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Consider the slide rule: once upon a time, the inescapable shorthand symbol of the engineer. As late as 1970, slide rules were ubiquitous in science and engineering. And in 1980 they were extinct…. Continue reading Engineer’s Essentials
Sears Special Sale Bulletin, 1918: If you’re not in the market for a man's wristwatch, how about a diamond ring for a mere $10? Granted the gold is 14 carat, and the diamond is 1/8 carat — well, almost. Zoom in to read Sears’ remarkably-honest fine-print copy… Continue reading Jewelry Suggestions for 1918
Garden catalogs are — pardon the pun – a perennial. Wards devoted the first 11 pages of this 1961 garden catalog to no less than 73 varieties of roses… Continue reading A Riot of Roses
Is there a more faddish furniture style from the 1970s than the beanbag chair? Continue reading Furniture that’s Full of Beans
You have to admit these are some lovely dresses, eminently suitable for walking up Fifth avenue in the Easter Parade, which is what Judy Garland sang in the movie of that name released the same year as this catalog… Continue reading Dressing for an Easter Parade
CompUSA catalog, summer 1993: The clones have taken over. Almost two decades after the introduction of the “Altair”, personal computers were now ubiquitous, to the point where stores sprang up to sell just but computers and software. CompUSA “the Computer Superstore” was the largest chain, explodingfrom a single Texas warehouse to well over 200 locations across the country at its peak… Continue reading Personal Computers: Attack of the Clones
I’ve never walked into a Sears store and walked out with bees. Never even considered it. And actually I guess I never COULD have walked into a Sears Store and walked out with bees or beekeeping supplies. But I could have ordered them from a Sears Catalog… Continue reading Guess you had to BEE there
Another snapshot from a moment in history – 1984 – the end of a “Cambrian explosion” of computers and software. It was a moment when Stewart Brand and his Whole Earth crew out in California could feel an urgent calling to categorize and review what was going on with the Personal Computer revolution… Continue reading Personal Computers, After the Flood
Snapshot from a moment in history – the year before the start of the personal computer revolution and this 1974 Edmund Scientific catalog devoted their back cover to “computers.” […] Continue reading Personal Computers, Just Before the Flood
D.M. Ferry Seeds Almanac and Catalogue, 1908 / What the heck is “Salisfy”? Not only are some of the vegetables obscure, some of the spellings are too: “Spinage” and “Ruta Baga” look funny to modern eyes. But Ferry must know what they were writing about – in 1908 the company was already 52 years old. Thriving, too… Continue reading The Season for Salisfy
