 The Books in the Stores My latest book of choice is Service and Style: How the American Department Store Fashioned the Middle Class by Jan Whitaker. I picked it up last week because I had a bookmark column coming due and thought I would write about the time department stores actually had book departments. (It was about the same time, I think, that they had fabric and notions departments too. In other words, long ago.) The bookmark itself is from Macy’s, but an online search for information about that store’s book department proved fruitless beyond a few sentences here and there. Even removing the store’s name and searching for stores that carried books as one of their lines produced few results, and again, those were unsatisfactory. Then I remembered that I had this book. It took a while to find it, but sure enough, and although it did have information it was not nearly enough on which to base an entire column. But in reading that part I found myself mesmerized by the history of what had once been the primary source for shopping. I was a child of and in the fifties, and I have a few memories of my mother and I have lunch (grilled cheese for me) at the famous Woolworth’s lunch counter of our local store. Sometimes we would go to high-end Bullocks, where lunch was more genteel. But it wasn’t only food. We’d look around, browse, enjoy seeing all the new things, and sometimes buy something. I can’t remember now if we ever bought a book at a department store for their selection wasn’t huge—they were just one department of many. But I do recall, I think, that when I began working at Broadway (now Macy’s) as a senior high school student there was still one. I could be wrong, however, since that was at the beginning of 1968, and according to the book, “book departments remained strong in departments stores into the 1950s and 1960s.” It seems strange to us now, but for many years, it was department stores that were the leaders in bookselling. In 1904, the Wall Street Journal noted that Philadelphia’s Wanamaker’s was the biggest bookshop in the world. Still, the stores came in for both criticism and praise: they handled only bestsellers, cut prices, treated books like mere commodities, but they also sold books in quantity and paid their bills to publishers on time, introduced books to a wide readership, and created fascination with living authors through book fairs and teas. When Whitaker describes Wanamaker’s initial foray into books, she makes it sound almost like the Amazon-as-bully accusations of today. Wanamaker took a stance on books much like the Strauses of Macy’s would later take on soap and egg beaters. “There is no reason why books should not be sold as handily as any other merchandise,” he declared in 1882. Publishers priced them too high, he said, and he intended to sell his stock for less. Wanamaker believed that his “new kind of store” ranked higher on the evolutionary chart than did those of book peddlers and small shops, and he was happy to put his rivals out of business, all the more so since he charged that peddlers’ books typically sold by subscription were salacious trash. And like Bezos, Wanamaker and other stores’ founders survived lawsuits and criticism. But it took some underhanded doings. Macy’s, for example, fought the publishers’ association action of refusing to supply stories that did not maintain list prices. In Philadelphia, Snellenburgs, whose stated policy in 1902 was “No Truckling to Trusts,” also declared itself against the “Book Trust” and offered Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskerville’s for 79¢ as against the full price of 90¢. Macy’s case went to the Supreme Court where, after many years, it won in 1913. The store’s faithful book buyer, Miss E. L. Kinnear, a Macy’s employee since age fourteen, revealed the heroic measures she had taken to obtain books during the dozen years the store was cut off by publishers. She found allies all over the country, many of them small dealer who bought books for Macy’s, fifty at a time, for a commission. In some cases, Kinnear created fictitious bookstores in other cities, which, once fully stocked, closed and sent their entire inventories to Macy’s. Through all this, she somehow eluded private detectives who kept her home under surveillance and tried to view her outgoing mail to identify her collaborators. From these lowly beginnings, department stores crafted their book business into one that gained sufficient respectability to confer status on a store. A good book department became a must for any department store that wanted to claim distinction. Like fashion, books and book events added tone. The book market expanded, allowing department stores and publishers to coexist. Beginning in 1911, the heads of department store book sections—from a long list of stores that included S. Kann, Frederick Loeser. Joseph Horne, Higbee’s, and many others—occupied executive and honorary positions within the American Booksellers Association. Interestingly, it was in this department that women flourished, holding nearly half of the book-buying positions in the stores. And under their leadership, the departments grew in both status and sales. There were autograph parties, tea parties, and even stocks of rare books and manuscripts. One of the most successful was Marcella Burns Hahner of Marshall Fields. Ten years after she joined the store, she oversaw a 1919 book fair that involved fifty-six publishers and a “succession of carnivalesque events.” Publishers Weekly called her “a brilliant book-department manager, and she wielded sufficient power to make a book a best-seller. Books were strong sellers in these stores because the department catered primarily though not exclusively to women. So when the Depression came along, the focus was on books that were light reading and/or by celebrity authors. Bridge experts, opera singers, and stars of stage and screen were hosted by the stores. Macy’s promoted inexpensive books that looked