Speaker 1: Guess what, mango? What's that? Will? You will not believe
Speaker 1: what I found when I was looking through this old
Speaker 1: box of things from my childhood. So what's that? All right?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna show it to you? Ready for this? What
Speaker 1: is that? A calculator? Why that? It is one of
Speaker 1: the most coveted items in elementary school back in the eighties.
Speaker 1: Were these a big deal in Delaware? Of course they were.
Speaker 1: They definitely were in Alabama. And you know where I
Speaker 1: got it? Where's that? The Sears catalog? Did you used
Speaker 1: to look through the old Sears catalog? Yeah? I used
Speaker 1: to thump through it. Oh man. It was so huge
Speaker 1: for us. And for some reason, I never saw it
Speaker 1: in my own house. I think my parents must have
Speaker 1: just been good at making it disappears something. But at
Speaker 1: mama's house, you know, a grandmother has to have this
Speaker 1: on the coffee table. She always had it sitting out
Speaker 1: and I would thumb through seriously every page of it,
Speaker 1: circling things like remote control cars, ThunderCats figures. That's where
Speaker 1: I got the light, right, so many awesome toys in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's really something so magical about it, all right? And
Speaker 1: did you did you see my calculator. Watch I get
Speaker 1: that on my face. Anyway, as the holidays are approaching,
Speaker 1: we were talking about the old Sears catalog recently and
Speaker 1: wondering how did it become such a big deal and
Speaker 1: what are some of the weirdest things ever offered in it?
Speaker 1: And speaking of weird, we talked about doing this topic
Speaker 1: months ago and it's just so strange that, seriously, it
Speaker 1: is just by accident that this ends up publishing on
Speaker 1: Black Friday. So anyway, that's what we'll be talking about today.
Speaker 1: Let's get started hei their podcast listeners, Welcome the part
Speaker 1: time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and it's always I'm joined
Speaker 1: by my good friend man guest and sitting on the
Speaker 1: other side of the soundproof class man. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've noticed this, but Kristen has this fancy new
Speaker 1: office chair out there. I think it's an executive chair.
Speaker 1: It's like high back and everything. Wow. That's our friend
Speaker 1: and producer Tristan McNeil. And on today's show, we're ushering
Speaker 1: in the holiday shopping season with a fun look back
Speaker 1: at the golden age of Sears. Now, you know, it's
Speaker 1: no secret that the iconic American retailer has seen its
Speaker 1: better days, and in fact, there's a good chance you
Speaker 1: haven't stepped foot in a Sear store and quite some time,
Speaker 1: or maybe even never at all. But you know, with
Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty one years under the company's belt,
Speaker 1: we thought, why focus on the negative exactly, So instead
Speaker 1: we're gonna explore the solid hundred years or so when
Speaker 1: Sears was at the top of its game, and we'll
Speaker 1: cover some of the company's breakthrough ideas and not get
Speaker 1: a sense of how a humble mail order service became
Speaker 1: this massive retail giant. You know. So I want to
Speaker 1: mention upfront that today's episode works is kind of a
Speaker 1: companion to the show we did on Amazon just a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago. And it's not to say that
Speaker 1: you have to have listened to that one, but you
Speaker 1: have to listen, you do. Okay, stop, now, go back
Speaker 1: and listen to that one. But you know, they're all
Speaker 1: kinds of interesting parallels between the two companies. So I
Speaker 1: guess you are better off if you're up to date
Speaker 1: on Amazon. Yeah, and and that's really one of the
Speaker 1: great things about a company has long lived as Sears
Speaker 1: like it takes on all this added historical value that
Speaker 1: makes it way more interesting than like your typical retail
Speaker 1: chan and so for younger companies, Series is kind of
Speaker 1: this primer of what a business should and shouldn't do
Speaker 1: in order to weather the ups and downs of the
Speaker 1: American economy. But series is longevity also makes it useful
Speaker 1: in other ways to like take the company's famous catalogs,
Speaker 1: those at up being these great visual records of how
Speaker 1: our society, styles and habits have changed over the last
Speaker 1: century and a half. It was interesting reading up on
Speaker 1: this something I had not thought about before. But often
Speaker 1: producers will use Sears catalogs as references when they're working
Speaker 1: on period films or Broadway shows. You know, they're also
Speaker 1: a good way to find costumes or props that are
Speaker 1: true to the era being depicted. And it's not just
Speaker 1: Hollywood either, you know, historians rely on the catalogs to
Speaker 1: look back and kind of get an accurate timeline of
Speaker 1: when certain products or styles first appeared. Yeah, that's pretty awesome,
Speaker 1: and those catalogs are such a big part of the
Speaker 1: series legacy. We should definitely talk more about them. But
Speaker 1: first I want to go back to the pre catalog
Speaker 1: days and get a sense of how series really got
Speaker 1: to start, all right, So I'll set the scene here.
Speaker 1: It's it's eighteen eighty six, and you've got a twenty
Speaker 1: two year old man named Richard Sears, and he's working
Speaker 1: as a telegraph off operator and a station agent at
Speaker 1: a railroad in Minnesota. It's kind of a boring job,
Speaker 1: but the downtime allows Sears to start a side gig,
Speaker 1: and he's selling lumber and coal just to kind of
Speaker 1: supplement his income. Well, one day, a shipment of pocket
Speaker 1: watches comes in, but the local jeweler refuses to sign
Speaker 1: for it. It was pretty common in those days that
Speaker 1: the companies would send these unsolicited merchandise to small town retailers.
