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The Gaze Across The Aisle: Architecture, Merchandising, And Social Roles At Marshall Field And Company, 1892 To 1914, Clayton Funk

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Marshall Field and Company was a cultural and commercial anchor in Chicago's downtown area known as 'The Loop.' By 1914, it had expanded into the largest department store in the world at that time. This article illustrates Field's as a cultural and retail institution of artistry and popular education through a trope I term “the drama of shopping.” Using merchandising strategies adapted from the aesthetic movement, Field's produced the drama of shopping with social and cultural implications about class, gender, and race in three ways: First, the architecture of the store served as a carefully designed theatrical space for seeing …