In my world growing up in the suburbs of Chicago I remember many popular catalogues; Montgomery Ward (first general mail order company in America launched in 1872), J.C. Penney, and Marshall Fields to name a few. However, none became as legendary as the Sears Catalogue.
Richard Sears began flogging his watches and jewellry through a printed mailer in 1888, the historic catalogue’s humble beginnings. Sears formed a partnership with Alvah Curtis Roebuck and together they nurtured and grew Sears, Roebuck & Co. They diversified the mail order business to general merchandise and by 1894 the catalogue was a lengthy 322 pages. Eight years later, the company was serving over two million customers worldwide!
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| 1902 Sears, Roebuck & Co Catalogue Crown Publishers Inc (1969) |
Fun fact, when the catalogue became out of date it was often upcycled behind closed doors in the outhouse. Using the pages as toilet paper went into decline in the 1930s when the company changed to a glossy, clay coated catalogue paper. Interestingly at that time Sears, Roebuck and Co. was inundated with complaints.
I recently got my hands on a reprint of a 1902 Edition of the Sears, Roebuck Catalogue thanks to Boz Phillips, an avid collector of many things including vintage catalogues. Her collection includes a Dandy Été 1960 (men’s and women’s clothing), Moda Y Arte Revista Españole de Calzado Winter 1934 (shoe catalogue reprint), Tower List 53 (scientific apparatus and chemicals) and Morris Conveyors Number 187 (conveyor belts and mechanical items).
Boz also has a reprint of the 1907 Army & Navy Stores Catalogue which is a mammoth size hardback book nine centimetres thick. I was not familiar with this and she says it is a British version of the Sears’ Catalogue.
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| Yesterday's Shopping, Army & Navy Stores Catalogue 1907 David & Charles Reprints (1969) |
The company also manufactured many of their own products i.e. groceries, cigars, shirts, leather goods, watches, cutlery and fishing tackle. This brought their prices down even further. Services on offer included house removals, estate agency, house repairs and catering. One could even buy tickets to the opera, theatre or musical concerts. The original massive cloth-bound catalogue kept those stationed abroad in touch with home.
In exploring these two fascinating catalogues, I decided to use digital copies of a few of the pages for creative inspiration and do some blackout poetry. Recently I’ve been really enjoying doing this with National Geographic magazines. Blackout poetry I find even more challenging than collage poetry as one is not only restricted to the words at hand but also their placement. It has forced me to construct poems using words and structures I wouldn’t necessarily choose when coming straight out of my head. I also like the visual element. Here are three of my favourites.
%20A%20book%20of%20us%20orig%20and%20blocked%20out.jpg) |
| Sears, Roebuck& Co. 1902 - page 1008 |
ice storm heavy
seams great
exceptional wear
lasting pair
special
keep our hands warm
in the coldest weather
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| Sears, Roebuck & Co. 1902 - page 915 |
like a bird in a moderate breeze,
no wind short of a gale
is too strong.
This is success.
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| Army & Navy Stores Catalogue. 1907 - page 313 |
upon frozen roads
the animal slipping
covering up
run
the animal slipping
covering up
run
Thank you for reading.
Kate J
Transform SR Brands, LLC, 2023. History of the Sears Catalogue. http://www.searsarchives.com/catalogs/history.htm (Accessed 16 July 2023).
The Plumber.com, 2023. Toilet Paper – The History ‘Behind’ It. https://theplumber.com/toiletpapershortagefun/ (Accessed 16 July 2023).
Starmens, B.J., 2017. Sears, Roebuck Mail Order Catalogue. https://www.thesocialhistorian.com/sears-roebuck-mail-order-catalogue/ (Accessed 16 July 2023).
Adburgham A., 1969. Yesterday’s Shopping The Army & Navy Stores Catalogue 1907. David & Charles Reprints, Devon.
Amory, C., 1969. 1902 Edition of The Sears, Roebuck Catalogue. Crown Publishers Inc., U.S.A.
6 comments:
My mum had some sort of home-shopping catalogue in the 1970s. She used to order towels for us with our names embroidered on!
I'd never heard the phrase Hermione's Handbag before. I can see that for people living a long way from a town ordering from a catalogue by mail will have been a boon. As for blackout poetry, this was fascinating and I think I'll add it as a weekly theme in the next round of blog topics in the new year. Thanks for the introduction.
That's an interesting prompt/technique for creating poems. I read some of the collage poems that featured in the Dead Good Blogs last year but this is a different spin, from a closed set of words on a single page.
A clever idea, blackout poetry, like the inverse of redaction.
Interesting. I was amused to read that catalogues were back-cycled. I've seen blackout poems based on pages of novels but never catalogues before.
Really enjoyed the history of catalogues. I had heard of the Sears catalogue but didn't know it was so huge.
My mom used to be some sort of agent for a catalogue. It may have been Kays.
I had no idea that people collected them.
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