The rise and fall of the department store continues to fascinate scholars and observers of American culture across a wide range of disciplines, reflecting the myriad roles it has played as economic, social and civic institution. Despite the demise of downtown business districts and onslaught of virtual retailing, the embattled retail establishment still persists as a physical artifact in major cities in the United States, standing as an enduring symbol of urban modernity.

In her book From Main Street to Mall: The Rise of the American Department Store, Vicki Howard offers a clear-eyed look at the successes and failures of the department store industry in the United States. Covering an ambitious range of geographic and temporal terrain, she recounts the history of this retailing type from the late nineteenth century, when familiar big-name stores like Macy's, Marshall Field's and Wanamaker's dominated the main streets of major cities, to its current status as the victim of the rise of the suburban mall, discount stores and, most recently, e-commerce.

Following a decade-by-decade chronology, the book begins with what seems at first to be a familiar narrative that traces the origins of these “palaces of consumption” to the late nineteenth century when buying, selling and distribution were brought together under one roof. But Howard is careful from the outset to situate the department store within the larger infrastructure of retailing, linking its role as distributor to the full-line wholesalers it eventually replaced and as retailer to the country grocer that continued to serve the rural market. The book's focus on the politics and economics of the store industry is evident by the second chapter, dedicated to the role of the national trade associations who formed an alliance with local, state and national government agencies. Howard argues that these groups made up of store executives and independent merchants “forged a professional identity that promoted chain organization and privileged ‘bigness’” – policies, she argues, that would “eventually contribute to the demise of the local department store” (31).

The trajectory of the book is thus set early on as foregrounding the failures, rather than the successes, of the department store as it navigated the shifts in the geography, economics and politics of retailing. As early as the “prosperity decade” of the 1920s, the author warns, “cracks [had already] appeared in the foundation” caused by shifts towards “consolidation and chain organization, aided by a pro-business state and increasingly price-conscious consumers” (83). The reader is treated to some tantalizing glimpses of the stores’ achievements in bringing together innovative retailing and merchandising strategies within a luxurious shopping environment. But with the onset of the Great Depression, the retailing giants continue to lose their competitive edge, in part due to the failure of management to respond to the imposition of state and federal policies to control prices.

A detailed account is given of the civic and economic shifts in the post-World War II period that sealed the fate of the traditional department store. In response to the rise of discounters who replaced service and style with slashed prices, urban stores sought to consolidate their business and expand their facilities by opening branch stores in the 1950s. Howard continues to assign blame to retailing owners and their trade associations, whose alliance with government, and unwillingness to relinquish personal service, she argues, proves eventually to be detrimental to their survival (198). But her detailed account of the powerful forces at work – political, economic and social – tends to counter the main thesis that management could have delayed or even prevented these inevitable shifts in the marketplace. With greater consolidation at a national scale, the familiar nameplates of local stores are lost – and the big-box stores enter the story in the 1980s to play their familiar role as the ultimate conqueror (205).

For readers with an interest in the intersection of economics and politics in retailing, From Main Street to Mall offers a unique view of the evolution of the department store industry in the United States. Throughout, Howard demonstrates an impressive ability to harness a wealth of data and rely on minimal graphic illustrations to support a comprehensive, wide-reaching analysis about the hard realities of business. The ambitious scope of the book leaves room for only brief discussions of fascinating social issues like the importance of early African American businesses, the role of small-town stores, and racial politics in the 1960s. These offer great potential for exploring the cultural meaning of the store – laying the groundwork for future investigations. But in her epilogue Howard cautions the reader that nostalgia and regret about the loss of this unique symbol of local community have obscured the important search for the causes of its demise. She fulfills her aim by offering a distinctive contribution to literature on the department store industry that provides a wealth of resources for scholars of retailing, as well as a cautionary tale for present and future practitioners.