Sears Catalog Home - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Sears Catalog Homes were ready-to-assemble kit house

Kit house

Kit houses, also known as pre-cut houses, ready-cut houses, mail order homes, or catalog homes, were a type of prefabricated housing that was popular in the United States in the first half of the 20th century...

s sold through mail order

Mail order

Mail order is a term which describes the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote method such as through a telephone call or web site. Then, the products are delivered to the customer...

by Sears, Roebuck and Company

Sears, Roebuck and Company

Sears, officially named Sears, Roebuck and Co., is an American chain of department stores which was founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in the late 19th century...

, an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

retailer. Over 70,000 of these were sold in North America between 1908 and 1940. Shipped via railroad boxcar

Boxcar

A boxcar is a railroad car that is enclosed and generally used to carry general freight. The boxcar, while not the simplest freight car design, is probably the most versatile, since it can carry most loads...

s, these kits included all the materials needed to build a house. Many were assembled by the new homeowner and friends, relatives, and neighbors, in a fashion similar to the traditional barn-raisings of farming families.

As an add-on, Sears offered the latest technology available to house buyers in the early part of the twentieth century. Central heating

Central heating

A central heating system provides warmth to the whole interior of a building from one point to multiple rooms. When combined with other systems in order to control the building climate, the whole system may be a HVAC system.Central heating differs from local heating in that the heat generation...

, indoor plumbing

Plumbing

Plumbing is the system of pipes and drains installed in a building for the distribution of potable drinking water and the removal of waterborne wastes, and the skilled trade of working with pipes, tubing and plumbing fixtures in such systems. A plumber is someone who installs or repairs piping...

, and electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

were all new developments in house design that "Modern Homes" incorporated, although not all of the houses were designed with these conveniences. Central heating, for example, not only improved the livability of houses with little insulation

Thermal insulation

Thermal insulation is the reduction of the effects of the various processes of heat transfer between objects in thermal contact or in range of radiative influence. Heat transfer is the transfer of thermal energy between objects of differing temperature...

but also improved fire safety

Fire safety

Fire safety refers to precautions that are taken to prevent or reduce the likelihood of a fire that may result in death, injury, or property damage, alert those in a structure to the presence of a fire in the event one occurs, better enable those threatened by a fire to survive, or to reduce the...

, a worry in an era when open flames threatened houses and even entire cities, as in the Great Chicago Fire

Great Chicago Fire

The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned from Sunday, October 8, to early Tuesday, October 10, 1871, killing hundreds and destroying about in Chicago, Illinois. Though the fire was one of the largest U.S...

(1871).

As demand decreased, Sears expanded the product line to feature houses that varied in expense to meet the budgets of various buyers. Sears began offering financing plans in 1916. However, the company experienced steadily rising payment defaults throughout the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

, resulting in increasing strain for the catalog house program. More than 370 designs of Sears Homes were offered during the program's 32-year history. The mortgage portion of the program was discontinued in 1934 after Sears was forced to liquidate $11 million in defaulted debt. Sears closed their Modern Homes department in 1940. A few years later, all sales records were destroyed during a corporate house cleaning. The only way to find these houses today is literally one by one.

Today, some communities across the United States feature clusters of the houses as unofficial historical sites. Elgin, Illinois (a Chicago suburb) has the largest known collection of Sears Homes, with more than 200 Sears Homes (and few kit homes from other companies as well). A culture of Sears Modern Home seekers has emerged in recent years, as individual buildings have been identified.

Sears mail order history

In 1886, the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

contained only 38 states. Many people lived in rural areas and typically farmed. Richard Sears had been a railroad station agent in Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

. He moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he met Alvah C. Roebuck

Alvah C. Roebuck

Alvah Curtis Roebuck was a manager, businessman, and the founder of Sears, Roebuck and Company with his partner Richard Warren Sears.-Biography:...

who joined him in the business. In 1893, the corporate name became Sears, Roebuck and Co.

Richard Sears knew that farmers often brought their crops to town where they could be sold and shipped, and then bought supplies, often at very high prices, from local general store

General store

A general store, general merchandise store, or village shop is a rural or small town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, sometimes in a small space, where people from the town and surrounding rural areas come to purchase all their general...

s. He and Roebuck offered a solution via mail-order catalogs. Thanks to volume buying, railroads, post offices, and later rural free delivery and parcel post, they offered a welcome alternative to the high-priced rural stores.

