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VOLUME 8 • ISSUE 4
11512 N. 2nd ST. • MACHESNEY PARK, IL 61115
THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 2018
Illinois Bicentennial: Sears created modern retail in Illinois
By Eric Peterson
OF THE DAILY HERALD
As the home of Sears since the late 19th century, Illinois is the birthplace of modern retail. Even today’s colossus, Amazon, can trace the roots of its business model to Sears’ original mail-order business that popularized the notion of buying products at home without first seeing and touching them in person. “There were some small mailorder companies before, but Sears became the largest, the most successful, the giant,” said Libby Mahoney, senior curator of the Chicago History Museum. And if it seems strange that such a retailer could grow strong enough to make its headquarters the tallest building in the world as Sears did in Chicago in 1973, consider today’s intense competition among cities to house Amazon’s second headquarters, she said. It was Chicago’s central position in the nation’s railroad and highway networks that made it a better place for Richard Sears to operate the mail-order watch company he’d started in Minneapolis the previous year, 1886. In Chicago, Sears partnered with watchmaker Alvah C. Roebuck, leading to the longtime name of the firm being Sears, Roebuck and Co. Its first catalog featuring only watches and jewelry was published in 1888, while its first large catalog of general merchandise came along in 1896. Sears wooed customers with promises of savings gained by eliminating the middleman. It popularized the money-back guarantee to build trust with the consumer, Mahoney said. The gradual diversification of the company’s products seemed to know no bounds, perhaps best illustrated by the advent of Sears Modern Homes. Between 1908 and 1940, Sears sold about 75,000 such homes around the country by mailorder. Many of the homes, which came in 447 different designs, exist today. Such a company at that time was largely dependent on the U.S. Post Office for its success and reliability, Mahoney said. But eventually, Sears, Roebuck’s
original mail-order business began to be threatened by the greater urbanization of the country after World War I. The solution — championed by then-vice president and future company President Robert E. Wood — was the introduction of brick-and-mortar stores in the 1920s. Many other innovations followed under Wood’s guidance, including getting into the insurance business during the Great Depression with the creation of Allstate Insurance. Like several other Sears-created brands, Allstate eventually would be spun off as an independent company, but not until 1993. Although Sears has never been a manufacturer, its brands such as Craftsman tools, Kenmore appliances and DieHard batteries helped build the company’s reputation. Even as the biggest of all, Sears didn’t take customer loyalty for granted, Mahoney said. “They were really trying to imCHICAGO HISTORY MUSEUM PHOTOS McHenry County News prove the appearance of their products and make them stylish in the The Sears, Roebuck and Co. store on South State Street at Congress Parkway in Chicago, built in 1891 1930s,” Mahoney said. “I think by William LeBaron Jenney. they were really savvy merchants.” The nation’s economic recovery after World War II was what enabled such imitators as Kmart, Target and Kohl’s, but probably not until the 1970s or 1980s did they start to have a significant impact on Sears’ business, Mahoney said. Even in the mail-order years, the Chicago-based Montgomery Ward was the country’s distant secondplace retailer, despite having started earlier. “Sears always seemed to have the upper hand,” Mahoney said. Nevertheless, Montgomery Ward’s successfully carved a niche for itself by deliberately selling different products than Sears did, she added. For the past 25 years, Sears has made its home at the 780-acre Prairie Stone Business Park it created on the west side of Hoffman Estates. Though the now-vanished Poplar Creek Music Theater was probably the first name that put Hoffman Estates on the regional map, Sears was an even bigger one, Mayor Bill McLeod said. “When it was announced, it was
See SEARS, Page 3
A night view of the Sears Roebuck Building at the Century of Progress International Exposition in 1933 in Chicago.
New officers welcomed The McHenry County Sheriff’s Office would like to welcome four new deputies and five new correction officers to our department. Deputies Garcia, Matijevic, Riedel, and Tello along with Correction Officers Eigenfeld, Fitzgerald, Hackbarth, Palmas, and Slome were all sworn in today by Sheriff Bill Prim. Welcome to the MCSO family Gentlemen. MCHENRY COUNTY SHERIFF PHOTO McHenry County News