But the Christmas season makes me think about another aspect of Sears that is also gone - the Christmas catalog.
When I was a kid and that catalog arrived, I spent days paging through the pages marking all the things I wanted to see under the Christmas tree. Of course, I didn't expect to get all the things I marked (even when I did believe in Santa Claus), but it was a lot of fun to "shop" in the catalog. Wasn't it called the "Wish Book" at some point?
But Sears was encouraging dreaming much earlier in the 20th century for adults. Beginning in 1908, Sears started selling entire houses from a catalog.
In those days they were still known as Sears, Roebuck & Co., and they were able to package and ship more than 400 different types of homes and buildings. These kits were 25-tons of 30,000 pre-cut parts, plumbing and electrical fixtures, and up to 750 pounds of nails. Without commercial air and ground shipping, the kits were transported by railroad.
Talk about the American Dream, if you had the cash, you could order in 1908 the original model, number 125, which was an 8 room bungalow style house. It cost $945.
Perhaps, more amazing is that while half of those kits were built professionally, the other half were built by the homeowners themselves DIY-style. Apparently, many of the latter construction projects were neighborhood "barn-raisings" with family, friends, and neighbors.
How about a 10 room colonial for $6488?
The complete homes sales ended in 1939 as WWII approached. Besides these arts and crafts Sears homes, there were other sources of homes of moderate cost.
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