Speaker 1: They'd they'd act like it was this accidental shipment and
Speaker 1: then say, you know, but you can have it at
Speaker 1: this deeply discounted price. But he sends this opportunity for
Speaker 1: this new side business. So Sears buys the unwanted watches
Speaker 1: well below cost for himself. He then proceeds to sell
Speaker 1: to other railroad workers up and down the line. Of
Speaker 1: the next few months, he turned this fifty dollar investment
Speaker 1: into a five thousand dollar profit. Yeah, it's an amazing story.
Speaker 1: So let me pick it up here. He's emboldened by
Speaker 1: that kind of result, right, So Sears decides to take
Speaker 1: a stab at the American dream. He quits his job,
Speaker 1: orders more watches, and then starts to R. W. Sears
Speaker 1: Watch Company with in six months, then a year later
Speaker 1: his business is booming. So he moved the company to
Speaker 1: Chicago and he starts producing this mail order catalog. Now,
Speaker 1: admittedly the series catalog starts small. It's less than a
Speaker 1: hundred pages, and it advertises nothing but watches. A hundred
Speaker 1: pages of watches. Yeah, but but but then it also
Speaker 1: guarantees something revolutionary. And that's the first ever unconditional money
Speaker 1: back guarantee. So as many times you see that, like
Speaker 1: on TV or whatever, this all started with Sears. That's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. I mean, it's a great idea from a
Speaker 1: marketing perspective, no question. And you know, it added a
Speaker 1: nice sense of security to the prospect of these people
Speaker 1: really kind of seeing it as sending strangers money through
Speaker 1: the mail. And but but in practice, this revolutionary policy
Speaker 1: turned into a huge headache for Sears. Happened pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: I mean he was making thousands of dollars from watch
Speaker 1: sales each month, but the cost of these refunds and
Speaker 1: the replacements, it really started to eat into these profits.
Speaker 1: But he was pretty smart about it. So what he
Speaker 1: did next was he hired someone to repair the defective watches,
Speaker 1: which would make it much cheaper than you know, for
Speaker 1: for him to be able to honor this guarantee. Right,
Speaker 1: So that's when alvat Roebuck enters the picture. He's this
Speaker 1: watchmaker and repairman who he quickly becomes Sears full blown partner,
Speaker 1: and together they expanded the business to include all sorts
Speaker 1: of other products. So you've got jewelry than supporting goods,
Speaker 1: quickly moves into clothing, bicycles, uh, you know, lots of
Speaker 1: household products. You don't want to name every single one
Speaker 1: of them. I could. So Actually at this point, was
Speaker 1: it was Sears still all male order, or if they
Speaker 1: already entered the physical store space as well. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: Sears actually didn't open a brick and mortar store until
Speaker 1: for its first thirty years, it was strictly a catalog company,
Speaker 1: and that was a great business model for them because
Speaker 1: nearly two thirds of the country's population lived in these
Speaker 1: rural regions. This was back in the eighteen nineties, but
Speaker 1: they decided to capitalize on this newly completed railroad system,
Speaker 1: and through that, Sears and Roebuck were able to build
Speaker 1: this loyal customer base in parts of the country that
Speaker 1: had the most untapped market potential. Yeah. I mean, the
Speaker 1: biggest competition for oil order in those days came from
Speaker 1: these general stores scattered through American small towns, and because
Speaker 1: most of those were either under stocked or overpriced, it
Speaker 1: really weren't that much of a threat. Well yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: if anything, the general stores were the ones in danger.
Speaker 1: In fact, I read that the store owners in some
Speaker 1: towns started offering prizes to local kids who would bring
Speaker 1: in copies of the Sears catalogs. And it wasn't that
Speaker 1: the shopkeepers were interested in like studying the competition or
Speaker 1: matching their prices. They just wanted to get all these
Speaker 1: things and then have these huge public bonfires where they
Speaker 1: would burn all the catalogs. That's pretty extreme, but I
Speaker 1: mean serious. Stated goal was to save consumers money by
Speaker 1: cutting out the middleman, and those general stores were the middleman.
Speaker 1: But that wasn't series is only competition. They had already
Speaker 1: come under attack from other mail order retailers like you
Speaker 1: know Montgomery Ward. They had actually been selling city goods
Speaker 1: to rural clients for about twenty plus years before Sears
Speaker 1: got into the business. That's right, Montgomery Ward. I mean,
Speaker 1: it has less of a presence today than Sears, so
Speaker 1: it's kind of easy to forget that they were actually
Speaker 1: the first on this mail order scene. Yeah, and as
Speaker 1: you'd expect, the companies were arrivals from the start, though,
Speaker 1: Sears grew so rapidly that it started to outpace Montgomery
Speaker 1: Award in the eighteen nineties. By nine hundred, Sears of
Speaker 1: sales had reached ten million dollars versus Wards about nine
Speaker 1: million dollars. I mean, the rivalry had grown unfriendly by
Speaker 1: that point too. So you know, Sears supposedly made his
Speaker 1: catalogs shorter and narrower so that they'd stick out from
Speaker 1: the Ward catalogs. Like when customers would stack the catalogs
Speaker 1: at home, the smaller series catalog would always end up
Speaker 1: on top. Oh, it's pretty clever. I was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how that worked, but that that makes sense, alright.
