Stephen H. Provost - The Great American Shopping Experience: The History of American Retail from Main Street to the Mall

THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN RETAIL FROM MAIN STREET TO THE MALL

Stephen H. Provost

The Great American Shopping Experience: The History of American Retail from Main Street to the Mall

Copyright 2021 by Stephen H. Provost. All rights reserved.

All photos by author unless otherwise noted.

Book design by Andrea Reider

Published by Craven Street Books

An imprint of Linden Publishing

2006 South Mary Street, Fresno, California 93721

(559) 233-6633 / (800) 345-4447

CravenStreetBooks.com

Craven Street Books and Colophon are trademarks of Linden Publishing, Inc.

ISBN 978-1-61035-991-7

135798642

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file.

Scott Adams, Bettina Bradbury, Paul Gilmore, Pam Globman, Barry Greene, Connie Hansen, Ruth Kehler, Linda J. King, Bruce Kopytek, Brenda Lowe, Marilyn Madrid, Melanie Marquis, Terri Martin, Joe Moore, Laura Serna-Maytorena, Lora Simpson Nordgeeen, Christine Quinn, Mark Rainey, Karen Redding, Kathe Tanner.

Christmas is coming, and you know what that means: colored lights and manger scenes, carolers and evergreens, hot chocolate and cold winter nights. Some of us will go out skating on a frozen pond surrounded by barren trees beneath a slate-gray sky, breathing in the winter chill and exhaling those billowy clouds of warm winter mist that make us feel a bit like snow dragons. Others will stay indoors and watch football or take in a holiday movie. Maybe well watch George Bailey find redemption in Its a Wonderful Lifeor learn to believe in Kris Kringle once again thanks to Miracle on 34th Street.

Its there that well find another Christmastime tradition: the Great American Department Store. One such store, Gimbels, went out of business more than thirty years ago, and millennials might not have even heard of it if it werent for Miracle, which still hits the airwaves like clockwork every holiday season. Its the story of a certain Mr. Kringle who takes a job as Macys seasonal Santaand promptly spreads Christmas cheer by suggesting one customer might find what shes looking for at the stores bitter rival, Gimbels.

Children look through a store window at toys on display during the Christmas season in this undated photo. Bain Collection, Library of Congress.

Gimbels shows up again in a more recent Christmas film, Elf.Will Ferrell stars as an adopted elf whos mistaken for an employee in the Gimbels toy department. There was just one problem: By the time the movie was filmed in 2003, Gimbels had been out of business for sixteen years. So, the filmmaker had to work some digital magic to transform another department store into Gimbels. That store, ironically, was none other than the Macys on 34th Street in New York City.

Macys filed for bankruptcy itself in 1992 but survived via a merger with Federated Department Stores of Ohio two years later. Its one of the few that has. The shifting economy, driven in discount stores and the era of internet shopping, has gutted many once-busy indoor malls, forcing scores of department stores to close up shop. Most recently, Sears filed for bankruptcy protection. Once the most famous and successful department store in America, it tried to stay afloat by merging with discount retailer Kmart in 2004, but fourteen years later, it couldnt come up with the money to make a scheduled debt payment despite having downsized from 3,500 locations to around 700. As of this writing, more than 140 others were targeted for closure.

Whether Sears could emerge from bankruptcy and continue to operate was unclear. Many of its former competitors have tried and failed. The brick-and-mortar scrap heap is littered with the skeletons of once-flourishing chains that failed to survive into the new age of retail: vacant echo chambers at either end of the local shopping mall, their once-vibrant neon lettering stripped away and replaced by wooden For Lease signs.