| Exhibition Review | The Journal of American History, 89.3

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| Exhibition Review | The Journal of American History, 89.3 | The History Cooperative

Exhibition Review

"Enterprising Emporiums: The Jewish Department Stores of Downtown Baltimore." Jewish Museum of Maryland, 15 Lloyd St., Baltimore, MD 21202.

Temporary Exhibition, Oct. 7, 2001–Jan. 24, 2003. Tu–Th, Su 12–4; adults $5, children $3, members free. 2,000 sq. ft. Melissa J. Martens, curator; Avi Y. Decter, executive director; Anita Kassof, assistant director; Chris White Design Inc., exhibition designer; Production II, Inc., exhibition fabricator; Amy D. Freese, publications designer; K. Meghan Gross, curatorial assistant.

Enterprising Emporiums: The Jewish Department Stores of Downtown Baltimore. (Baltimore: Jewish Museum of Maryland, 2001. 87 pp., $15.00.)

Many Americans wax nostalgic for downtown department stores and the amenities they provided. The professional staff at the Jewish Museum of Maryland are no different. Their new exhibition, "Enterprising Emporiums: The Jewish Department Stores of Downtown Baltimore," is a pleasant exploration of the Jewish department stores that defined shopping and the physical space of downtown Baltimore from the late nineteenth century through the 1970s. As the "first major museum exhibition devoted to the topic of Jewish-owned department stores in the United States," this show succeeds in evoking the heyday of downtown shopping as a streetcar destination. Focusing on three major Jewish-owned department stores (Hutzler's, Hochschild Kohn's, and Hecht's), the exhibition offers an easy way to spend an hour or two. And it does so in a fun and creative way. For example, price tags are used for exhibition captions, worker's lockers provide the setting for information about employment, and excellent photos remind us of the ways retail palaces shaped the physical landscape of the city's downtown. 1

Set up to re-create department store spaces, this attractive exhibition does two things well: It appeals to the nostalgic interests of those old enough to remember downtown as a shopping destination, and it suggests to those too young to have known it that an important and romantic era has passed. (This it does, in part, by allowing young visitors to play dress-up with clothes on a rack in the middle of the exhibition.) Reviews in the exhibition's guest book are nearly unanimous: visitors enjoy this exhibition for allowing "a trip down memory lane." The accompanying exhibition catalog adds substance and subtlety to the exhibition, which might otherwise be criticized (at least by scholars) for telescoping a century of department store history into a not very nuanced presentation. 2

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