By 1894, the Sears catalog had grown to 322 pages, featuring sewing machine

Sewing machine

A sewing machine is a textile machine used to stitch fabric, cards and other material together with thread. Sewing machines were invented during the first Industrial Revolution to decrease the amount of manual sewing work performed in clothing companies...

s, bicycle

Bicycle

A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....

s, sport

Sport

A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...

ing goods and a host of other new items. By the following year, doll

Doll

A doll is a model of a human being, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have traditionally been used in magic and religious rituals throughout the world, and traditional dolls made of materials like clay and wood are found in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe. The earliest documented dolls...

s, icebox refrigerator

Refrigerator

A refrigerator is a common household appliance that consists of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump that transfers heat from the inside of the fridge to its external environment so that the inside of the fridge is cooled to a temperature below the ambient temperature of the room...

s, cook-stove

Stove

A stove is an enclosed heated space. The term is commonly taken to mean an enclosed space in which fuel is burned to provide heating, either to heat the space in which the stove is situated or to heat the stove itself, and items placed on it...

s and groceries had been added to the catalog. Sears, Roebuck and Co. soon developed a reputation for both quality products and customer satisfaction. Its wide range of products was very popular, especially in areas far flung from big cities and large department stores. People had learned to trust Sears for other products bought through mail-order, and thus, sight unseen. This laid important groundwork for supplying a house

House

A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...

, possibly the largest single investment a typical family would ever make.

Sears Modern Homes 1908–1940

In 1906, Frank W. Kushel, a Sears manager, was given responsibility for the catalog company's unwieldy, non-profitable building materials department. Sales were down, and there was excess inventory languishing in warehouses. He is credited with suggesting to Richard Sears that the company assemble kits of all the parts needed and sell entire houses through mail order.

In 1908, Sears issued its first specialty catalog for houses, Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans, featuring 22 styles ranging in price from US

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

$650–$2,500 ($15,388–$59,187 in 2008 dollars). Sears bought a lumber mill in Southern Illinois and arranged for production of kits from which homes could be assembled. The first mail order was filled in 1909.

Shipped by railroad boxcar

Boxcar

, and then usually trucked to a home site, the average Sears Modern Home kit had 25 tons of materials, with over 30,000 parts, and came with such utilities as electric and gaslight fixtures in early models. Plumbing and electrical fixtures and heating systems were not included in the kit, but could be purchased separately. Local building requirements sometimes dictated that those items be done professionally and varied to meet requirements of each area of the country. For example, foundation depth requirements varied by climate

Climate

Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...

and terrain

Terrain

Terrain, or land relief, is the vertical and horizontal dimension of land surface. When relief is described underwater, the term bathymetry is used...

.

The Aladdin Company of Bay City, Michigan

Bay City, Michigan

Bay City is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan located near the base of the Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 34,932, and is the principal city of the Bay City Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Saginaw-Bay City-Saginaw Township North...

, was the first to offer kit homes (in 1906), and Sears joined the fray in 1908. However, Sears mail-order catalogs were already in millions of homes, enabling large numbers of potential homeowners simply to open a catalog, select and visualize their new home, dream, save, and then purchase it. Sears offered financing, assembly instructions, and guarantees. Early mortgage loan

Mortgage loan

A mortgage loan is a loan secured by real property through the use of a mortgage note which evidences the existence of the loan and the encumbrance of that realty through the granting of a mortgage which secures the loan...

s were typically for 5–15 years at 6%–7% interest.

The ability to mass-produce the materials used in Sears homes lessened manufacturing costs, which lowered purchase costs for customers. Precut and fitted materials reduced construction time by up to 40%.

Sears's use of "balloon style" framing systems did not require a team of skilled carpenter

Carpenter

A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....

s, as did previous methods. Balloon frames were built faster and generally only required one carpenter. This system used precut timber

Timber

Timber may refer to:* Timber, a term common in the United Kingdom and Australia for wood materials * Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S...

of mostly standard sizes (2"x4" and 2"x8") for framing. Precut timber, fitted pieces, and the convenience of having everything, including the nails, shipped by railroad directly to the customer added to the popularity of this framing style.

A later feature was the use of drywall

Drywall

Drywall, also known as plasterboard, wallboard or gypsum board is a panel made of gypsum plaster pressed between two thick sheets of paper...

instead of plaster

Plaster

Plaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting,...

and lath

Lath

A lath is a thin, narrow strip of some straight-grained wood or other material, including metal or gypsum. A lattice, or lattice-work, is a criss-crossed or interlaced arrangement of laths, or the pattern made by such an arrangement...

wall-building techniques which required skilled carpenters. Drywall offered the advantages of low price, ease of installation, and added fire protection. It was also a good fit for the square design of Sears homes.

During the Modern Homes program, large quantities of asphalt

Asphalt

Asphalt or , also known as bitumen, is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits, it is a substance classed as a pitch...

shingles

Roof shingle

Roof shingles are a roof covering consisting of individual overlapping elements. These elements are typically flat rectangular shapes laid in rows from the bottom edge of the roof up, with each successive higher row overlapping the joints in the row below...

became available. The alternative roofing materials available included tin

Tin

Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...

and wood

Wood

Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

. Tin was noisy during storms, looked unattractive, and required a skilled roofer, while wood was highly flammable. Asphalt shingles, however, were cheap to manufacture and ship, and easy and inexpensive to install.

Rather, as a retailer, the company was much more focused on offering what customers would purchase. The Modern Homes features of central heating, indoor plumbing, and electrical wiring were the first steps for many families to modern HVAC

HVAC

HVAC refers to technology of indoor or automotive environmental comfort. HVAC system design is a major subdiscipline of mechanical engineering, based on the principles of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer...

systems, kitchens, and bathrooms.

