The Rise and Fall of Sears: A Lifetime Customer Remembers

For a hundred years the Sears catalog — the Sears Wish Book — sold America just about everything it owned; you could even order a house. Here's how the store that built the middle class was taken apart from the inside. Earl here. I spent 44 years around Detroit's factories — but like every American my age, I grew up on Sears. The whole arc: the Sears Wish Book landing on the kitchen table; Richard Sears, Alvah Roebuck, and Julius Rosenwald building the store with no store — the catalog that let a farm family order the same goods as a rich man in the city; Sears Modern Homes (you could order an entire house by mail, ~70,000 of them); Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute building ~5,000 Rosenwald Schools; the rival Montgomery Ward; Santa at Sears; the brands that filled your house — Craftsman, Kenmore, DieHard, Allstate, Discover — and the Sears Tower, tallest building in the world. Then the turn: Kmart and Walmart, the mall, Amazon, and the end of the catalog (1993). And the part nobody understood: how the hedge-fund activist investor Eddie Lampert took control of Sears Holdings (2005, merging with Kmart) and stripped it from the inside — selling Craftsman, spinning the best real estate (~235 stores) into Seritage Growth Properties so Sears paid rent to its own chairman, spinning off Lands' End, and finally the 2018 bankruptcy — after which Lampert himself bought the carcass and folded it into Transformco. The fallout: the dead-mall phenomenon, lost pensions (the PBGC stepping in for pennies on the dollar), and the workers turned out at the end. Honest about both sides — cheaper goods are a real blessing, and Sears was slow (Bezos rebuilt its own mail-order idea). But a store built on a promise was looted by its own. Did you get your first job at Sears? What did you circle in the Wish Book? Tell me in the comments. 1. The Sears catalog / Sears Wish Book: free in every farmhouse mailbox; the store "with no store" — Richard Sears, Alvah Roebuck, Julius Rosenwald 2. Sears Modern Homes: order an entire house by mail (~70,000 sold, c. 1908–1942); tens of thousands still standing 3. Julius Rosenwald + Booker T. Washington and the Tuskegee Institute: ~5,000 Rosenwald Schools for Black children in the rural South 4. The rival catalog Montgomery Ward ("Monkey Wards"); Santa Claus and the in-store portrait studio 5. The brands: Craftsman, Kenmore, DieHard, Allstate ("good hands"), Discover; the Sears Tower (tallest in the world) 6. Scale: ~3,500 stores and ~350,000 employees at peak 7. The decline: Kmart and Walmart, the mall, Amazon; the catalog ends (1993) 8. Eddie Lampert — hedge-fund activist investor — takes control of Sears Holdings Corporation and merges it with Kmart (2005) 9. Asset-stripping: Craftsman sold; the real estate (~235 Sears/Kmart locations) spun into Seritage Growth Properties (Lampert-controlled) — Sears pays rent to its own chairman; Lands' End spun off 10. Bankruptcy (2018); Lampert buys the carcass and folds it into Transformco 11. The dead-mall phenomenon: empty anchor stores killing the malls 12. Lost pensions; the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) covering only pennies on the dollar for many 13. Counter-side: cheaper goods are a real benefit; Sears was slow — Bezos rebuilt Sears' own mail-order idea online #Sears #SearsWishBook #WhatHappenedTo #DeadMall #RosenwaldSchools #EddieLampert #RetailHistory #Nostalgia #BlueCollar #LostAmerica ⚠️ Disclaimer & Sources: This video is for educational and investigational purposes only