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Montgomery Wards

Montgomery Ward
Private
Original incarnation, mail order and department store
Current incarnation, online retailer
and catalog merchant
Industry Retail
Fate Bankruptcy in 2000;
Full liquidation in 2001
namesake retailer launched in 2004 after purchase of trademarks
Founded 1872; 145 years ago (1872) (as mail order company and later department store, defunct 2001)
2004 (as current online retailer)
Defunct June 2001 (original company)
Headquarters Original company in Chicago, Illinois, United States
2004 to 2008: namesake company Monroe, Wisconsin, United States
Key people
Original company: 1872 founder, Aaron Montgomery Ward
namesake company: John Baumann, president of parent company Swiss Colony
Products Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, appliances, housewares, tools, and electronics.
Divisions Riverside
Electric Avenue
Wards Kids
Montgomery Ward Catalog
Montgomery Wards Auto Express
Website www.wards.com

Montgomery Ward was the name of two historically distinct American retail enterprises. It can refer either to the defunct mail order and department store retailer, which operated between 1872 and 2001, or to the current catalog and online retailer also known as Wards.

Montgomery Ward was founded by Aaron Montgomery Ward in 1872. Ward had conceived of the idea of a dry goods mail-order business in Chicago, Illinois, after several years of working as a traveling salesman among rural customers. He observed that rural customers often wanted "city" goods, but their only access to them was through rural retailers who had little competition and did not offer any guarantee of quality. Ward also believed that by eliminating intermediaries, he could cut costs and make a wide variety of goods available to rural customers, who could purchase goods by mail and pick them up at the nearest train station.

After several false starts, including the destruction of his first inventory by the Great Chicago Fire, Ward started his business at his first office, either in a single room at 825 North Clark Street, or in a loft above a livery stable on Kinzie Street between Rush and State Streets. He and two partners used $1,600 they had raised in capital and issued their first catalog in August 1872. It consisted of an 8 in × 12 in (20 cm × 30 cm) single-sheet price list, listing 163 items for sale with ordering instructions for which Ward had written the copy. His two partners left the following year, but he continued the struggling business and was joined by his future brother-in-law, George Robinson Thorne.

In the first few years, the business was not well received by rural retailers. Considering Ward a threat, they sometimes publicly burned his catalog. Despite the opposition, however, the business grew at a fast pace over the next several decades, fueled by demand primarily from rural customers who were inspired by the wide selection of items that were unavailable to them locally. Customers were also inspired by the innovative and unprecedented company policy of "satisfaction guaranteed or your money back", which Ward began in 1875. Ward turned the copy writing over to department heads, but he continued poring over every detail in the catalog for accuracy.


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