strategy for seeing more than what is explicitly given for observation and for

consumption. The shop window, then, becomes a site for distracted viewing, like the

view outside the window is for the idle railway traveler.

 Of course, the shop window was not meant for distracted spectatorship. It came

into existence in the late nineteenth century, as a consequence of an increasingly

standardized, mass-produced consumer culture. While the department store had emerged

around 1840 in response to rapid urbanization,14 the shop window materialized a little

later, almost simultaneously with the invention of cinema. As William Leach points out

in his analysis of the rise of American consumer culture, "Unlike the midnineteenth

century, when it was still thought indiscreet and vulgar to stare at windows, by the

beginning of the twentieth century, people were being invited-even baited-to look"

(61). But, strangely, the shop window did more than invoke consumer desire. While it

displayed goods for sale, it also activated a mode of looking at objects that did not result

in an economic transaction. It involved gazing, as Anne Friedberg argues in her

influential history of "window shopping," with "a speculative regard to the mise-en-scene

of the display window without the commitment to enter the store or to make a purchase"

(68).

 Moreover, the display window was not a static fixture. The shop window was

introduced by a traveling salesman from Chicago. Wanting to spend more time at home

with his family, he settled upon writing children's stories and, simultaneously, "hit upon

an idea that perfectly matched the needs of Chicago's retailers: the creation of show

windows" (Leach 59). Later, in search of a quiet place to write, he would move to

Southern California,15 where his fantastic children's tales eventually became perfect