Architectural designs

By: Sears, Roebuck and Co.

Date: 1910

Source: Sears, Roebuck and Co. Sears, Roebuck Home Builder's Catalog: The Complete Illustrated 1910 Edition. New York: Dover Publications, 1990.

About the Organization: Richard W. Sears (1863–1914) founded the R.W. Sears Watch Company, a mail-order business based in Minneapolis, in 1886. Sears moved to Chicago and hired watchmaker Alvah C. Roebuck (1864–1948) in 1887. After selling the watch business, Sears and Roebuck formed a mail-order business selling general merchandise. Their famous catalog carried a broad array of modestly priced goods conveniently available to the country's farmers and villagers for the first time. The automobile, which gave rural customers much greater mobility, caused the company to rethink its sales strategy, and in 1925 Sears opened its first retail store. Within a few years the...