In the mid-19th century, shops up and down the country were owned and staffed by men, and the idea of shopping as a pleasurable experience was still a world away. As jobs opened in factories, shops lost their ready supply of young male apprentices. Groups promoted women's employment, shrugging off the notion that shop work was somehow 'unladylike'.

By the turn of the century, nearly a quarter of a million women were employed in shop work. They had forged new kinds of work for women and even helped transform the experience of shopping itself. The shopgirl was here to stay.

Venturing behind the scenes of some of our most iconic department stores and high street chains, Pamela reveals how feisty shopgirls rebelled against their poor working conditions and started to demand more from their jobs. No longer content to just be servants on the shop floor, they were becoming a respected workforce - professional young women at the heart of the nation's blossoming love affair with shopping.