{"id":1843,"date":"2018-02-13T14:10:59","date_gmt":"2018-02-13T22:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/singlewheel.com\/WP\/?p=1843"},"modified":"2020-08-04T21:26:52","modified_gmt":"2020-08-05T05:26:52","slug":"1843","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/singlewheel.com\/WP\/1843\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Montgomery Ward History<\/Strong>
\nMontgomery Ward, the nationwide catalog sales company known as Ward’s, was founded by Aaron Montgomery Ward and his partner and brother-in-law George R. Thorne in 1872. Mr. Ward’s idea was to develop an organization to sell merchandise of nearly every sort directly to the customer. The first “catalog” (a single-sheet price list) was sent to members of the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry in Aug. 1872, when National Grange membership was half a million people. Ward’s became a favorite source of goods for the Grange, whose members were discontent with prices charged by country stores and were receptive to new purchasing methods. Ward’s started with a shipping office in Chicago (Ill.) on Clark Street near Kinzie Street. The city was a terminus for many railroads and ideally situated for distribution. Goods ordered by mail from Ward’s were sent to customers by railway express collect. The customer was free to inspect merchandise and accept or reject it. When Ward’s price list blossomed into full-fledged bound catalogs, merchandise descriptions had to be accurate so that patrons could order with confidence. In 1875 Ward’s promised: “If any of your goods are not satisfactory, after due inspection, we will take them back\u2026and refund the money paid for them.” “Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back” were six words that helped build a billion dollar business. However, when Aaron Montgomery Ward died in 1913 at the age of 69, it is possible that his greatest gift to Chicago was not as a businessman but as an environmentalist, especially his long struggle to preserve the city’s Lake Michigan shore as a park and recreational area. In a 20-year fight he went to court numerous times to block construction of various structures on the lakefront, and as a result Chicago preserved one of the most magnificent public open-spaces in the world. In 1897, Ward’s built an electric automobile to show people in small towns one of the “wonders of the century” and to offer free rides. The automobile was transported from place to place in a special railway car that advertised Ward’s. In 1911, Ward’s Modoc was one of 49 new makes of automobiles and sold for $1250.00. Wards introduced Riverside tires in 1912. One of Ward’s most successful promotions began in 1939 when Robert L. May, a copywriter for the company, created the storybook, “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” as a giveaway for Ward’s store Santas. Rudolph’s story later became the popular Christmas song composed by Johnny Marks and recorded by Gene Autry. Ward’s filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 1997. In Dec. 2000, after 128 years in business, the company closed. Ward’s sold at least 4 different trailers including one sold under their “Riverside” name. <\/p>\n

Trailerette 84FDH-8800<\/Strong>
\nMontgomery Ward is one of the earliest catalog sales companies and one of the products they sold was the Trailerette single wheel trailers in 2 versions. The model 84FDH-8800 is the single wheel version, and had a 750 lbs payload capacity. The model 84FDH-8800 and the dual wheel version, model 61-8812, used the same all steel box, which was 48″ wide, 53″ long with 11″ high. There were at least 4 different trailer models and 3 different body styles sold by Montgomery Wards. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Montgomery Ward History Montgomery Ward, the nationwide catalog sales company known as Ward’s, was founded by Aaron Montgomery Ward and his partner and brother-in-law George R. Thorne in 1872. Mr. Ward’s idea was to develop an organization to sell merchandise of nearly every sort directly to the customer. The first “catalog” (a single-sheet price list) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mw84"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/singlewheel.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/singlewheel.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/singlewheel.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/singlewheel.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/singlewheel.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1843"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/singlewheel.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1849,"href":"http:\/\/singlewheel.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions\/1849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/singlewheel.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/singlewheel.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/singlewheel.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}