Word: catalogs
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...Sears catalog is not just a potent sales tool. It is America's family album. When the 1897 catalog was reprinted in 1968, 150,000 copies were sold at $15 each. "One can find evidence of our present vices and our present virtues in this splendid volume," wrote Journalist Richard Rovere. "This catalog is at once a product and a display of our culture, especially our mass culture." This summer 12 million copies of the fall-winter edition were sent free to customers who had ordered at least $30 worth of merchandise in the past six months. Another...
...more tolerant, less restrictive age, the Sears catalog mixed the art of salesmanship with a little bunkum. "We Aim to Illustrate Honestly and Correctly Every Article," Sears stated around the turn of the century. But that did not stop the company from claiming that its goods were "celebrated," "of the finest quality," "thoroughly high grade" not to mention "cheapest...
Over the decades, the Sears catalog kept up with the times. The Christmas catalog published in 1933 fitted the Depression era by stressing bargains, though it betrayed a few aspirations for better times. "Merry Christmas to mother-an electrical appliance that saves labor" was a $2.39 automatic iron. Daughters could help out with a 22-piece deluxe toy laundry set with scrubboard and heavy metal washtub for $1.98. Somewhat more in the Christmas spirit were 2-Ib. fruitcakes for 49?, Tinkertoys at 69?, canaries for $2.95 and a Kodak camera...
...newly designed, color-indexed 1984 fall-winter catalog represents Sears' latest refinement of the mail-order art, full of fitness equipment, computers and microwave ovens. Nearly half of the catalog, 622 pages, is devoted to clothing, including women's $100 dresses and men's three-piece suits at $147, as well as work boots and union suits...
...selling in the Sears catalog starts with the cover. In 1897 it showed a zaftig young woman with a cornucopia, out of which were flowing a piano, a stove, a sewing machine and other household objects. In 1927 Norman Rockwell did one of his Americana paintings for the cover. In 1966 an 18-year-old model named Cheryl Tiegs captured the spirit of American teenagers. This year she not only is on the cover, but she also has her own line of clothes inside. -By Alexander L. Taylor...