click image to enlarge Macy’s on Flatbrush Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1952. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photograph Division, Washington, D.C.

click image to enlarge 1950s Woolworth’s shopping center, Great Neck, Long Island. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photograph Division, Washington, D.C.

click image to enlarge Sears Roebuck Department Store, Spokane, Wash., circa 1950s. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photograph Division, Washington, D.C.

The 1950s marked the heyday of the larger-than-life department store, the growth of grocery store chains, and the emergence of suburban shopping centers.

Establishments such as Marshall Field’s, Wanamaker’s, and Macy’s dominated the retail scene of that era and helped shape the fashion industry. Immense buildings filled to the brim with departments of merchandise for man, woman, and child served as local landmarks along city streets, their window displays a treat for the eyes.

It was also during the 1950s that department stores such as Sears, Roebuck and Co. expanded their reach south of the U.S. border to Mexico and Cuba and north to Canada. Meanwhile, “five-and-dimes” such as Woolworth’s and S.S. Kresge Co. were evolving into variety stores, carrying everything from buttons and thread to jewelry, clothing, and sundry items.

With the rise of suburbia and its accoutrements—station wagons and large Frigidaire refrigerators—mom-and-pop grocers gave way to supermarkets. In 1951, Albertsons opened a 60,000-sq.-ft. space—the first of a few experimental combination food and drug stores to be built during the decade. Safeway also unveiled its first glass-arched Marina store in San Francisco. Across the country in Washington, D.C., Giant Food was an early adapter of automatic doors (invented by Horton Automatics in 1954), mechanized checkouts, and open display cases for meat and frozen foods.

Technology helped speed retail growth in the 1950s. The 1952 issuance of the first patent for bar codes signaled a leap forward that would transform inventory management.

The decade also spawned strip shopping centers—approximately 100 across the country—anchored by branches of downtown department stores. And the first fully enclosed shopping mall (Southdale Center) opened to the public in 1956 in Minneapolis, changing the retail landscape forever.

Sources: Encyclopedia of Chicago, Safeway, jewelosco.com, Giant Food Inc., Kresge Co.