SHOPPING & DEPARTMENT STORES.

Detroiters shopped in a downtown retail core, along neighborhood commercial streets, and increasingly through an automobile-oriented metropolitan landscape.

Chrysler girl worker at Saks Fifth Avenue store — REAL DETROIT SOURCE · A Chrysler worker at Saks Fifth Avenue in Detroit after a Chrysler Girls' Club fashion show, spring 1942.
Source: Arthur S. Siegel / source record · Public domain — FSA/OWI

DEEP DETROIT CONTEXT

Where Detroit bought things.

Downtown department-store culture and the Woodward retail corridor.

Neighborhood grocers, drugstores, hardware stores, clothing shops, bakeries, and specialty businesses.

Advertisements as evidence of prices, tastes, technology, and changing consumer expectations.

Retail geography as part of transportation, crime opportunity, and neighborhood identity.

SOURCE METHOD

Advertisements, directories, maps, photographs, and store records locate shopping in the period rather than recreate a shopper’s experience.

← EVERYDAY DETROIT DAILY LIFE IN THE PRESS

CONTINUE IN THIS CATEGORY

↑ BACK TO TOP ← PREVIOUS: PRICES & PAYCHECKS NEXT: FOOD, RESTAURANTS & TAVERNS →