Ear on Chicago; From Sears to You: Sears, Roebuck & Company Mail Order; Part 1

This is the first in a two -part series dealing with Sears Rollbuck and Company's mail order plant located on Chicago's west side. To do the story we go immediately now to the plant where we will pick up a package of mail and discuss the order from there. We have come now to the East entrance to the basement of Sears Rollbuck and Company and located on Chicago's Great West side. To do the story of the mail order business we're going to start with the thing that you would think would be the beginning and that's the piece of mail. Joe Rikowsky, the man who just drove up in a panel truck, is ready to pull the mail bags out of the truck and deliver the mail. One bag, two bags. Here's a much bigger bag. We're going to pick out a letter out of one of those bags in just a minute and Joe has just finished taking the bags out. The doors are being closed and Joe before you take that in can I talk to you just a minute. I see you right on time today. Right on schedule. Judging by the number of mail bags it looks as if Christmas is about to start, Joe. Well it certainly has. Christmas is right here. It's a big time for the mail order business. It

certainly is right now. How was traffic this morning? Well traffic was a little heavier especially at this time in the morning but we always endeavor to stay on schedule. Well Joe that's what you call bringing in the mail. Now let's go down and see it unloaded all right? Yes sir. Let's go inside the building now where they unload the mail and we'll take a look at that letter. We're going to pick out in just a moment. Now we have followed our bag of mail into what they call the mail opening department. Here we're going to pick up our guide for the program Mr. OS Detweiler who is general manager of the mail order plant of Sears Roebuck and Company here in Chicago. Mr. Detweiler I think the first part of our story as far as you are concerned is the weighing of mail. And I've heard the story and I know it's very interesting. I'd like to talk to somebody about it. Well fine Mr. Hill. I know of no one better to talk to than Miss Evelyn Cune who has been with Sears for a good number of years and is certainly very very well qualified and explaining all of the operations in the mail

handling. Miss Cune, Mr. Hill. Mr. Meacham Mr. Hill. How do you do Miss Cune? Now we have brought in with us a large bag of mail. Actually there are a number of bags but we're going to take just one of them and and wait and find out just exactly why you go about this sort of routine. Now we put the bag of mail on this scale and I'd like for you to weigh it for us. How much does it weigh? 40 pounds. 40 pounds exactly. Now I understand from weighing this bag of mail you can tell me how many orders are in this bag. Yes sir there's approximately 40 orders in each pound which would give us 1 ,600 orders in this particular bag. Now how do you know that? From past experience and from this we know exactly how many orders to expect on each trip and delivery of mail. In other words you weigh every bag of mail that comes in. Yes sir every bag and every trip that comes in during the day. So you can tell the entire department just about how many orders we will have today. Yes sir later we estimate the entire receipts for the day and from that we can determine how many orders must be processed

through the plant at certain intervals during the day and to get as many orders shipped as possible. Well now what happens after you once weigh this bag of mail? Where does it go from here? From here it goes to an opening machine where we... Yes we'll walk over there. How far away is it? Right here? Oh just right over here. Let's walk over here then and take a look at this opening machine. The first time I've ever heard of a letter opening machine. How does it work? The envelope's first by size and from the type of envelope we determine which is an order and when we assume that it's an order we slice the envelope at the rate of six hundred per minute. Let's listen to that. This machine cuts them open at six hundred per minute. Which takes the order more rapidly and gives a better service

to the customer. Every little thump that you heard going through there was an envelope being shot through and I guess there's a little knife blade in there. Can you open that up? Yes sir. A little blade just takes and cuts off part of the envelope. How do you know you're not cutting part of the order inside? Because we stack the envelopes so that the letter falls to the bottom of the envelope. Oh I see. Here they come again. Believe me having ever seen this before this is a very amusing instrument. Well now what happens once we... Once we have opened the envelope it goes to a mail reader who reads and determines what the customer is interested in buying. She also handles any special requests the customer may desire. She enters the amount of remittance received on the order. Now Miss Kuhn do you wonder if I could pick out an order here and take it over to that reader and have her read one of these orders? Yes sir. Just anyone. I'll just select anyone. Okay I have enough. Where is the reader? Where will that be right over here?

