Hardware Window Dressing: A Complete Manual of Window Display for the Hardware Man, with full instructions for showing all classes of merchandise carried by a hardware store

Chicago: The Merchants Record Company, 1908. Hardcover. Fair. 8" x 10.75", 256 pp, extensively illustrated with b/w halftones. Blue cloth boards heavily worn and soiled, cloth split at upper spine, hinges tender, pages with old dampstaining and occasional soiling. A complete, serviceable copy of this early, in-depth guide to display merchandising for hardware and general stores ("hardware" being used here a bit more broadly than it is today), covering everything from from color and form to fixtures and content, for windows that are themed, unthemed, seasonal, whimsical, practical, elaborate, elegant, and just plain odd. The copious illustrations and examples of real-life displays are a wonderful window (pardon the pun) onto turn-of-the-century American retail practices and the way browsers of the day would have experienced the shops they visited. As the Introduction states, "If a store has good windows regularly, people will learn to look for them. They will walk blocks out of their way to see what is new.... The returns will come later. Persons who noted the articles shown may not have needed them at the time... [but] when they do need them, they will remember the window in which they saw them.