The House that Came in the Mail Again
99% Invisible5 Okt 2021

The House that Came in the Mail Again

The Sears & Roebuck Mail Order Catalog was nearly omnipresent in early 20th century American life. By 1908, one fifth of Americans were subscribers. Anyone anywhere in the country could order a copy for free, look through it, and then have anything their heart desired delivered directly to their doorstep. At its peak, the Sears catalog offered over 100,000 items on 1,400 pages. It weighed four pounds. Today, those 1,400 pages provide us with a snapshot of American life in the first decade of the 20th century, from sheep-shearing machines and cream separators to telephones and china cabinets. The Sears catalog tells the tale of a world -- itemized. And starting in 1908, the company that offered America everything began offering what just might be its most audacious product line ever: houses.

Buy The 99% Invisible City!

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Avsnitt(782)

The Architect of Hollywood

The Architect of Hollywood

Los Angeles is rich with architectural diversity. On the same block, you could find a retro-futuristic Googie diner next to a Spanish-style mansion, sitting comfortably alongside a Dutch Colonial dwel...

11 Apr 201719min

Containers

Containers

We’re based in beautiful downtown Oakland, CA which is a port city in the San Francisco Bay. Massive container ships travel across the Pacific and end up here. From miles away you can see the enormous...

4 Apr 201730min

Manzanar

Manzanar

When Warren Furutani was growing up in Los Angeles in the 1950s, he sometimes heard his parents refer to a place where they once spent time — a place they called “camp.” To him “camp” meant summer cam...

28 Mars 201723min

The Falling of the Lenins

The Falling of the Lenins

On the night of December 8, 2013, a huge crowd gathered on a tree-lined boulevard in downtown Kiev, Ukraine. The crowd was there to watch as a statue in the boulevard was pulled down by a crane. The t...

21 Mars 201722min

Negative Space: Logo Design with Michael Bierut

Negative Space: Logo Design with Michael Bierut

Logos used to be a thing people didn’t really give much thought to. But over the last decade, the volume and intensity of arguments about logos have increased substantially. A lot of this is just the ...

14 Mars 201744min

State (Sanctuary, Part 2)

State (Sanctuary, Part 2)

In the 1980s, the United States experienced a refugee crisis. Thousands of Central Americans were fleeing civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, traveling north through Mexico, and crossing the bord...

8 Mars 201727min

Church (Sanctuary, Part 1)

Church (Sanctuary, Part 1)

In the 1980s, Rev. John Fife and his congregation at Southside Presbyterian Church began to help Central American migrants fleeing persecution from US backed dictatorships. Their efforts would mark th...

28 Feb 201726min

Atom in the Garden of Eden

Atom in the Garden of Eden

As the world entered the Atomic Age, humankind faced a new fear that permeated just about every aspect of daily life: the threat of nuclear war. And while the violent applications of atomic research h...

21 Feb 201717min

Populärt inom Business & ekonomi

framgangspodden
varvet
badfluence
rss-jossan-nina
rss-borsens-finest
rss-svart-marknad
avanzapodden
uppgang-och-fall
svd-tech-brief
rss-dagen-med-di
fill-or-kill
borsmorgon
lastbilspodden
affarsvarlden
rss-inga-dumma-fragor-om-pengar
tabberaset
kapitalet-en-podd-om-ekonomi
bathina-en-podcast
rss-den-nya-ekonomin
bilar-med-sladd