Instead of plastic:
- Glass jars of many sizes
- Wax paper
- other stuff
Variety of wooden crates for shipping, instead of boxes. Actual peanut shells, and shredded farm crop waste, and sometimes “popped corn,” for package stuffing.
Repair shops dedicated to many items and products.
Shoe stores sold shoes that actually fit.
A helicopter doing anything, was an attraction.
Steam shovels used cables instead of hydraulics.
America made a lot of steel and machine tools.
There were many captains of industry.
And to measure your foot to find a shoe that would fit, you would have your feet x-rayed using a fluoroscope. I had that done many times. Fluoroscopes disappeared long ago.
Cloth sacks, cardboard boxes with string and handles, glass bowls with lids.
Kids today think they invented "sustainable" and "organic", but most of the food we ate was organic in the 50s, because it came from local farms to the grocers. There were some chain groceries, but very little frozen food. Women shopped often, sometimes every day, so your food was fresh and not full of preservatives. Many homemakers also had string bags or individual shopping carts, and walked to the store or took a bus, because there was only one car and dad needed it for work. (I'm speaking for urban and suburban areas here. We grew up two miles from the city line of a large city.)