Sears catalogs appreciated
Mr Jalopy has posted a delightful rumination on the mail-order catalogs he's discovered on his yard-saling adventures, spurred by the publication of the fabulous-looking Catalog: The Illustrated History of Mail Order Shopping (a book I really want to lay hands on!). Astute Boing Boing readers may have noted just how much similarity our layouts bear to old Sears and Whole Earth catalogs.
Catalog: The Illustrated History of Mail Order Shopping, Mail Order Catalog Brilliance
While it is knee slappingly funny to gawk at the shag bathroom sets of the 1970's, the richest bounty lies in the early catalogs from a time that the Sears catalog really meant something. Before the interstate highway system and the internets tube system, the Sears catalog was a profoundly important and optimistic source. It was a catalog of empowerment. One day, you are Joe Nobody, without a fiddle or an egg for breakfast. Weeks pass and it must have seemed like a miracle when that new fiddle, kerosene-fired incubator and careful wrapped fertile eggs arrived in the mail. A community event, I suspect.Having used inflation calculators, I have compared the 1932 prices of the everything from screen door hinges to chore jackets. Selvedge denim dungarees from North Carolina mills were the equivalent of $25, while bicycles were terribly expensive. Of course, the world changed. Labor, materials and container shipping have shifted business so radically, that it is a testament to Sears that the doors are still open.
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"whole earth catalog"??? OMG now I know why I love boingboing so much... this is exactly like the whole earth catalog...
somehow I never put the two together...
Keep it up guys... your doing great...
One of my all-time favorite Sears Catalog pages right here:
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/387/oaksy1.jpg
... and I've always felt that the design team for the Miotta leaned heavily on the battery-powered Sears car ...
There was a great documentary on PBS, maybe 20 years back, about Sears and the catalog.
There was a great photograph of an extended family sitting in the yard in front of their farmhouse, gathered around their mail-order piano. Taken from someone in a tree or barn loft. Wonderful.
There are interesting insights into the mail-order mechanics of Sear's business in the catalog. There was a section on ordering parts with text that read (paraphrasing) "If you can't find what you need, describe it as carefully as you can and draw a picture of it."
Also, offers of a 3% discount for paying in cash. I wonder how many farm boys hopes for a fresh copy of White Slavery: The Papist Threat Revealed! or a new electric belt were dashed when their carefully hoarded dimes were pilfered from the envelope en route.
Further evidence that olde-tyme mail order was indeed a community event may be seen in this renowned documentary of midwestern life in the early 1900's, wherein the entire town comes out singing for (presumably) their Sears-Roebuck purchases.
There was another side to the Sears catalog and it had a door with a crescent moon cut-out.
I unearthed a LOVELY Mego catalog from a dumpster dive a short while ago. Gotta post that thing. Sweet Micronauts photos abound!!
They used to sell Cracker Jacks in catalogs? Wow, the world really was a better place back then...
Wasn't there a MASH episode where they built a kidney machine using sausage skins and a tin bath all ordered from Sears?
I can't seem to log in, but there's an awesome collection of catalog scans over at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wishbook
@#5, You are absolutely right, Antinous. Also Spiegal and Monkey Ward and Sunday newspapers.
We moved into a hillbilly Hooverville in 1935, and I was soon "walking the path." Many of our neighbors predictably used the catalogs that regularly came in the mail for outhouse paper, but my mother was a hincty Canadian girl who was not about to do as Tennessee hillbillies. She always found a way to have a roll or two of store-bought TP close by.
My sister and brother and I have had fun horrifying our Yuppie children and their Yuppie puppies with stories of Depression days living. Might even come in handy.
Yes, because while the peritoneal lavage worked, it was much too slow (they wouldn't always have two weeks to provide round-the-clock intensive care to one patient).
They had to get the sausage casing from Packo's in Toledo though (Klinger was their 'sausage link', ha), the Sears catalog only had sausage stuffers.
"You know what would go great with this?" he asked, upon delivering the empty casings, "500 empty beer cans."
more funny fashions, toys, etc: http://www.plaidstallions.com/psindex.html
My love for old Sears catalogs began here at aperfectworld.org with these great conehead babies from the 1971 catalog. While you're there don't miss the painfully-hip link to a page from the Lemon Frog Shop for the unsuspecting teen.
Regarding Sears doors being open, did I not just hear that they are in danger of being closed?
Buddy,
I was still using the Sears catalog in the 1970s. New Englanders are frugal.
My grandfather was a life longer Sears worker so all of our Christmas presents (and everything else) came from the Sears catalog. I was kind of sad when they got rid of it. And we were using the Sears catalog until it was discontinued. My other grandparents were big fans of Fingerhut.
Well, Antinous @ 14... if you were still using the Sears Catalogue for wiping... that would certainly explain the need for
the bum bleach...
I knew I'd regret that as soon as Antinous posted it..
I once lived in a house that was ordered from Sears. Postwar housing was so short that our landlord's parents had ordered a kit house from a Sears catalog and put it together themselves on a concrete slab. It was plenty cozy, and the only oddity was that the interior walls of the original rooms walls were of painted stamped galvanized steel. Hanging a picture meant surface mount hooks and serious adhesives, but refrigerator magnets worked for everything lighter.