VIRGINIA POSTREL: How Mr. Selfridge Created The Modern Economy.

When the British drama “Mr. Selfridge” debuted on PBS this week, American viewers saw two things rarely on display in contemporary popular culture: a businessman hero and, more remarkably, a version of commercial history that includes not just manufacturing but shopping.

The show, which is also streamed on PBS.org, stars Jeremy Piven as Harry Gordon Selfridge, the American-born founder of the London department store. In the first episode, he arrives in 1909, determined to shake up U.K. retailing with the techniques that made him a success as a partner at Chicago’s Marshall Field’s: showmanship, tons of advertising, and displays that let customers easily handle the merchandise. In the second, he puts perfumes and powder on display right by the store’s front door and introduces an affordable house fragrance concocted with new chemical processes.

Ambitions that an American drama might treat as self- centered greed become, in a British context, a bold strike against class privilege. . . .

If these shows’ entrepreneurial heroes are unusual, it’s their focus on retailing that fills the real cultural lacuna. Not even Ayn Rand deigned to celebrate shopping. None of her heroes were department store magnates.

Yet like railroads and telegraphs, the department stores of the late 19th and early 20th century were socially and economically transformative institutions.

Very true. Read the whole thing.