音频游览 Sears & Roebuck

Items which were sold from 1918 Sears catalogs, including many toys, also clothing, sports equipment, tools, toiletries and mail order food packages.  Original prices and descriptions from the catalogs are featured beside many of the items.

"In 1886 Richard W. Sears founded the R.W. Sears Watch Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to sell watches by mail order. He relocated his business to Chicago in 1887, hired Alvah C. Roebuck to repair watches, and established a mail-order business for watches and jewelry. The company’s first catalog was offered the same year. In 1889 Sears sold his business but a few years later founded, with Roebuck, another mail-order operation, which in 1893 came to be known as Sears, Roebuck and Company. In 1895 Julius Rosenwald, a wealthy clothing manufacturer, bought out Roebuck’s interest, and he reorganized the mail-order business. Sears meanwhile wrote the company’s soon-to-be-famous catalogs. The company grew phenomenally by selling a range of merchandise at low prices to farms and villages that had no other convenient access to retail outlets. The initiation of rural free delivery (1896) and of parcel post (1913) by the U.S. Postal Service enabled Sears to send its merchandise to even the most isolated customers. Rosenwald succeeded Sears as president of the company in 1909.  Albert Loeb was hired as the company's lawyer in the 1890's and quickly rose to Vice President."

During WWI, Rosenwald took a leave of absence from the company to assist the US Government in purchasing supplies needed to win the war.  During that time, Albert Loeb became the "Acting" President and used his private resources to build Castle Farms as a model working dairy farm.  It was a testament to how well a farm could operate using equipment available for sale through Sears & Roebuck catalogs.

Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sears-Roebuck-and-Company