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Sears catalog contributed to the growth and prosperity of the American West

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Sears catalog contributed to the growth and prosperity of the American West

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The products the catalog offered offered made life easier for the people living in the harsh conditions of the Great Plains. He enabled people in rural areas to get everything people could get living in cities.
Although Sears did most of the writing and designing of his catalog, he created jobs for people to fulfill the mail orders, and later to work in his stores.

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House kit from Sears catalog

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Richard Warren Sears should be honored because he made life on the Great Plains easier by allowing people to order what they needed off of a catalog, and revolutionized the way everyday goods were bought. It was the Amazon of its time.

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Richard Warren Sears should be honored because he made life on the Great Plains easier by allowing people to order what they needed off of a catalog, and revolutionized the way everyday goods were bought. It was the Amazon of its time.

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- The Homestead Act of 1862 brought a surge of people to the Great Plains
- These people who lived in the Great Plains often had to travel far to get supplies from a store
- Sears catalog enabled people who lived in rural areas to order supplies using the mail order system
- The storeowners faced competition from the Sears mail order catalog
- The combination of improved railroad system and new US post office rural delivery system made it possible to bring the goods right to them

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Richard Warren Sears had the innovative idea of creating a mail order system for goods. By harnessing the railroads, he created a booming business.

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Richard Warren Sears had the innovative idea of creating a mail order system for goods. By harnessing the railroads, he created a booming business.

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- Sears worked in a train station in Minnesota as a station agent
- In 1886, received shipment of watches that was sent to his station
- Local jeweler refused to buy the watches, so Sears decided to sell them to other station agents through the mail
- With the profit he made, started the R.W Sears Watch Company, a mail-order company
- In 1889 sold his company
- Founded another mail-order company with Alvah C. Roebuck known as Sears, Roebuck and Company; used the mail-order system to sell a wide variety of supplies through a catalog
- The catalog included such items as medical and veterinary supplies, musical instruments, firearms, bicycles, sewing machines, clothing, and baby carriages
- One of the popular items sold was the house kit. Between 1908 -1940 he sold 70,000 to 75,000 homes.