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"Sears and Roebuck" Nostalgia Available on Internet
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This home, Model 52, was available for
$782 to $1,995 in the Sears catalog in 1908. |
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March 16, 2005 There could not be a senior
citizen raised in America who was not excited as a child to see the
latest Big Book catalog from Sears and Roebuck. Now a part of this
nostalgia is available on the Web.
The years have been rough on Sears, just as they
have many of us who ordered our first BB gun or doll from the gigantic
book of wonders. Once Americas general store, Sears has now merged with
K-Mart in its struggle to survive. But the good news is that Sears has
opened its vast archives to the public, on the Internet, at
www.searsarchives.com.
Sears was never one of the glittering downtown
shopping palaces with several floors of merchandise and fabulous show
windows. It was an every-town-USA kind of place. Until shopping malls
came along, Sears was a fixture on Main Street, next to the hat shop or
the ice cream parlor, says Ted Landphair of Voice of America.
The company was founded in 1886 by Richard Sears, a
Minnesota railway agent. He happened to buy a shipment of watches that a
jeweler didn't want, and before long, he had opened his own watch
company. Within ten years, Sears had expanded his product line, taken a
partner, incorporated under the name Sears, Roebuck and Company, and
offered a mail-order catalog.
In fact, Sears is probably best known for that Big
Book, as it was called, says Landphair. The catalog had prices,
specifications and little drawings of everything from boots to buggies
to bathtub stoppers. You could even order a complete, pre-fabricated
house from the Sears Catalog, in one of 447 styles.
Sears started a radio station in Chicago called
WLS (for "world's largest store"). It sponsored a national
beautiful-baby contest, established an insurance company and introduced
the Discover credit card. The company's pioneer customer promise --
satisfaction guaranteed or your money back -- is still in force.
The Big Book is gone, but Sears still puts out
specialty catalogs and a Christmas Wish Book. You can wish, but alas,
Sears will no longer ship you a new house, he concluded.
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