For most of human history, if you wanted something you had to make it yourself or know the person who made it.

Eventually, merchants began to sell goods in a single store to make it convenient for consumers.

And these stores reach their zenith with enormous structures that sold almost everything.

These stores weren't just innovations themselves, but they were engines for innovations that are still with us today.

Learn more about the rise and fall of department stores

on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. It is hard to express just how difficult it used to be to get stuff.

Hundreds of years ago, the average person didn't own very much of anything.

If you wanted something, be it an article of clothing, a piece of

furniture or a pot, you had to go to someone who made them and then they probably had to make

it custom for you. Once you had it, you probably kept it forever, did everything you could to repair it, and maybe even

passed it to your children after you died.

Eventually with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, stuff became mass-produced, and you could just buy stuff that was already manufactured.

You could go to a place called a general store that sold everything from nails and pots to

pants and candy.

It was just a matter of time before someone took the idea of a general

store to its logical conclusion. The first store which could be considered a department store,

or at least a proto department store, would be Harding Howland Company which opened in 1796 in London.

The store was divided into four different sections which sold different things.

FERS and fans, which I have no idea why those two things were put together,

fabrics, jewelry and clocks, and ladies hats.

The store was just four large rooms connected together, 150 feet long, so it was really kind of just four stores and one.

The thing which separated it from other stores was that it was tailored for women.

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