In his overview of retailing and consumption in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England, Ian Mitchell argues that the path to modernity was not a linear one, but was rather “fractured and fragmented” with myriad reverses and spaces for traditional practices to coexist with modern ones (pp. 179–181). Although Mitchell does not precisely define “modernity,” he marks modernity broadly by the emergence of both the department store in the second half of the nineteenth century and of a consumerist mindset that cast shopping and purchasing in a positive, individualistic light.
Built on 40 years of research and thinking, Tradition and Innovation in English Retailing offers those interested in the history of retailing and consumption a wealth of details and anecdotes about the buying and selling of goods in everyday life in the century and a half before the retail revolution of the department store ushered in the age of modern shopping. This book is especially relevant for British historians interested in consumption in small towns and medium-sized cities outside of London. Mitchell has assiduously scoured archives in Cheshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and West Yorkshire counties and the range and depth of his examples is impressive.
Tradition and Innovation in English Retailing is less useful to a broader audience due to its lack of analytic coherence and rigor. Mitchell's examples come together awkwardly and his pieces do not always add up to a meaningful whole. While he notes other scholarship on consumption, particularly the work of John Brewer, Roy Porter, and Maxine Berg, and nods at theoretical framing in mentioning Pierre Bourdieu and Walter Benjamin, the book does not critically engage with the theoretical or secondary literature. Tradition and Innovation in English Retailing is more akin to a diorama, giving the reader a picture of consumer life in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England, and not much more.
Mitchell divides his book into three parts: Part I explores traditional retailing practices, such as town markets, hybrid producer-retailers, and itinerant traders. Part II examines consumption and the realm of ideas as the sort of Christian moralism that characterized the early modern world gave way to a secular individualism that valued material goods and brought with it the idea of consuming for pleasure. The final part of the book focuses on the period 1820–1850. Here Mitchell argues that the period of 1820–1850 was a key period in the history of consumption and retailing, paving the way for the retail revolution of the second half of the nineteenth century. The emergence of bazaars and covered markets during this period, Mitchell argues, anticipated the department stores that would come to symbolize and dominate the retail revolution of the nineteenth century. Throughout Tradition and Innovation in English Retailing, Mitchell makes a case that retailing and consumption are part of the same story and must be studied in conjunction with one another.
Mitchell's chapters vary widely in quality, focus, and length. The strongest parts of the book are the first two chapters on markets and urban producer-retailers and the final two chapters on bazaars and market halls. In the opening chapter on markets, Mitchell argues that local markets remained an integral part of the consumer landscape throughout the eighteenth century, even as cities and town removed them from main thoroughfares, tidied them up and at times contained them in bound spaces as a precursor to market halls (p. 33). In Chapter 7, “The Triumph of Commerce: The Changing Face of Retailing c.1820–1850” Mitchell argues for bazaars as forerunners of covered markets and department stores, as they offered “a controlled environment and the opportunity to browse without being obliged to buy” (p. 144).
The book sags in the middle. The cases of itinerant traders and neighbourhood shopkeepers seem to be artificially lumped together in Chapter 3, “On the Margins: Itinerant Traders and Neighborhourhood Shopkeepers,” as shopkeepers are fixed in particular towns, while itinerant traders travel. Chapter 4, “Competing Narratives: Consumption and Contentment,” which traces the uneven development of modern secular consumerism, offers a cursory overview of intellectual thought and lacks a conclusion.
Overall, as Mitchell argues for the development of modern retailing and consumption as a process of fits and starts, his organizing conceptual binary of “traditional” and “modern” does not offer the reader any new ways of thinking about retailing and consumption in this transitioning world. In addition, numerous broad sentences such as “Generalization might be dangerous, but is not impossible,” (p. 35), add little to the work, weakening the analytic focus.
But any historian who has ever walked into an archive can appreciate the time and effort that went into this project. The sheer number of examples that Mitchell has put together provide historians of consumption a wealth of detail about retailing and consumption practices in the era before the department store.
