Time travel shopping trip

This question was inspired by a visit to Retro 101, my favorite vintage clothing store in St. Louis. This is an impressive shop, and it's set up to look exactly like a neighborhood 1940s store. I'm thinking specifically of some department stores I used to visit in the Polish neighborhood when I lived in Chicago, which obviously hadn't changed in 40 or 50 years. The men's and women's sides were separated, and both were crammed full with circular racks of clothing. There was a small shoe department and shelves for purses, and some glass cases for jewelry and perfume. So these shops aren't like modern department stores, like the long-gone Marshall Field's. They're more like a slightly fancy version of an old Woolworth's. That's what 101 reminds me of. In fact, I suspect that the shop space (in an early 20th century building) must have looked very similar back in the day.

That made me wonder: if I could take a trip back in time, where would I go, what would I buy, what would I do?

The year would be 1939 or 1940.

I know I'd head straight for the perfume counter and find some original Coty fragrances, like the gorgeous and elusive Chypre de Coty. I might also look for gloves and shoes, assuming I had brought along enough period cash. If there were a beauty shop nearby I'd have my hair done, and I'd watch the operator very carefully to learn her techniques.

I'd stop at a lunch room and have a plate of macaroni and cheese or a pot pie, with coffee. I might go for a walk in a park and feed pigeons or else take in a matinee.

What would you do?

I'd go straight to Enna Jettick's, and get several pairs of good, comfortable 9 1/2 C oxfords.

I'd take a trip to Sydney & visit all the lovely (now closed) department stores like Beard Watson & Co or Anthony Hordens and spend up big on furnishing my house - all this for £67 and 10' (lots more info about Sydney department stores here)

It's funny, even though you didn't limit location, I find myself wanting to stick to the area and see the known sites when they were in their prime:

Take a train out of the Cincinnati Union Terminal.
Shop downtown Lazarus department store in Columbus; eat at their diner (mac n cheese sounds good!)
Catch a game at Cincy's Crosley Field.
Choose one of the big old grand theaters and see "Oz" or "GWTW" and watch people seeing it for the first time. Then watch "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" or "The Women" and so on for fun.

I'm sure I can add to this given time. To keep it fun, I won't go into warning Poland or killing Hitler somehow. And I've already strayed from strictly "shopping".

Can we bring things back? Or is Lizzie gonna be barefoot when she returns? (This Geek has to know the esoteric rules to the games lol). I'd certainly buy all the jackets and suit dresses a girl could carry - in my size and no sweat stains!

Oh, hmmm. Rules. Let's assume that we can bring back anything we buy there, but that anything that happens to us there, or anything we do, will not affect the events of history. Once we return to the present it'll be as though we had never visited the past.

I definitely feel that we should do more than shop. I think I'd take in a Cardinals game-- Monday being opening day and all.

This trip would take an intense amount of research. In my present-day life I normally wear some form of late 30s to early 40s gear, but I don't try to perfect it, and my hairstyle is always a total wreck. If I took a trip to the late 30s I'd have to practice for days to get the hair and makeup right, and of course the whole package would have to be perfect: right down to the keys, money, lipstick, writing utensils, and papers in my purse. I'd have to practice the language and expressions of the day.

Imagine showing up on a 1930s street corner in St. Louis and making a remark about the internet. Or showing up in a drugstore wearing my hair all askew. Obviously the level of authenticity would have to come up enormously.

To be honest, I'd go right for the stockings. I am so sick of cutting off the upper part of hose to make them into stockings. I'd probably hoard the whole bunch.

Assuming I had money left after clearing the store out of stockings in my size, I'd probably hit the foundation garments, partially out of curiosity but mainly because I do wonder if they were better than modern equivalents. If silk slips existed, I'd buy them out too. Like DecoDame, I'd also take a keen look at suits.

Next, I would head to small appliances and homewares. If I had the cash, I would buy myself a stand mixer with a jadeite bowl and a set of Anchor Hocking Laurel Jadeite tea cups. I'd also want to check out their displays of Anchor Hocking and Syracuse China; just to see them.

Assuming I could still walk due to my hoard of stockings, foundation garments, a few suits, a stand mixer, and my tea cups; I'd want to check out an appliance store, preferably a GE one. (I'm assuming that they delivered packages from the department stores for a fee, right?) I want to see the current fridges and see a demonstration of the dishwasher GE invented. I know it didn't work too well, but I find the idea that they had a dishwasher in the thirties to be striking.

