White Collar by C. Wright Mills — Read

The department store is not a continuation of the old general store, but a synthesis of general store and specialty shop. Fairs in the medieval West and bazaars in the Orient were many little shops under one roof, each under its own management and the total but a passing combination. The old general store was small and not organized by departments; peddlers grew up to become Woolworths, not Macy's. None of these quasi-prototypes provided the liberal services' that the department store often provides: free delivery, charge account, the return privilege, free rest room, information service.

The modern department store is a congeries of little hierarchies, which in turn sum up to the store as a whole. It is a curious blend of decentralized organs and intricate centralizing nerves. Departments are organized along commodity lines, each with its own managers, all knit firmly together by a financial and personnel network. By watching the running balance of outgo and yield, the accounting system keeps alert to the work of each department. The big store is departmentalized by commodities and centralized by accounting.