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CATALOGUES BACK IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Smithsonian Catalog History Project
If you have no interest in the history of catalogs and mail order in the US, you can skip this article. If on the other hand, you would like a quick overview of how our industry got to where we are, read on.
Several weeks ago, I announced the American Catalog Mailers Association, which hosted its annual forum in Washington, DC last month, was selected by the Smithsonian Institution to help put together an exhibit on the history of the postal industry. Paul Miller, from the ACMA, contacted me to see if I knew someone that could help coordinate the catalog and mail order portion of the exhibit. I eagerly volunteered. At the ACMA forum, Karen McCormick, the exhibit coordinator for the Smithsonian, presented an overview of the project, the work completed to date, and the work remaining. Below is the first completed phase of
the exhibit, a short history of how the industry got started and why. I have been working on this in my free time the last few months, and with Paul’s editorial guidance (it is so helpful that he is a former magazine editor!), we got it approved by the curator at the National Postal Museum.
The Overview
“Starting with the country’s first settlers in colonial times, Americans relied on their local general stores, tradesmen such as blacksmiths and cobblers, as well as itinerant peddlers for the majority of goods and wares.
In 1870, 74 percent of the US
population still lived in areas defined by the Census Bureau as “rural”. But, as the
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economy grew in the post-Civil War era, rural consumers wanted more than what local Main Street merchants could supply. In 1872, Aaron Montgomery Ward, a
dry-goods merchant in Chicago, launched what is considered the first successful catalog company. It was soon followed by the Sears and Roebuck and Burpee Seed catalogs. Although the catalogs were popular with consumers and grew steadily, they faced a major obstacle: by law, the Post Office Department was prohibited from delivering any package weighing more than four pounds. Packages over that weight were delivered by private delivery/ express companies. Te majority of Americans remained in
rural areas at the start of the 20th century, and they lacked postal delivery. Tese rural residents had to go to the local post office to get their mail, a trip that could take much of the day to make. Te National Grange, an organization dedicated to improving economic and social conditions primarily for rural farmers, began a campaign in the 1870s to bring about free mail delivery to rural locations. John Wanamaker, a leading merchant from Philadelphia, was the Postmaster General from 1889 to 1893. He supported the concept, and saw the logic in having one person deliver mail to 100 farms rather than for 100 people to travel to one post office. Congress opposed the rural delivery idea as being too expensive. However,
By Bill laPierre, Datamann
rural residents continued to pressure their Congressional representatives for help, and in 1896 the Post Office Department began Rural Free Delivery (RFD) at first as an experiment, and in 1902, a nation-wide service. Te service, which delivered mail directly to the farmer’s mail box, became immediately popular. Once rural consumers began to enjoy
the luxury of mail delivered almost to their doorstep, they wanted the opportunity to buy goods by mail. So, again, the National Grange began a campaign to ease the weight limits on packages that the Post Office Department could deliver. Opposition to this proposal, which limited the growth of mail order and catalogs, was fierce among private delivery companies, local Main Street merchants, and railway companies. A handful of powerful Members of Congress had financial ties to companies opposing the proposal and the matter stayed mired in Congress for years. Ultimately the proposals’ supporters were victorious and in 1913 the Parcel Post Service began. Te maximum package weight the Post Office would deliver started at 11 pounds, growing to 70 pounds by 1931. Te combination of RFD and Parcel
Post brought together a massive, and relatively untouched, customer base and the fledgling mail order industry. Within the first six months of Parcel Post, Sears handled five times as many orders as it did
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