I'd want to go and look at patterns, and perhaps have the good fortune to buy some patterns in my actual size (hard to find).

I would want to take the trains (it would have to be here in Syracuse) and see the 6 train track upon which one of our major highways is now built. I would want to take some time to walk around downtown, specifically to see where the old Erie canal was (it was covered by then, but was more noticeable still.)

If the date was a bit later, I'd want to travel out to our current house to see it being built in 1942. At that point, there were only a few houses on this street, but the 20 blocks that exist now between us and the city edge/ reservoir were not there, nor were their any houses. The two suburbs behind us also weren't built yet.... it would be farmer fields. I would love to see the topography of the land, hidden now by houses and trees.

I'd also want to take a trip a bit south to see the house we're restoring, which was built in 1853 (we think). I'd like to talk my way inside that one, see where the porches were and what the windows look like, and what the barn looked like. All the way down I'd like to look at the mountains- most of which were cleared or just starting to grow up then.

For meals, I'd want something delicious, likely from a diner. But I want pie. Preferably blackberry, my favorite, which I've only had once in the past 20 years since my grandmother died, but I think used to be more common when people picked their own fruit (often from the wild).

I like the idea of going back and seeing your house being built! Ours was built in 1935. I'd love to see the original interior before later owners remodeled it. I suspect that at one time there was a wall between the kitchen and dining room - it's all one open room now - based on some markings on the floor. I'd like to see if my suspicions are correct.

Our town, over the years, has torn down many historic buildings that are only accessible by photographs now to us born too late. I'd take a tour of my town and visit every cool old building I could.

My house was built in the 1865, so that’s way further than I’d like to go back .

I would time travel back to my home towns of NYC or Buffalo. I’d go to the big parks, go see a show, eat at a fancy restaurant etc.

Shopping trip would include getting my hair and makeup done and watching very carefully, getting a beautiful compact and lipstick case, a suit, a slack suit, platform heels....My brain is exploding with happiness.

In reality as a WOC and a school teacher, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy much of this but I can certainly dream!

You don't know how much I've fantasized about this exact situation. I don't even know where to start... I would ask how long the visit can be, but I'm afraid of the answer. I'll just say that if this happened, nothing could make me ever come back. (-:

The first thing I'd do is just walk around and look at everything and everyone. Then, if I hadn't fainted from the shock and happiness of having my greatest dream come true, I'd probably buy all of the regular, everyday items that I'm having trouble finding affordable '40s versions of (hairbrush, compact, purse, etc.). Then I'd buy a bunch of clothing. After my shopping spree, I'd probably go have lunch and see a movie, maybe with somebody I'd met and made friends with. Also, since my visit is going to be a long and extended one, (preferably for the rest of my life), I'd have to find somewhere to stay. And eventually a job, maybe just in a department store or something. At some point I'd like to meet some of my favorite stars, but that was probably hard to do even when they were alive. Basil Rathbone is my favorite actor, so I would really like to meet him.

This sounds so wonderful... if only I could just wake up one day and be in the '40s. I've got it all worked out, too. All of this would be a dream, and I would only remember it very vaguely- just enough to appreciate being in the '40s, but not enough to ever think it was anything except a dream. Everyone would just think I hit my head really hard, got amnesia, and had a vivid dream. I'm sure it's happened to someone before. Then, I live happily ever after!

Just be sure to take period cash along with you. $100 in Series-1934 Julian-Morgenthau notes and a handful of coins dated between 1900 or so and the specific date of your arrival would be enough to do some judicious shopping and live in reasonable comfort in a kitchenette apartment or a "womens' hotel" for a month or so until you can get a job.

A woman looking for work is going to need certain basic skills -- if you can type at least 50 wpm on a manual typewriter and take shorthand you'll be in the best position to get into an office job. If you land during the war, you can probably get into some sort of defense job, but you will need considerable physical stamina and a high tolerance for BS from your foreman to make good in such a job. Retail work is always available, but it helps if you have "the looks" for it, especially in any kind of store fancier than a neighborhood grocery store or five-and-ten. Domestic work is the position of last resort, but competition for such jobs can be both brutal and demeaning.

