Living here in Thunder Bay, and across this country, some of us may be old enough to have childhood memories of the iconic Christmas catalogues! The arrival of the Christmas catalogue was a highly anticipated and special holiday tradition that won its way into the heart of Canadian homes. I well remember the excitement of the catalogue’s arrival, spending endless hours poring over the pages; dog earring the ones of toys that I hoped would make it under the tree! As a five year old child, my special wish for one year was Thumbelina, the origin of animated dolls. If you pulled her cord, she wiggled her head and arms and legs like a real baby. Can you remember yours? Was it Chatty Cathy or Strawberry Shortcake, Cabbage Patch, My Little Pony, or maybe Teddy Ruxpin? Remember the magic of Etch-a-Sketch, Spirograph, Lite-Brite, and of course who can forget Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots, Hot Wheels, GI Joe, Barbie, and the infamous Easy Bake oven! How about those games that are still in the back of everyone’s closets…Mastermind, Monopoly, Uno, and Trivial Pursuit!
The importance of the catalogue to the Canadian homestead is well documented. The population of Canada was overwhelmingly rural and the automobile was a luxury not everyone could afford. The first company to offer this service is one fewer of us may have encountered; the Hudson's Bay Company catalogue. The Company's mail-order business operated only from 1881 to 1913. Clothing of all kinds, both work and dress garments, boots and shoes, medicines, tools, fire arms, traps, sports equipment, musical instruments, books, toys, furniture, you name it, all these treasures can all be found here in the Autumn and Winter 1910-11 catalogue, including the infamous Hudson Bay Point Blanket described as “the warmest in the world” (p.163).
Next on the catalogue scene was Timothy Eaton in 1884, with the first Christmas catalogue in 1897. The Eaton’s catalogue was described as “one of the most-treasured and perhaps most often used articles in almost any farm or settler’s home” (Oatmeal & Eaton’s Catalog, p.34). These well-illustrated catalogs were studied from cover to cover many times over, picking and choosing articles that were hoped for someday, “but in our hearts we knew that most of it would be wishful thinking” (p.34). The catalogue division of Eaton’s came to an end in 1976.
The Eaton’s catalogue was especially beloved, inevitably finding its way into classic literature. In The Hockey Sweater, Roch Carrier describes how his mother looked through the catalogue that the Eaton company in Montreal sent in the mail every year…”the only things that were good enough for us were the latest styles from the Eaton’s catalogue” (p.5).
In Lucy Maud Montgomery’s, Anne’s House of Dreams, Mrs. Rachel Lynde comments how the Eaton’s catalogue had become the “Avonlea girls’ Bible” that they studied every Sunday (p.20)
Meanwhile in 1888, the Canadian Robert Simpson Co. had also entered the catalogue mail order business, and eventually formed a partnership with the American Sears, Roebuck & Co. The Sears and Roebuck catalogue became known as the “Big Book” or
the “Wish Book” for millions of Canadians who anticipated its arrival every November. The Sears Roebuck Christmas book, eventually renamed “The Christmas Wish Book” in 1968, was printed from 1933 to 2011 and then once again in 2017.
Christmas catalogues provided a way to not only look for something you wished for, but also see the latest in shoes, clothes, furniture and appliances, as well as advances in equipment, technology and fashion. Before the Internet or even the telephone, mail order was the only way to receive your catalogue order, the rudimentary origins of online shopping. The Post Office used stagecoaches for mail transport and steamboats for areas where no roads existed. The arrival of the package was as celebratory as the day of the arrival of the catalogue itself! The railway greatly improved and expanded the catalogue delivery system. By 1896, Eaton's was sending out 135,000 packages by post and 74,000 packages by express mail annually (Library and Archives Canada). Even though the toys and gifts received were much simpler back then, the joy they brought to families on Christmas morning were equal in measure to the joy they bring today.
To view a Sears Roebuck, Hudson’s Bay, or Eaton’s catalogue or learn more about local history, contact research@tbpl.ca
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