Speaker 1: So so obviously, the railroad was a big part of
Speaker 1: Sears success, as was the case for many American companies
Speaker 1: of that era, but we should give a shout out
Speaker 1: to the postal system, which you know, it gave mail
Speaker 1: order companies a huge boost in eighteen ninety six, and
Speaker 1: that's when the Postal Service started guaranteeing mail to all
Speaker 1: rural areas, so no matter where someone lived, they were
Speaker 1: allowed to get their mail there, and so it made
Speaker 1: it much easier for Sears and its competitors to get
Speaker 1: their catalogs into these homes of even most out of
Speaker 1: the way customers. Of course, the Postal Service didn't start
Speaker 1: shipping packages until you know, a few years later in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirteen, so customers still had to go to their
Speaker 1: nearest railroad station in order to pick up their orders.
Speaker 1: But you know, getting the catalogs at home at least
Speaker 1: save them the trouble of having to go to these
Speaker 1: distant post offices or higher private carriers just to bring
Speaker 1: them their mail. Definitely, and I can't imagine having to
Speaker 1: walk miles to a post office just to pick up
Speaker 1: like what we think of his junk mail today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know it is. It's interesting to think of it
Speaker 1: that way now, But those catalogs we're we're not considered
Speaker 1: junk mail at all in the nineteenth century. I mean
Speaker 1: they actually served a purpose not too dissimilar from how
Speaker 1: we use the internet today. You know, you've had anywhere
Speaker 1: at any time people could flip through the pages of
Speaker 1: a catalog and learn about a new piece of technology
Speaker 1: or some breakthrough product, and then they could buy it
Speaker 1: for themselves if they wanted to. And in fact, that's
Speaker 1: another way the postal system helped the mail order industry.
Speaker 1: So they allowed Sears catalog to be shipped for just
Speaker 1: one cent per pound because they were considered public aids
Speaker 1: and the spread of knowledge. I know, I mean that
Speaker 1: sounds silly at first, like what could be crasser than
Speaker 1: a company trying to pass off advertisements of some sort
Speaker 1: of educational service, But I guess if you put yourself
Speaker 1: in the shoes of someone living in the middle of
Speaker 1: Wyoming way back in the eighteen nineties, like a serious
Speaker 1: catalog really would be this window to a world you
Speaker 1: wouldn't otherwise see. And the catalogs were definitely meant to
Speaker 1: advertise products and make money, but consumer education was in
Speaker 1: the mix as well. Yeah, And you know, you sometimes
Speaker 1: hear that Sears taught Americans how to shop, and there's
Speaker 1: clearly some truth to that for millions of shoppers, this
Speaker 1: year's catalog was kind of their first introduction to mail
Speaker 1: order services, and for better or worse, the catalog also
Speaker 1: played a role in the development of America's consumer culture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds right to me, especially when you look at
Speaker 1: how the catalog ballooned year after years more products were added.
Speaker 1: I mean, in the early nineteen hundreds, the Sears catalog
Speaker 1: was over five hundred pages, and at its peak in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen, the General Merchandise Catalog, it's swelled over twelve
Speaker 1: hundred pages. Whoa nine year old will would have been
Speaker 1: so jealous of that. Somebody paid so many circles. So
Speaker 1: it included a hundred thousand items, weighed four pounds, and
Speaker 1: brought the company over a hundred million dollars in annual sales.
Speaker 1: Good lord, but so wait, you said that the catalog's
Speaker 1: peak was in nineteen fifteen, so it started shrinking after
Speaker 1: that was more than a hundred years ago. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: the nation had urbanized quite a bit by then, and
Speaker 1: cars were becoming the rage, and suddenly rural consumers were
Speaker 1: moving to cities where easy access to stores lessen their
Speaker 1: need for mail order services, and Sears kept track with
Speaker 1: the shifting market until nineteen twenty five, when it responded
Speaker 1: by opening their first physical department stores. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: it's worth mentioning that by by this point, Richard Sears
Speaker 1: and Alva Roebuck we were out of the picture. I mean,
Speaker 1: Roebuck had sold his interest in the company decades earlier,
Speaker 1: and Sears had retired back in nineteen o eight passed
Speaker 1: away in nineteen fourteen. So rather than Sears himself, the
Speaker 1: company's hugely successful for a into brick and mortar was
Speaker 1: really overseen by General Robert E. Wood. Now, he was
Speaker 1: a military man. That might seem like a little bit
Speaker 1: of a random pick, but he'd actually been a procurement
Speaker 1: officer back in the Panama can Now projects, so he
Speaker 1: did have a lot of logistics background, another background that
Speaker 1: really helped him think about how the company would grow.
Speaker 1: There's actually a Storian here in Atlanta named Jerry Hancock,
Speaker 1: and he was on an episode of Stuff You Missed
Speaker 1: in History Class, which you guys should check out. It
Speaker 1: was a really really interesting episode. But he talks about
Speaker 1: woods contribution in this way. He says, basically, what Wood
Speaker 1: did was he set up a territory system and divided
Speaker 1: the nation into five territories. He supplied those five territories
Speaker 1: by these ten distribution plants combined with retail stores. And
Speaker 1: if you go you can still see the remnants of
Speaker 1: these plants and how they fill orders with these huge conveyors,
Speaker 1: these big spiraling shoots. Each floor would get a ticket
Speaker 1: for whatever items, and they would have the merchandise divided
Speaker 1: by floor and they would fill each order. And in
Speaker 1: the bottom would be this massive mail room where all
Speaker 1: the items would be collected and bundled together, and then
Speaker 1: literally on the back of the building was a railroad.
