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Because of the rise of online stores and the decline of brick and mortar, there's actually a lot of stuff you can't reasonably get without shopping online now.
Anything from Radio Shack.
People in rural areas have significantly fewer options at their disposal for shopping. Say someone likes to cook as a hobby and can't find herbs and spices that aren't common in their area. Cardamom, Ceylon cinnamon, five spice. Or advanced culinary equipment and ingredients. Things like a mandolin, agar-agar, dry ice. I like to make craft cocktails at home as a hobby. If I had to rely solely on the liquor stores in my home town my bar would be less than half the size it is and I would have very little of the equipment I use to make ingredients. I'm also an amateur mycologist. I never would have gotten into the hobby if I didn't have access the the resources I do online.
What am I supposed to do? Abandon my passions because the materials aren't locally available?
Anything from a specialty hobby. I'm a falconer, I don't think there is a single brick and mortar store in the US for that.
Presumably back in the day it would have been mail order thru specialty magazines? Genuinely curious
I'm not really sure. Falconry in the US mostly stopped after colonial times and didn't come back until the 1930s or so. The first clubs weren't formed until early 60s and formal licenses weren't until the 70s. I've seen magazine articles about mail ordering hawks, falcons, and eagles. I think most people made their own equipment and some stuff was sold word of mouth. I do know there was a lot of scouring of old (1600s and earlier) books for diagrams and instructions. I'll see if one of my books has stories or I'll ask some of the original members if I can remember.
Here's a short history on US history: https://www.n-a-f-a.com/page/History
My book from 1976 just says that bells and hoods are "available commercially" so I'm not sure. They did have club magazines going that far back so I'm sure there were ads in those.
Neat, thanks for the thoughtful answer and follow up!