Montgomery Ward was the first real early mail order company in the United States. Before it came on the market, customers in the country generally had only one source of supply. This was their town shop which sold at relatively high prices and provided no guaranteed quality. Aaron Ward founded the company. He felt that costs could be slashed by cutting out the middle man, at the same time taking advantage of the new postal and train services for delivery. It was hard going at first, but his unremitting quality promise of “satisfaction guaranteed or your money back” propelled his business to success.
The first one-pager catalogue in 1872 had a grand total of 163 items. It grew and grew. The catalogue expanded to include 10,000 individual positions and 240 pages by the middle of the 1880. It really was big business. In 1904, the company mailed out 3 million catalogues, each weighing almost 2 kilos.
But this is a history of words and the landmark Montgomery Ward catalogue was the 1895 edition. A whole range of new products and new words were introduced to the American public. They included bathing trunks, bill fold, bird bath, coat hanger, crepe paper, dinner wear, fedora, gravy boat, grease-proof, knee-length, lace curtain, laundry bag, medium-priced, salt shaker, steak knife, Stetson and towel ring.
Curiously enough, this high point in the catalogue was the first and last issue where there were many new words. After this point, the leader in product innovations and vocabulary in mail order was Sears, Roebuck & Company, which even became market leader by 1900 and which we will describe tomorrow.
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