Aaron Montgomery Ward

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Aaron Montgomery Ward (February 17, 1843 - December 7, 1913) is a Chicago-based American entrepreneur utilizing his wealth through the use of postal orders for retail sales of general merchandise for rural customers. In 1872 he founded Montgomery Ward & amp; The company, which became nationally known...

Ward, a young seller of dry goods, is concerned over the fate of many Midwestern rural Americans who, he claims, are overcharged and poorly served by the many small-town retailers they have to rely on for their general merchandise. He opened his first mail-order home in 1872. Using a Chicago-based railroad, and by linking his business to a non-profit Granger, Ward offered rural customers a much larger stock than the publicly available cities- small town and at a lower price. Unlike local merchants, Ward offers no bargains and no credit. Its free catalog, printed in the most modern method, is delivered to customers extensively, allowing them to view images of consumer goods and imagine how they can be used. Then, Ward uses the Postal Postal Mail Delivery service; he lobbied for a package postal system that appeared in 1906. The beginning of the 20th century was the heyday of mail order and Ward had become an American tradition, along with his rival, Sears Roebuck.

Ward continues to be honored as patron of Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois.

Video Aaron Montgomery Ward

Initial years

Aaron Montgomery Ward was born on February 17, 1843, in Chatham, New Jersey. When he was about nine years old, his father Sylvester Ward moved the family to Niles, Michigan, where Aaron attended a public school. He is one of the big family with modest income. When Aaron was fourteen, he was apprenticed in a trade to help support the family. According to his short memoir, he first gets 25 cents a day on a cutting machine in a barrel factory, and then piles bricks in a kiln at 30 cents a day.

Energy and ambition push Ward to find work in St. Joseph, Michigan, where he works in a shoe store. This is a market town for agricultural areas devoted to orchards. Starting a sale eventually led him to a profession that made him famous. Being a fair seller, within nine months he was involved as a seller in a general state store at $ 6/month plus a board, a considerable salary at the time. He rose to head of scribe and general store manager, worked there for three years. At the end of that time, his salary was $ 100/month plus his board. He went for a better job at a competing shop, where he worked two more years. In this period, Ward studied retail.

Maps Aaron Montgomery Ward

Field Palmer and subsequent years

In 1865, Ward moved to Chicago, where he worked for Case and Sobin, a lamp house. He travels for them as a seller, and sells items with commissions for a short time. Chicago was a wholesale trade center of dried goods, and by the 1860s Ward joined the leading dry goods house, Field Palmer & amp; Leiter, the predecessor of Marshall Field & amp; Co. He worked at Field for two years and then joined the wholesale business of dry goods from Wills, Greg & amp; Co In a dull train journey to the southern community, rent a rig in a local horse stall, drive to junction shops and listen to the complaints of owners and rural residents, he invents a new marketing technique: direct mail sales to the villagers. This was a time when rural consumers longed for the convenience of the city, but were too often victimized by monopolies and burdened by the many intermediaries needed to bring manufactured products to the countryside. The quality of merchandise is also suspect and the unfortunate peasant has no way out in the economy of the cave master. Ward formed a plan to buy goods at low cost for cash. By eliminating middlemen, with their markup and commissions, and drastically cutting sales costs, he can sell goods to people, however remote, at attractive prices. He invites them to send an order by mail and he sends a purchase to the nearest train station. The only thing he lacks is capital.

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Montgomery Ward letters catalog

None of Ward's friends or business acquaintances joined in his enthusiasm for his revolutionary idea. Though his idea was generally regarded as a limit on madness and his first inventory was destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire, Ward persisted. In August 1872, with two fellow employees and a total capital of $ 1,600 he formed Montgomery Ward & Company. He rented a small delivery space on the Normandy lane trail trail and published a catalog of general merchandise orders with 163 registered products. It is said that in 1880, Aaron Montgomery Ward originally wrote all copies of the catalog. As the business grows and the department head writes the merchandise description, he still checks each line of copy to make sure it is accurate.

The following year, Ward's two partners left him, but he survived. Later, George Robinson Thorne, his brother-in-law, joined him in his business. This is a turning point for a young, growing and prosperous company. Soon the catalog, which is often reviled and even publicly burned by rural retailers, is known as "The Book of Desire". It is a favorite in the household across America.

The Ward catalog was soon copied by another enterprising trader, notably Richard Warren Sears, who sent his first general catalog in 1896. Others entered the field, and in 1971, catalogs of sales of major US corporations exceeded more than $ 250 million in revenues post. Although today the Sears Tower in Chicago is the tallest building in the United States, there was a time when Montgomery Ward's headquarters was also distinguished. The Montgomery Ward Tower, on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Madison Street in Chicago, ruled as a major tourist attraction in the early 1900s.

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Public life: battle for Grant Park

In a community life in Chicago, Ward struggles to access the poor to the lake of Chicago. In 1906 he campaigned to preserve Grant Park as a public park. Grant Park has been protected since 1836 by the "forever open, clear and free" law that has been affirmed by four Supreme Court rulings of Illinois. Ward twice sued the city of Chicago to force him to move buildings and buildings from Grant Park and prevent him from building new buildings. Ward is known by some as a "guard dog from the front of the lake" for his conservation efforts. As a result, the city has what is called the Montgomery Building height limit on buildings and structures at Grant Park. However, the Crown Fountain and the 139-foot Jay Pritzker (42 m) Pavilion are exempted from altitude restrictions as they are classified as artwork and not buildings or structures. The famous Burnham Plan of 1909 Daniel Burnham eventually defended Grant Park and the entire lake of Chicago.

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Legacy

Montgomery Ward died in 1913, at the age of 69 years. His wife, Elizabeth, left most of the land to Northwestern University and other educational institutions.

Montgomery Ward's catalog of catalogs in history is guaranteed when the Grolier Club, a bibliophiles community in New York, flaunted it in 1946 alongside Webster's dictionary as one of the hundred books with the greatest influence on the lives and culture of the American people.

The bronze statue in honor of Ward and seven other industry figures stands between the Chicago River and Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago, Illinois. The smaller version of the statue is located at Grant Park.

The Board of Commissioners of the Chicago Park District recently named a new park in honor of A. Montgomery Ward. It's located at 630 N. Kingsbury Street, a few blocks away from the old Montgomery Ward & amp; Co Catalog House Building at 600 W. Chicago Avenue, Chicago.

Despite the collapse of the catalog and bricks-and-mortar department store business in 2001, Montgomery Ward & amp; Co as an online retailer still embraces the "satisfaction assurance" philosophy that has ever been heard.

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Note

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References

• Macaluso, Tony; Julia S. Bachrach & amp; Neal Samors (2009). The Sound of Chicago Lake: The Festival of Grant Park Music Festival . Chicago Press Book. ISBNÃ, 978-0-9797892-6-7

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Further reading

• Boorstin, Daniel J. "Mail-Order Business A. Montgomery Ward," Chicago History (1973) 2 # 3 pp 142-152.

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External links

• The Montgomery Ward Official Website
• Montgomery Ward & amp; Catalog Co. # 13 (1875) in the Internet Archive

Source of the article : Wikipedia