Please Mr. Postman

Retailer Montgomery Ward published the very first mail order catalog on this day in 1872.

This first catalog consisted of only one piece of paper!

To celebrate the advent of mail-order shopping, visit our online Museum Shop. There you can learn more about our four newly published gift books, richly illustrated with color images from our Treasures To Go traveling exhibitions—American Impressionism, The Gilded Age, Lure of the West, and Young America.

You can convienently shop online, but receive your merchandise by mail, just like in the old days.

Pictured: William Adelbert Dolwick, born 1909, Early Hobart (mural study for Hobart, Indiana Post Office), 1938, gouache on paperboard, 16 1/2 x 30 1/16 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from U.S. General Services Administration (Internal Revenue Service).