Visions of Sugarpums (and the Sears catalog)
How many of you remember the anticipation, and the agonizingly long wait, after your mother sent in an order to Sears, Roebuck & Co. or Montgomery Ward & Co.? The Christmas season makes me think of the wonderful Sears & Roebuck “wish books” full of toys that my sister and I pored over as children.
Consumer goods had been available by mail since colonial times, but in the late 1800s country buyers were leery of sending their money by an uncertain mail for