And you will, post-1936, require a Social Security card, but it's easy enough for a time-traveling woman to get one -- just walk into the nearest post office and pick up a registration form. No one is going to be asking any questions about why you don't already have one -- but if they do just tell them you're "new to the workforce" or some such thing. If you land post-May 1942-pre-1946, you're also going to need ration books, the specific ones depending exactly when you land. You'll have to go to the OPA office in your neighborhood, and you'll have to have a reasonable story for why you didn't sign up on the specified dates when they were first issued. Or you can time things so that you land in late April 1942 and be right where you need to be when Ration Book One, covering sugar, is issued. Possession of that book, in turn, will be the key that unlocks books Two, Three, and Four, issued from February 1943 onward.

Most of all, be careful. Not everybody you meet is going to be nice, and a lot of men are going to assume a lot of things about a single working woman. Watch your step when you're alone on the subway, or at a movie, or eating at a diner, and always be on the defensive in strange neighborhoods. You don't want to wind up just another sad story on Page Four of the Daily News.

All the things Lizzie says plus be prepared to live in a world of smokers - restaurants, movie theaters, trains (subways?), offices, stores, hospitals (yup, good chance your doctor smokes), well, just about everywhere.

Growing up in the '70s and entering the workforce in the '80s, I caught the tail end of that world and it was awful. Even if you didn't smoke (I never did) you, your clothes, your hair all stunk of smoke by the end of the day. And it was unpleasant to sit at your desk at work and breath it in ALL THE TIME.

Whenever I daydream about time travel, I also simultaneously invent a universe-altering machine that eliminates smoking from the period I'm traveling too. Yes, I'm that talented with technology (says the guy who reads the instruction manual on the microwave while his girlfriend has already plugged it in and made herself coffee).

LizzieMaine said:

Just be sure to take period cash along with you. $100 in Series-1934 Julian-Morgenthau notes and a handful of coins dated between 1900 or so and the specific date of your arrival would be enough to do some judicious shopping and live in reasonable comfort in a kitchenette apartment or a "womens' hotel" for a month or so until you can get a job.

A woman looking for work is going to need certain basic skills -- if you can type at least 50 wpm on a manual typewriter and take shorthand you'll be in the best position to get into an office job. If you land during the war, you can probably get into some sort of defense job, but you will need considerable physical stamina and a high tolerance for BS from your foreman to make good in such a job. Retail work is always available, but it helps if you have "the looks" for it, especially in any kind of store fancier than a neighborhood grocery store or five-and-ten. Domestic work is the position of last resort, but competition for such jobs can be both brutal and demeaning.

And you will, post-1936, require a Social Security card, but it's easy enough for a time-traveling woman to get one -- just walk into the nearest post office and pick up a registration form. No one is going to be asking any questions about why you don't already have one -- but if they do just tell them you're "new to the workforce" or some such thing. If you land post-May 1942-pre-1946, you're also going to need ration books, the specific ones depending exactly when you land. You'll have to go to the OPA office in your neighborhood, and you'll have to have a reasonable story for why you didn't sign up on the specified dates when they were first issued. Or you can time things so that you land in late April 1942 and be right where you need to be when Ration Book One, covering sugar, is issued. Possession of that book, in turn, will be the key that unlocks books Two, Three, and Four, issued from February 1943 onward.

Most of all, be careful. Not everybody you meet is going to be nice, and a lot of men are going to assume a lot of things about a single working woman. Watch your step when you're alone on the subway, or at a movie, or eating at a diner, and always be on the defensive in strange neighborhoods. You don't want to wind up just another sad story on Page Four of the Daily News.

Click to expand...

Fading Fast said:

All the things Lizzie says plus be prepared to live in a world of smokers - restaurants, movie theaters, trains (subways?), offices, stores, hospitals (yup, good chance your doctor smokes), well, just about everywhere.

Growing up in the '70s and entering the workforce in the '80s, I caught the tail end of that world and it was awful. Even if you didn't smoke (I never did) you, your clothes, your hair all stunk of smoke by the end of the day. And it was unpleasant to sit at your desk at work and breath it in ALL THE TIME.

Whenever I daydream about time travel, I also simultaneously invent a universe-altering machine that eliminates smoking from the period I'm traveling too. Yes, I'm that talented with technology (says the guy who reads the instruction manual on the microwave while his girlfriend has already plugged it in and made herself coffee).