Speaker 1: They would put the items into the train and ship
Speaker 1: them out. I mean, it's an amazing process and it
Speaker 1: sounds so ahead of its time, but full disclosure. Will
Speaker 1: and I actually work in one of Wood's old distribution
Speaker 1: plans here in Atlanta, and nowadays it's this mixed use facility,
Speaker 1: but you can still find traces of the building's industrial
Speaker 1: past here and it's a great place to work, with
Speaker 1: a great Raman restaurant downstairs. And so general, would we
Speaker 1: salute you? Okay, So I know we're getting into sears
Speaker 1: breaking bortar phase now, but if I'm honest, I'm not
Speaker 1: really ready to leave the catalog behind just yet. So
Speaker 1: what do you say we take a break and then
Speaker 1: we can check out some of the craziest stuff to
Speaker 1: ever grace the Sears catalog. Sounds like a plan to me.
Speaker 1: You're listening to part time genius and we're talking about
Speaker 1: how Sears managed to build a retail empire on the
Speaker 1: foundation of mail order catalogs. All right, Mango, So what's
Speaker 1: one of the weirdest products you came across while rummaging
Speaker 1: through your huge collection of old Sears catalogs? So this
Speaker 1: might be cheating, but I actually found a bunch of
Speaker 1: these really outrageous medicines, you know, the quackery that was
Speaker 1: all the rage in the nineteenth century America. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, if you preface something by saying this
Speaker 1: might be cheating, it most definitely is cheating. But I'm
Speaker 1: always game for some medical quackery. So so what did
Speaker 1: you find out? So one of the absolute worst remedies
Speaker 1: has to be this one offered in the Spring catalog.
Speaker 1: It's called Brown's Vegetable Cure for female weakness. Which can
Speaker 1: you imagine trying to market something like that today? I
Speaker 1: can't imagine that would go over very well. No. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I have no clue what was even in the stuff,
Speaker 1: But Sears sold it in big bottles for sixty cents
Speaker 1: of pop, and according to the writ up, they could
Speaker 1: cure everything from mental cramps to back pain to really
Speaker 1: terrifying stuff. So here's some of the quotes it cures.
Speaker 1: Quote A dread from some impending evil, a craving for
Speaker 1: unnatural food, and sparks before the eyes. So if you
Speaker 1: have a craving for un natural food, you could just
Speaker 1: you know, have some of this. Brown's vegetable cure for
Speaker 1: female weakness takes care of that. This is so weird.
Speaker 1: I not remember hearing about any epidemics of sparks before
Speaker 1: the eyes. Such a strange thing. Yeah, so you might
Speaker 1: be right. And the Atlas like fifty symptoms that supposedly
Speaker 1: treats another terrible product. This is uh also aimed at
Speaker 1: female customers. It was Dr Roses French arsenic complexion wafers.
Speaker 1: All right, Now, that just sounds made up. I know,
Speaker 1: I had to read it cause I couldn't remember, but
Speaker 1: I wish it was. It is not made up. These
Speaker 1: were toxic wafers that promised to rejuvenate quote even the
Speaker 1: coarsest and most repulsive skin. And you knew they were
Speaker 1: toxic too, because the very first words in the ad
Speaker 1: coffee are quote perfectly harmless and big bold, not suspicious
Speaker 1: at all. I like how they draw attention to the
Speaker 1: fact that these aren't your typical round of the mill
Speaker 1: arsenic waivers, you know, like you might just find around
Speaker 1: the corner. I mean these these are French arsenic wafers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can poison yourself in style here. Yeah. So the
Speaker 1: ad tries to distract from the poison with all these
Speaker 1: references to the magical effects of the wafers and how
Speaker 1: users will experience quote the wizard's touch. Sears must have
Speaker 1: been pretty confident because they recommended women start ordering them
Speaker 1: a dozen boxes at a time, which would have been
Speaker 1: twelve arsenic wave Wow. That is a lot of arsenic.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you do have to remember it was
Speaker 1: French arsenic, so I'm sure it was fine. So all right. Well,
Speaker 1: while women seem to have the line share of these
Speaker 1: dubious remedies inflicted on them, men were also on the
Speaker 1: receiving end of a few of these, at least, so
Speaker 1: I found one example the fall of nineteen o two,
Speaker 1: Sears catalog advertised this belt and it sent electrical currents
Speaker 1: through a guy's growing in order to provide quote, the best,
Speaker 1: most reliable, most harmless yet powerful cheapest cure possible. So
Speaker 1: that's obviously a ton of qualifiers. But what was this
Speaker 1: supposed to cure? Exactly? I mean, like whatever ailes you're growing,
Speaker 1: I guess. I mean, as usual with these medical ads,
Speaker 1: the right up is short on details and super long
Speaker 1: on this bizarre wording and these impossible claims, Like there
Speaker 1: was this promise to cure a week or deranged nervous system.
Speaker 1: So I found another It's called curtis Is Consumption Cure
Speaker 1: or the Triple C, and it just straight up promises
Speaker 1: to cure tuberculosis. Wow. You know, Sears is pretty lucky
Speaker 1: that the FDC wasn't around back then, because I can't
Speaker 1: imagine any of this stuff would have flown now. So
Speaker 1: you know what the strangest part is. So, according to
Speaker 1: the company, Richard Sears wrote just about every line of
Speaker 1: coffee and the catalogs. But you're kidding, right, No, it's true. Alright, Well,
Speaker 1: there was this funny nineteen o two add for something
Speaker 1: called a toilet mask, so I'm impressed by his copywriters skill.
