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Sears Catalog Home

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Recent History

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   Sears Catalog Homes (sold as Sears Modern Homes) were ready-to-assemble
   houses sold through mail order by Sears Roebuck and Company, an
   American retailer. Over 100,000 of these were sold in North America
   between 1908 and 1940. Shipped via railroad boxcars, these kits
   included all the materials needed to build an exceptionally sturdy and
   well-designed house. Many were assembled by the new homeowner and
   friends, relatives, and neighbors, in a fashion similar to the
   traditional barn-raisings of farming families.

   Sears helped popularize the latest technology available to home buyers
   in the early part of the twentieth century. Central heating, indoor
   plumbing, and electricity were all new developments in home design that
   "Modern Homes" incorporated, although not all of the homes were
   designed with these conveniences. For example, central heating not only
   improved the livability of homes with little insulation but also
   improved fire safety, which was a worry in an era where open flames
   threatened houses and even entire cities, as in the case of the Great
   Chicago Fire of 1871.

   As demand increased, Sears expanded the product line-up to feature
   homes which varied in expense to meet the budgets of various buyers.
   Sears began offering financing plans in the 1920s. However, the company
   experienced steadily rising payment defaults throughout the Great
   Depression. The company's catalog home program became increasingly
   constrained as a result. 447 different models were offered over the
   program's 32-year history; the mortgage portion of the program was
   discontinued in 1934, while the Modern Homes program ceased production
   altogether in 1940.

   Today, some communities across the United States feature clusters of
   the homes as unofficial historical sites, although the vast majorities
   are still in use as private residences. Popular with those engaged in
   restoring older homes, Sears homes are sought for having contemporarily
   better than average craftsmanship. An entire culture of Sears Modern
   Home seekers has emerged in recent years as individual buildings are
   located and identified.

History: Mail-order

   In 1886, the United States contained only 38 states. Many people lived
   in rural areas and typically farmed. Richard Sears had been a railroad
   station agent in Minnesota. He moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he met
   Alvah C. Roebuck who joined him in the business. In 1893, the corporate
   name became Sears, Roebuck and Co..

   Richard Sears knew that farmers often brought their crops to town where
   they could be sold and shipped, and then bought supplies, often at very
   high prices, from local general stores. He and Roebuck offered a
   solution via mail-order catalogs. Thanks to volume buying, railroads,
   post offices, and later rural free delivery and parcel post, they
   offered a welcome alternative to the high-priced rural stores.

   By 1894, the Sears catalog had grown to 322 pages, featuring sewing
   machines, bicycles, sporting goods and a host of other new items. By
   the following year, dolls, icebox refrigerators, cook- stoves and
   groceries had been added to the catalog. Sears, Roebuck and Co. soon
   developed a reputation for both quality products and customer
   satisfaction. Its wide range of products was very popular, especially
   in areas far flung from big cities and large department stores. People
   had learned to trust Sears for other products bought through
   mail-order, and thus, sight unseen. This laid important groundwork for
   supplying a house, possibly the largest single investment a typical
   family would ever make.

Modern Homes 1908-1940

   In 1906, Frank W. Kushel, a Sears manager, was given responsibility for
   the catalog company's unwieldy, non-profitable building materials
   department. Sales were down, and there was too much inventory sitting
   in expensive warehouses. He is credited with suggesting to Richard
   Sears that the company assemble kits of all the parts needed and sell
   entire houses through mail-order.

   Beginning in 1908, Sears issued its first specialty catalog for houses,
   Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans, featuring 22 styles ranging in
   price from US$650–$2,500 ($12,200-$47,100 in 2003 dollars). Sears
   bought a lumber mill and arranged for production of kits from which
   homes could be assembled to be made in Southern Illinois. The first
   mail-order was filled in 1909.

   Shipped by railroad boxcar, and then usually trucked locally to a home
   site, the average Sears Modern Home kit had 25 tons of materials, with
   over 30,000 parts, and came with such utilities as electric and
   gaslight fixtures in early models. Plumbing and electrical fixtures and
   heating systems were not included in the kit but could be purchased
   separately. Local building requirements sometimes dictated that those
   items be done professionally and varied to meet individual requirements
   of each area of the country. For example, the depth of foundations
   required varied by climate and terrain.

