These catalogs advertised everything you could think of under the sun. On one page there was a 1909 horseless buggy that was guaranteed to go one hundred miles in twenty-four hours, if cared for properly. The ad failed to say that it would soon transform every blacksmith in the country from a skilled craftsman to a common laborer. These old catalogs are a history book within themselves because they are able to show us what items and luxuries were important to that particular generation. What they wore, what they bought, their style of entertainment, and the medicines they used. Those brittle yellowed pages also show the evolution of man’s inventions as the advertisements moved from “buggy whips” to automobile tires and from ankle length flannel night shirts to lacy transparent night gowns. Then, with the institution of rural free mail delivery in 1896 and parcel post in 1913, there ceased to be an advantage to making major purchases locally and the general store began its long decline into ancient history.
