Shoplifting: A Social History

Shoplifting is a practice that has been engaged in for centuries, but it was only after the Civil War that the prevalence of shoplifting and societal awareness of it, became significant. In the 1860s the typical shoplifter was from the lower classes; by 1900 it was an upper-class woman who shoplifted from a huge department store “because” she was a “kleptomaniac”, and in the 1960s it was teenagers stealing for kicks. Shoplifting: A Social History looks at the activity of shoplifting for the...