Between the 1850s to the 1960s, the department store emerged as a prominent retail format worldwide. As a retail format, the department store model broke away from pre-existing retailer and consumer conceptions of shopping and the shopping environment. Store leaders placed their focus on creating an uplifting mode of consumerism that perpetuated the department store as an ‘experience.’ However, behind the department store’s ‘magical’ façade, store management preplanned and manipulated consumer interactions with every part of the store. The managerial techniques managers used allowed these institutions to become an epicentre of consumerism and urban culture globally. The department store has lost its reputation as a vibrant shopping location in the digital age, and retailers and consumers alike have disregarded it as solely a monument of retail nostalgia. Nonetheless, today’s retailers still have much to learn from the ways department store leaders innovated. The management techniques used in department stores can provide insight into these institutions’ successes and pitfalls when navigating changing retail circumstances. If the department store is used as a tool of managerial know-how for retailers in the digital age, it could allow other retailers to sustain a semblance of the department store’s longevity, commercially and culturally. Hudson’s Bay, a remaining store in the Canadian department store industry, features as a case study to highlight the extent to which department store leaders designed and managed their stores. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis examines the department store’s legacy as a tool of managerial know-how for retailers in the digital age. From the 1890s to the 1960s, department stores were an epicentre of consumerism and urban culture in locales worldwide. Department store management crafted store environments to create a ‘magical’ atmosphere for customers while calculating every consumer interaction with the store behind the scenes. Over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, increased retail competition has forced many stores to close, often leaving visual façades as the sole reminders of some defunct stores. Yet, the extensive management techniques used inside and outside stores provide insight into how this retail format achieved prominence, how its leaders responded to competitors, and how department store management techniques can contribute to current retail discussions despite its continued decline.