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Time to Smile: Ill-Defined Work Practices of Saleswomen in West German Retail
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2025
Abstract
This article examines the work habits of saleswomen in West Germany's retail and describes the amorphous yet evolving boundaries of working and non-working time. During the 1960s, women employed in retail began to work part-time to combine their domestic duties and a career. In their non-working hours, these women attended to childcare and household duties. This much is known, but this article shows that, in addition, female workers in retail often had to face irregular extensions of their working hours. This enabled companies to reduce the paid time of their employees. Moreover, some employment qualifications associated with women (smiling, engaging in conversation, displaying fine motor skills) were not properly appreciated, much less financially rewarded, but were instead regarded as natural traits and not subject to compensation. All these micro mechanisms led to women being held back from full work life participation, and therefore reinforced gender inequalities in general.
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References
1 Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, vols. for 1953, 1969, 1973, 1982, 1990.
2 Although the social market economy of the FRG's Christian conservative government privileged male labour outside the home and valued female labour only in the home, the economic boom made it necessary to permit female part-time labour; cf. Ruble, Alexandria N., Entangled Emancipation. Women's Rights in Cold War Germany (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023), 157CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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20 Rienks, Manuela, ‘Was bleibt von der Verkäuferin? Die historische Entwicklung aktueller Probleme von Beschäftigten im Einzelhandel’, Arbeits- und Industriesoziologische Studien 11, no. 1 (2018), 38–59Google Scholar.
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23 A 1975 survey initiated and carried out by the HBV revealed that 41 per cent of all respondents were organised – this seems a comparatively low percentage since the survey was only carried out in shops where at least one HBV member was working. In addition, women were less likely to be organised than their male colleagues: Institut für Angewandte Sozialwissenschaft (Godesberg), ed., Fragebogenaktion der Gewerkschaft Handel, Banken und Versicherungen bei Beschäftigten im Einzelhandel (Bonn-Bad Godesberg: Infas, 1975), 15–17.
24 Ebbinghaus, Bernhard and Göbel, Claudia, ‘Mitgliederrückgang und Organisationsstrategien deutscher Gewerkschaften’, in Handbuch Gewerkschaften in Deutschland, ed. Schroeder, Wolfgang (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2013), 207–39, at 225Google Scholar.
25 Tables in Ralf Banken, ‘Die quantitative Entwicklung des bundesdeutschen Einzelhandels 1949‒2000. Daten’, Cologne Economic History Paper 2 (2010). With 31.1 million of 42.2 million square meters, specialist retailers were far ahead of food retailers, department stores and hypermarkets (see Tables 6, 14). According to this, in 1975 the single-operator companies in the specialist retail trade accounted for well over half of sales (DM 181.5 billion out of DM 305 billion), and chain stores in the specialist retail trade were responsible for a further DM 48 billion in sales. Department stores, supermarkets and hypermarkets as well as mail-order companies and consumer cooperatives each accounted for much smaller shares of sales (see Tables 9, 17).
26 Unfortunately, not too many unfiltered voices of female sales assistants exist during the time under observation. The praxeological approach (see footnote 14) helps to fill in this gap of knowledge.
27 Bargmann, Holger, Müller, Kurt, Schickle, Ottmar and Tippelt, Rudolf, Qualifikationsanforderungen im Einzelhandel (Weinheim: Beltz, 1981), 95Google Scholar, Table 1.
28 Graphic table, ‘Part-time work of women’ (Teilzeitbeschäftigung der Frauen), 1976, Archiv der sozialen Demokratie (AdsD), inventory of the Trade, Banking and Insurance Union (Gewerkschaft Handel, Banken und Versicherungen; HBV), HBV, 5 / HBVH810006, ‘Allgemeine Korrespondenz zur Teilzeitarbeit, 1978‒80’.
29 Figures from Engfer, Uwe, Rationalisierungsstrategien im Einzelhandel. Widersprüche der Organisation von Dienstleistungsarbeit (Frankfurt a. M.: Campus, 1984), 61Google Scholar.
