8 replies to this topic

[Dismuke]

With all the talk about Montgomery Ward over the past few months, I thought people might find this recent acquisition of mine interesting. It is a Montgomery Ward spring/summer mail order circular from 1934. The circular is 64 pages so it is not possible for me to reproduce it here in its entirety. However, here is a representative sample of some of the pages. If you would like to have an approximate idea of what the prices listed translate into today's money after adjustment for currency inflation, simply multiply the prices by 14.05 times. (My source for this is: http://www.aier.org/colcalc.html )


























Observe the note at the bottom indicating that on orders over $100 by married couples, both the husband and the wife were required to sign.



Montgomery Ward's core customer base was rural and a lot of the products reflected rural life prior to widespread rural electrification which did not come about in many parts of the country until the 1950s. Observe the "refrigerators." None shown on this page are electric. What they are is ice boxes. Back then, some rural families actually used natural gas/propane powered refrigerators.



Note the gasoline powered iron - another indication of what pre-rural electrification life was like.



Definitely something targeted towards rural customers.

[djold1]

Those are neat pages....

I really like this kind of thing and collect some as I can. Generally I try to keep it Texas, North Texas or Fort Worth, just to limit the volume.

However, the other day I picked up a 1930's Abilene Chamber of Commerce brochure. Lots of neat pictures & stats. However, the reason I picked it up was that the front two panels are pure Deco styling. Which, if you think about it, kind of boggles the mind to think that a dusty little Depression area West Texas City would produce something like that? I don't have it up on my web storage so I can't display here it right now.

Keep on with good stuff like this when you can..

[detail larry]

With all the talk about Montgomery Ward over the past few months, I thought people might find this recent acquisition of mine interesting. It is a Montgomery Ward spring/summer mail order circular from 1934. The circular is 64 pages so it is not possible for me to reproduce it here in its entirety. However, here is a representative sample of some of the pages. If you would like to have an approximate idea of what the prices listed translate into today's money after adjustment for currency inflation, simply multiply the prices by 14.05 times. (My source for this is: http://www.aier.org/colcalc.html )











hi , if you would be interested in selling that caalog , contact me.














Observe the note at the bottom indicating that on orders over $100 by married couples, both the husband and the wife were required to sign.



Montgomery Ward's core customer base was rural and a lot of the products reflected rural life prior to widespread rural electrification which did not come about in many parts of the country until the 1950s. Observe the "refrigerators." None shown on this page are electric. What they are is ice boxes. Back then, some rural families actually used natural gas/propane powered refrigerators.



Note the gasoline powered iron - another indication of what pre-rural electrification life was like.



Definitely something targeted towards rural customers.

[McHand]

Wow, those prices are something else. You have a really nice collection. Would love to see more old ads.

[Brian Luenser]

I too, really love the old ads. "We've come a long way baby." I really did not know that in the last century you could get a pair of shoes for $1.77. (Of course my wife would tell you I don't pay much more than that now.)

Of all the crazy ads I think the thing I am MOST surprised by is this... The directions on the order form stating that if you send cash, wrap it in heavy paper. I am just going to have to guess their employees were more honest than mine. And the postal workers were all honest? And just in this last Century? Times really have changed.

[Cowtown Mike]

I have a friend who is an 82 year old that said he worked at Montgomery Wards on 7th in early 40's and shuttled items to be shipped out from different parts of the warehouse. He said they were on roller skates all day

[hankjr]

Good Post. Interesting. Thanks.

[McHand]

I too, really love the old ads. "We've come a long way baby." I really did not know that in the last century you could get a pair of shoes for $1.77. (Of course my wife would tell you I don't pay much more than that now.)

Of all the crazy ads I think the thing I am MOST surprised by is this... The directions on the order form stating that if you send cash, wrap it in heavy paper. I am just going to have to guess their employees were more honest than mine. And the postal workers were all honest? And just in this last Century? Times really have changed.

Maybe they figured their employees and the postal workers would be deterred by the heavy paper. Yes, times really have changed.

[Giraffe]

I think mail-order catalogs like this for Monkey Wards and Sears were called "wish books" and also doubled as toilet paper in the family outhouse.

I grew up in the suburbs in the 1970s and so we would just go to Montgomery Wards (my mother bought a bedroom furniture set for my room from the Hulen Mall store in the late '70s) in person to buy what we wanted. But we often got those thick catalogs for Sears and whatnot and it was fascinating to just look through them. As a kid, I always looked at all the toys. As I got a little older, those new-fangled digital watches were very expensive but fun to dream about.

But the catalogs I looked through never offered baby chickens!