Overview
About the event
Although Benjamin Franklin has a good claim to be the world�??s first mail order entrepreneur, it is the anniversary of the first Montogomery Ward catalog on August 18, 1872 that has provided the date for National Mail Order Catalog Day. Over the intervening years, this little catalog started so long ago by Aaron Montgomery Ward grew from a single page of products to a monster capable of striking fear into the stoutest of postal workers containing more than 500 pages!
Alas, the Montgomery Ward behemoth is no longer around, having given its final farewell in 1985, followed not long after by the departure of the famed Sears catalog in 1993. Other mail order catalog companies still carry the torch, however, such as the catalog with the longest run to date, the Hammacher Schlemmer, which has been around since 1848 and still plies tools and building materials (no doubt including flashlights, since Sears sadly dropped theirs).
With the dawn of the internet, and the effort to reduce paper usage, the mail order catalog in its original form has mostly gone by the wayside. Most companies now have websites from which individuals can order products at the touch of a button or tap of a screen, having them delivered to their door sometimes in as little as a couple of hours.
