18. The Sears catalog came to an end in 1993
In 1993 Sears discontinued the catalog after 97 years of constant changes with each edition. Ward’s had discontinued their catalog eight years earlier. By then it was no longer possible to order live chicks for raising, nor horses and ponies, which had long been staples of the catalog. The many changes of the years had done away with the patent medicines and tonics, though the cosmetics section remained large to the end, and a significant part of the Christmas catalog, known as the Wish Book. Rifles and shotguns were gone, and name brands such as Land’s End, North Face, and Levis Strauss had joined the Sears-branded items. Some Sears’ brands had become iconic, such as DieHard, Kenmore, and Craftsmen, symbols of quality and of American-made products.
The Christmas Wish Book continued on, though shrinking annually. Still, in some ways, Sears’ roots as a mail order house remain in place, with the catalog transferred to online shopping and delivery either directly to the home or to a Sears store for pickup. Other retailers have done the same, with some online catalogs dedicated to the strange and unusual items which can’t be found elsewhere. Many of the products they offer can be considered strange, or perhaps oddities may be a better word, but it is difficult to find such a bizarre diversity of products as those offered by Sears, Montgomery Ward, Spiegel, and the other great catalog mail order retailers of the past. Not even Amazon or eBay offer a drinkable Spirits of Turpentine, intended to kill internal parasites at the turn of the twentieth century, but perhaps someday in the future a commonly used product today will be viewed with similar bemusement.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“When the Sears Catalog Sold Everything from Houses to Hubcaps”. SARAH PRUITT. History. Online
“Sears Sold 75,000 DIY Mail Order Homes Between 1908 and 1939, and Transformed American Life”. Open Culture. October 29th, 2018. Online
“Princess Bust Developer and Bust Cream or Food”. 1897 Sears Roebuck Catalog. Online
“Treasury of Early American Automobiles 1877-1925”. Floyd Clymer. 1950
“Ladies Safety Belts”. 1908 Sears Roebuck Catalog. Online
“The Medieval Chastity Belt: A Myth Making Process”. Albrecht Classen. 2007
“What is a Sears Modern Home?” Sears Archives. 2018. Online
“The Sears House was the American Dream that Came in a Box”. Regina Cole, Forbes Magazine. October 23, 2018
“Firearms”. Sears Archives. 2018. Online
“How Sears changed America”. Chris Isidore. CNN Business. Online.
“History of the Sears Catalog”. Sears Archives. 2018. Online
“Shaping an American Institution“. James C. Worthy. 1984
“Dr. Rose’s French Arsenic Complexion Wafers”. 1902 Sears Roebuck Catalog. Online
“The Standard Catalog of American Cars 1946-1975”. John Gunnell, ed. 2002
“Sea Monkeys and X-Ray Spex: Collecting the Bizarre Stuff Sold in the Back of Comic Books”. Lisa Hix, Collectors Weekly. April 18, 2012
“Heidelberg Alternating Current Electric Belt”. Museum of Quackery. Online
“Montgomery Ward Issues the First Mail Order Catalogue for the General Public”. History of Information.
“Narrative History of Sears”. Sears Archives. 2018. Online
“Chronology of the Sears Catalog”. Sears Archives. 2018. Online
“Quirky Catalogs. Unique, kitschy, and awesome mail order catalogs!” Quirky catalogs. 2018. Online
“Long before Amazon, Sears taught Americans to trust shopping from home”. DAVID LAZARUS. LA Times.