![]() ![]() Sears gave consumers what they wanted, with a quality guarantee and cross-country shipping. Americans anywhere could flip through the four-pound, 1,400-page Bible of consumerism, thumb through more than 100,000 items, and have any one of them delivered to their door. In 1908, when Sears began selling homes by mail, one-fifth of the country subscribed, according to a 99 Percent Invisible podcast about the program. To fully appreciate the impact of the Sears kit homes, it’s important to understand the reach of the company’s famous catalog. Bettmann Archive The dawn of catalog houses and DIY construction ![]() From 1908 to 1940, Chicago-based Sears sold between 70,000 to 75,000 homes-”from Craftsman to Cape Cods, they offered a custom home at budgets and sizes that could accommodate any size family,” according to Popular Mechanics-which were sent via train car and set up as far afield as Florida, California, and even Alaska.Īs a company-produced history from 1918 noted, “the customer must be satisfied for a lifetime for every house we sell is a standing advertisement for Sears, Roebuck and Company.” Cover of a Sears Roebuck & Co. set up an operation that would package and ship more than 400 different types of homes and buildings to anybody who had the cash and access to a catalog. While the business page obituaries will continue to position Sears as the Amazon of its day-and there’s some truth to that-the physical footprint left by Sears, especially via its kit home program and Modern Homes catalog, is wholly different than anything Amazon has yet to achieve.Ĭonsider this: In an era before commercial aviation and long-haul trucking, Sears, Roebuck & Co. The retail chain’s bankruptcy filing this week, after decades of slow decline, obscures just how disruptive Sears was in its early 20th century heyday. ![]() Pretty into The Greenview myself /8o2JQjiqf7- jon klassen August 24, 2017 ![]() Reading about Sears house kits they'd ship to you by train & you built it yourself. ![]()
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