Speaker 1: So the acid cured rubber is said to be coated
Speaker 1: with just healing agents. Wait, so is the assets supposed
Speaker 1: to improve your complexion like the arsenic wafers. Well, the
Speaker 1: acid is supposed to burn off things like freckles and
Speaker 1: liver spots. Sort of. I guess I don't know that
Speaker 1: i'd call acid burns and improvement over freckles though. Okay,
Speaker 1: so most of these are pretty disturbing products, so I'll
Speaker 1: go ahead and mention another that kind of fits the bill. Apparently.
Speaker 1: In the series, catalog offered a set of illustrated lecture
Speaker 1: slides that depicted quote realistic views of the assassination of
Speaker 1: President McKinley. Oh god. Yeah. Customers could relive the national
Speaker 1: tragedy from the comfort of their living rooms using the
Speaker 1: handy stereo opticon slide projector, which was also available through series.
Speaker 1: That is horrible, I mean, I do feel I need
Speaker 1: to point out the series also sold some pretty wholesome
Speaker 1: things through the catalogs too, So, for example, the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirties Sears advertised live baby chicks for sale. Each chick
Speaker 1: costs ten cents and the company actually guarantee they'd be
Speaker 1: delivered safe and alive or your money back. Well. I
Speaker 1: like this positive direction you're heading in, but I want
Speaker 1: to drag us back into the mud because I have
Speaker 1: to mention one of my favorite all time uses for
Speaker 1: the series catalog, which is that they provided the nation's
Speaker 1: toilet paper of choice in the late nineteenth century, so
Speaker 1: that Sears was selling toilet paper by mail. No, the
Speaker 1: catalogs themselves used to be the go to choice when
Speaker 1: rural Americans had to you know, w yeah, I believe
Speaker 1: it or not. The paper pages of the catalog were
Speaker 1: actually a big step up for most people. For those
Speaker 1: who didn't have a lot of expendable paper on hand
Speaker 1: in the late eighteen hundreds, corn cops were the next
Speaker 1: best option, or maybe a muscle shell if you happen
Speaker 1: to live near the coastline. I was trying to figure
Speaker 1: out which of those sounds worse, But I don't really
Speaker 1: even want to go down that path, so let's just
Speaker 1: not talk about that exactly, Which is why people were
Speaker 1: so happy when Sears started selling them giant free catalogs
Speaker 1: twice a year. And supposedly we looked at this a
Speaker 1: single catalog could meet the outhouse needs of a farm
Speaker 1: family for an entire season, So you can imagine just
Speaker 1: how upset folks were where the company switched from cushy,
Speaker 1: absorbent newsprint to this unforgiving coded paper stalk. Apparently, Sears
Speaker 1: got quite a few angry letters from customers who would
Speaker 1: have gladly swapped the catalog's fancy color pictures for you know,
Speaker 1: returned to the soft stuff. I love that people wrote
Speaker 1: in letters about that. Well, we mentioned earlier that Sears
Speaker 1: catalogs were something of a teaching tool in the early
Speaker 1: days of the company. It kind of you know, served
Speaker 1: as some of the public's first introduction to new technologies
Speaker 1: like the electric sewing machine, the disc graphophone, and the
Speaker 1: baby gate. Even and cars were actually another thing I
Speaker 1: was surprised to learn the catalog introduced to the public.
Speaker 1: So the company offered a tiny car. It was called
Speaker 1: um Sears Motor Buggy, and this was in the Fall
Speaker 1: nine catalog. The Boddy. You could actually reach speeds of
Speaker 1: up to twenty five miles per hour and it costs
Speaker 1: just under four hundred dollars, which is about ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollars today. Wow, that's pretty pricey for Sears. I don't
Speaker 1: think I ever circled that one in the catalog. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of expensive, I know this is kind of jumping
Speaker 1: ahead of it, but I saw this ad from Sears
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one. It was for the very first
Speaker 1: VCR model, and it cost one thousand, one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars. I mean, it's close to three thousand
Speaker 1: dollars today. I know it's expensive, but how else were
Speaker 1: you gonna watch Ernest Goes to Jail? That's actually I
Speaker 1: can remember. The first time I watched a movie on
Speaker 1: a VCR was we actually rented the VCR. I think
Speaker 1: it was from Blockbuster Videos so we could watch a
Speaker 1: movie at home. Well, there's at least one item from
Speaker 1: the early series catalogs that has only gone up in
Speaker 1: value over the years, and I do want to make
Speaker 1: sure that we talk about it. But but first let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break. Okay, Mango, We've got one of
Speaker 1: our listeners on the line to play a quiz with
Speaker 1: us today. Stephen is joining us from the state of Washington.
Speaker 1: Welcome to part time genius. Stephen. How's it going now?
Speaker 1: You're the second person that we've spoken to this week.
Speaker 1: That's that works an overnight shift. Earlier in the week,
Speaker 1: we spoke to a truck driver who picks up milk
Speaker 1: from fifteen different Amish communities in the state of Maryland.
Speaker 1: And you've been working the graveyard shift. So tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about what you do. Well. I I
Speaker 1: operate some five excess seeing c machines, some of the
Speaker 1: largest in the world. Actually, um, and it's it's pretty
Speaker 1: awesome that you do a little of that, Mango, don't
Speaker 1: you the five axes? Yeah, but mostly on the weekends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's great. Well, we're gonna be We're gonna be
Speaker 1: playing a quiz with you today. What quiz were you playing? Mango.