Click to expand...

I love all the detailed information! Thank you so much! If this ever happens, I'll definitely follow your advice. (-:

Swing Girl said:

I love all the detailed information! Thank you so much! If this ever happens, I'll definitely follow your advice. (-:

Click to expand...

You're welcome. I daydream (way too much) about time travel.

@Swing Girl, I think you'd enjoy the thread "The Era - Day by Day" in the Golden Era section if you haven't seen it yet. Everyday @LizzieMaine posts an incredible summary of the Brooklyn newspaper the Eagle that aligns to our present day in 1941 - meaning, today, she posted the summary from May 14th, 1941, yesterday she posted May 13, 1941 (she started these in 1939, I think). It's an incredible way to "experience" the era in a day by day way. You start to feel a connect to the time and get a sense of how it felt to be living back then and reading these new stories, not as history, but as current news.

Fading Fast said:

All the things Lizzie says plus be prepared to live in a world of smokers - restaurants, movie theaters, trains (subways?), offices, stores, hospitals (yup, good chance your doctor smokes), well, just about everywhere.

Growing up in the '70s and entering the workforce in the '80s, I caught the tail end of that world and it was awful. Even if you didn't smoke (I never did) you, your clothes, your hair all stunk of smoke by the end of the day. And it was unpleasant to sit at your desk at work and breath it in ALL THE TIME.

Whenever I daydream about time travel, I also simultaneously invent a universe-altering machine that eliminates smoking from the period I'm traveling too. Yes, I'm that talented with technology (says the guy who reads the instruction manual on the microwave while his girlfriend has already plugged it in and made herself coffee).

Click to expand...

Yep, old enough to have smoked at my desk at work. My coworker sat right next to me...a non smoker.....have no idea how he put up with me. I quit smoking in the mid 1970's and had no idea how obnoxious it was until I quit.

Fading Fast said:

You're welcome. I daydream (way too much) about time travel.

@Swing Girl, I think you'd enjoy the thread "The Era - Day by Day" in the Golden Era section if you haven't seen it yet. Everyday @LizzieMaine posts an incredible summary of the Brooklyn newspaper the Eagle that aligns to our present day in 1941 - meaning, today, she posted the summary from May 14th, 1941, yesterday she posted May 13, 1941 (she started these in 1939, I think). It's an incredible way to "experience" the era in a day by day way. You start to feel a connect to the time and get a sense of how it felt to be living back then and reading these new stories, not as history, but as current news.

Click to expand...

This is really cool! Thanks!

Am enjoying this thread. I love living in Vienna. What a town! What history. Love all the seasonal dishes that would have been very prevalent in 1939 or 1940... But this is one town that I would not want to go back in time to, in those years. Maybe London. Or Honolulu.

speaking of smoking, when I moved here in 2003, people were still chain smoking in their offices and there was usually a bottle of something in the office too. Austria was “smokers’ paradise” and one of the last hold-outs in Europe for a long time. Fortunately that has changed in the last ten years or so.

Re: shopping. Hopefully I’d be of a certain economic class. If so, I’d go crazy buying quality menswear. Especially the trousers of the era and the suits and overcoats and hats. And those shoes! Recently there was a thread on Esquire Magazine’s fashion illustrations from those years. That is what I’d be shopping for; those men’s fashions. Unfortunately, it would probably be a little awkward because I’m pretty sure that I’m significantly taller than the average man would have been in those days, and I’d probably stick out like a sore thumb.

I'd head straight to London with plenty of cash. Probably 1956 - rationing finally ended on everything, so able to avoid raising suspicion or being hit by certain limits.

Then I'd proceed to spend the day buying *everything* I'd love but can't quite afford or never will be able to afford now. Possibly a couple of houses in nice areas at 1950s prices if I can figure out how to have them set up to transfer to my ownership back in 2021. Maybe one with a big garage so I can also park a few nice, used motors in there (ripe for sale back in 2021!). Then it's off to buy clothes. Cordings, of course. Jermyn Street a must, and if I'm permitted additional trips for fittings, a wardrobe full of Savile Row bespoke suits, most likely Huntsman and Henry Poole, of which I can only dream now. 1956 would also mean I'd be able to have the suits made in the 30s, 40s and 50s cuts I really like too....