expensive with cellophane wrappings imprinted with “Macy’s Library” on them and stained silver. They may have been smirked at by the book trade, but at $1.98, they flew out the door during the holiday shopping season. But changing times began affecting the book business even as part of a department store. Though the book departments did continue to have strong sales into the 1950s and 1960s. The stores began to lease the book departments to chains such as Walden and Brentano’s, which caused a loss of prestige. They were doomed, and die they eventually did. But while they lived, they helped to cement the idea in the American middle class that books were important, that reading was an important leisure activity. It’s not really a surprise to me that Wal-Mart and Costco and other stores have if not book departments then tables of books. The same complaints might be made about them as about department stores in the beginning, but the truth is that regardless of where you by books or what books you read or what format you prefer your books in that the act of reading is the ultimate goal. Upcoming Book Festivals: Hattiesburg, Mississippi will host the Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival from April 6-8 on the Southern Miss campus. This festival is devoted to “promoting excellence in children’s literature,” and their events include authors T. A. Barron (the latest Southern Miss Medallion winner), Derek Anderson, Chris Barton, Phil Bildner, Carmen Agra Deedy, and more in various panels and breakout sessions. There are also special evening events: Storytelling Celebration with Derek Anderson and a galley talk, Golden Kite Award Winners: A Retrospective 1974-2010. New York City is hosting three events: From April 7-10, the famous New York Antiquarian Book Fair is being held at the Park Avenue Armory. There is a preview on Thursday night from 6:00 to 9:00 pm; Friday hours at noon to 8:00, Saturday hours are noon to 7:00, and Sunday hours are noon to 5:00 pm. Around 200 exhibitors come from all over the world to attend this one. Even if you can’t afford the prices, this fair is worth visiting for its “drool factor.” Simply beautiful books, maps, manuscripts and more will be shown. The Manhattan Vintage Book & Ephemera Fair (also known as The Shadow Show because it is overshadowed by the more famous fair, above) will take place on April 8-9 at the Altman Building. It’s certainly worth attending because it has quite a few exhibitors as well and lots of rare and old books along with vintage paper and ephemera. The show’s hours are Friday from 5:00-10:00 pm and on Saturday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. And then there is the NYC Anarchist Book Fair on Saturday, April 9 at Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan. Though the event lasts more than one day, the books section is set on Saturday and is an “exposition of books, zines, pamphlets, art, film/video, and other cultural and very political productions of the anarchist scene worldwide.” There are also panels, presentations, workshops, and skillshares as well as special children’s programs. Hours are 11:00 am to 7:00 pm. Little Rock, Arkansas is hosting the Arkansas Literary Festival from April 7 through 13 at the Central Arkansas Library System’s Main Library campus as well as other venues in the River Markets and Argenta Arts districts. More than eighty authors will be participating in a stimulating mix of sessions, panels, special events, performances, workshops, presentations, opportunities to meet the authors, book sales, and book signings. Among the special events are a Book Fiesta, the AR Shakespeare-ience, the Children’s Activity Hour, Literacy on the Lawn, and more. The opening night event—Toast the Fiesta—is a fete with the invited authors, which begins at 7:00 pm; it is the only event requiring tickets. The Border Book Festival will take place in Mesilla, New Mexico on April 8,9, and 10. This year’s event honors the birth date of Bengali poet and 1913 Noble Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore. Ranging over three venues will be events that include a school outreach program, the Welcome & Vasundhara Blessing with an Indian dinner, music, reading, and signing, storytelling, various workshops, panels, readings, an art exhibit, a morning open house, a tree-planting ceremony, and more. A few of the events cost money, but others are free. Check the schedule for details. San Francisco, California, is the host of the Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair on April 9-10, the biggest and oldest one in the nation. Around two dozen authors will be appearing either solo or as part of panels. There will be an art show with work by “local radical artists.” The website also provides a page with links to related nearby events that are not connected to the fair itself. Hours are 10:00 am to 6:00 on Saturday and from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm on Sunday at the SF County Fair Building. In southern California, the city of Irvine will be host to the annual Literary Orange. This is one-day event with lots crowded into it. It begins at 8:00 am with registration and breakfast, then morning keynote speaker on Ron Hansen who will talk and sign books. Then at 10:30 the panels begin followed by a book signing, lunch, and session 2. After more signings, session 3 will take place with the final event of the day a talk by T. Jefferson Parker and book signing. General admission, including lunch, is $60. On April 19, the Vermont Book & Ephemera Fair will take place in So. Burlington’s Sheraton Hotel from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Two dozen exhibitors with rare and out of print book, antique maps and prints, postcard and other ephemera will be there to chat with and help collectors. The Pub House: Imaging Books & Reading: Of Interest: Until next week, read well, read often and read on!
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