Even as Sears and Wards expanded to brick-and-mortar stores, their hefty mail order catalogs continued to stuff America's mailboxes, and over the years became useful in ways beyond their primary purpose.

- They served as a way of sitting up taller at the kitchen table.

They were fodder for lighting fires.

- Out in the country, people would use it in lieu of toilet paper.

- My aunt would put her youngest boy in the playpen with the Sears catalog.

- My older brothers would open the Sears catalogs or the Wards catalogs up to the women's garments or undergarment section.

And then like, turn that page and leave it on your bed and then scream, "Mom!"

- I am sure that I am not alone in being a graduate of the bras and girdles, in stunning detail.

(bell clangs) - [Narrator] In the early 1920s, Americans were moving off the farm.

A majority of the population now lived in cities.

Along with that shift came regular paychecks and an appetite for new luxuries and conveniences.

It was the dawn of American consumerism.

Discount stores, such as Woolworths and S.S. Kresge, were attractive to customers who had previously ordered from catalogs.

- The reason why this five-and-dime approach was appealing to shoppers is because they could go touch and feel the items before having to pay for them.

- [Narrator] The mail order giants had different strategies for expanding into the retail game.

Montgomery Ward opened stores in small towns and in big city downtowns.

At Sears, General Robert Wood took a different tack.

He built stores where real estate was cheap, at the edge of cities, in what would grow to become the suburbs.

These locations had ample space for customers to park their cars.

- It allows Sears to gain an advantage over Ward.

There were already neck and neck in terms of the mail order business, but Sears gets out in front ahead in terms of the retail business.

- [Narrator] In the new stores, Sears showcased their house brands that became synonymous with quality.

Craftsman tools.

DieHard batteries.

Kenmore appliances.

And Allstate tires.

Wood and Rosenwald's gamble on retail proved to be a stroke of genius.

By 1925, annual sales climbed to $234 million, $60 million more than Wards earned.