Behind the scenes at Sears in 1906
All I really know about Sears is that shopping there makes you the butt of teen comedy jokes. Then I read a 2017 Atlantic article (archived copy) about Sears anticipating Amazon. But look at the illustration at the top of that article. How cool is that? That's cutting edge stuff!
Which led me to pictures of the pneumatic tube system mentioned in the article. The Henry Ford museum has a bunch of Sears postcards. Between 1906 and 1908 this was a marketing thing? It sounds like customers could buy these behind the scenes postcards?
Want a picture of the deeply moustachioed Sears boss sitting at his desk with his very handsome telephone? You got it.
The Sears fridge? The beautiful index card department? The back of a bunch of stenographers' heads? 'The Great Switchboard in the Engine Room'? The big printing machine? It's all here.
They had an employee hospital and a pergola. Talking machines. A lot of typewriters. Their own railway station? All go at Sears. What a fantastic snapshot.
Some other collections I've been looking at recently: Spencer Arnold and Topical Press, both at Getty. Also Am Baile the Highland Archive.
Part of history and heritage
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