Macy’s, Wanamaker’s, Marshall Fields, NiemanMarcus and other stores emerged in cities across the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as palaces of desire. They not only offered myriad goods, but also created a powerful sense of need within the household, especially for its ideal shopper—the middle-class housewife.

Macy’s filled nine stories with goods, becoming a mythic reference in movies (Miracle on 34th Street, 1947) and a New York City, NY institution through its Thanksgiving parade. It even offered its own bank.

Great stores and their owners became philanthropists and tastemakers. Marshall Fields was not only a store, but also a Chicago, IL philanthropist after whom the city’s natural history museum is named. In smaller cities, families and stores proved just as central— Rich’s in Atlanta, GA, Nieman-Marcus in Dallas, TX, Adler’s in Savannah, GA— many reflecting the vision of pioneering Jewish merchants and their families. Less prestigious stores like J.C. Penney, Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck extended consumption outside the city through catalogs that offered clothes, tools, household goods and even prefabricated houses.

As suburbs expanded, department stores vaulted from downtown to malls. Suburban stores also had a new style—cleaner, more open and interwoven with other shops. In the 1960s, downtown department stores faced further challenges to urban life—stores in the South were boycotted to end segregation that had meant that an African American woman could not even try on a hat. In the 1970s, Sunday openings pitted the rhythms of downtown shopping against suburban weekends, forcing older stores to adapt amid recessions.

Many institutions have disappeared: Wanama-ker’s in Philadelphia, PA, I. Magnum, B. Altman’s and others, sometimes consolidated into chains but no longer an emblem of urban triumph. Competition has also challenged the experience of shopping—service, comfort and overwhelming goods—which Rowland Macy and Joseph Wanamaker created.

Discount shopping represents a particularly interesting development. In the 1960s and 1970s, new chains offered less service and lower prices: K-Mart, Woolco, Walmart, Target, Zayres. Such stores had won crucial concessions on manufacturers’ rights to control prices that challenged their more expensive competitors. Later, hangar-like warehouse stores like Sam’s, BJs and Costco extended this discount mania, including higher-end goods. Manufacturers’ outlets also offered bargains (seconds, discontinued and specially produced lines) for careful consumers, creating not only malls, but “regions” of outlet centers. Department stores have competed with outlets, even as they used them to dispose of post-sale goods in specialty outlets run by Sak’s, Nieman’s, Nordstrum’s and Penney’s among others.

Department stores also changed in the 1980s and 1990s. New York saw the construction of the extremely expensive new Barney’s (later in receivership), while Japanese stores such as Takashimaya, Yaohan and Mizoguchi appeared in major urban centers. Nieman’s and others expanded nationwide. Yet, other comprehensive chain stores gnawed into individual departments as well—Williams Sonoma for foodware, for example. Meanwhile, new catalogs offer alternatives for two-career families too busy to shop, while targeting specialist consumers rather than the general shoppers of the department store. Internet sales represent an emergent threat as well.

Hence, department stores, once monarchs of the city are now competitors in a fragmented and sometimes placeless world of consumption. Some have tried out cableshopping channels (or worked with established ones like HSC or QVC for special events). Others have highlighted their exclusiveness, historic charms, or convenience.

Macy’s legacy has adapted to both circumstances and imagination.