From the Trading Post to Amazon · Episode 4 of 12 · 22 min
How the Sears Catalog Broke the Country Store's Monopoly
A Chicago warehouse and the U.S. mail did what no competitor could: they put a national store inside a farmhouse and ended the local merchant's pricing power. The episode runs from Aaron Montgomery Ward's 1872 price list and Richard Sears's watches through Rural Free Delivery and Parcel Post, the money-back guarantee, and kit houses, sorting Jim Crow folklore from fact, to the catalog's end in 1993 and Sears's 2018 bankruptcy.
Who's who
- Aaron Montgomery WardFounded the first general-merchandise mail-order house in 1872
- Richard Warren SearsMinnesota station agent who founded the Sears watch business in 1886
- Alvah Curtis RoebuckWatch repairman who lent his name to Sears, Roebuck
- Julius RosenwaldSears president who funded roughly five thousand schools for Black children
- Robert E. WoodExecutive who drove Sears's move into retail stores
- Sewell AveryMontgomery Ward chairman carried out by soldiers in 1944
- Louis HymanHistorian whose 2018 thread revived the catalog-and-Jim-Crow story
- Bradley A. HansenEconomic historian who audited that story's sources
Where it happens
- Chicago, Illinois+15 more episodesHome of both Ward and Sears mail-order operations
- North Redwood, MinnesotaWhere Sears sold unclaimed watches in 1886
- Charles Town, West Virginia+1 more episodeOne of the first Rural Free Delivery routes in 1896
Timeline
- Spring 1872Ward mails a one-sheet price list of 163 items
- October 1, 1896First experimental Rural Free Delivery routes begin
- January 1, 1913Parcel Post begins service
- February 2, 1925First Sears retail store opens
- January 25, 1993Sears announces the end of the Big Book catalog
- October 15, 2018Sears Holdings files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Still debated
Stories of catalog burnings and Sears as a subverter of Jim Crow trace mainly to Roebuck's uncited memory and a 1936 satirical novel, though Black Southerners' use of the catalog is documented. Several first claims, like Ward's catalog and Sears's IPO, also carry caveats.
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