Background Notes

Catalogs from Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck & Co. made it possible for farm families to buy many things not available in the small towns near their farms. The earliest "catalogs" were just one or two sheets listing items for sale. They soon grew into large books.

Farm families using an order blank from the catalog or wrote a letter to place their orders. At first, customers had to go into town to pick up their orders at the post office (often located in the general store or other establishment). After the U. S. Post Office began Rural Free Delivery in 1896 and added parcel post delivery to it in 1913, the postal carrier delivered the order to the house.

A Michigan connection: Aaron Montgomery Ward, born in Chatham, New Jersey, moved to Niles, Michigan, with his family at the age of nine. He quit school at age 14 and went to work. He worked in retail establishments in St. Joseph for several years, then moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he worked for Marshall Field's and later established his own company. He printed his first "catalog" (a single sheet) in 1872. By 1904 each catalog weighed 4 pounds. The first Sears Roebuck catalog featured only watches and jewelry in 1888; in 1896 the company distributed its first large general catalog.

Objectives

• Students will describe how catalogs and Rural Free Delivery helped people living in rural areas of Michigan obtain goods for their homes and families.
• Students will recognize differences in goods, their uses and their prices between today and the late 19th century.

Michigan Educational Assessment Program Social Studies Content Standards

This lesson presents an opportunity to address, in part, these standards:

• SOC.I.2. Comprehending the Past. All students will understand narratives about major eras of American and world history by identifying the people involved, describing the setting, and sequencing the events.
• SOC.IV.1. Individual and Household Choices. All students will describe and demonstrate how the economic forces of scarcity and choice affect the management of personal financial resources, shape consumer decisions regarding the purchase, use, and disposal of goods and services and affect the economic well-being of individuals and society.

Materials Needed

Reproduction 1890s-1910 mail order catalog such as Montgomery Ward or Sears; paper and markers or crayons.

Directions

Select several pages in the mail order catalog that depict household items, tools or toys. Together study the pages, reading the names, descriptions (if any) and prices of the many things available. Discuss: What items do you find that we still use today? Do you see anything that you don't recognize at all? Have students copy or draw pictures of items that interest them - and are still available today. Make a "then and now" display or bulletin board with the student's pictures and their prices paired with similar items of today cut from catalogs or advertisements.

Use the catalog for study across the curriculum:

• For your business English unit, have students write a letter that places an order for three or four items from the catalog. In language, compare other uses of catalogs including card catalogs, college course catalogs, etc. In what ways are they similar to and different from sales catalogs? What does it mean "to catalog" things?
• In math class, figure totals for different combinations of items; consider and add shipping or other costs. Find the percentage difference between similar items of today and yesterday.
• Environmental science: Find out how many 4-pound catalogs it would take to save a tree if one ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees. Mark off a 3.3-foot square on the floor of your classroom and ask students to bring in paper that you can take to your local recycling station (either newsprint or catalogs and magazines). Pile the paper items in the square 3.3 feet high until you have a 3.3ft. x 3.3 ft. x 3.3 ft. cube. Point out that recycling one ton of paper saves around this much space in a land fill.
• In social studies, research wages at the time of the catalog and today. Figure how many hours work it would take to purchase an item in the catalog's year of publication versus how many hours today's worker would need to buy a similar item from a popular local store or an online store.

Questions for Discussion or Research

1. Using a Venn diagram compare the impact of catalogs and rural free delivery in the late 19th century to the opportunity to shop and purchase goods online in the late 20th century. In what ways are the opportunities and benefits similar? How are they different?
2. Do research in your community to find out where its first post office was located. When did the town get a post office? How many people lived there at that time? Your local or county museum or historical society may be able to help with this research.

At the Museum

• Visit the "Growing Up in Michigan, 1880 - 1895" gallery. Identify items you might have seen in the old catalogs you used in this lesson, including a sewing machine, toys, woodworking tools, kitchen ware, furniture and a cooking stove.
• See the Sears Roebuck catalog pages in the "back porch" display in the Rural Michigan gallery on the 2nd floor.
• Find the list of 1893 daily wages and prices in the Growth of Manufacturing gallery exhibit. Choose a job and figure out how many days a worker in that occupation would need to work to earn enough money to buy a suit, a pair of shoes or a bicycle.

Vocabulary

• Catalog: a complete list of items, such as items for sale or courses of instruction in a school, arranged in a pamphlet or a book in a systematically way (e.g., alphabetically or grouped by use or identifying features) and accompanied by cost, content or other descriptive details
• Parcel: package
• Parcel post: a mail service handling packages (U.S. fourth class mail)
• Rural Free Delivery (RFD): the free delivery of mail by the United States Postal Service tp remote areas of the country not served by letter carriers

References

Catalogs:

• Catalog reproductions/reprints available from Dover Publications (http://store.doverpublications.com/), other book sellers and at many libraries): Montgomery Ward & Co. Catalogue of 1895; Jordan, Marsh Illustrated Catalog of 1891
• Perleman, S. J. and Sears. 1897 Sears, Roebuck & Co. Catalogue, Chelsea House Publications, 1997. (available at most book sellers and at many libraries)

Web Sites:

• 100 years of Americana: Rural Free Delivery celebrates a milestone (U. S. Postal Service)
  www.usps.com/history/plife/pl091096/american.htm
• 1872 Montgomery Ward-First Mail-Order House (Chicago Public Library)
  www.chipublib.org/004chicago/timeline/mtgmryward.html
• About Sears: News and History (Sears)
  www.sears.com/sr/misc/sears/about/public/history/history_main.jsp
• Rural Free Delivery ([Albion, MI] Morning Star, December 30, 2001, pg. 6)
  www.albionmich.com/history/histor_notebook/011230.shtml
• Rural Mailboxes (National Postal Museum)
  www.postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibits/2b2c_ruralmailbox.html
• Sharing the story of 100 years of Rural Free Delivery in America (Smithsonian Research Reports, No. 89, Summer 1997)
  www.si.edu/opa/researchreports/9789/89rfd.htm
• Soap Boxes Won't Do (National Postal Museum)
  www.postalmuseum.si.edu/resources/6a2m_soapboxes.html

Updated 10/05/2005