biography
| name: |
Sears, Richard W(arren)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1863–1914)
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| biography:
| Merchant, born in Stewartville, Minnesota, USA. At age 17 he supported his widowed mother and sisters by working for the Minneapolis and St Louis railway in Minneapolis. In 1886 while a station agent in Redwood, MN, he acquired a shipment of watches that had been refused and sold them through the mail at considerable profit. He then bought more watches and advertised in the newspaper, establishing the mail-order R W Sears Watch Co. A success, this ‘Barnum of merchandising’ advertised nationally, moved to Chicago, and hired watch repairman Alvah C Roebuck. In 1889 he sold the business, retired to Iowa as a country banker, but grew bored and returned to Minneapolis, where he established the A C Roebuck mail-order business, selling watches and jewellery. Returning to Chicago as Sears, Roebuck & Co (1893), the business grew from a 25-item catalogue to a 1000-page book in just a few years. As president, Sears directed all the advertising and copy writing, and owed much of his success to buying large amounts of advertising space in newspapers each month. The company was subsequently reorganized and, following a disagreement, Sears resigned as president (1909) and retired to his farm N of Chicago. |
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