Researchers call on Australians to share memories of big department stores

A research team from Macquarie and RMIT universities is compiling a comprehensive history of department stores in Australia from the 1940s onwards and wants you to share your memories.

Department stores were once one stop-shops, towering five floors tall and offering everything a family needed for their household.

Whether your store was Grace Bros. in NSW, Myer in Melbourne, John Martin's in Adelaide, or Allan and Stark in Brisbane, the team wants to hear from you.

The team aims to develop a deeper understanding of shopping and its significance in everyday Australian life by interviewing shoppers, former workers and managers.

It will explore the ways department stores have evolved over the years, from the vast retail centres of major cities, to the expansion of smaller stores into suburban areas and the advent of discount department stores in the late 60s and 70s.

Researcher Matthew Bailey from Macquarie University's Department of History and Archaeology said the team wanted to hear from people with any and all department store related memories.

He said detailed stories or anecdotes, more general memories of family visits, or thoughts on how the landscape of department stores in Australia had changed would all be of use to the team.

"We want to know how people's experiences (visiting department stores) have changed, what it was like working in department stores," Dr Bailey said.

"We'd like to hear from people who held particular roles - What was the training like? What was the customer service like? What were the opportunities for advancement? How casualisation has changed that."

Dr Bailey said in addition to being the centre of retail life in the mid to late 40s and 50s, department stores were also so much more.

"They were a really important part of peoples' lives. Shopping is a way people create identity, it's a social space, a place where people work.

"They (department stores) used to carry everything you'd need for the family home, they were a really important part of the economy, a big employer. They are places people remember visiting, but we don't know a lot about them."

Around the mid 1950s, sales at the big city department stores started to stagnate, as residential expansion led to retailers setting up in suburbia, resulting in an economic boom.

Dr Bailey, 52, said he had many memories of visiting the David Jones at Warringah Mall with his mother when he was a child and young teenager.

"We went fairly regularly, my Mum was a bit of a shopper.

"I remember going to the (in store) cafe, then to the sporting section to muck around with weights and balls, then we'd go to the toy section, the book section.

"They used to be five levels high. They're much smaller now."

For more information click here. To share your memories move the cursor to contribute in the top right hand corner of the screen.