Chicago's Mother of Black History, Vivian Harsh-- Part 1: Education the Key

From the February 2, 2020, Chicago Tribune by Ron Grossman.

She didn't write a book, but her name is on a special collection in the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library in Chicago.  When she died in 1960, the Chicago Defender's obituary was headlined:  "Historian Who Never Wrote."

Vivian Harsh once said:  "If we as Negroes knew the full truth about what we, as a race, have endured and overcome just to stay alive with dignity, our respect and hunger for education would triple overnight."

Her devotion and dedication to all things history began back when she was at high school at Wendell Phillips in Chicago, where she joined the Herodotus History Club.  The ancients called Herodotus the "Father of History."

Vivian Harsh was the "Mother of Black History."

After the George Cleveland Hall Branch of the Chicago Public Library opened on the South Side, with Harsh as the head librarian, the Rosenwald Fund gave her a $500 grant to study libraries serving black communities in other cities.  Julius Rosenwald, a philanthropist and president of Sears, Roebuck & Co. was responsible for making the Hall Branch a reality in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood.  Not to mention all the hundreds of Rosenwald schools built in the South to educate black children.

A Short History of Sears & Roebuck-- Part 6: What's Gone, What Remains at the Homan Avenue Site

At the Homan Avenue complex, the Sears store and Merchandise Building where products were shipped, are gone. The athletic fields have been replaced by a parking
facility.  But the famous tower is still there, and, every spring, flowers bloom in the formal garden, just as they did when the company's 60-piece band gave concerts there.

The Administration Building, where orders were processed, and the Power House remain.  Their stolid look bears witness to an era when money-back guarantees carried more weight than designer labels.

The Printing Building's name is carved in the distinctive lettering architects then favored, marking it at the keystone of ears' golden years

Off its presses rolled the veritable bible of Americans who demanded honest value for whatever they could afford to spend.

In the Sears catalog, many a product was offered at ascending price levels in their relatively quality labeled:  "GOOD, BETTER, BEST."

Well, it sure was great to have Sears and all the other department stores when I was growing up and I sure will miss them when they're gone.

The Good Old Days?  --CootSears

A Short History of Sears & Roebuck-- Part 5: A Branch Into Retail Stores

A years after Roenwald retired as Sears' president (though staying on as chairman), the company set off in a new direction.  In 1925, it opened a retail store in the Homan Avenue complex that was so successful that it began opening stand alone stores all over.

Sears morphed into a retail chain of stores with a mail-order business on the side.  It 1993, it issued its last general merchandise catalog.  Eventually, s slow slide began that has now turned into a free fall.  This is due to people ordering everything off the internet now as well as the goals and aims of the current owners who seem to plan on picking the bones clean.

--DaCootBuck

A Short History of Sears & Roebuck-- Part 4: Julius Rosenwald, Philanthropist

Julius Rosenwald was not only a businessman, but also a notable philanthropist.  His sizable donations created the Museum of Science and Industry and built schools in hundreds of Southern towns that lacked educational facilities for black children.  He felt a responsibility to use his fortune for the benefit of those less fortunate than he was.

And, by 1908, he was in charge of Sears & Roebuck, Richard Sears having retired then.

His Homan complex in the North Lawndale neighborhood included an athletic field, a running track and tennis courts.  Workers were invited to take their lunch breaks in a formal garden with a pergola and classical pavilions.  The company touted those amenities in promotional handouts:  "We believe these surroundings inspire our workers to better things and make for contentment and happiness."

--CootSears

A Short History of Sears & Roebuck-- Part 3: WLS and Spanish Peanuts

In 1911, a Scientific Laboratory was added so Sears cold test the products it sold.  The lab was known as "the watchdog of the catalog" and promoted as a means to "give out customers the service they have a right to expect."

The centerpiece of the complex on Homan Avenue was a 250-foot tower.  Then the tallest building outside the Loop, and Sears' corporate signature, it appeared on the catalog's cover.

Beginning in 1924,it housed a radio station on its 11th floor.  Its call letters, WLS,stood for "World's Largest Store.  Reflecting Sears' customer base, its motto was:  "Bringing the World to the Farm.  It signed on and off the air with a train whistle.

For my family, and especially Dad, no trip to a Sears was complete until we had gone by the candy/nut counter and bought a small bag of fresh hot fried Spanish peanuts.  That and a Coke was just way too good.

