evidence of salesgirl regulation. Then, it turns to present day ethnographic research at a Nordstrom located in St. Louis, Missouri to prove the continuity of these training practices that define a department store social order. Customers at the front, salespeople in the middle, and management pulling the strings—much has changed in the American department store, but with organized training classes, explicit expectations, and more gradual methods of employee enculturation, management still guides its sales staff to exhibit the subtle behaviors of both a product expert and a deferential service provider.
“Teach Them to Serve and They’ll Learn How to Sell:” Developing a Hierarchy of 1920’s Salesgirls, Departments Stores, Customers, and the Modern Retail World
Indianapolis, IN
In the 1910s, the American public referred to the position of the department store salesgirl as "the Cinderella of occupations," defined by dichotomous extremes of toil and glamour, service and autonomy. The first salesgirls were predominately young women of low-class and undignified manners, lacking in both education and social grace, but the position of department store worker introduced them to a world of fashion and upper class customers. However, when store management noticed falling profits, they connected it to the salesgirl's uncultured demeanor, and implemented training and welfare programs to improve her morals, teach her selling techniques, and instill in her a professional comportment that emphasized service and customer satisfaction. Almost a century later, the position of salesperson still stands subject to both managerial influence and customer desire. Salespeople learn and implement proper selling and service techniques that emerged in the 1920s as methods of regulating the salesgirl's social and professional identity, but that now, in 2013, are established modules of sales work. Through archival records of the L. S. Ayres department store in Indianapolis, Indiana, this project establishes turn of the century historical evidence of salesgirl regulation. Then, it turns to present day ethnographic research at a Nordstrom located in St. Louis, Missouri to prove the continuity of these training practices that define a department store social order. Customers at the front, salespeople in the middle, and management pulling the strings—much has changed in the American department store, but with organized training classes, explicit expectations, and more gradual methods of employee enculturation, management still guides its sales staff to exhibit the subtle behaviors of both a product expert and a deferential service provider.
