This collection offers, among other things, a fascinating glimpse into the lifestyle of Chicagoans and their countrymen over the years. The Special Collections and Preservation Division of the Chicago Public Library makes available to students and researchers trade catalogs, spanning decades of American history. For companies whose financial records no longer exist, trade catalogs serve as the documents of entrepreneurial and internal history of these firms. Trade catalogs printed prior to 1906, when Theodore Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drug Act, showed which medicines were sold to cure ailments such as “hysteria” and “tobacco habit.” In addition to illustrating consumer lifestyles, catalogs show what prices Americans paid for goods and the economics of the time. Trade catalogs not only show what people were wearing, but also what they bought for their homes and for each other. Over the years, many of these Chicago based businesses ceased to exist, but their catalogs, artifacts of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America, hold the stories of what was fashionable in the past. For those content to stay down on the farm, the catalogs shaped an image of Chicago for several generations.” Trade catalogs also illustrated scenes of life in Chicago that invited “readers to visit Chicago, either as armchair travelers, or as actual tourists.
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Many companies advertised more than merchandise they offered advice on etiquette and stylish dressing and even how to improve one’s business by buying their products. Consumers began to look upon trade catalogs as “wishbooks,” with the exciting variety of choices they offered. Paint manufacturers offered paint chips and illustrations of houses painted in different styles. Clothing manufacturers enclosed fabric swatches with their catalogs. In addition to the array of merchandise available, consumers also had choices to make about specific items. and Montgomery Ward’s were two of the largest commercial operations thriving in Chicago, but hundreds of other Chicago businesses, large and small, advertised merchandise such as bicycles, roller skates, prefabricated houses and furniture, suits, furs and veterinary supplies.
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With continued advances in printing, trade catalogs became easier to produce and thus were made widely available to consumers nationwide whose "largely rural population had remained more or less dependent on two merchandise sources - the general store and the country peddler." Īided by a flourishing railroad system and the 1893 introduction of rural free delivery, as well as the advent of parcel post in 1912, Chicago soon became the hub of mail order business. However, the trade catalog would not become an advertising phenomenon until the late 19th century.
Added entries made by Glenn Humphreys, 2003 and by Sarah Zimmerman, 2004, 20.īenjamin Franklin’s catalog of books, first published in 1744, was the beginning of what would eventually become America’s culture of mail order and trade catalog advertising. When quoting material from this collection the preferred citation is: Trade Catalog Collection, Special Collections, Chicago Public Library Additions to the collection are made on an ongoing basis. The Special Collections and Preservation Division began collecting trade catalogs of Chicago-area companies in 1995. Chicago Public Library, Harold Washington Library Center, Special Collections, 400 S.