30 Figures from Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1972, 271; calculations by the author.
31 Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1981, 226–7.
32 These included retail of furnishings (21.5 per cent), electrical goods and musical instruments (14.1 per cent) and motor vehicles, motor vehicle parts and tires (6.7 per cent), cf. Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1981, 226–7.
33 Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1988, 230–31. Only companies with an annual turnover in excess of DM 250,000 were included in these statistics.
34 Only in the year 1977 did legislators revise the model of the ‘housewife marriage’, which until then had been perceived as traditional. In that year the German Civil Code was amended to allow women to work without their husband's permission. Previously, this had to be ‘compatible with their duties in marriage and family’.
35 Part-time work still remained a female working practice. 6.4 per cent of West German women worked part-time in 1960 and the numbers rose to 21.1 per cent in 1976 and 30.2 per cent in 1989. In East Germany throughout its thirty years of existence part-time work was not really an option except for mothers with several children or single mothers. In unified Germany the numbers rose further: in 1993, 32.2 per cent of women worked part-time, in 2001, 39.6 per cent, in 2009, 45.8 per cent and in 2018, 47.9 per cent. The percentage of men working part-time was marginal: in 1989, 1.7 per cent, in 2001, 5.2 per cent, in 2009, 9.2 per cent and in 2018, 11.2 per cent of the male work force worked part-time; cf. Rienks, Ausverkauft, 393–4.
36 Götsch, Monika and Menke, Katrin, ‘Intersektionale Ungleichheiten: Die Ökonomisierung des deutschen Wohlfahrtsstaates und seine Folgen’, in Intersektionalität und Postkolonialität: Kritische feministische Perspektiven auf Politik und Macht, eds. Mauer, Heike and Leinius, Johanna (Opladen: Barbara Budrich, 2021), 161–80Google Scholar; to be observed in German retail from the 1960s onwards, cf. Rienks, Ausverkauft, chapter on part-time work, 391–420.
37 List of personnel costs, 1 Jan.–31 Dec. 1953 and 1 Jan.–30 June 1954, from 14 July 1954, Hirmer Unternehmensarchiv (HUA), 2016/09/0030, ‘Sachakte: Stammhaus Hirmer, Personalstand (1953‒1993)’.
38 Personnel list, 1963, HUA, 2016/09/0030.
39 Personnel list, 1966, HUA, 2016/09/0030.
40 Personnel list, 1973, HUA, 2016/09/0030.
41 List as of 1 Jan. 1977, HUA, 2016/09/0030.
42 Personnel list, 1979, HUA, 2016/09/0030. One problem with the lists seems to be that some of the part-time employees leaving the company are listed under ‘departures’ while others are not, but their names are crossed out and the date of departure is added.
43 From Apr. to May 1987, 53 people were made redundant at Hirmer. There were massive job cuts in the tailoring department, in the offices, and at the packing tables and cash desks; in addition, the ‘goods receiving, lift, dispatch, valet’ areas of activity were converted into ‘house craftsmen, house security’ and ‘goods distribution’, and massive staff cuts were made there too; personnel list Jan.–Apr. 1987 and personnel list May–Dec. 1987, HUA, 2016/09/0030.
44 Here you will find the note in the statistics: ‘Aush.-TZ übernommen = 40’. Part-time employees are no longer listed separately, but the total number of persons is converted into a fictitious full-time number of persons; personnel list 1989, HUA, 2016/09/0030, headcount list and handwritten conversion list; as of Jan. 1989: 151 (sales employees) – 33 (part-time employees) + 19 (part-time employees converted to full-time employees by adding the hours and then dividing by the total number of hours per month) + 18 (35 trainees, half counted and rounded up) = 155.
45 Brandt, Johanna, ‘Perspektiven der Arbeitszeitgestaltung im Einzelhandel – Möglichkeiten und Formen wöchentlicher Arbeitszeitgestaltung – Textilwarenhaus’, in Projekt Humane Arbeitszeitgestaltung im Einzel- und Großhandel. HBV-Dokumentation, ed. Waller, Ingrid (Düsseldorf: no publisher, 1989), 125Google Scholar.