   Aladdin Homes (of Bay City) was the first to offer kit homes (in 1906),
   and Sears joined the fray in 1908. However, Sears mail-order catalogs
   were already in millions of homes, enabling large numbers of potential
   homeowners simply to open a catalog, select and visualize their new
   home, dream, save, and then purchase it. Sears offered financing,
   assembly instructions, and guarantees. Early mortgage loans were
   typically for 5–15 years at 6%- 7% interest.

   The ability to mass-produce the materials used in Sears homes lessened
   manufacturing costs, which lowered purchase costs for customers. Precut
   and fitted materials shrank construction time by up to 40%. Other
   features also eased construction for home buyers.

   Sears's use of "balloon style" framing systems did not require a team
   of skilled carpenters, as did previous methods. Balloon frames were
   built faster and generally only required one carpenter. This system
   used precut timber of mostly standard sizes (2 "x4" and 2"x8") for
   framing. Precut timber, fitted pieces, and the convenience of having
   everything, including the nails, shipped by railroad directly to the
   customer added greatly to the popularity of this framing style.

   Another feature was the use of drywall instead of plaster and lath
   wall-building techniques which required skilled carpenters. Drywall
   offered the advantages of low price, ease of installation, and added
   fire-safety protection. It was also a good fit for the square design of
   Sears homes.

   During the Modern Homes program, large quantities of asphalt shingles
   became available. The alternative roofing materials available included
   tin and wood. Tin was noisy during storms, looked unattractive, and
   required a skilled roofer, while wood was highly flammable. Asphalt
   shingles, however, were cheap to manufacture and ship, and easy and
   inexpensive to install.

   Sears laid little claim to inventing the innovations featured in the
   Modern Homes. Rather, as a retailer, the company was much more focused
   on offering what the customers would want and purchase. The Sears
   Modern Homes program stayed abreast of any technology that could ease
   the lives of its home buyers and gave them the option to design their
   homes with modern convenience in mind. The Modern Homes features of
   central heating, indoor plumbing, and electrical wiring were the first
   steps for many families to modern HVAC systems, kitchens, and
   bathrooms.

   As sales grew, Sears expanded production, shipping and sales offices to
   regional sites all across the United States, hitting its all-time peak
   in 1929, just before the Great Depression. By then, the least expensive
   model was still under US$1,000; the highest priced was under US$4,400
   ($10,300 and $45,300 in 2003 dollars respectively).

   Sears Modern Home sales stalled during the Depression years; however,
   sales of their most modest homes were still strong. Nonetheless,
   changes in housing codes, as well as the ever-increasingly complexities
   of modern construction and HVAC systems made buying a kit home less and
   less desirable.

Heritage

   Sears Catalog Homes proved to be both affordable and of substantial
   construction. One of Sears's, and indeed the nation's, biggest selling
   models was the common bungalow. This compact, affordable house began as
   a vacation-style home in the 1880s but grew into a major housing type
   in cities and suburbs in the years before World War I. Sears homes have
   become increasingly popular among history enthusiasts because of their
   sturdy structure, unusual building and architectural design concepts.

   While their locations today are not known due to variations in designs
   both during initial construction and subsequent renovations or
   modifications, most of those sold by Sears, Roebuck have probably
   survived. Clusters can be found all across the United States and are
   proudly featured by communities such as Arlington, Virginia, and the
   surrounding area with 100, Hopewell, Virginia, with 42 in the Crescent
   Hills neighbourhood, and Downers Grove, Illinois, with 27. Aurora,
   Illinois has 136 Sears catalog homes representing 42 different models,
   and Ossining, New York has at least one.

   Sears Homes in more significant numbers can also be found in Virginia,
   West Virginia, North Carolina and a few have been found as far south as
   Florida and as far west as California.

   Not all buyers were individuals or small volume developers. In 1918,
   Standard Oil Company purchased a large group of the Sears houses for
   its mineworkers in Carlinville, Illinois, at a cost of approximately
   US$1 million. Today 152 of the original 156 homes still exist, and this
   is one of the largest known contiguous collections of Sears Catalog
   Homes in the United States.

   And, not all of them became private residences. At Greenlawn Cemetery,
   near the Hampton Roads waterfront in the Newport News, Virginia area,
   the cemetery office building is a 1936 Sears Catalog Home.

   Richard Nixon was born on January 9, 1913 in a Sears Catalog Home his
   father built in Yorba Linda, California, the house is now a part of the
   Nixon Presidential Library complex.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Catalog_Home"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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