"Upscale Retailing in Wartime: Seattle Department Stores and the Challenges of World Wars I and II is an excerpt from a not-yet-published manuscript that covers how Seattle's grand old department stores created cultural, self-improvement and social opportunities for women late in the 1800s and early in the 1900s. This research grew out of what I learned when researching Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest (University of Washington Press, 2003, 2017): through that work I learned how major department stores (as well as Sears, Roebuck and other catalog stores) served far-flung communities. Upscale Retailing provides a directory of the most important department stores in Seattle in the era 1914-1946, and discusses the challenges the stores faced, especially during World War II. I was aware of federal restrictions on so many materials and products---most metal and rubber went to defense, for example. And I knew about clothing styles being limited by federal edict: shorter, slimmer skirts, less leather for shoes, no double-breasted suits or coats. But I was astounded by the price ceilings, high sales taxes, ever-changing regulations on sales prices, and the significant difference in wages for department store employees vs. those in defense plants."
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