Service Industry History

I was never particularly interested in history when I was a student. I felt that the past was the past and I wanted to learn about what was going on in the world today. However, what I discovered over time is that I'm actually really interested in the past when it comes to certain areas of study. I didn't really enjoy history in school because I'm not really interested in politics and most of what you study in school is political history. However, I'm totally interested in the history of arts, inventions and technology. This type of history captures my attention and seems like it truly influences life today.

The service industry is filled with really interesting history. I can get really interested in this type of stuff. For example, I was recently reading about the history of pawn shops and how the way that people sell scrap gold to pawn shops today is related to the way that people would sell gold during the Gold Rush. Now that's interesting stuff! The more that the history relates to creativity and innovation and the interesting characters of the past the more I can get into studying it. What about you? Does history of any kind get your attention?