Miss Kuhn we're only a few steps away from that letter opening machine and I see that the lady's about ready to open up the envelope. Yes sir this is Miss Betty Isadorski. Mr. Hill. Hello Betty. I noticed that the check just fell out of that envelope when you opened it up and now I guess you're about ready to read that letter. Would you read it out a lot for us this time? I received my address. I am very pleased as it is a wonderful fit. This makes two nice dresses I got from you. They came so prompt. We'll say once more that I am so pleased in the fit in every way thanks for your careful attention. When time for spring please remember me for a catalog. How nice it is to sit at home. Now wait a minute. I saw you make a check there where it said catalog. Why did you do that? Well I attached a catalog request to the order to make sure the customer receives one. Okay good now you go ahead with the letter. We will order a few things we need now and a few items for Christmas and then get the others a little later when the milk check comes. My little boy is 10 years old. Do

you think he would like this electric brain toy you have in your Christmas catalog? Once again you make a check up on the upper left hand corner of this. Well because of the question in the letter we have to send this to an adjuster and she takes care of it from there on. You mean that question where she asked whether her son would like the electric brain was it? Yes sir. Well then somebody has to answer that question. That's right sir. They send her a letter. That's right. Go ahead. I am enclosing the refund voucher for 18 cents which you sent me with my last order. In close also is a postal money order for $63 .42. Please ship as soon as you can. My husband wants to paint the kitchen next Saturday. Now this is the postal money order for $63 .60. Is that right? That's right. What are you going to do with that? I enter the amount received on the order blank and then the 18 cent voucher and I total it. Go ahead and make your total. $60. What is it?

$63 .60? $63 .60. Okay then what happens? Well the items on the order do you want me to read those? Well I just met what happened to the order. So from here on it goes on to the cash register operator. Okay we'll get back to Mr. well first of all to Miss Cune because we want to carry on with our order. Now in this case Miss Cune is it all right if we take the order with us because we want to follow up all of these steps. Yes sir you mean. I know that this is not practiced here but for purposes of our broadcast so that we can explain the mail order department we would like to take along this order. Now we want to thank you very much for talking to us and telling us about your operation. Thank you very kindly. Mr. Deadweiler we have our order here as you probably heard. A woman they didn't identify her but I will. Mrs. Kenneth Phillips RFD2 from Whitehall Illinois has ordered a coat pair of men's shoes an electronic brain I guess that's a toy for a son a

hammer and it looks like some paint I guess that would be high gloss finish that would be paint wouldn't it? That is correct. Yes what happens? Well this order they request five different items. Now from this operation we go to our our typing division that will type a separate order on each one of these items and from there they will be scheduled to the proper merchandise department for filling. I would like to mention however to you Mr. Hill that this is only one channel of orders that is this is what we term a straight mail order. This has come direct from our customer to the mail order plan. We have the telephone orders that is what we term the armchair type of ordering. A customer has our catalog in the home they call our telephone exchange which is located in the principal cities

and then that is sent on to us through the teletype channel for filling and then delivered by truck to the customers home. Another channel of order handling is what we term our catalog sales offices. They are located in various towns and cities throughout the territory that we serve and we have certain samples in these offices and they take orders and again they tell a type those orders into the Chicago plant here and from there they are processed and delivered the next day by truck to the office for customer pickup. In other words if somebody orders something from Indiana we'll say yeah goes into a store and orders something they can tell a type that order right here to Chicago. Well that is correct now you mentioned going into one of our stores in Indiana that would be a retail store and in every retail store there is a catalog desk and customers go to this desk

and place their orders and then they are either mailed into Chicago or tele typed into Chicago. Could we take a look at that teletype room? Yes you certainly can. I'd be very interested in showing it to you because it is a very important part of our mail order handling. Where is that? That's down in the basement in this in this administration building. All right let's go take a look at that. Very fine. Well as you can hear from the sound of those teletype riders we are now in the teletype room. Mr. Deadwater suppose you tell us something that happens in here. Well fine Mr. Hill why not let me rebound though she's one of our expert teletype receivers explain the entire operation to you. Just rebound Mr. Hill. I hear the noise of all these printers in here just what kind of an operation is this teletype receival of orders as you call it. Well our customers place their orders at the sear stores in a

three or four hundred mile radius of Chicago and then the teletype operator she sends it to the orders through on the teletype machine and we receive it here as you see them coming in on our machines. We then release the orders and simultaneously as they are coming off the machine. Well how can you receive orders from so many offices on all it looks like just a few printers in here. Well we have some machines here that get us from eight to nine offices from one printer and this is done by automatic equipment and it selects each opposite turn and that is where their sense was and this enables us to receive more orders on one circuit. Well now how much does this teletype speed up the delivery of orders to the customer. Well this delivery speeds it up because the customer can place their order in the middle of the day and she would receive her order pass free the next day. Very I have here an order that has been torn off the teletype writer and tell a type we call it in our office I'm not sure what you call it but apparently this is from Central City Kentucky. How do you know

this is from Central City Kentucky. Well Central City her store number is 61. And in that number 61 appearing there indicate Central City. Yes and then that's her date the 13th and 28th is her order number. All right now what is this information here of a bunch of numbers four one G nine five seven one and one is all that is the catalog number that the customers picked out of the catalog and then she gives us the quantity the color and the size and her price and that makes up the order. Well can you tell quantity and price and size from all of that. Yes we can. Well what is that this two is her quantity because she would give that after her catalog number she's giving us the color green and the size is 15. So that GRN stands for green. That's right. Well there's about five orders in this blank here so you would take this now and what would happen to it. Well we would take it and release it up to the tube to the other departments where they are sent through the belts and handle from that end on. All right thank you very much for re we're going to talk a little bit more

