Sears, Roebuck & Company Catalogs

While the first Sears, Roebuck & Company catalog in 1888 only featured watches and jewelry, the mail-order catalog quickly grew into the Amazon of the 1900s. The catalog (known as the Big Book) expanded to over 1,000 pages and sold more than 100,000 items, including tools, hardware, apparel, appliances, furniture, sporting goods, auto supplies, farm equipment, and even houses. The catalogs were ubiquitous, that’s why James jokingly asks Embrie if perhaps of few of these snuck into the Library of the Ages. She isn’t amused.

In the 1920s Sears opened physical locations, but the catalog remained iconic, providing rural families with the same access to goods available in cities. Over time other store chains stole market share from Sears, and by 1993, their failure to innovate led Sears to cease production of the Big Book catalog.