Turning Houses into Homes. A history of the retailing and consumption of domestic furnishings

Notes:

Scholarly work tracing from the 18th century to the present the history, changes, development and structure of the retail furnishing industry as well as the relationships between the retailer and the consumer, looking at how retailers helped stimulate and shape the demand of their customers and at factors influencing their demand. Chapters include: 'Development of a consuming culture'; 'The rise of the retail tastemaker - eighteenth century furniture and furnishing retailing and distribution'; 'From being to well-being - the growing demand for comfort and convenience in the eighteenth century home'; 'The retail revolution - the response to the demands from the nineteenth century consumer'; 'Consumption, identity and everyday life - nineteenth century homes and their importance in society'; 'Twentieth century retail responses - from mass to niche marketing'; 'C hanging visions of the ideal and the real - the consumption of home furnishings in the twentieth century'. Touches briefly on many individual retailers, notably Maple & Co Ltd and Oetzmann & Co Ltd