Sear’s 1897 Catalogue

I’m sure you’re sick of all the boring Black Friday/Cyber Monday emails and ads you got this weekend, so I thought it’d be amusing to share this 1967 book that reproduces an 1897 catalogue from Sears. It has more than 700 pages with beautiful typography & illustrations of products, and over the top copywriting making impossible promises (see below for examples). Apparently you could order most of the catalogue’s items by mail order if they were small enough, but since the catalogue features everything from nails to crockery, clothing, tools through horse carriages, I assume the bigger ones had to be picked up in Chicago at Sear’s headquarters. I haven’t read the whole thing cover to cover, but some interesting merchandise I noticed were fake beards, breast enlargers and wolf teeth extractors. Can you believe they printed a catalogue twice a year and distributed it across America for free? If only the emails we get nowadays were this witty ;_;

My hands are average size, so here you have an idea of how big the catalogue was.

Photography wasn’t really popular in advertisements/merchandising until probably the late 1950s, which is why catalogues, advertisements and magazines used illustrations instead.

“If nature has not favored your with that greatest charm, a symetrically rounded bosom, full and perfect, send for the Princess Bust Developer…”

“Men’s Fancy Bosom Laundered Shirts. Fashion’s Latest Edict. To be Thoroughly Up-to-date You Must Wear Up-to-date Shirts. We have Up-to-date Shirts for Up-to-date People, at Up-to-date Prices.”

“The rain falls alike on the just and unjust. All should be supplied with mackintoshes. See the best line of Wet Weather Protectors ever sold.”