By 1900, the Montgomery Ward Company had been selling goods direct to the consumer for twenty-eight years. The company was based in Chicago, but that was not a deterrent to the more than two million customers served by mail order across North America.
The catalog was a hefty 1,196 pages of necessities and luxuries.
A customer could buy products from A to Z, ranging from air rifles to zithers. The company guaranteed safe delivery and even promised free returns and a money-back guarantee.
Customers were advised to build their orders up to a minimum weight of one hundred pounds to save on rail freight shipping charges. They could order flour, sugar, and a nine-hundred-pound piano alongside a bottle of Dr. Arnold’s Wonderful Hair Restorer.
Pour through the pages of a turn-of-the-century Montgomery Ward catalog in the L.R.A. Condit papers at UW’s American Heritage Center.