As Amazon shoppers continue receiving the items they purchased on Prime day, it seems a good time to consider shopping habits from years long ago. Before internet shopping and neighborhood shopping malls, there was the General Store that sold a little bit of everything. If the store didn’t have it, the consumer probably didn’t need it. Larger towns and cities had shopping districts with specialty stores.
And for those who weren’t near a store they wanted to shop in, there were mail order catalogs. What wondrous books those must have been for people living in rural areas.
Oddly enough, Tiffany’s published the first major catalog in America. With its trademark blue cover and the simple label ‘Catalogue’, Tiffany’s Blue Book Collection appeared in 1845 with the tag line ‘Cash Wholesale purchasers, who may suppose they will be asked higher prices in Broadway than elsewhere, are invited to test the truth of their supposition.‘
Enter Montgomery Ward aka “Monkey Wards“
Aaron Montgomery Ward founded the first dry goods mail order catalog in 1872. The catalog was 32 pages long, soon increasing to 152 pages and 3,000 items. Two years later, the company added what became a famous slogan: satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. Customers could order anything from clothing to saddles to steam engines. Not to mention musical instruments, such as the Regal Bassoguitar shown in the 1937 catalog. Montgomery Ward changed the American marketplace, but in 1893 serious competition appeared.
The Sears Catalog aka the Consumers’ Bible
Richard Warren Sears, with his partner Alvah Curtis Roebuck founded what became Sears, Roebuck & Company 1891, publishing their first catalog two years later. The 1897 Sears catalog offered clothing, plows, and bicycles, as part of its ever growing inventory. Sears made sure his catalog was slightly shorter and narrower than his competition, so when the two large books were stacked, Sears was always on top and hopefully the first catalog a customer leafed through.
The Sears catalog became known as the ‘consumers’ Bible’ in 1906. Offerings continued to grow, reaching over 100,000 items displayed on 1400 pages and weighing 4 pounds. Inventory including sheep shearing machines, cream separators, telephones, and china — even cars produced by the Lincoln Motor Car Works of Chicago — were all easily available to American consumers. Sears sold the equivalent of $1.3 billion in merchandise every year.
But, Richard Sears thought he could sell more.
Sears Modern Homes
In his quest to sell more goods, Richard Sears had a eureka moment. Most Americans lived in multi-generational Victorian homes with small rooms. In a house full of clutter and people, it was difficult to sell more items.
Richard Sears saw this situation as a wasted marketing opportunity. Why should newlyweds be forced to move into old homes when they could have new ones filled with Sears products? And so the Sears Modern Homes Program was born. From 1908-1940 Sears offered complete mail order houses. Select the model and send a check. Within a few weeks, everything arrived in two railroad boxcars with a small red wax seal to be broken by the new owner.
Within the boxcars were blueprints, 10,000 pieces of precut framing lumber, 20,000 cedar shakes, nails, doors, door knobs, and instructions. Sears promised that the owner could build the house without a carpenter in less than 90 days. And not only that, customers could opt for insulation, central heating, and other modern conveniences. Occasionally the Sears Modern Home was a the only home on a residential block wired for electricity. The first Modern Homes Catalog had over 40 different home models, an inventory that eventually grew to 447 different designs.
To increase sales, Sears introduced a home mortgage program. Unfortunately, during the Great Depression Sears foreclosed on many of the homes it had sold.
Montgomery Ward Wardway Houses
Immediately moving to meet Sears’ competition, Montgomery Ward published its first Book of Building Plans in 1909. There were options for 24 houses and various agricultural outbuildings. In 1917, just before America’s entry into World War I, Montgomery Ward introduced Wardway prefabricated houses. Montgomery Ward subcontracted manufacturing and design to the Gordon-Van Tine Company. To increase sales, Montgomery Ward began offering mortgages in 1926. Advertising promised: We’ll own it outright in just a few years – thanks to Wards. They loaned me $4500. I had my lot and $400 cash. Now I pay only $37.98 a month – just like rent.” Unfortunately, after the 1929 stock market crash plunged the country into the Great Depression, many customers couldn’t make those easy payments. Montgomery Ward discontinued Wardway houses in 1931.
And now, there’s Amazon
Montgomery Ward and Sears catalogs offered everything a consumer might need, from barbed wire fencing to prefabricated houses. Amazon is much the same. The ubiquitous online retailer offers over 600 million products at the touch of a customer’s finger. And, in the tradition of its catalog predecessors, Amazon also sells prefabricated tiny houses priced from $10,000-$60,000 and available to ship unassembled to your current address within an astonishingly short period of time.
It seems surreal that you can just click to add a tiny house offering to your cart. A hundred years ago rural Americans may have thought much the same when mailing their order to Sears or Montgomery Ward.
Strange how everything can change so dramatically and yet remain fundamentally the same.
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Sandra’s Books: Ambition, Arrogance & Pride. Saxon Heroines. Two Coins. Rama’s Labyrinth.
Illustrations & A Few Sources
1936 General Store, Moundville AL; Two Women Being Shown Fabric in a Dress Shop; Tiffiny Blue Box by AdreanaGorak; Aaron Montgomery Ward; 1937 Montgomery Catalog item for Regal Bassoguitar by Lardyfatboy; Richard Warren Sears; Motorbuggies from American Treasure Tour by Rhbrakman; Sears Magnolia kit house, 1921; Gordon-Van Tine houseplans, 1916. Carla Bruni. Beautiful Wardway Homes. Amazon logo by RuinDig/Yuki Uchida. “Before Clicks There Were Catalogs.” Chicago Bungalow Association. June 6, 2023. “The House That Came in the Mail.” 99% Invisible;