46 In this case, it is not possible to clearly assign the numbers.
47 In 1977 the proportion of part-time staff at the checkouts was 26 per cent – 8 out of 22 part-time women and 9 men were employed there – while it was only just under 10 per cent in sales, where 10 out of 104 employees worked part-time.
48 Article by Dr G. Proebstl and R. Jancke, ‘Wir haben Frauenüberschuß!’ in the Latscha annual report, 1961, Institut für Stadtgeschichte Frankfurt (ISG), inventory of the Latscha company (W 1-10), 420, ‘Hausinterne Rundschreiben und Broschüren, die Entwicklung der Firma betreffend, 1950‒1976’.
49 Brochure ‘Welcome as a part-time employee at Latscha! At Latscha, part-time is money plus free time’, 1972, ISG, S3/R1980, ‘Erinnerungen’.
50 Ibid.
51 Personnel statistics, social report branch area, status: 31 Oct. 1976, dated 18 Nov. 1976, ISG, W 1-10-483, Personnel statistics 1976.
52 Notes to the attached personnel lists – as of 30 June 1976, 1975–6, ISG, W 1-10-450, ‘Kaufpark, Verkauf’.
53 Teske, Ulrike, ‘Perspektiven der Arbeitszeitgestaltung im Einzelhandel – Möglichkeiten und Formen wöchentlicher Arbeitszeitgestaltung – Lebensmittelfilialbereich’, in Projekt Humane Arbeitszeitgestaltung im Einzel- und Großhandel. HBV-Dokumentation, ed. Waller, Ingrid (Düsseldorf: no publisher, 1989), 13Google Scholar.
54 Rudolph, Hedwig et al., ‘Chancen und Risiken neuer Arbeitszeitsysteme. Zur Situation teilzeitarbeitender Frauen im Berliner Einzelhandel’, WSI Mitteilungen 34, no. 4 (1981): 204Google Scholar.
55 Oertzen, Christine von and Rietzschel, Almut, ‘Das “Kuckucksei” Teilzeitarbeit. Die Politik der Gewerkschaften im deutsch-deutschen Vergleich’, in Frauen arbeiten. Weibliche Erwerbstätigkeit in Ost- und Westdeutschland nach 1945, ed. Budde, Gunilla-Friederike (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 216–19Google Scholar. One of the main reasons for part-time women not to join a trade union was the membership fee, which was calculated according to hourly pay. This changed at the beginning of the 1960s when a graduated contribution rate was introduced; von Oertzen and Rietzschel, ‘Teilzeitarbeit’, 224–5.
56 Ibid., 218. Until 1956, this implied a six-day week; over the next years, this would gradually give way to a five-day week which meant greater challenges to retail, with its dependence on Saturday shopping, than to manufacturing. See Michael Schneider, Streit um Arbeitszeit. Geschichte des Kampfes um Arbeitszeitverkürzung in Deutschland (Cologne: Bund, 1984).
57 Von Oertzen and Rietzschel, ‘Teilzeitarbeit’, 221–4, 244.
58 Ibid., 225–6.
59 Ibid., 225.
60 Women in other unions of the DGB feared that their working full-time was undermined by the female part-time employees and therefore did not want to encourage unions’ actions for support. ‘Fries, Dagmar’, in Wir lassen uns nicht alles gefallen. 18 Münchner Gewerkschafterinnen erzählen aus ihrem Leben, ed. Ingelore Pilwousek (Munich: Buchendorfer, 1998), 64–5.
61 Fries, Dagmar, ‘Teilzeitarbeit. Die Entwicklung der Diskussion innerhalb der HBV’, in ‘Probiern wir's halt mit dem Weib einmal!’ Aus der Geschichte der gewerkschaftlichen Frauenpolitik in Bayern, 1945‒1995, ed. Bayern, Landesfrauenausschuss des DGB (Munich: DGB Bayern, 2002), 31Google Scholar.
