redbloodedamerica:

How Sears Used the Market to Undermine Racism

Last week, Sears filed for bankruptcy, closing an important chapter in its 132-year history.

Many know that the famous Sears Catalog revolutionized shopping in America.  However, few know how the catalog undermined Jim Crow in the South.  The catalog offered African-Americans in the South unprecedented market access and convenience.  It “undid the power of the shopkeeper,” explains Cornell University Professor Louis Hyman.  Black shoppers could buy goods without asking permission, and at highly competitive prices, without being watched, without waiting until all white people had been served.

Southern store owners resisted.  They held Sears catalog bonfires in the street.  They refused to sell stamps and money orders to African Americans so that they couldn’t make purchases.  They even spread rumors that Richard Seas was black, hoping to hurt his business.  It didn’t work.  African American people continued to make mail-order purchases from Sears, getting the goods they needed at low prices without the discrimination they faced from local retailers.

“People don’t know just how radical the catalog was in the era,” tweeted Professor Hyman.  Sears would go on to become the largest retailer in the world, improving countless lives and demonstrating that economic incentives can be more powerful than racism.