Women's Paradise on Earth became the department store in 1838 in Paris. The department store became a haven where wealthy middle-class and middle-class women could spend their free time there and feel safe, just as they did in church. It also became an expansion of the sphere of women both in working life and in public. But since the department store was first built, the burning question arises: why should Parisian women feel safe in department stores? Why did lower-middle class girls work in department stores where the hours were long and the wage minimal? Department stores changed the way women were viewed both in society and among each other because they became "modern women" rather than "traditional women" as they had been viewed before. In his novel, Emile Zola's Ladies' Paradise published in 1883, Zola said that the department store was "a gigantic fairground display, as if the shop were bursting at the seams and throwing the excess stock into the street" (Zola and Nelson 5) . The department store in Zola's novel was based on Le Bon Marche, founded by Aristide Boucicaut in 1838 and became the most famous department store in Paris. In 1852, Le Bon Marche or "the good market" offered a wide variety of goods under one roof which were sold at fixed prices, with a low margin and there was a guarantee for exchanges and refunds. The department store was known for selling goods at fixed prices and even shopkeepers were given a "percentage on the smallest fabric, on the smallest article sold: a system that had caused a revolution in the curtain trade by creating a fight among the shop assistants for survival from which employers derive the benefit” (Zola and Nelson 35). The leaders......middle of paper......and they consumed everything in their path, it also started a revolution among women in Paris. Women began to think of themselves as queens of a kingdom that catered only to them, a kingdom of cheap goods. The women of Paris were seduced by the department stores and this launched a new wave on the population for both female customers and girls who worked in the department stores. Women began to become more modern and this would launch stores into the future, where there would be department stores in every city in the world catering to people of all classes and genders. The department store “burned like a lighthouse, it seemed to be the only one to illuminate and live the city” according to Zola in his novel (Zola and Nelson 28). Works Cited Zola, Emile and Brian Nelson. A women's paradise. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1995. Print.