Bullocks Wilshire Store

Absolute elegance permeated Bullocks Wilshire department store in its heyday. Customers were "patrons." Women were "ladies," and ladies wore hats. White-gloved clerks wrote sales slips by hand so the vulgar "ding" of cash registers would not disturb the genteel atmosphere. The store's 14-karat-gold credit cards alone cost $400.

In the old days at the Bullocks Wilshire department store, customers weren't customers. They were patrons. Women were ladies. And every sales check was handwritten, in order to prevent the ding of cash registers from disturbing the patrons. "At other stores, you could use" cash registers, said Patricia Brown Thomson, who worked for the department store from 1950 to 1960. "But not at Bullocks Wilshire."