When was the last time you ordered something off Amazon? Was it practical or fun?
For years the online shop platform has dominated the shopping scene, offering discounted items and cheaper or free shipping to the masses. Customers can practically buy anything and everything their hearts desire with a click of a button. For many people around the world, this is the best way to shop, there is no need to drive to a store, encounter crowds, or feel pressured to complete your shopping in a single session.
While Amazon’s rise to fame is a relatively new phenomenon, it wasn’t the first shopping experience of its kind. Sears, Roebuck and Company offered anything and everything people needed or wanted in everyday life. Substantial catalogs were delivered straight to customers’ doors simply waiting to be opened.
The company started in the late 1880s with a man named Richard W. Sears, who sold gold watches for $14 a piece out of a mail order catalog. After finding the mail-order business so successful, he partnered with Alvah C. Roebuck and Julius Rosenwald to create the monolith of a book that sold everything from wheelbarrows to houses.
The Rural Free Delivery Act of 1896 and the rise of disposable income created a rise in rural consumerism. Items could now be delivered straight to families outside of city or town limits. For many Americans, these large catalogs allowed them to view a different culture, that may have been different from their own. Not only did the company advertise singular items, but they also offered choices. Customers could choose colors, styles, and makes that differed from their neighbors, allowing individuality to also reign true in buying choices.
As the company continued to grow so did its customer service, by the turn of the century the company boasted “Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back,” saying that “every article in this catalog is honestly described and illustrated.”
Richard Sears himself wrote all the copy for the catalog until his retirement in 1908. In 1906 a three-million-square-foot distribution warehouse was built in Chicago, helping to organize and distribute the majority of its wares. In 1908 the company began to sell house kits of prefabricated supplies, with explicit instructions on how to set them up.
With the rise of automobiles, the company saw itself changing once again. The first Sears brick-and-mortar store opened in 1925, and the company launched Allstate Insurance in 1931. It wasn’t until the late 1970s and early 1980s that the company was challenged as the forerunner in retail experiences. The famed catalog continued until 1993 when the company leadership decided to switch its priorities to match the changing times of the world.
For years the Sears and Roebuck catalog brought the world to everyday people. Through the seasons, especially Christmas, the catalog allowed people to dream and hope for the extra things in life. Here in the Hollows and surrounding counties catalogs such as Sears provided a new way of reaching necessary and some unnecessary products.
Some of the older catalogs are hard to come by, seeing as most people used the valuable paper for other things as new catalogs came in. Cracking open one of these catalogs is a step back in time and while we just have a few pictures here, Ancestry.com and the Library of Congress websites have multiple uploads that can help paint a better picture of all the catalog had to offer.
Emily Morgan is the guest services manager at the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History. She and her family live in Westfield. She can be reached at eamorgan@northcarolinamuseum.org or by calling 336-786-4478 x229
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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