Montgomery+Ward+Mail+Order+Catalog+(1872)-+Claire+Brito

=**Montgomery Ward Mail Order Catalog:**=
 * //It's like rural nineteenth century online shopping//**

In the early 18th century, "retail" in the US consisted of a general store in which people would go to purchase items of necessity. People generally did not purchase much more than what they produced in their own homes or communities, nor did they have the incomes to do so.The general store was one-stop for goods ranging from clothes to food. Any kind of specialty store was generally found only in places where the population exceeded 5,000. Industrialization dramatically changed the idea of consumerism. More goods were produced and bought. The mass production of inexpensive product led a heightened standard of living, and generated a greater demand for goods among middle class Americans. As new retail formats emerged, storefronts and catalogs replaced market trading, and the concept of specialized retail and retail marketing was born.

The mail order catalog, invented by entrepreneur and corporate giant Montgomery Ward in Chicago in 1872, revolutionized the way that American consumers, especially the rural middle class, purchased. It aimed to deliver goods to farmers at cheap prices, which were kept low by circumventing local mercantile middlemen and shipping goods directly from Chicago, where the company was headquartered. The postal system was especially helpful in jumpstarting the main order business by permitting these catalogs to be shipped at the discount postage rate of one cent per pound. The postage system classified mail order publications as aids in the circulation of knowledge and saw them as generally beneficial to the rural population that was more or less cut off from many urban amenities. The Rural Free Delivery, a service launched in 1896 that delivered mail directly to homesteaders, also made distribution of the catalog economical for //Montgomery Ward & Company////.//

The first catalog was a one-page list of 162 items ranging from tools to clothes. Buyers were comforted by the company's hallmark phrase, "Satisfaction or your money back." In eleven years, the catalog ballooned to 240 pages with ten thousand items. Other companies caught on to this successful business model, and began replicating its methods. The Sears catalog was launched in 1896, and its competition eventually put the //Montgomery Ward & Company// out of business By the end of the century almost twelve hundred mail-order concerns were competing for more than 6 million custom- ers. media type="custom" key="25115240"

Slideshow of pages out of Ward's mail order catalog

The 1943 //Sears News Graphic// wrote that the invention of the mail order catalog, "serves as a mirror of our times, recording for future historians today’s desires, habits, customs, and mode of living." The mail order catalog provided durable manufactured items to people who would have otherwise not taken part in the consumer marketplace. Brands and brand loyalties emerged. This helped to bridge the gap between rural and urban, improving nationalism by helping to streamline the standards of living. Most importantly, mail order catalogs made the vital connection of rural Americans to the growing world of consumerism.

[|Koehn, Nancy . "Consumerism and Consumption ." //19th Century U.S Newspaper//[Boston 6 June 2006: 1-3. //Gale Digital Connections// . Web. 13 Feb. 2014.]] Gallman, Robert E. “Commodity Output, 1839-1899.” Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century. Report of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960.

[|"History of the Sears Catalog." //Sears Archives Home Page//. Sears, n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2014. .]

[|Heverdej, Judy. "Montgomery Ward's first catalog." //chicagotribune.com//. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2014. .]