62 In these systems, employees found themselves in a state of total dependency, and the needs of the companies encroached significantly upon their employees’ private lives and free time.
63 Article on retail trade unions’ opposition to ‘Kapovaz’, in Handelsblatt 81, dated 27 Apr. 1983, 5, Bayerisches Wirtschaftsarchiv (BWA), inventory of textile retail company Ludwig Beck am Rathauseck Textilhaus Feldmeier AG, München (F 34) / 369, Beck-Archiv 12, 1981–3.
64 Edited collection of working time provisions in the collective labour agreements for the retail trade, 4–7B, dated 1 Jan. 1990 (for West Germany) and 1 Jan. 1991 (for former East Germany), AdsD, HBV, 5 / HBVH820042, ‘Arbeitszeitbestimmungen in Manteltarifverträgen Großhandel und Einzelhandel, 1992‒93’.
65 Gershuny, Jonathan, ‘Time Use and Social Inequality since the 1960s’, in Obsession der Gegenwart: Zeit im 20. Jahrhundert, eds. Geppert, Alexander C. T. and Kössler, Till (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015), 251, 255–9Google Scholar.
66 For comparative perspectives on how European welfare state regimes have integrated gendered divisions of work, see Sainsbury, Diane, Gender, Equality and Welfare States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 73–103CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Leitner, Sigrid, ‘Varieties of Familialism: The Caring Function of the Family in Comparative Perspective’, European Societies 5 (2003): 353–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
67 Madeline Chambers, ‘Gender pay gap in Germany unchanged 21 percent’, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-wages-gender/gender-pay-gap-in-germany-unchanged-21-percent-idUSKCN1GR1OZ (last visited Feb. 2023).
68 Similar problems and discussions concerning part-time work and the question of gender based practices in retail can be observed for the Swedish labour market and welfare state: Inger Jonsson, ‘Part-Time Work: Gendered Dilemmas and Solutions in the Swedish Retail Trade’, in Twentieth-Century Housewives: Meanings and Implications of Unpaid Work, eds. Gro Hagemann and Hege Roll-Hanse (Oslo: Unipub, 2005), 87–107.
69 Zimmermann, Bénédicte, ‘Work, Labor: History of the Concept’, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, vol. 25, ed. Wright, James D. (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2015), 676–7Google Scholar.
70 Store Closing Act (Ladenschlussgesetz) 1956, §3: General Closing Times (Allgemeine Ladenschlußzeiten).
71 For all these examples, please refer to collection of material and information on ‘Wachsende Kritik am Ladenschlußgesetz’, 13–15, dated 10 Jan. 1975, AdsD, HBV, 5/HBVH810065, ‘Umfragen zum Ladenschluss, 1967–80’.
72 Also mentioned in ‘Wachsende Kritik am Ladenschlußgesetz’, 13–15, dated 10 Jan. 1975, AdsD, HBV, 5 / HBVH810065, ‘Umfragen zum Ladenschluss, 1967–80’.
73 Transcript of interview, 14 Dec. 2009, HUA, 2013/08/0017, ‘Interview mit H. W. und Fr. W. (14 Dec. 2009)’, 30.
74 Untitled poem in thirty-four stanzas, early 1960s, Wirtschaftsarchiv Baden-Württemberg (WABW), inventory of textile retail company C. F. Braun, Stuttgart (B 56), Bü 286, ‘Betriebsausflüge der Firma, Wertmarken, Routen, Gedichte 1955‒63’.
75 Text and instruction documents for the audio-visual show ‘Selling without asking’, 1960s, Draiflessen Collection Mettingen (DCM), 126201, ‘Text und Unterweisungsunterlagen zur Tonbildschau “Verkaufen ohne zu fragen”, 1960er Jahre’, 9b.
