Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[LizzieMaine]

I do wonder which vintage things are next on the list for extinction. I've heard that department stores are at-risk.

In a way, they already are all but extinct. The modern "department store" has much more in common with the suburban discount-store model that became common in the fifties than with the urban department stores of the prewar era. The old department stores were located downtown, in multi-story buildings, and were service-oriented -- every individual department in the store had its own staff, including clerks and floorwalkers, to ensure that merchandise was kept organized, that inventory was carefully managed, and customers received personal service. Merchandse you purchased was rung up directly in the department where you selected it.

The idea of a "self-service" department store, in which you load your goods into a carriage as you wheel thru the store and then carry your stuff to a checkout counter at the front of the store came out of the supermarket grocery model, and didn't really catch on until the postwar era. These were primarily discount stores, where slashed personnel and reduced pay for the staff who remained allowed the sale of name-brand merchandise for lower prices, and were built in plazas convenient to suburban shoppers. While there are still vestiges of the old style department stores left, most of them disappeared within the last fifty years, and the minimally-staffed discount chain store has become the default mode for what people think of as a "department store."

 

[ChiTownScion]

I do wonder which vintage things are next on the list for extinction. I've heard that department stores are at-risk.

The day that Macy's bought Marshall Fields, the last coffin nail was driven. Fields had been declining for years: little things, such as the erosion of its No Questions Asked return policy, out-shopping production of the Frango Mints, sub- contracting individual retail departments, etc. But the day that those Manhattan-ites put up a sign in the State Street store pointing the way to "RANDOLPH AVENUE," it was really over.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Same thing happened in New England when they engulfed Filene's. Macys has become a giant distended amoeba of commerce, engulfing, digesting, and discarding everything in its path, nothing but an upper-middle-class Wal Mart. Bleah.

Used to be every city or large town of any pretension at all had its own independent department store. Up here, Portland had Porteous, Mitchell and Brawn, Bangor had Freese's, and right here in my town we had Senter-Crane's. Locally owned and operated, employing local people, and fully answerable to the local community. That's all gone now.

 

[ButteMT61]

The day that Macy's bought Marshall Fields, the last coffin nail was driven. Fields had been declining for years: little things, such as the erosion of its No Questions Asked return policy, out-shopping production of the Frango Mints, sub- contracting individual retail departments, etc. But the day that those Manhattan-ites put up a sign in the State Street store pointing the way to "RANDOLPH AVENUE," it was really over.

That made me really sad. As a child, we lived in the South side while Dad was in grad school at the U OF C. Marshall Fields was magical. The large windows with holiday dressings, the amazing train setup in the toy area. The candy section. All of it was something of a movie for me as a kid. We didn't have any money, but we still could go there and I could just imagine for a while. Mom would get me the chocolate covered orange peels which were my favorite.
Wife and I watch "Mr. Selfridge" on PBS which takes us both back. Sure, it's a TV show, but there's not much left of that world even though the last Macy's here in Pasadena tries. Don't know how much longer it will be around - the other one shut down maybe five years back. Now it's all shopping on computers. Easy, yes. An experience, most certainly not. But I guess my grandkids will never miss what they didn't have...

 

[Trenchfriend]

I like to show you a time travel in Erfurt:
http://www.personal.uni-jena.de/~di48jov/Bilder/ErfurtZeitreise/Bilder.html

The "Anger 1" is today probably one of the rarely remaining modernized traditional department-stores of the 90s.
http://www.anger1erfurt.de/das-center/impressionen/

I am hoping, that Karstadt will live on. If not >

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

At least there are still some things that never seem to change. Yesterday was the 70th birthday of the Slinky, still very much with us. A few days ago I was in a shop and in the toy section I found Silly Putty in plastic eggs, unchanged since I first encountered it (under the name of Nutty Putty back then) in 1954-55. The only change was the Day-Glo colors on some of the eggs.

 

[Zombie_61]

...Macys has become a giant distended amoeba of commerce, engulfing, digesting, and discarding everything in its path, nothing but an upper-middle-class Wal Mart. Bleah.

