Sophie Cook

This thesis examines Marshall Field & Company as a cultural force that helped define modern American womanhood between 1900 and 1930. It argues that the department store operated not merely as a site of commerce, but as a space of spectacle, identity formation, and social instruction. Through architectural design, advertising, and global merchandising strategies, Field’s shaped and disseminated ideals of femininity, taste, and modernity. Drawing on material culture theory and visual culture analysis, the project investigates how imitation and authenticity, cosmopolitan aspiration, and gendered space intersected to position the store as both a producer and reflector of modern consumer culture.

The research is grounded in close analysis of archival materials, including Fashions of the Hour (1914–1934), alteration records, executive memos, advertising ephemera, and employee training documents, alongside memoirs such as Emily Kimbrough’s Through Charley’s Door (1952). These sources are interpreted using a multidisciplinary methodology that integrates cultural theory (Bourdieu, Benjamin, Hoganson, and Prown) with historiographical approaches to fashion, space, and consumption.

The study finds that Marshall Field’s not only mirrored but actively shaped cultural expectations of the modern woman through its immersive retail environments and coordinated merchandising practices. It reveals how the store transformed fashion into a system of visual and spatial cues that enabled women to perform modernity, refinement, and national identity. Ultimately, this thesis situates Marshall Field & Company at the center of early twentieth-century American culture, revealing the department store’s influential role in mediating class, gender, and aesthetic ideals.