Congratulations to Professor Dr. Lisa Tolbert on the publication of her new book, Beyond Piggly Wiggly: Inventing the American Self-Service Store, by University of Georgia Press, in association with the Southern Foodways Alliance. Dr. Tolbert teaches classes in American cultural history and education in our department.
From the UGA web site: “Patented in 1917, Piggly Wiggly was by far the most influential self-service store of the early twentieth century. Before 1940 it was the only self-service chain with a national distribution network, but it was neither the first nor the only version. Beyond Piggly Wiggly reveals the importance of Piggly Wiggly in the invention of self-service and goes beyond the history of a single firm to explore the role of small business entrepreneurs who invented the first self-service stores in a grassroots social process.”
