All Museums Will Become Department Stores’: the Development and Implications of Retailing at Museums and Heritage Sites

Larkin, J 2016 ‘All Museums Will Become Department Stores’: The Development and Implications of Retailing at Museums and Heritage Sites. Archaeology International, No. 19: pp. 109–121, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ai.1917 RESEARCH ARTICLE ‘All Museums Will Become Department Stores’: The Development and Implications of Retailing at Museums and Heritage Sites Jamie Larkin Museums and heritage sites have provided merchandise for visitors to purchase since their earliest incarnations as public attractions in the 18th century. Despite this longevity scant academic research has been directed towards such activities. However, retailing – formalised in the emergence of the museum shop – offers insights into a range of issues, from cultural representation and education, to economic sustainability. This paper outlines the historical development of retailing at museums and heritage sites in the UK, before offering a summary of current issues, illustrated by a case study of contemporary retailing at Whitby Abbey. The paper demonstrates how commercial spaces have made, and continue to make, important contributions to visitors’ cultural experiences and aims to frame this topic as a legitimate field of academic enquiry. Introduction the UK now generate more than £100m per Over the past generation, shops have annum across the sector (Neville, 2013). become increasingly ubiquitous at museums While the growing development of shop and heritage sites in the UK. While there is revenues reflects the professionalization of no reliable means of determining the preva- selling practices, it is also indicative of the lence of such amenities, the most compre- importance of the shop to visitor satisfaction. hensive estimate, based on the Museum Recent research across six museum and her- Association’s ‘Find a Museum’ database, itage sites in England, showed that 80% of indicates that roughly 80% of the 2,686 visitors had some interaction with the shop organisations listed offer some form of retail- (Larkin, 2016: 289). Inevitably, the growth ing (Larkin, in prep.). The recent growth of of retailing has implications for visitors’ such amenities has been spurred largely by museum experience and for the presen- economic concerns, as institutions attempt tation of culture more broadly. These are to navigate a volatile funding climate by evident in the popularisation of the phrase developing self-generated revenue. Such ‘exit through the gift shop’, which highlights expansion has meant that museum shops in the effect the shop can have on the con- figuration of the visit, and also the fact that museum shops are increasingly marketed as attractions in their own right (The Guardian, UCL Institute of Archaeology, London WC1H 0PY, United Kingdom 2015). Perhaps most significantly, as retail- [email protected] ing becomes increasingly sophisticated and 110 Larkin: ‘All Museums Will Become Department Stores’ products (re)present site collections in a It explores the historical development of variety of forms, visitors are presented with these activities, then considers key ques- opportunities to relate to culture in qualita- tions concerning the growing sophistication tively different ways from those provided in of museum retailing, illustrated with a con- the galleries (cf. Macdonald, 2012). temporary case study. Ultimately, this paper Despite the increased prominence of aims to draw attention to the shop as a legiti- the shop within the museum and heritage mate facet of the museum experience, and to visit, it is not taken seriously as a topic of encourage readers to consider its capacity to academic enquiry. In intellectual terms the influence the presentation and consumption shop suffers in relation to the cachet of the of culture at museums and heritage sites. ‘authentic’ objects in the galleries. Moreover, responses to this space in popular culture Historical development of museum are often satirical, in the form of cartoons retailing or, more recently, a music video (College The history of museum retailing in the UK is Humor, 2013) or products are dismissed as not well-understood (Macdonald, 2012: 53). symbols of the sanitised contemporary pres- There appears to be a feeling within the entation of the past (cf. ‘tea-towel history’, sector (gleaned through conversations with see Monbiot, 2009). The result is that nei- practitioners and visitors) that museum ther academics nor practitioners have devel- shops emerged in the 1970s as the result oped the tools or conceptual approaches to of the nascent consumer culture. While analyse the museum shop effectively, and in some ways this is correct – the scale of therefore do not clearly understand how such practices did change substantively commerce within a