30 Forgotten Things Every American Did at the Department Store in the 1970s

In the 1970s, going to the department store was an event. The whole family went. You spent a whole Saturday there — the lunch counter, the Christmas catalog, the escalator, the portrait studio — and almost everything you did inside that store has now vanished. In this video we count down 30 things every American did at the department store in the 1970s that you can never do again. Flipping through the Sears Christmas Wish Book for hours and circling what you wanted. Eating at the lunch counter with your mother — the grilled cheese, the cherry Coke, the milkshake in a tall glass. Putting your Christmas presents on layaway and paying a little every week. Racing to the Kmart Blue Light Special. Trying out the tools in the Craftsman department, with the lifetime guarantee they actually honored. Listening to records in the listening booth before you bought them. Riding the elevator operated by a real person in white gloves. Sitting on the department store Santa's lap. Watching the cash whoosh through the pneumatic tubes overhead. Getting your feet measured on the cold metal Brannock device. Getting your family portrait taken at the in-store photo studio. Saving S&H Green Stamps and pasting them into books. The escalator you rode for the very first time. And number 30 — the one that explains why we lost something far bigger than a place to shop — is going to put into words something you have felt for years. This is not really a video about stores. It is about the department store as one of the last great democratic public spaces in American life — a grand, warm, glittering palace that belonged to everyone, where a working family could spend a Saturday feeling prosperous and cared for, where the things you bought were built to last a lifetime, and where shopping was a pleasure shared with the people you loved. And what we traded it away for. There are about 70 million Americans alive right now who remember those Saturdays — who lay on the floor with the Wish Book, drank a milkshake at the lunch counter with their mother, rode the escalator for the first time, and watched the cash fly through the tubes overhead. Tell me in the comments: the department store where your family shopped — the name and the town — and the one thing you remember most. I read every single one. #1970s #departmentstore #sears #kmart #woolworths #1970snostalgia #genx #babyboomers #americannostalgia #howitusedtobe #vintageamerica #1970smemories #wishbook #shoppingmemories #thingsthatvanished