As sales grew, Sears expanded production, shipping and sales offices to regional sites across the US, hitting its peak in 1929, just before the Great Depression

Great Depression

. By then, the least expensive model was under US$1,000; the highest priced was under US$4,400 ($12,590 and $55,390 in 2008 dollars respectively).

Sears Modern Home sales stalled during the Depression years, but sales of modest homes were still strong. Later, changes in housing codes and the complexity of modern construction made kit homes less desirable, and sales were cancelled.

Heritage

Sears Catalog Homes proved to be both affordable and of substantial construction. One of Sears's, and indeed the nation's, biggest selling models was the common bungalow

Bungalow

A bungalow is a type of house, with varying meanings across the world. Common features to many of these definitions include being detached, low-rise , and the use of verandahs...

. This compact, affordable house began as a vacation-style home in the 1880s but grew into a major housing type in cities and suburbs in the years before World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. Sears homes have become increasingly popular among history enthusiasts because of their sturdy structure, unusual building and architectural design concepts.

Not all buyers were individuals or small volume developers. In 1918, Standard Oil Company purchased a large group of the Sears houses for its mineworkers in Carlinville, Illinois

Carlinville, Illinois

Carlinville is a city in Macoupin County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2000 Census, the population was 5,685, and 5,912 at a 2009 estimate. It is the county seat of Macoupin County, and so it is an outlying part of the Metro-East region of the Greater St...

, at a cost of approximately US$1 million. Today 152 of the original 156 homes still exist, and this is one of the largest known contiguous collections of Sears Catalog Homes in the United States. There are nine styles of houses in a nine block area which represents Standard Addition in Carlinville. Styles are the Langston Model, Madelia Model, Warrenton Model, Whitehall Model, Roseberry Model, Lebanon Model, and the Gladstone Model. And notably, the Carlin Model was actually named after Carlinville, by Sears, Roebuck & Co. for supposedly having the largest order on record for the houses. There are more Sears homes dotted throughout Carlinville. It took nine months to complete the building of Standard Addition which was completed in 1919.

Sears Homes in significant numbers can be found in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and a few have been found as far south as Florida and as far west as California. There are at least two Sears Homes in the old mill town of Newton Falls, New York

Newton Falls, New York

Newton Falls is a hamlet of 400 located within Town of Clifton in Saint Lawrence County, New York in the United States. The hamlet is located within the Adirondack Park. The area is known in part for its ZIP code, which is 13666....

, and the entire Town Site neighborhood in Bucksport, Maine, consists of Sears Homes in the Belfast model. While their locations today are not known due to variations in designs both during initial construction and subsequent renovations or modifications, most of those sold by Sears, Roebuck have probably survived.

Clusters can be found all across the United States and are proudly featured by communities such as Arlington, Virginia, and the surrounding area with 100, Hopewell, Virginia

Hopewell, Virginia

Hopewell is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The population was 22,591 at the 2010 Census . It is in Tri-Cities area of the Richmond-Petersburg region and is a portion of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area...

, with 42 in the Crescent Hills neighborhood, and Downers Grove, Illinois

Downers Grove, Illinois

Downers Grove is a village in Downers Grove and Lisle Townships, DuPage County, Illinois, United States. The population was 48,724 at the 2000 census, with an official estimated population of 49,250 in 2008.-History:...

, with 27. Aurora, Illinois

Aurora, Illinois

Aurora is the second most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and the 112th largest city in the United States. A suburb of Chicago, located west of the Loop, its population in 2010 was 197,899. Originally founded within Kane County, Aurora's city limits have expanded greatly over the past...

, has 136 documented Sears catalog homes giving it one of the largest concentrations in the country; the largest, at 152, is located in Carlinville, Illinois

Carlinville, Illinois

. Houston, Texas' historic Norhill

Norhill, Houston

Norhill, Houston is an historic neighborhood in northwest-central Houston, TX . It is adjacent to the more widely known Houston Heights neighborhood as well as Woodland Heights. Norhill is distinguished by its prevalence of bungalows and the green spaces known as esplanades.-History:Developed in...

neighborhood is known to have many of these homes.

And, not all of them became private residences. At Greenlawn Cemetery

Greenlawn Memorial Park, City of Newport News, Virginia

Greenlawn Memorial Park also known as Greenlawn Cemetery is located at 2700 Parish Avenue, Newport News, Virginia. Greenlawn Memorial Park is a cemetery located where two natural streams, Mill Dam Creek and Salters Creek come together. The cemetery has been in continuous operation, serving the...

, near the Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads is the name for both a body of water and the Norfolk–Virginia Beach metropolitan area which surrounds it in southeastern Virginia, United States...

waterfront in the Newport News, Virginia

Newport News, Virginia

Newport News is an independent city located in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of Virginia. It is at the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula, on the north shore of the James River extending southeast from Skiffe's Creek along many miles of waterfront to the river's mouth at Newport News...

, area, the cemetery

Cemetery

A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...

office building is a 1936 Sears Catalog Home.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Sears mail order history

Sears Modern Homes 1908–1940

Heritage

See also

External links