AMERICA 1900-1910 -- 'THE LADIES' (Part 3)

SEIFERT

Posted By: David (email)
Date: 3/11/2004 at 11:23:20

'AMERICA 1900-1910'

~~ 'The Ladies' ~~

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A HOUSE FROM THE WISH BOOK

For most young American ladies, the rosy dreams implanted by romantic reading faded as they grew up. After they married, they almost inevitably found themselves confined to the home, but to a home that was changing rapidly. Even in the country, where the majority of Americans still lived in pioneer simplicity, the women were acquiring labor-saving devices for their kitchens, fancy gewgaws for their parlors, and sometimes well-equipped boudoirs for themselves. They were able to do so largely because of a convenient new way of buying the things they had read about in their magazines and books.
Now they could order practically whatever they wanted out of a mail-order catalogue, no matter how far they might live from the tantalizing stores of a big city.

The innovation in merchandising that helped to revolutionize the American home was generated by Richard W. Sears, a onetime railroad clerk who became known as the "Barnum of Merchandising," and A.C. Roebuck, a watchmaker with whom Sears opened a jewelry shop in l887. From a modest beginning the store became a wondrous emporium that supplied U.S. housewives from Maine to California with every conceivable kind of merchandise, from kitchen gadgets like "The Pefect Cherry Stoner" to Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, from farm machinery to parlor ornaments, from patent nostrums to toys for the children.

The catalogue -- much of whose early copy was written by the folksy Sears himself -- was fondly known to American women and their families as the "wish book." Such was its influence that a clergyman once sent Sears this unsolicited note: "A little child in one of my church schools was asked the other day, What was the Tenth Commandment? The reply was, 'Thou shalt not covet.'
When asked what covet meant, she replied, 'Not to want other folks' things, but to get Sears, Roebuck catalogue and buy for yourself.' "

From the first, the catalogue pushed improvements for the kitchen. It offered marvelously fancy stoves with embossed nickel trimmings, iceboxes that made possible the safe storage of perishables, and an ice cream freezer that was "miles in advance of any other make" and could turn out the "smoothest and most deliciously mellow cream you ever tasted." Catering to the eye as well as the stomach, Sears advertised not merely pots, but such fancy items as "The Celebrated True Blue Enameled Steel Ware Teapot", which "surpasses anything heretofore offered in fancy enameled ware, when taking beauty, strength and finish into consideration."

Sears' parlor fittings reflected the lady's cultural aspirations. Hardly a parlor was complete without at least one musical instrument -- a piano, an organ, a banjo or a guitar. In l905 Sears devoted the astonishing total of 60 pages of its catalogue to musical instruments -- double the space allotted to kitchen stoves. The Beckwith Parlor Gen Organ, with its solid oak case, was guaranteed to make "the sweetest music of any organ" for miles around, or your money back.

Among their parlor items, Sears and his staff were particularly proud of their selection of portieres, advertising a particular item as the "handiwork of one of our own artists." Indeed, they thought that one sure to be among "the handsomest portieres that you have ever been able to look at." For an added fillip the lady could buy a "Fine Imported Palm Plant," which Sears assured her was one of the kind that were "extensively used for ornamenting parlors and halls." The mail-order price did not include the large pot in which it was pictured but Sears was careful to explain that the plants "are easily set up."

For the lady's boudoir, Sears offered, along with such beauty aids as combs, perfumes and curling irons, a pharmacopeia of patent medicines. They were dubious remedies, but they were often the only recourse of country folk in an era when illness might well be catastrophic, doctors were scarce, and pharmacology was an ill-developed science. But many customers took to the potions for another reason -- the most common ingredient of nostrums was alcohol, which made them attractive to many a thirsty patient. It was the golden age of patent medicine -- sales reached a high of $80 million a year -- and Sears, Roebuck was not a company to overlook a good thing.

One questionable concoction among the Sears offerings was Dr. Worden's Female Pills, which contained the catalogue advised its feminine readers, "a combination of ingredients well known for their value and effectiveness." Among these was something exotically designated Extract of Squaw Vine, which suggested to many a suffering lady that if the stuff was known to the Indians it must be magic. "In a number of cases," Sears added, "a systematic treatment with Dr. Worden's Female Pills will bring the help that can be afforded."

Though Sears was alert to the dangers of quackery and warned its customers to "be careful of the medicines and treatments offered by various irresponsible companies," it unblushingly touted a product it dubbed the "world famous La Dore's Bust Food." Do you "regret that your form is not what you would like it to be"? Here was "a bust food unrivaled for its purity, perfume, elegance and effect. It is unsurpassed for developing the bust, arms and neck, making a plump, full, rounded bosom, perfect neck and arms, a smooth skin, which before was scrawny, flat and flabby."

In the winter of l904-1905 the traffic in worthless nostrums came under heavy fire when the redoubtable Edward Bok, formidable editor of the influential Ladies' Home Journal, ran a series of exposes in his magazine. Collier's Weekly followed the next winter, and Congress came to the public's rescue by passing the Pure Food and Drugs Act, which required that drugs meet certain standards and advertising rid itself of spurious claims. Honest firms quickly fell in line, and by 1909 the Sears catalogue carried nothing more potent than epsom salts and aspirin in its drug department. An era of naivete and simplicity was coming to a close, and Sears, whose wish book had helped to bring the outside world into the american home, was speeding the process.

To Be Continued . . .'The Ladies Leave Home'

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Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert
March 2, 2004