Sears Roebuck Catalogue: 1927 Edition

There's the 1897 reprinted catalog and the 1908 and then there's the 1927. I'm sorry to see this is out of print because 1927 was one of the MOST fascinating years for Sears. Their business was booming. America was booming. Things were changing so fast. (And Sears had just started their new radio station - WLS - for World's Largest Store - three years prior!) In fact, it was in the mid-1920s that America went from being primarily agricultural (with more than 50% of Americans living on farms) to being a land where city-dwellers were the majority. The 1920s were a big decade for this country. And it was also the heyday of the Sears Modern Homes department. Sears was building "Sears Modern Homes Sales Centers" where you could actually walk into a store and pick out the features you wanted on your Sears Modern Home. (These kit homes, offered until 1940 came with 30,000 pieces of house and one 75-page instruction manual!) The 1927 edition shows the roots of so many things that we take for granted today, but were somewhat radical in the early years of the 20th Century. Things like affordable, practical women's dresses (no more sewing!), cook stoves at reasonable prices, $20 sewing machines, electric iceboxes (ooooh!) and on and on. For folks who love old things (like me), the 1927 catalog is a treasure. Rose Thornton author, The Houses That Sears Built