Speaker 1: We're gonna play a game called real Sears Catalog item
Speaker 1: or something we made up? All right, So Steve and
Speaker 1: we are going to give you six quiz questions and
Speaker 1: you just have to tell us whether it's a real
Speaker 1: item we found that a Sears catalog or something we
Speaker 1: made up. You're ready to play, all right? So the
Speaker 1: first one is a mix at home after shave. It's
Speaker 1: for people who love old spice but would prefer to
Speaker 1: add some of their own spices. Was this a real
Speaker 1: Sears catalog item or something we made up? You know.
Speaker 1: I I believe that that was a real thing, and
Speaker 1: that'd be pretty interesting. Actually, it wouldn't be pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: But this one actually isn't true. They should have had it.
Speaker 1: There were some far weirder things in there. That's okay, yea, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. That's right, all right. Question number two, I
Speaker 1: Love You Red twelve Bird Birdhouse. Was this something real
Speaker 1: and a serious catalog or something we made up? M hmmm,
Speaker 1: it's definitely. It has a hint of mango in there.
Speaker 1: But I think I might have actually seen that at
Speaker 1: my grandma's neighbor's house, So I'm gonna go maybe real.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely right, He's right, it's uh, it's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: The ventilated cubicles were supposed to encourage a family of
Speaker 1: Martin's to join your own. All right, Okay, he's coming back.
Speaker 1: Or one out of two. Still got plenty of time
Speaker 1: for the big prize. Question number three, do it yourself
Speaker 1: home delivery kit for mothers who don't want to bother
Speaker 1: with a doctor until they need to. It's called a
Speaker 1: do it yourself home delivery kit. Was this true or
Speaker 1: something we made up? Uh? You know, uh, it seems
Speaker 1: a little strange, but you know what, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: i'd buy that. I think that's realistic enough like that
Speaker 1: you'd buy it. Yeah, it's true. I see that it's
Speaker 1: true here mango. But what was what was in it?
Speaker 1: I know it actually came with rubber sheets, breastbinders, antiseptic soap,
Speaker 1: and olive oil. And I think it came with gloves
Speaker 1: as well, all stuff I keep in my backpack anyway,
Speaker 1: So this is great. Alright, So Steven's two for three, alright,
Speaker 1: Question number four, castrating knives. Castrating knives as this true
Speaker 1: or something we made up? You know, I kind of
Speaker 1: don't want that to be true, but it kind of
Speaker 1: might be, but we'll see. You know, I think as
Speaker 1: long as it's not for humans, I think that's I
Speaker 1: believe that. Yeah, it's true. So at the time, the
Speaker 1: Sears catalog also sold farming equipment as well as things
Speaker 1: like baby chickens and donkeys, and the knives actually came
Speaker 1: with one, two or three blades. Just to be as
Speaker 1: surprised as the listeners. Sometimes I like to come in
Speaker 1: without having seen the quizzes before, and this is one
Speaker 1: of those. When I saw castrating knives. I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, Mango, what kind of move? Alright, that's right,
Speaker 1: Stephen is three out of four. Let's see. The next
Speaker 1: one is a bald Eagle to pay kit fun for
Speaker 1: all ages, yarn assembly kit to make the most patriotic
Speaker 1: of birds better looking? Was this actually in a Sears
Speaker 1: catalog or something we made up? You know? That's that?
Speaker 1: That sounds a little mango and he's got you figured out, man. Alright, alright,
Speaker 1: last one for the big prize. Here walk and Whear
Speaker 1: hair dryers. It's like drying your hair at a beauty salon,
Speaker 1: except on the go. A walk and Whear hair dryers.
Speaker 1: It's true or something we made up. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure exactly how that would work, except well, I guess.
Speaker 1: I mean you could probably have a portable powered one.
Speaker 1: I you know, I believe that. Yeah, let go, Yes,
Speaker 1: this is really true. It's true. Here. How does this work? Well,
Speaker 1: it was only so mobile, so it had this beehive
Speaker 1: it wearable hair dryer that came with an eight foot
Speaker 1: extension courts you could walk eight feet if you're on
Speaker 1: the go. That's great. Yeah, it actually reminds me one
Speaker 1: of our our neighbors used to have one of those
Speaker 1: electric or plug in weed whackers. Except the problem was
Speaker 1: it's like the edge of his yard was five ft
Speaker 1: beyond where it's stretched. So we would watch him like
Speaker 1: get a running start with this thing and just like
Speaker 1: run all the way to the end and get that
Speaker 1: last five feet, then have to come back and plug
Speaker 1: it in and then go do it again. It was
Speaker 1: pretty great, all right. So yeah, uh yeah, so mango,
Speaker 1: how did Stephen do today? Uh? Stephen did great. He
Speaker 1: went five for six and as always, our guest wins
Speaker 1: an official part time Genius Certificate of Genius along with
Speaker 1: a part Time Genius T shirts. So congratulations Stephen. Alright, Stephen,
Speaker 1: that was great. We're all wrapped up. Thanks again for
Speaker 1: your patients and for joining us. Yeah anytime. That was
Speaker 1: a great quiz man go you really got me good.
Speaker 1: It was fun. Thanks. Enjoy your rest, take care all right,
Speaker 1: bye bye you guys. Okay, well, so you're going to
Speaker 1: tell us about this old timey Sears product that's proven
Speaker 1: to be such a big investment. Well maybe unsurprisingly it's
Speaker 1: actually real estate, or more specifically, their mail order houses,
Speaker 1: so Sears would actually send you a whole house. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's got to be this expensive shipping proposition, right, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, not a whole house, but like all the
Speaker 1: pieces you need to build a house. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it was nineteen o eight and the catalog included an
Speaker 1: ad that said, a hundred dollar set of building plans
Speaker 1: for free, let us be your architect without cost to you.
