Montgomery Ward

Montgomery Ward (born Feb. 17, 1844, Chatham, N.J., U.S.—died Dec. 7, 1913, Highland Park, Ill.) U.S. merchant who introduced the mail-order method of selling general merchandise and who founded the great mail-order house of Montgomery Ward & Company, Inc.

In 1859 Ward became a salesman in a general store in St. Joseph, Mich., for $6 a month and board, and later he was made manager. Afterward, while working in rural areas as a travelling salesman, he became aware of the hard-pressed farmers’ resentment of the middlemen’s profit. This observation led Ward to conceive the idea of buying goods wholesale for cash and selling them by mail at a low markup for cash.

In August 1872, with a capital of $1,600, Ward issued his first catalog, a single sheet listing about 150 items. His brother-in-law, George R. Thorne, bought a half interest in the business for $500 in 1873. The 1875 catalog introduced another novelty—a money-back guarantee of customer satisfaction. By 1888 annual sales had reached $1,000,000. At Ward’s death, they were $40,000,000.

In 1886 Ward, while retaining the presidency, turned the management over to Thorne and his five sons. During the next 20 years Ward devoted much of his time to the preservation of the natural assets of the Chicago lakefront and vigorously opposed attempts to build public or other structures in the area that is now Grant Park.