76 Text and instruction documents for the audio-visual show ‘Selling without asking’, 1960s, Draiflessen Collection Mettingen (DCM), 126201, 11b–12b.
77 Schelsky, Helmut, ‘Beruf und Freizeit als Erziehungsaufgabe in der modernen Gesellschaft (1956)’, in Auf der Suche nach Wirklichkeit. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Soziologie der Bundesrepublik, ed. Schelsky, Helmut (Munich: Goldmann Sachbuch, 1979), 182–206Google Scholar; Schildt, Axel, ‘“Mach mal Pause!” Freie Zeit, Freizeitverhalten und Freizeitdiskurse in der westdeutschen Wiederaufbaugesellschaft’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 33 (1993): 357–406Google Scholar.
78 In theory, working hours should not exceed forty-eight hours per week, but in practice it was a common practice to extend these hours.
79 On the 1956 reform and its underlying objectives see Spiekermann, Uwe, ‘Freier Konsum und soziale Verantwortung. Zur Geschichte des Ladenschlusses in Deutschland im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert’, Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte 49 (2004): 26–44, at 37–9Google Scholar.
80 Lemm, Rolf, ‘Von Früh bis Spät – Arbeitszeit und Arbeitszeitverkürzung im Einzelhandel (Eine Chronologie)’, in Dienst am Kunden? Der Handel zwischen Flexibilisierung und Ladenschluß, eds. Gerlach, Gerhard et al. (Hamburg: VSA, 1987), 129Google Scholar.
81 See Fig. 4: ‘Distribution of working hours and time off over the working days of the week’, in Gerhard Gerlach, ‘Vorreiter der Flexibilisierung. Arbeitszeit- und Freizeitsysteme im Einzelhandel’, in Dienst am Kunden? Der Handel zwischen Flexibilisierung und Ladenschluß, eds. Gerhard Gerlach et al. (Hamburg: VSA, 1987), 55.
82 Personal anecdote of a young shop assistant who was sent to her home far away for lunch, c. 1946–1948, BWA, F 34/279, ‘Unvergessene Geschichten, 1986’.
83 This is about future managers who were under special protection at C&A; letter from the C&A main company management to the management of all C&A shops, regarding working hours of younger junior staff, dated 8 June 1951, DCM, 115783, ‘Rundschreiben an die Geschäftsleitung Haus Essen 1951‒53’.
84 Comparison of the current working hours in our stores with the previous shop closing times and with the new working hours for 1957 based on the new shop closing law, dated 6 Dec. 1956, DCM, 115784, ‘Rundschreiben an die Geschäftsleitung Haus Essen 1954‒6’.
85 A booklet on working hours in retail therefore stated the following demands: an ‘excessive extension of break times’ had to be avoided, because it would lead to an extension of shift times; the daily working time should be oriented towards the eight-hour rather than the ten-hour day, in order to avoid ‘robbing the workers of their strength’; and ‘efforts on the part of the employers to move the store opening time in the morning to a later time’ should be prevented, because this would ‘eat up’ the reduction in working hours; if the five-day week could be called into question, long idle times would result for employees in the mornings, and ancillary work, usually done in the quieter morning hours, would have to be shifted to times of higher frequency by customers, causing stress; work on late evenings should not be included in the calculation of working hours, because such working hours required separate remuneration or compensation; cf. booklet on working hours in retail, 1990, Archiv der Münchner Arbeiterbewegung (AdMAB), inventory of the German employees’ union (DAG), Arbeitszeiten im Einzelhandel. Grundsätze zur Arbeitszeitgestaltung und zur Durchführung der 37,5-Stunden-Woche. Arbeitszeitmodelle, Detlef Dreyer, ed. (Hamburg: DAG, BBG HVPD, 1990), 6–7.
86 Minutes of the 11th Ordinary Regional Conference of the HBV trade union, dated 27/28 Feb. 1988, AdMAB, inventory of the trade, banking and insurance union (HBV), ‘“Der richtige Schritt”. Ergebnisprotokoll der 11. Ordentlichen Landesbezirkskonferenz der Gewerkschaft HBV, Landesbezirk Bayern, am 27/28 Feb. 1988 in Erlangen’, 15.
