Sears, Roebuck Home Builder's Catalog

All across America during the great building boom of the early 20th century, one of the most popular sources for home-building materials, fixtures, and trimmings was the Sears, Roebuck catalog for home builders. This fascinating volume, reprinted from a rare surviving edition of that remarkably comprehensive publication, offers a peerless view of how thousands of Americans approached the practicalities and aesthetics of homebuilding in 1910. A huge selection of materials needed to build and finish an early 20th-century home — lumber, siding, roofing, gable ornaments, interior moldings, oak-veneered front doors, art glass windows, chandeliers, stair balusters, bronze door locks, porcelain-enameled bathtubs, furnaces for hard and soft coal, ornate porch rails and Craftsman china closets among them — are depicted in detailed line drawings with the original advertising copy, specifications, and prices. Leafing through these pages, it quickly becomes apparent just how many readers — and buyers — this extraordinary book attracted. Many of the products and designs are still very much a part of the American landscape, easily recognizable in nearly every community in America today. Students and enthusiasts of American home and home-product design will find this unique publication an authentic and reliable sourcebook of early 20th-century Americana. Anyone interested in renovating houses of this era will find it indispensable.