cultural context may at this point – this belies a more nuanced influence the visit. Consequently, the shop understanding of both institutional opera- (alongside the café) is among the least scruti- tions and visitor behaviour. Rather than an nised and therefore most poorly understood unprecedented commercial intrusion into aspects of the contemporary museum expe- cultural space, changes in the 1970s were a rience (Fig. 1). contemporary manifestation of longstand- The broad purpose of this article, there- ing visitor desires to ‘take something away’ fore, is to highlight the cultural significance from cultural sites. of retailing at museums and heritage sites The earliest example of such visitor behav- and to justify academic study of this area. iour is found in the practice of medieval pilgrimage (c.1100–1400 CE). As pilgrims visited holy shrines they sought spiritual intercession through association with holy relics. This extended to chipping fragments of masonry from saints’ tombs, which were then preserved as talismans to ensure close physical connection to an intangible spirit (Webb, 2000: 85). Recognising pilgrims’ need to forge such links, markets for spe- cially manufactured items like ampullae and pilgrim badges developed at popular shrines (Bell & Dale, 2011: 624). While such decorative items assumed a religious significance, the visual reference to visited Figure 1: Banksy: Exit through the gift shop shrines also performed a ‘souvenir’ func- (Reproduced with permission of Pest tion, offering cultural cachet to the wearer. Control acting on behalf of the artist). Pilgrimage also resulted in the production Larkin: ‘All Museums Will Become Department Stores’ 111 of the first guidebooks, providing advice 1968: 60). These offered guided itineraries, on routes and accommodation, eventually highlighting objects of cultural importance expanding to highlight other cultural sites (Anderson, 2014) and obviating the need for pilgrims could visit during their journey (often poorly educated) servants to show visi- (Houlihan, 2000). tors around the property. Similarly, the British While pilgrimage constituted a religio- Museum issued its first guide, the Synopsis of cultural experience, the rudiments of con- the Contents of the British Museum, in 1808 temporary visitor behaviours are evident in which provided a concise commentary on this practice. Similar desires to orientate, the Museum’s rooms in the order the visitor connect to, and commemorate museum would tour them. This enabled the visitor to experiences can be traced from the emer- navigate through the Museum and, signifi- gence of public museums in the 1760s. The cantly perhaps, ushered in the abolition of provision of retailing since this point has unpopular mandatory guided tours – often been influenced by a range of social, cultural, the source of visitor complaints – just two and economic factors (particularly as cultural years later (Leahy, 2012: 30–31). heritage has assumed a quasi-religious The substance of the information conveyed character in contemporary society). varied widely. At some institutions, informal arrangements with amateur authors resulted Early catalogues and guidebooks – in catalogues and guidebooks of dubious orientation to education veracity. Of the catalogue at the Tower of Visiting cultural sites became a popular lei- London, Robert William Buss noted that: surely pursuit in the mid-18th century among the aristocratic and merchant classes. As such in the main it is tolerably correct; but attractions developed, so too did the para- it contains a few of the fanciful and phernalia associated with them. Catalogues absurd stories handed down from the were produced and sold at the outset. Early old catalogues . and still retailed by examples provided visitors with basic details some of the elder warders, who are, of what they were looking at in a period when on that account, not unfrequently it was uncommon for such information to be exposed to ridicule displayed in the exhibition hall. For example, (HoC, 1841: 149). at the 1760 Society of Arts exhibition in the Strand, London – often considered the first Popular attractions like the Egyptian Hall, exhibition of contemporary art – admission Piccadilly, sold brief guidebooks, while aristo- was free but an accompanying catalogue was cratic collections opened for public viewing sold for 6d, providing a brief justification were the subject of compendious catalogues for the exhibition and noting the exhibited raisonnés, comprising essays contextualis- artists’ names and the titles of their artworks ing the collections in art historical terms (Taylor, 1999: 8–10). (cf. Waterfield, 1995: 44–46). In this early As exhibitions and related attractions period, catalogue production was often increased in popularity, so too did the quality

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