87 Morgenthaler, Beatrice, ‘Das Leben kommt zu kurz’, in Hinter Neonlicht und Glitzerwelt. Arbeiten im Kaufhaus, eds. Glaubitz, Jürgen et al. (Hamburg: VSA, 1985), 11Google Scholar.
88 Paulsen, Roland, ‘Non-Work at Work: Resistance or What?’, Organization 22, no. 3 (2015): 354–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
89 Saint Nicholas Day speech for the employees of the Bcck department store, 6 Dec. 1971, BWA, F 34/365, Beck Archiv 8, 1971‒4. In German folklore, Saint Nicholas Day is an ambivalent holiday, promising children gifts for good behaviour but punishment for bad conduct.
90 Cf. Favretto, Ilaria, ‘Toilets and Resistance in Italian Factories in the 1950s’, Labor History 60 (2019): 646–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
91 Cf. Ulrike Teske, ‘Frauenarbeit im Einzelhandel – Das freundliche Gesicht einer Verkäuferin steht im krassen Gegensatz zu ihren Arbeitsbedingungen’, in Dienst am Kunden? Der Handel zwischen Flexibilisierung und Ladenschluß, eds. Gerhard Gerlach et al. (Hamburg: VSA, 1987), 78.
92 Jörg Wiedemuth and Rüdiger Wolff, ‘Gläserner Mensch – Neue Technologien und Arbeitszeit’, in Dienst am Kunden?, eds. Gerlach et al., 116.
93 Wiedemuth and Wolff, ‘Gläserner Mensch’, 117.
94 Transcript of interview, 4 Dec. 2009, HUA, 2013/08/0014, ‘Interview mit Hr. H. K., Hr. R. S., Hr. E. B. und Fr. I. B.’, 6.
95 Ibid., 15.
96 Information on the five-day week, dated 14 Jan. 1970, HUA, 2016/05/0071. ‘Stammhaus Hirmer, Gehalts- und Arbeitszeitregelungen sowie freiwillige Arbeitgeberleistungen (1970‒2000)’.
97 This statement indicates that this had been – as with Beck's department store mentioned above – practised before. At this point, the employees had also contributed to the blurring of the boundaries between work and non-work.
98 Letter from the management signed by Günther Latscha to Mr P., dated 1 July 1955, ISG, W 1-10-488, ‘“Filialleiterbriefe” 1952‒63 – Rundbriefe der Geschäftsleitung’.
99 Letter from the management signed by Günther Latscha on free time and overtime for store managers, dated 24 Mar. 1961, ISG, W 1-10-488.
100 ‘We generally pay the difference between working hours and shop opening hours as overtime. All ordered overtime is also paid, but only before 7.30 am.’ Letter from the management on free time and overtime for store managers, dated 30 Nov. 1961, ISG, W 1-10-488.
101 Letter from the management on free time and overtime for store managers, dated 30 Nov. 1961, ISG, W 1-10-488.
102 See among others Fritz Böhle and Jürgen Glaser, eds., Arbeit in der Interaktion – Interaktion als Arbeit. Arbeitsorganisation und Interaktionsarbeit in der Dienstleistung (Wiesbaden: VS, 2006); Wolfgang Dunkel and Gerd Günter Voß, eds., Dienstleistung als Interaktion. Beiträge aus einem Forschungsprojekt (Munich: Hampp, 2004).
103 This is depicted in a ground-breaking study on flight attendants by sociologist Arlie Russel Hochschild, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012).
104 Fritz Böhle, Ursula Stöger and Margit Weihrich, ‘Wie lässt sich Interaktionsarbeit menschengerecht gestalten? Zur Notwendigkeit einer Neubestimmung’, Arbeits- und Industriesoziologische Studien 8, no. 1 (2015): 37, 39–41.