An overpriced upper-middle-class Wal-Mart. The same thing has happened to Sears over the years. I don't know that they were ever considered to be a "high end" retailer, but right around the time they got rid of Roebuck they began selling the same goods of questionable quality that you could get almost anywhere else, but maintained their higher price point. I can remember shopping at "Sears, Roebuck, & Company" regularly with my parents in the 1960s simply because they had been shopping there for years and knew if you needed clothing, or appliances, or tools, or new springs for your garage door, or just about anything other than groceries, you could get it at Sears for a reasonable price. Now I can't remember the last time my wife or I shopped at Sears.

...Now it's all shopping on computers. Easy, yes. An experience, most certainly not. But I guess my grandkids will never miss what they didn't have...

I'd guess some people had the same complaints when department stores became the "new norm". "Yeah, you can get shoes at Montgomery Ward, but you won't get the kind of service and the personal touch you'll get at Joe Schmoe's shoe store." The times, they are a-changin'...just as they always have. Some would surely say it's progress, but I wouldn't necessarily call it an improvement.

 

[ChiTownScion]

That made me really sad. As a child, we lived in the South side while Dad was in grad school at the U OF C. Marshall Fields was magical. The large windows with holiday dressings, the amazing train setup in the toy area. The candy section. All of it was something of a movie for me as a kid. We didn't have any money, but we still could go there and I could just imagine for a while. Mom would get me the chocolate covered orange peels which were my favorite.
Wife and I watch "Mr. Selfridge" on PBS which takes us both back. Sure, it's a TV show, but there's not much left of that world even though the last Macy's here in Pasadena tries. Don't know how much longer it will be around - the other one shut down maybe five years back. Now it's all shopping on computers. Easy, yes. An experience, most certainly not. But I guess my grandkids will never miss what they didn't have...

You can still have holiday lunch in the Walnut Room at the now Macy's, but it isn't quite the same. I remember in the 60's when Fields had a toy department that makes F.A.O Schwartz look like K Mart. It covered nearly a full floor filled with fine toys- from the usual stuffed animals, games, toy guns, and dolls to the more exotic stuff that you never saw advertised on the Mattel or Kenner commercials. What I really thought was amazing were the gasoline powered, kid sized Model T Fords and Hovercrafts. I knew they were way off the radar for my parents, but I always envisioned some overindulged Little Lord Fauntleroy- type in Lake Forest or Winnetka getting stuff like that from Santa. A childhood lesson in the realities of class warfare, so to speak.

They had a terrific Santa at Marshall Fields as well. Real boots, a finely made suit, and a very realistic beard. I actually can remember feeling sorry for the Carson, Pirie Scott & Co. Santa because he was such a far second to the Santa at Fields. Montgomery Wards had cheaper quality toys but they were also a holiday stop as they installed amusement park rides on their toy department floor.

 

[Delma]

I have happy memories of having lunch with my grandmother at the department store when we shopped. *Sigh* Food courts just are not the same at all. We always spit a club sandwich.

 

[LizzieMaine]

An overpriced upper-middle-class Wal-Mart. The same thing has happened to Sears over the years. I don't know that they were ever considered to be a "high end" retailer, but right around the time they got rid of Roebuck they began selling the same goods of questionable quality that you could get almost anywhere else, but maintained their higher price point. I can remember shopping at "Sears, Roebuck, & Company" regularly with my parents in the 1960s simply because they had been shopping there for years and knew if you needed clothing, or appliances, or tools, or new springs for your garage door, or just about anything other than groceries, you could get it at Sears for a reasonable price. Now I can't remember the last time my wife or I shopped at Sears.

Sears lost its way when it dumped or deemphasized its own brands in favor of nationally-marketed goods. People shopped at Sears because they liked Coldspot and Kenmore and Craftsman and J. C. Higgins and Cross-Country and Allstate and David Bradley, and the various other lines the company spent years developing.

