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Sears, Roebuck and Co., founded in 1893 in Chicago, began and existed for years a mail order catalogue. (The company didn't begin opening local department stores until 1925.) In addition to the subtitle "Thrift Book of a Nation," the catalogue appealed to the customer's sense of thrift by offering a broad selection of consumer goods at fixed prices (instead of having to choose from whatever was in stock in the store and having to negotiate each price with the store owner). During the decades of the early and mid-20th century, "Sears" and the "Sears Catalogue" seemed to become widely recognized symbols of both the consumer and thrift aspirations of America's rising middle class. This document is a replica of the 1923 Sears, Roebuck Catalogue.