renters.Sears homes are the very best quality not available in new homes now. I have several books about them and wish I could find the 75 page instruction book. I have the original blueprints.
Even in the late 60's and early 70's, when there still was an opportunity to live and work for the railroad in smaller towns west of the Mississippi, one of the main links to the outside world was the catalog. Sears, Wards and JC Penney all had catalog agents who would set up shop in a storefront on Main Street (not necessarily in the same town) and sell goods from the company they represented. Yes, there may have been a locally owned store or two that might have sold major appliances, but I always seemed to shop for such big ticket items from the well-stocked catalog. It was how (to paraphrase a yellow pages ad), I let my fingers do the walking. It was all there -- in one book!! Everything you ever wanted...... By now, I graduated from toys to tools.
What wasn't there in any of the catalogs of my day, however,were homes. I was too young to have known about the fact that Sears, at one time, also sold complete homes through their catalog. Through Rosemary Thornton's book, I found out that Sears manufactured and shipped, part by part, item by item, numbered and organized, homes all over the country where the purchasers put them together following detailed instructions furnished with the purchase. It was a way of catering to an era of more self-reliance and independence rather than dependence.
I live in a big city now and catalogs aren't important in Minneapolis/St. Paul as they were in small town Arizona, Nebraska and Wyoming of years past. Many catalog distribution centers have been closed including both Sears and Wards in the Twin Cities. But the lore of the catalog lives on and there are many of those old catalog homes across the nation still serving the successors to the old Sears customers of days past.
Ms. Thornton has done an excellent job researching available records, old catalogs and other material. Her book is enjoyable, quite readable and fills, in my opinion, a huge gap in American business history. Rosemary Thornton tells a fascinating story well and those interested in basic Americana, will not want to miss it. 5 stars -- and then some.....