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The Cinderella of Occupations: Managing the Work of Department Store Saleswomen, 1900–1940*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Susan Porter Benson
Susan Porter Benson
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History, Bristol Community College
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Abstract

Of all forms of personal services supplied to business enterprise, that of sales workers has perhaps defied the application of “standard” management practices more than any other. Professor Benson shows that this generalization is especially applicable to female department store sales personnel, who were necessarily recruited chiefly from “lower” social classes whose members lacked education and refinement. Thus, regimentation and rote training seemed appropriate. On the other hand, selling style goods to sophisticated female customers involved elements not of a trade but an art, and an attitude of deference, which was not a common trait among working-class girls. Department store managers, almost exclusively male, failed to solve this paradox and, as Professor Benson relates, failed also to deal with the invisible solidarity of female sales persons.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , Spring 1981 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1981

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References

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62 The Echo, 1 (December 1902).

63 The Echo, 10 (February 26, 1913). See also January 29, February 12, and February 19, 1913.

64 The Echo, 29 (June 27 and July 18, 1930). See also July 11, September 26, and October 3, 1930, and March 27, 1931.

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