Jack Moss

Thesis title:

Histories of the High-Street Shopper: Boots and the experience of chain-store retail, 1945-1980

Focused on the introduction, deployment and consequences of “self-service” formats, the thesis examines Boots’ role in adapting and normalising this internationally significant retail innovation. In doing so, it explores the impact self-service ideas had on the company’s everyday practices and the resulting customer rituals within their retail spaces.

The thesis analyses the format from a number of perspectives, including its impact upon store design, teenage merchandising and the occurrence of crime. While primarily a work of cultural history, the thesis overlaps with a number of tangential disciplines, including business, urban, criminological and gender history. The project is therefore an attempt to elucidate retail and consumption histories through each of these respective lenses, consequently adding greater depth to our understandings of postwar shopping practices.

Research Area

History

Conferences

Papers Delivered in 2022:

"Shoplifting, Boots and The Bristol Experiment: Retail Crime in 1970s Britain". For Contemporary History and Politics Seminar Series. University of Nottingham. March 2022
"Self-Service and Boots the Chemist". For CHORD on-line seminar series. University of Wolverhampton. May 2022.

Papers Delivered in 2023:

"Reinventing Tradition; Boots the Chemists' experiments with self-service in early postwar Britain". Business History Conference. Detroit, US. March 2023.
"Boots the Chemist, Shoplifting and the Bristol Experiment; Reducing Retail Crime in the Self-Service Era, 1960-71." Urban History Conference, University of Warwick. March 2023.
"You Don't Want to be Older than 17: You Start Decaying After That: Boots the Chemist, Teenage Sociability and the Sale of Youth Cosmetics, 1968-72." Cultures of Skin Conference, University of Surrey. July 2023.

Papers Delivered in 2024:

"Retail Employment in the Age of Self-Service: An example from Boots the Chemist, c.1960-1980", Social History Society Conference. University of Durham. July 2024.

Public Engagement & Impact

Published Blog posts:

"Retail History blog" for CHORD (Centre for the History of Retail and Distribution), University of Wolverhampton (Aug 2022)- "An Experiment in Selling?- Introducing Self-Service Selling at Boots the Chemist 1951-56". Here
Over the Global Counter, exploring the international history of Boots the Chemist. "A Land of Opportunity? Boots considers American "self-service" in the 1950s". Here.

Workshops:

Jan 2023- History of Seventeen Workshop.

Undertaken at the Boots Archive with current members of the company's cosmetic product development and marketing team. The workshop involved interactions with archival material and historical objects, using the attendee's professional expertise to contextualise and illuminate the historical practices and approaches to the 17 brand. In return, my knowledge of the brand's history informed attendees as they developed new ideas for the contemporary product.

Presentations:

UWE and Bristol M-Shed Regional History Centre, Seminar Series. "Are You Going to Help Yourself?"- Boots the Chemist, Shoplifting and the Bristol Experiment; Cutting Retail Crime in the Postwar Era, 1960-71. November 2023.
"Boots and its People", Nottingham Mechanics Institute. May 2024
"The Story of Boots' 17: Selling Cosmetics to the postwar Teenager", Lakeside Arts, Nottingham. May 2024. (In support of the Counter Culture exhibition).

Exhibitions:

Provided research and interpretation for public exhibition. "Counter Culture: 175 Years of Shopping at Boots", Lakeside Art Gallery, Nottingham, May- July 2024
Gallery Tour of "Counter Culture" exhibition. June 2024.

Other Research Interests

History of architecture
History of postwar planning and development
History of Medicine

Career Bio

I undertook a BA in History at the University of Manchester between 2005- 2008. After this, I worked as a museum professional at various instituitions including the Science Museum Group and the Horniman Museum. I worked as an Assistant Curator of Medicine on the Science Museum's 'Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries' between 2014- 2017, after which point I left to study an MSc in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Manchester. I curated the imagery of the Laing Construction Company for Historic England's Breaking New Ground project prior to commencing this PhD project.