When Ladies Go A-Thieving Middle-Class Shoplifters in the Victorian Department Store
| Author/creator | Abelson, Elaine S. Author |
| Format | Electronic |
| Publication Info | New York : Oxford University Press, Incorporated |
| Description | 320 p. ill 05.500 x 08.250 in. |
| Supplemental Content | Full text available from Ebook Central - Academic Complete |
| Subjects |
| Summary | Annotation This book focuses on middle-class urban women as participants in new forms of consumer culture. Within the special world of the department store, women found themselves challenged to resist the enticements of consumption. Many succumbed, buying both what they needed and what they desired,but also stealing what seemed so readily available. Pitted against these middle-class women were the management, detectives, and clerks of the department stores. Abelson argues that in the interest of concealing this darker side of consumerism, women of the middle class, but not those of theworking class, were allowed to shoplift and plead incapacitating illness--kleptomania. The invention of kleptomania by psychiatrists and the adoption of this ideology of feminine weakness by retailers, newspapers, the general public, the accused women themselves, and even the courts reveals the wayin which a gender analysis allowed proponents of consumer capitalism to mask its contradictions. |
| Access restriction | Available only to authorized users. |
| Technical details | Mode of access: World Wide Web |
| Genre/form | Electronic books. |
| ISBN | 9780195071429 |
| ISBN | 0195071425 (Trade Paper) Active Record |
| Standard identifier# | 9780195071429 |
| Stock number | 00020142 |