about the tubes to Mr. Debtwider. We want to thank you very much for talking to us. Thank you sir. Now you can hear that typing. There's a young girl sitting here by the name of Bernice Nisgota who has taken our order actually we brought it down to her and she is making out a separate shipping ticket as I understand it for each item. Is that what you're typing Bernice? That's correct I'm making an individual shipping ticket for every item that the customer is ordering on her mixed order. Now what information are you entering on this ticket? Now the information I'm entering is the department number, the key letter, the catalog number, the quantity, the color, the size, and the price. You make up a separate ticket for each individual item that this customer ordered. That's correct. Each

item is entered on a separate entry ticket. Why has that done Bernice? The reason why it's done is we have so many merchandise departments located in various sections and on the floor. It would be impossible to fill the customer's order directly from her original order that she had sent in. Therefore to assure the customer fast service we enter individual shipping tickets for every item that she orders on her order to use for shipping purposes. Now this ticket goes right up to the merchandise department. That's correct. Would you go ahead and finish our tickets then and we'll be on our way. Thank you very much. Okay I think that does it. Let's take our five tickets now and move on. Mr. Detweiler, we have our five tickets. Yeah. One for each item. Where do we go

now? Next we go to the index department. That is the department that records this order on this particular customer's card, which is a very very important operation in the mail order handling. You know every time I look around or go into these departments I can hear a click and some tubes working around here. Sooner or later you're going to have to start telling me about that tube that it seems so interesting to me. Well I think when we reach our scheduling division that would be the proper place to tell you about the tubes. Of course they do play a very very important part in the in the mail order handling. All right let's go on down now to the index department which is down at the end of this hall. Mr. Detweiler and I have walked down a long corridor well -lighted and along the edge or the side of the corridor is a conveyor belt which runs old for about a city block. Our five shipping tickets have traversed the entire length of that belt and have come out through a little window into

another room. The shipping orders were shipping tickets were taken then off of the belt by a girl and have been brought over here to Miss Catherine Nillis in what is known as the index department. Mr. Detweiler mentioned the index department just a moment ago. We are now there. Now I like to ask Miss Nillis just a few questions about our five shipping tickets. Now you have taken those off the top of your index filing cabinet there and I would like to ask you just a few questions about it Miss Nillis of what importance is the index to the mail order business. The index is really the heart of the mail order business. Its primary function is to maintain an accurate mailing list for the distribution of catalogs. Well now will you describe your job? What do you do? Orders for the customers in my set are sorted out and brought to me. The customer's frame is located in file removed and inserted in machine. The customer's order is recorded by punching the month in the

amount of purchase on the frame. We have to make sure that every part of the record agrees with information shown on the customer's orders. Then we address a label for a shipping of this order. So that I may more clearly understand it let's pull out the frame for Mrs. Kenneth Phillips. Now you reach over there into an index noted Whitehall Illinois. I see that her name is of course in there alphabetically right? Yes it is. She apparently has had business with this firm before and so therefore has a card like this made up. What if she didn't have any business with the Sears before? What would happen? If she didn't have any business with the Sears before we would send her order into our embossing room where a card would be created for her. Is this what you hold in your hand called a frame? Yes it certainly is. It looks like a frame. What's all these holes back here for? These are where the holes where we punch through the month and the amount of money on the customer's card. And it has the customer's name and address and so on on there. All right now what do you do with that

once you pulled it out of the index file? We insert it in a machine. This little machine here is sort of a stamping machine? That's right and we index this order or we record the customer's order by punching the month and the amount of money of the order. It's a little pencil you have there. That is a stylus. I see. Now what happens? Can we pull this down here? Yes we have to print a label for this customer to be put on his package to be shipped out and we stamp a label we print the label. Well I think that explains it. I think they could have heard that thump there you just printed our label so we're all set to go. Now there's something over here that's been going on and it's making quite a good deal of noise and why don't you and I come over here and talk about this. What is this machine over here by the way? This machine is an addressing machine. It's an addressing machine? Well what happens here?