105 Karin Hausen, ‘Wirtschaften mit der Geschlechterordnung. Ein Essay’, in Geschlechtergeschichte als Gesellschaftsgeschichte, ed. Karin Hausen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), 203, 206–7.
106 Job advert in the Stuttgarter Zeitung, dated 18 Aug. 1955, WABW, inventory of food retail company Gaissmaier, Ulm (B 61), Bü 206, ‘Buch mit eingeklebten Werbeanzeigen, Stellenangeboten etc. 1954‒66’.
107 Job adverts, dated 2/9 Feb. 1961, 16 Feb. 1961 and 18 Mar. 1961, WABW, B 61 Bü 206.
108 Job advert, dated 4 Nov. 1961, WABW, B 61 Bü 206.
109 Job advert in the Stuttgarter Zeitung, dated 21 July 1956, WABW, B 61 Bü 206.
110 Job adverts, dated 11 and 18 Mar. 1961, WABW, B 61 Bü 206.
111 Job advert, dated 8 Oct. 1960, WABW, B 61 Bü 206.
112 Job vacancy advertised by the company, dated 1970, WABW, B 61 Bü 211, ‘Stellenausschreibung der Fa., 1970’.
113 See Norbert Marißen, Leistungsorientierung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Einstellungsveränderungen als Folge einer sich wandelnden Berufsstruktur (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1986); on the invention of the performance principle and the emergence of bourgeois virtues in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the basis for the references of the post-war economy see Verheyen, Nina, Die Erfindung der Leistung (Munich: Hanser Berlin, 2018)Google Scholar.
114 Article by Dr G. Proebstl and R. Jancke, ‘Wir haben Frauenüberschuß!’ in the Latscha annual report, 1961, ISG, W 1-10-420, ‘Hausinterne Rundschreiben und Broschüren, die Entwicklung der Firma betreffend (u.a. Jahresberichte), 1950‒76’.
115 Poster for the reopening of the branch in Saarlouis, dated 1 Jan. 1971, DCM, 119291, Stellenanzeigen zur Neueröffnung von Häusern 1966‒71. Social benefits, regulated free time and good pay are emphasised. In particular, ‘cashiers’ and ‘typists’ are female, while ‘caretakers’ and ‘window dressers’ are male; advertisement for the opening in Offenbach, without date, DCM, 119291.
116 Advertisement for store in Erlangen, without date, DCM, 119291; Advertisement for sales staff, without date, DCM, 119290, ‘Stellenanzeigen, 1971‒73’.
117 Advertisement for store in Erlangen, no date, DCM, 119291.
118 Advertisement for temporary staff, no date, DCM, 119290.
119 Newspaper advert in Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), 18 Mar. 1989, HUA, 2011 / 06 / 0040, ‘Auszubildende als Fachberater Einzelhandel und Herrenschneider’.
120 Ellermann, Bernd, Bäckergeselle sucht Arbeit, auch als Verkäuferin. Stilblüten in Kleinanzeigen (Munich: Heyne, 1989)Google Scholar.
121 For a certain profession-specific emotional attitude, see also the pioneering study from the 1980s on flight attendants by Hochschild, The Managed Heart; some researchers even suggest the term ‘aesthetic labour’ to describe certain appearance-related requirements in retail jobs ‘which are then organizationally mobilized, developed and commodified’; Warhurst, Chris and Nickson, Dennis, ‘Employee Experience of Aesthetic Labour in Retail and Hospitality’, Work, Employment and Society 21 (2007): 104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
122 Title of the Latscha annual report from 1956, ISG, W 1-10-420.
123 Letter to store managers, no. 10, dated 19 Mar. 1952, ISG, W 1-10-488.
124 Letter from the management signed by Günther Latscha, dated 25 Sept. 1953, ISG, W 1-10-488; Letter from the management signed by Günther Latscha, dated 29 Oct. 1954, ISG, W 1-10-488.