And, of course, that radio station changed to a pop music format in 1960 and with its huge 50,000 watt signal, it (and competitor WCFL) was what all of us kids listened to growing up in the 1960s.  Teenagers across most of the nation could pick up the signal at night.

Art Roberts' Top 3 At Ten On WLS.    --Cooter

A Short History of Sears Roebuck-- Part 2: Julius Rosenwald and His Scientific Management in Business

Richard Sears was a very talented salesman, but really bad when it came to details to get his products out to the customers.  Railroad cars of product sat unloaded.  Customer orders went unfilled, missing and were often filled late.

Fortunately for Sears, Julius Rosenwald, whom Sears brought into the firm in 1895, was extremely orderly and in charge.

"It's with pardonable pride that I confess to being one of the first to introduce scientific management in business with the hope of effecting comprehensive economics for the benefit of the consumer," Rosenwald told the Tribune in 1911.

Rosenwald's insistence on rational planning is shown in the Sears corporate headquarters on Homan Avenue in Chicago.  It was an enormous complex covering 40 acres.  The distribution center was just one part of it.  Some 3 million square feet was incorporated in the various building, providing presses to print catalogs, storage for goods and kitchens that prepared meals for 9,290 employees.

There was even a railroad depot.

A Short History of the Late Great Sears-- Part 1: The Beginning

From the May 14, 2017, Chicago Tribune "Sears was the Amazon.com of the 20th century" by Ron Grossman.

The history of Sears began on April 1, 1887, when Alvah Roebuck answered a want ad in a Chicago newspaper:  "Watchmaker wanted who can furnish tools, State age, experience, and salary required.  Address T 39."  Two days later he go a letter from Richard Sears, who was selling watches by mail.

Sears and Roebuck became partners, established a firm in Chicago and revolutionized the mail-order business by offering a money-back guarantee if customers weren't satisfied.  In the new firm's catalog, they boasted "We Can't Afford To Lose a Customer.

It didn't take them long to branch out from those watches.  Then came jewelry. silverware and then all sorts of things.

In 1897, Roebuck sold his interest in the company.  Hit hard by the stock market collapse in 1929, he returned to the company in 1933.

An American Success Story.  --DaCootBuck

Sears Was the Amazon.com of the 20th Century-- Part 2: Those Christmas Wish Books

Sears dubbed its 1933 Christmas catalog a "Wish Book" and extended the basic catalog to 700 pages.  President Roosevelt reportedly said he'd like to give every Soviet citizen a Sears catalog as it was an encyclopedia of the American Dream.

I can sure remember going through the Sears and Montgomery Ward's Christmas catalogs and salivating over the toys.  Especially any of the toy soldier sets, especially he Blue and the Gray, Alamo and Fort Apache ones.

Sears role today is fast fading.  Sales are plummeting, stores are closing and there is a serious doubt that it can continue.  Today's flourishing internet business (Amazon and others) is a 21st century update on sears' 20th century mail-order model.

On the West Side of Chicago at huge Homan Avenue complex, the end came on March 2, 1987, on the workers' lunch break when 1,800 employees were told that the distribution center was closing because the facility was "worn out."

They might as well pull the plug and let Lambert make his billions off the bones of the once-great Sears.

So Sad.  --Cooter

Sears Was the Amazon.com of the 20th Century-- Part 1: "God Almighty, Sears Roebuck and Gene Talmadge"

From the May 14, 2017, Chicago Tribune "Chicago Flashback"  by Ron Grossman.

As I read the nearly weekly accounts of the demise of Sears, this makes for a sad article.  It is a victim of the American people and that guy and his hedge fund who bought it and K-Mart.

From 1906 to 1987, Sears, Roebuck and Co. shipped the ingredients of a middle class life from its sprawling distribution center at 925 S. Homan Avenue in Chicago.  And, sprawling it was.  One of the buildings alone stretched a block wide  and a quarter-mile long with every inch used.

By July 4, 1906, Sears was receiving 75,000 letters a day.  In response, the mail-order company sent its 6 million customers everything from clothing, shoes, furniture, white leghorn chickens, a fully assembled Sears buggy and even kits to build a two-bedroom home.

Many of Sears' early customers were farmers out in rural areas where stores were rare and prices high.  Sears proclaimed itself to be "The Cheapest Supply House on Earth."

"The poor dirt farmer ain't got but three friends on this earth:  God almighty, Sears Roebuck and Gene Talmadge," said Georgia's populist governor in the 1930s and 1940s.

--CootSears