Speaker 1: And so customers then right into request a free copy
Speaker 1: of a book called the Book of Modern Homes. And
Speaker 1: it was this separate catalog that listed the building materials
Speaker 1: and the plans for I think it was for forty
Speaker 1: four different house designs that ranged in ice from around
Speaker 1: seven hundred dollars to about four thousand dollars. Okay, so
Speaker 1: then what happens like a pile of lumber and stuff
Speaker 1: just shows up at your doorstep. Where wait, so if
Speaker 1: customers were building houses, where were they sending these houses
Speaker 1: to in the first place. Well, a few weeks after
Speaker 1: an order was placed, you'd have two box cars full
Speaker 1: of about thirty thousand house pieces that would show up
Speaker 1: at the buyer's local train depot. Then the proud new
Speaker 1: homeowner would have to haul these pieces to the build side,
Speaker 1: you know, using a horse and wagon or maybe a
Speaker 1: flatbed truck. And so for that reason, most of these
Speaker 1: surviving Sears homes that you'll find them located within just
Speaker 1: a couple of miles of these old railroad lines. Oh
Speaker 1: that makes sense, But building a house seems like so
Speaker 1: much work. And forget about trying to haul like thirty
Speaker 1: thousand pieces of something up in mountain. Why do you
Speaker 1: think all these houses are up abound? All right, So,
Speaker 1: once all the pieces of the house were laid out,
Speaker 1: it was time for the homeowner to crack open their
Speaker 1: leather bound instruction book and figure out how the heck
Speaker 1: to put the thing together. And so there was a
Speaker 1: lot to figure out, with each kit containing twenty two
Speaker 1: islands of paint and varnish and and seven hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty pounds of nails. Not only that, there was about
Speaker 1: twenty thousand shingles there to use for the roof in siding,
Speaker 1: all of this and these giant kids. So there's gonna
Speaker 1: be one thick instruction book, right. Actually, I was trying
Speaker 1: to look into this because I would have thought the
Speaker 1: same thing, And they were only seventy five pages. That's
Speaker 1: not a lot of toilet paper, that's not that's insane.
Speaker 1: So I can barely build my own idea. But wait,
Speaker 1: so you mentioned these surviving houses. How many of these
Speaker 1: were built? Well? According to Sears, the company sold between
Speaker 1: seventy and seventy five thousand mail order homes during the
Speaker 1: thirty two years that it offered them. And getting into
Speaker 1: the housing business in the early twentieth century proved to
Speaker 1: be a really smart move for Sears, and the timing
Speaker 1: couldn't have been any better. He had more and more
Speaker 1: Americans that were, you know, trying to ditch the family
Speaker 1: farm in favor of this easier life in the suburbs,
Speaker 1: and the Sears catalog homes were an affordable way to
Speaker 1: make that switch. So you know, today they're buying us
Speaker 1: Sears homes isn't nearly that affordable because there's this whole
Speaker 1: community of Sears home enthusiasts. They try to hunt these
Speaker 1: down and catalog these housing relics, and all that interest
Speaker 1: can actually drive the prices way up. But we saw
Speaker 1: someone we were looking into this that we're close to
Speaker 1: a million dollars for some of these larger models. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not just a history that they're paying for, because
Speaker 1: these houses are really well built and and super durable.
Speaker 1: Because the timber they were using was this old growth
Speaker 1: would from back then, which you don't see used a
Speaker 1: whole lot now. In fact, you know, in fact, some
Speaker 1: enthusiasts estimate that as many as seventy Sears catalog houses
Speaker 1: are still standing today. That's crazy and I'm still blown
Speaker 1: away that there's this like a house Hunters Sears edition.
Speaker 1: But these people just drive around and look for Sears models.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think they're a little more methodical about
Speaker 1: it than that, but but but more or less, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's something the company actually encourages to The
Speaker 1: Seer's archive website even includes a running list of confirmed
Speaker 1: Sears house owners are willing to get in touch with
Speaker 1: fellow enthusiasts, and that way they can share notes or
Speaker 1: maybe meet up for a tour, and of course give
Speaker 1: each other heads up if somebody ever decides to sell
Speaker 1: there's which I guess isn't that likely. It is cool
Speaker 1: that these d i y houses are still out there.
Speaker 1: I mean, judging by the frequent Sears store closings and
Speaker 1: the sale of its iconic house brands like Craftsman Tools,
Speaker 1: it does feel like the company isn't long for the
Speaker 1: world at this point. And it feels like these homes
Speaker 1: that the company help people build are now kind of
Speaker 1: this monument to its cultural impact. Yeah, I mean it
Speaker 1: does make me wonder what else the company will leave behind,
Speaker 1: you know, besides this treasure trove of hilarious ads that
Speaker 1: we talked about. Well, I know one thing that will
Speaker 1: definitely be part of Sears legacy, and that's the NORAD
Speaker 1: Santa Tracker. You know how every year the news stations
Speaker 1: report on Santa's progress as he makes his way from
Speaker 1: the North Pole to houses all over the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean, what does that have to do with Sears. Well,
Speaker 1: back in one of Sears department stores placed an ad
Speaker 1: in a Colorado newspaper, and it encouraged kids to call
Speaker 1: Santa on his private line so that they could tell
Speaker 1: them what they'd like for Christmas. But something apparently went
Speaker 1: wrong along the way. I don't know whether the phone
Speaker 1: number in the ad was misprinted or people simply mistyaled,
Speaker 1: but at least one child wound up calling Santa and
Speaker 1: getting the Continental Air Defense Command instead. And so the
Speaker 1: officer on duty who answered his name was Colonel Harry Shoop.
