Sears, Roebuck and Company

Established in 1893, Sears, Roebuck and Company grew into America's premier mass merchandiser during the twentieth century, helping to create a national market for consumer goods. Based in Chicago, Sears remained the largest retailer in the United States until the triumph of big-box retailers like Walmart. Sears is important to the history of consumer society because it extended the promise of abundance to a large percentage of Americans, first reaching consumers through mail-order catalogs and later through retail stores.

During the early nineteenth century, Americans bought necessities and luxuries from small shopkeepers, rural general merchants, and roadside peddlers. These local retailers acquired processed foods and manufactured products from urban wholesalers that specialized in grain, textiles, crockery, hardware, and other lines. As goods passed through multiple hands, the transaction costs added significantly to the retail price.

By the mid-1800s, some retailers recognized the advantages of cutting out middlemen. Buying goods directly from the factory would allow stores to lower prices and expand the market. Several new types of retailers pioneered this practice: the department store, the chain store, and the mail-order house. In The Visible Hand, the late Harvard Business School historian Alfred D. Chandler Jr. described the transformations wrought by these institutions as nothing short of a “retailing revolution.”

These retailing pioneers served very different markets. Department stores catered to urban shoppers, while chain stores targeted moderate-income consumers in small cities and towns. By the late 1800s, mail-order specialists emerged. With the 1869 completion of the transcontinental railroad, a high-tech transportation network stretched across the United States, and Chicago grew into a great commercial hub that connected factories in the industrial Northeast and Midwest to consumers in the agricultural hinterland. Dozens of mail-order houses sprang up, benefiting from the low freight rates on trains returning to Iowa hog farms and Texas cattle ranches.

Chicago's mail-order houses prospered by catering to the needs of rural consumers. U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that in 1880, 36 million out of 60 million people lived in small towns and rural settings. As farming mechanized, droves of people moved to the cities, but the rural population continued to grow. By 1920, 51.5 million of 105.7 million people still lived in the countryside. Between 1900 and World War I, rising discretionary incomes put more purchasing power in their hands. Some farm families channeled the extra dollars into agricultural equipment, but many wanted consumer products such as appliances, furnishings, carpets, toys, bicycles, and cameras.

In 1893, salesman Richard W. Sears joined forces with watch repairer Alvah Curtis Roebuck to form Sears, Roebuck and Company. Previously in the watch business, the partners published a large mail-order catalog filled with ready-made clothing, bicycles, sewing machines, furniture, musical instruments, and wagons. The next year, the company made a conscious effort to associate itself with the emerging consumer society by labeling its semiannual catalog, the “consumers' guide.”

Two federal initiatives gave a boost to mail-order houses like Sears. In 1896, the U.S. Post Office initiated rural free delivery (RFD), which delivered mail directly to farmers' doorsteps. Recognizing an opportunity, Sears showered consumers with catalogs. Between 1902 and 1908, the firm circulated 24.4 million free catalogs, or one for every three to four people in the United States. Between 1913 and 1920, the Post Office introduced and expanded parcel post, adding packages to the list of deliverables. The mail-order business skyrocketed. Sears's sales grew from $745,595 in 1895 to $10.6 million in 1900 and $40.8 million in 1908. By 1916, Sears was America's largest retailer, with $137.2 million in sales (Emmet and Jeuck 1950, 117, 204).

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