ABSTRACT
R. P. Moore’s handbill illustrates the growing sophistication of English retail. Only a small sector of business people in especially competitive trades like retail clothing initiated the new methods that would become the hallmark of nineteenth-century trade. The emphasis on consumption as a driving economic force is a recent one in historical scholarship. Whether influenced by the impact of Britain’s recent industrial decline or the legacy of nineteenth-century classical economists, historians traditionally focused on production as the key to analyzing economic growth. Despite significant changes in eighteenth-century retail, most shop owners operated as petty shopkeepers usually assisted by a spouse and perhaps a single worker from outside the family. One of the first signs of a shift in traditional retail culture in the early nineteenth century was the emergence of shopping arcades in London and other densely populated cities in England.