Sears carried its own brands of packaged drugs and groceries in the catalog into the 1940s, and sold a lot of them to farmers and people who didn't live close to towns. The decline in farming and rural living in the postwar era was another blow to the company's bottom line because it cost them these customers.

 

[tonyb]

I still quite enjoy a brisk evening out downtown during the Most Holy of Retail Seasons. The lights. The hustle and bustle. The bells and all the Santas and their "helpers."

Back in my drinking days I positioned myself at a window table and downed Irish Coffees and the like while watching the shoppers making their way from shop to shop. These days I'm the guy who does the driving, and that's fine, too.

I suppose I could get used to the holidays in a truly warm-weather town, but in my mind that brisk winter air is part and parcel of the experience.

 

[Stearmen]

Sears lost its way when it dumped or deemphasized its own brands in favor of nationally-marketed goods. People shopped at Sears because they liked Coldspot and Kenmore and Craftsman and J. C. Higgins and Cross-Country and Allstate and David Bradley, and the various other lines the company spent years developing.

Sears carried its own brands of packaged drugs and groceries in the catalog into the 1940s, and sold a lot of them to farmers and people who didn't live close to towns. The decline in farming and rural living in the postwar era was another blow to the company's bottom line because it cost them these customers.

My neighbor has a snowblower and rototiller made by Montgomery Wards, that he bought in 1978, both are still going strong!

 

[LizzieMaine]

My ironing mangle is from Monkey Wards, and it's probably sixty years old if its a day. It could use a new cover for the roller, but otherwise it's as functional as the day it was built. Wards merchandise seemed to stand in the shadow of Sears, but the level of quality was comparable.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I know about mangles and it always gets me on King of Queens, when Douglas came home and said to Carrie, that on his way home he was at the dry cleaner's and let it even mangle. And he finally says:
"Whatever it is, it costed me 1 Dollar."

My father off course experienced (though the eyes of a child) "huge" mangles in his childhood, at the 40's. There are the rumbleing stone-cist-ones. Leipzig.

 

[kaiser]

My ironing mangle is from Monkey Wards, and it's probably sixty years old if its a day. It could use a new cover for the roller, but otherwise it's as functional as the day it was built. Wards merchandise seemed to stand in the shadow of Sears, but the level of quality was comparable.

My parents bought all of their appliances at Wards, very good quality indeed. When my Mom passed on in 2007 she still had an electric range from Wards that was a good 30 years old and still working fine.

 

[Fading Fast]

The general feel from my parents was that Sears was better quality than Wards, so we were a Sears family. I was too young to think this way, so I never asked them why they felt that way or if that was a "general" perception in the marketplace. It could have been based on one bad experience my parents had with Wards (or a great one they had with Sears) or, again, just the overall reputations of the two companies. I don't know, but I know that Sears was considered "the place," in my house growing up in the '60s and '70s.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

The diverging paths of Sears and Ward's after WWII was an intriguing story of American business. Both were in bad shape after four years of few consumer goods to sell. Conventional wisdom had it that war was always followed by depression. Ward president Sewell Avery subscribed to this and cut back every possible operation to save money and wait out the depression to come. Sears president Robert E. Wood had a hunch that this time would be different. He borrowed heavily to expand inventory and went on a massive building program, putting up more than 90 new retail outlets and moving downtown Sears stores into the expanding new suburbs. It paid off big time and Sears stole a march on Ward's from which the latter never really recovered.

 

[GHT]

Hitch Hikers, from the late 1940's up to mid to late seventies, hitch hikers were a common sight. Usually students wearing their obligatory university scarf, sticking their thumb out, a big smile, until you pass by, then it might be a finger gesture for not stopping. Haven't seen a hitch hiker in decades.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We still see them here, but I don't know who picks them up. We were taught that hitchhikers were always strung out on dope and would rob and kill you, so I never picked one up.

My uncle, as a seven-year-old, used to hitchhike to the next town to go to the movies. He never robbed nor killed anyone.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Normal thing, in Germany. Can be found often near Autobahn-ramps.