Why we ask 50 cents for our catalogue, and why we can get 50 cents each for the big catalogues we publish / Sears, Roebuck and Co.
A 1901 Sears, Roebuck and Company catalogue issued from Chicago to sell mail-order goods to customers across the country, explaining the price of its catalogue. Its pictures are black-and-white wood engravings of household goods: a sewing machine cabinet with a treadle base, a reed organ with carved panels, and two cast-iron cookstoves with ornate doors and decorative scrollwork. A designer might take their dense, ornamental line work and Victorian decorative motifs as reference for borders, ornament and period typography.
