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History of the United States II / Unit 3   USH2 0344 short lesson, about 20 seconds

Mail Order

Captions available

The idea

Aaron Montgomery Ward founded the first significant mail-order business in eighteen seventy-two, and Sears, Roebuck and Company followed in eighteen eighty-six.

In practice

A Sears catalogue that Richard Sears called the consumer's bible.

Where people slip

Sears mailed over three hundred thousand catalogues a year by eighteen ninety-seven and over a million by nineteen oh seven.

Your place on the trail

Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.

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