Goods & items from the Sears Roebuck Catalog that made their way to Alaska.
This is the Sullivan Roadhouse, in Delta Junction.
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Alaska Gold Rush Of 1898
The Ties Between Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Edison &
The Sears, Roebuck Catalog
Say, those Klondike nuggets
Ain't they corkers!
I found them by the hundred,
Now for happy times galore,
I'm back to spend my wealth
With dear New Yorkers!
"Music Of The Alaska-Klondike Gold Rush"
Jean Murray, of Anderson Alaska
The late 1890's (the time of the Alaska Gold Rush) was an era of big business. It was also a time of great international strife -- as the United States fought with Spain over Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam. The U.S. managed to take over the last three countries as its own -- led by the dashing and adventurous Teddy Roosevelt, a sickly young man who had remade himself into a boisterous leader and outdoorsman.
This was a tumultuous time of social and cultural change -- and confusion. Young people poured into the big cities from the countryside. There were many immigrants. Alcoholism was a problem. Yellow journalism (we'd call it "fake news" today) was flourishing. Farmers weren't doing well. There were dance halls, and prostitution. And a sense that people were lacking purpose.
AND THEN MAN INVENTED TOILET PAPER
Simultaneously, there were new inventions being made that changed life immeasurably. Thomas Edison (who was the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of the late 19th century, all rolled into one) was coming up with new ideas and products all the time. Edison was a socially driven inventor, who had already, by 1898 and the Alaska Gold Rush, invented an automatic vote recorder, worked to improve the stock market, made an electric pen (as a kind of early xerox copier), and came up with the phonograph, Suddenly, there were electric lights, and telegraphs.
There were a huge number of other inventions we'd easily recognize that were developed during the late 19th century: traffic lights, air brakes, windmills, barbed wire, shoe stitchers, the telephone, the combustion engine, the carpet sweeper, the moving picture, toilet paper, metal detectors, camera and films, player pianos, fountain pens, cash registers, steam turbines, machine guns, automobiles, motorcycles, the dishwasher, Coca Cola, radar, contact lenses, drinking straws, pneumatic tires.... Railroads were booming. Industry was king.
SEARS ROEBUCK: AMAZON OF THE 1890's
It was a great time for "things". The bicycle was one of the new inventions, freeing people to travel throughout the countryside, and through cities, efficiently and quickly. Americans had a taste for novelty, and foods. The mail order catalog had just been invented within the past few years, and Americans reveled in imported cheeses, chocolate creams, fancy caramels, and sugar biscuits. There were canned soups (including those made of "Green Turtle" and "Terrapin.") You could order up a 2-lb can of deviled crabs (with shells) or, for a very steep price, a case of Russian caviar.
And you could have it all sent to you, by mail, to the most remote town in mainland America. Just like Amazon does today -- or like the Bush Mailer ships Spam and powdered Tang to Bush villages in Alaska.
Americans were self-medicators in the late 1890's, and had a huge range of potent medicines, drugs and powders available to them by mail, including "worm cakes" fig laxatives, blood purifiers, and cures for nerve and brain problems, alcoholism, heart ailments, tobacco habits, lung and liver problems, obesity, blood disorders, consumption, and just about anything else you could have wrong with you. You could buy opioids by mail. And you could also (from the very same catalog) buy medications that were guaranteed to kick the opioid habit.
MONEY, POWER & RUGGED MANHOOD
It was, in a way, a thoroughly modern age -- teetering on the verge of airplanes and super highways, and driven to action by a desire for money, excitement and power. Yet, at the same time, Americans also sincerely valued the out-of-doors and its symbolism of health and good will. They valued manhood, virility and ruggedness -- as embodied by the Rough Riders led by Teddy Roosevelt. And by the soon-to-be-launched Boy Scouts of America.
GOLD NUGGETS ON THE TUNDRA
So, when, in 1897, two ships full of gold arrived in Seattle and San Francisco, the American population was primed and ready to go north. They were eager to head to Alaska where they expected to pick up gold nuggets, just lying out there on the Alaska tundra. And then, as if they had all won the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, each and every one of them thought they'd finally be able to pay for all those great new modern inventions that looked so enticing in the thick, tempting catalogs that arrived on their doorsteps.
In the process, they would reinvent themselves too -- just as Teddy Roosevelt had.
BACON, BEANS & NEVER HAVING TO WORK AGAIN
They would prove their worth as men, providers, and adventurers. Afterwards, when they got back home, after all that slogging through the spruce, building themselves cabins, enduring 50 Below winters -- and baking beans and eating biscuits -- they would reward themselves for their hard work by hurtling themselves onto a cozy and expensive horsehair mattress, surrounded by a dazzling world of material goods.
With their Klondike gold they would buy electric lights, and phonographs -- and any number of things that had yet to be invented. Yes, when they got back to civilization, laden down with gold dust and nuggets, they would buy, buy, buy.
Copyright 2014-2018, Northcountry Communications, Inc.
STORY: Jean Murray, a musician in the little town of Anderson on the Parks Highway, compiled an enormous book of Gold Rush era songs -- as well as a CD. Some of this information about what was available in the Gold Rush is from an early Sears Roebuck catalog. The rest is from various internet lists of inventions, and from the historical record. America's fascination with the outdoors -- the Boy Scouts, Jack London, the Gold Rush and Teddy Roosevelt -- show the country's nostalgia as Americans shifted from rural life toward cities and a more technologically advanced culture. Although American prospectors wanted to find gold to buy the newly available goods in the catalogs, many were funded for their trip north by speculators, who footed the hefty bills for the journey -- and who helped fund the 2,000 lbs. of gear each prospector brought north on ships. (Much of which was available in catalogs.) Today, you can find a lot of the gear they left behind on display in small museums across Alaska: Kasilof, Copper Center, Fairbanks, Delta Junction and elsewhere. In some museums, local curators have matched the tools, spoons, plates and so on that were brought north with pictures of the items in Sears catalogs of the time.
PHOTO: A kitchen with implements and canned goods of the day on display at Sullivan Roadhouse, in Delta Junction.