125 Advertisement for a female cashier competition, without date, ISG, W1-10-545, ‘Zeitungsinserate, 1959‒1962’.
126 Minutes of a company managers’ meeting, 1954, DCM, 109204, ‘Protokoll der 38. Betriebsleiterversammlung 1954’, 6.
127 Audio-visual show, ‘Politeness and friendliness help sell’, 1961, DCM, 119660, ‘Tonbildschau, Höflichkeit und Freundlichkeit helfen verkaufen, 1961’, 9b.
128 You can see a young woman in a light-coloured dress with a belted waist and collar bow, holding the door open, looking at the camera and smiling.
129 The photo shows a middle-aged woman in a plain black dress standing at the door, her hand on the handle, smiling but not looking directly at the camera.
130 Photo album, to be dated to the beginning of the 1960s, WABW, B 56 F 25041‒25169, Fotoalbum: ‘Ein Arbeitstag in der Firma C. F. Braun 1960er Jahre’ (nicht paginiert), 1960er’.
131 Heinsohn, Kirsten, ‘Kommentar: Nachkriegszeit und Geschlechterordnung’, in Zeitgeschichte als Geschlechtergeschichte. Neue Perspektiven auf die Bundesrepublik, eds. Paulus, Julia, Silies, Eva-Maria and Wolff, Kerstin (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2012)Google Scholar; Schissler, Hanna, ‘“Normalization” as Project: Some Thoughts on Gender Relations in West Germany during the 1950s’, in The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949‒1968, ed. Schissler, Hanna (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
132 Kleinschmidt, Christian, Konsumgesellschaft (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008), 145–6Google Scholar.
133 Warhurst and Nickson, ‘Employee Experience’.
134 Bordo, Susan, Unbearable Weight. Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2 2004), 168Google Scholar.
135 Villinger, Clemens, ‘Von Erwartungen und Erfahrungen. Konsum und der Systemwechsel von 1989/90’, Indes. Zeitschrift für Politik und Gesellschaft 8, no. 1 (2019), 50Google Scholar.
136 Ruble, Entangled Emancipation, 162.
137 Several Western European countries had pursued policies to reconstitute the traditional family and limit female emancipation in the 1950s. One example is the Netherlands, who reduced store closing times to prevent women from working full-time; c.f. Ruble, Entangled Emancipation, 160; for the debates on store closing times between the 1950s and 1990s refer to Rienks, Ausverkauft, chapter on store closing times, 420–70.
138 Moreton, Bethany, To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bridget Kenny, ‘Walmart in South Africa: Precarious Labor and Retail Expansion’, International Labor and Working-Class History 86 (2014), 173–7; chapters on ‘guest workers’ in Rienks, Ausverkauft, 106–7, 134–8.
139 Whittle, ‘Critique’, 67.
140 Photos of Amazon Go employees, for example, at Roland Lindner, ‘Amazon Go: Ein Supermarkt ohne Kasse’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 25 Feb. 2020, https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/amazon-go-ein-supermarkt-ohne-kasse-16651170.html as well as in the video ‘Meet the Amazon Go Team’, on the online video platform YouTube in the Inside Amazon Videos channel dated 19 Oct. 2018, https://youtu.be/kM_rg5HkmIU [both accessed 4 Apr. 2024].
141 Table B-3. Average hourly and weekly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm payrolls by industry sector, seasonally adjusted, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t19.htm [accessed 4 Apr. 2024]; Amazon raises hourly pay for warehouse and transportation workers, https://www.reuters.com/business/amazon-raises-wages-warehouse-workers-insider-2022-09-28/; Verdienste nach Branchen und Berufen, https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Arbeit/Verdienste/Verdienste-Branche-Berufe/_inhalt.html; Amazon will Logistik-Einstiegslohn auf 14 Euro plus erhöhen, https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/handel-konsumgueter/us-konzern-amazon-will-logistik-einstiegslohn-auf-14-euro-plus-erhoehen/29228998.html [all websites accessed on 4 Apr. 2024].