Speaker 1: He asked his staff to provide the collar and any
Speaker 1: future ones with the latest updates on Santa's progress. And
Speaker 1: a couple of years later, Nora took over the duty
Speaker 1: and they've been reporting on Santa's yearly flight ever since.
Speaker 1: That's pretty incredible that they got this serious agency to
Speaker 1: start a whole program devoted to tracking Santa Claus. I know,
Speaker 1: and it's one area where Sears has Amazon, that's true. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of Amazon, I do want to quickly go back
Speaker 1: to the idea that Sears and Amazon are, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like mirror images of one another. So both
Speaker 1: companies rose the power by combining home delivery and an
Speaker 1: emerging technology. For Sears it was railroads and for Amazon
Speaker 1: it was the Internet. But you know, both companies started
Speaker 1: with a single evergreen product of watches and books, and
Speaker 1: then of course they expanded into these product ranges to
Speaker 1: include everything under the sun. Well, there's also the fact
Speaker 1: that Sears made the transition to brick and more or
Speaker 1: retail after decades of success. Is this, you know, delivery
Speaker 1: based company, And now we see Amazon starting to do
Speaker 1: the same thing. It's interesting to see the future of
Speaker 1: retail starts almost resemble its past. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: if you think about Amazon, would probably be smart to
Speaker 1: keep an eye on those similarities, because while the two
Speaker 1: companies find themselves in drastically different situations today, it is
Speaker 1: worth noting that Amazon is only in its twenties at
Speaker 1: this point. Who knows where it will be a century
Speaker 1: from now? Yeah, and who knows where series will be
Speaker 1: for that matter? All right, Well, even if the company
Speaker 1: is truly on its way out now, the market made
Speaker 1: on American culture will be with us for a long
Speaker 1: time to come, definitely. But for now, what do you say?
Speaker 1: We've partake in another beloved cultural institution. And that's the
Speaker 1: fact off? All right, let's do it, okay, So I'll
Speaker 1: kick us off. In the the CIA was trying to
Speaker 1: find a good way to compensate Vietnamese spies that were
Speaker 1: assisting them, and paper money really didn't do them any good,
Speaker 1: and so they had to find another way. They then
Speaker 1: discovered that they could pay them with items available from
Speaker 1: the Sears catalog. I like that, So I feel like
Speaker 1: we need at least one fact about the Sears Tower
Speaker 1: in Chicago. And I know it's called the Willis Tower now,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to join the fifty people who signed
Speaker 1: a petition to try to have the name changed back
Speaker 1: Now it may not be the tallest building in the
Speaker 1: world anymore, but here's something you could still hang its
Speaker 1: hat on the sky deck. Bathrooms at one three are
Speaker 1: actually the longest trip up from ground level of any
Speaker 1: other bathrooms in the Western Hemisphere. And that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: they're the highest in elevation, just the farthest from wherever
Speaker 1: the ground level is. That is pretty high up to
Speaker 1: get to a bathroom. Hopefully there are bathrooms on other
Speaker 1: floors before you get Now, that's it, alright. One of
Speaker 1: the things we didn't really talk about Sears selling on
Speaker 1: its catalog was insurance. And I don't know if you
Speaker 1: remember this, but Sears actually founded All State back Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't remember that, and they'd offer auto insurance deals
Speaker 1: in the catalog. All the State is of course no
Speaker 1: longer art of Sears. They've been completely independent from them
Speaker 1: for I think it's a little over twenty years or
Speaker 1: so now. So one of those something else that used
Speaker 1: to be in the catalog that I don't think you'll
Speaker 1: find serious selling anymore opium. Really, Yeah, you're right, I
Speaker 1: don't think they're selling that. Maybe that's gonna be their
Speaker 1: turnaround plan. We'll see. Well, just because the Sears catalog
Speaker 1: isn't what it used to be, there's obviously no shortage
Speaker 1: of catalog mailing going on these days, as we all
Speaker 1: experience at this time of year. So I was looking
Speaker 1: it up to see how many catalogs are mailed, and
Speaker 1: they'll be about eleven billion catalogs mailed out in the
Speaker 1: US alone this year. That's crazy. So just last months
Speaker 1: Heres announced to be bringing back the Wish Book this
Speaker 1: holiday season. It hasn't been printed since two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: and it's just a hundred twenty pager. It's only going
Speaker 1: to a select number of loyal customers. But it's apparently
Speaker 1: also available on the Sears app. Wait, what are you doing.
Speaker 1: I'm on the app store. I'm trying to download the
Speaker 1: Sears Sars had an app. I'm distracted. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give you the fact. I've congratulations, thank you, and and
Speaker 1: while Will staring at his phone, I want to thank
Speaker 1: all of you for listening today. Don't forget we love
Speaker 1: to hear fun facts from you guys. You can always
Speaker 1: email us at part Time Genius at how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com, or you can call us on our seven
Speaker 1: Fact hotline. That's one eight four four pt Genius. You
Speaker 1: can also find us on Facebook or Twitter, and Hey,
Speaker 1: if you like what you heard today, feel free to
Speaker 1: give us a review on Apple Podcast. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius
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Speaker 1: for us. Did we did we forget Jason? Jason who