From its beginnings at the end of the nineteenth century to its decline in the 1970s, the department store was the major center for urban American shoppers. A creative sales idea, the department store offered working people attentive service, an elegant place to shop for almost everything they needed, and the chance to buy on credit. Large department stores, usually named for the families that started them, became central fixtures in the downtown areas of their cities. Eventually, they became the foundations of shopping malls (see entry under 1950s—Commerce in volume 3) in the suburbs (see entry under 1950s—The Way We Lived in volume 3). In the 1970s, large, no-frills discount stores began to compete with the popularity of department stores. By the 1990s, many of the distinguished old department stores had gone out of business.

Before large department stores began to develop, shopping had meant...