When a new catalog is to be mailed out the frames from my set are put into this addressing machine and the machine selects the customers that have enough money on their record card to receive one of our serious catalogs. I understand then for every frame and every card here a customer will get a catalog. If the customer has purchased enough. I understand. Well thank you very much. Is it Mrs. Nellis? Mrs. Nellis. Thank you very much for talking to us and telling us about your operation. Well now that we have got the addressing machine finished and the index department is concluded where do we go next Mr. Detweiler? From here we go to the scheduling machines. Where are they? Across the room on the other side of the room. All right let's you and I walk over there. The sound of that machine, well that machine you're hearing is

part of the scheduling department. Now what it is I have with the slightest idea. All I can see is that a lady's foot moves down here and a big arm comes down at stamps one of the tickets that we've been bringing along with us. Now this is Ruby Burninger who we're going to talk to for just a minute and ask her about this operation. Now Ruby what part in the processing of these orders that we brought along with us does this department play? Well actually we handled three parts scheduling, listing and the sending the tickets across the street to be filled, dispatching of the tickets. Now why don't we take these parts one at a time let's start with scheduling. All right while scheduling let me say this first that every order going through department 148 must have a time schedule. This time schedule ensures prompt delivery for our customers. What about the sales listing activity? Well before our sales may it can be listed they have to be broken down the orders due

by departmental numbers. After this is done the lister lists by departments on her sales listing sheets. Then I'll work 148 is finished with the exception of sending the tickets to the various departments. Well now we have our orders finished I think and would you explain to me just what these things mean. Now here you have five p x three thirty two one they're just a bunch of figures to me. What do they mean? All right this p means parcel post. The thirty two is the customer's basket number. The x three is a section within the crow's nest. This number one is the crow's nest for the order. There are other words the crow's nest is a bin where the orders are filled. I see and at 155 is the time that we're scheduling and 1113 of course is today's date. 155 your time you're scheduling you mean you're scheduling the order to be filled by that time. That's right

at 155 this order will be in the shipping room ready for shipment. I see all right Ruby thank you very much. Now let's take our order here we have them stamped and ready to go Mr. Deadweiler. Where's the next stop? The next stop is a merchandise department where these items will be filled. Well now just a minute Mr. Deadweiler before we go up to the merchandise department we finally reached the point where you were going to tell us about these tubes. We can see the girls now putting orders into with a tube and or into one of the holders and putting the holder up into the tube. How does that work? Well those are pneumatic tubes and we have about 11 .5 miles of tubes in this plant. Now these tickets that comprise this order are being inserted into one of those tubes for a particular merchandise department and in about one and a half minutes that particular ticket will be in the particular merchandise department for filling and handling. Instead of having messengers we we use the tubes to convey our letter

and order material. All right then our orders here will go into that tube just along with the rest of them and you're saying about a minute and a half it'll be up there. That is correct. Now you have seen this this particular coat order. Now that the coat was one of the five items ordered by Mrs. Phillips. Now that has been inserted in this tube and a minute and a half it will be in the coat department. As long as we do have a minute and a half I'd like to talk to you just briefly Mr. Deadweiler about a very interesting story and that's how Sears Robuck and Company started. How did it all come into being? Why don't you tell us about the early days of the business? First of all may I ask you how long you've been with the company? Well the second of January I will be with Sears 35 years. 35 years. Yes sir and I might mention that all 35 years have been spent here in this particular mail order plant. Well you certainly know it believe me and

this is one of the most efficient operations that I've ever seen. Not only the efficiency of the department but the efficiency with which you are conducting this tour and the way most of the people are prepared to tell us their story. But let's tell a story about Sears. Well Richard Sears was a station operator that is he was in charge of the railroad station and in Redwood Minnesota and in 1886 he received a shipment of watches going from a Chicago retail wholesale jeweler to a jeweler in Redwood Minnesota and this particular jeweler in Redwood refused the shipment. So he got in touch with this Chicago jeweler and asked if he couldn't attempt to sell the watches and through mail order channels he did sell those watches in fact he was so successful that he decided to expand and go into a mail order business. Where did

Roba come into the picture? Well Roba came in the picture in Chicago. He moved from Redwood to Minneapolis in 1887 and a little later he came to Chicago where he could be in the heart of the transportation system provide better service to the customers. In 1893 Mr. Roba came with Sears as a watch repair man and in 1895 the firm of Sears Roba and company was was formed. Well then the original company was just a watch company. That is correct. We've got a few more items now. Yes we have in fact in our in our large catalog which we published two a year we list about 110 ,000 items on approximately 1 ,400 pages. I suppose Mr. Deweyler if you looked at

the catalogs from Sears Roba company from the very first early days you could almost tell a story of 20th century America couldn't you? You certainly could. Well Mr. Deweyler before we go up to the Coat Department I'm afraid we're going to have to call time here and as I said at the beginning of the program we're dividing this up into two programs and next week we'll come back and pick up our order and we'll go up to the Coat Department and then to the toy department and finish up with the processing and pick up the order and have it distributed and delivered finally to the customer. So we'll see you next week. Fine Mr. Hill we're looking forward to seeing you next week then. And that's the first in a two -part series of Sears Roba company's mail order plant. We'll be back with the second part next week at the same time. This is Hugh Hill speaking.