Swan song of an American icon: Tracing Sears' journey

SUMMARY

Before there was Amazon — or, for that matter, Home Depot or Walmart or Kmart — there was Sears. From its beginnings as a mail-order watch business in Minneapolis 132 years ago, the company grew to become America's everything-under-one-roof store and the biggest retailer in the world. For generations of Americans, the brick-like Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog was a fixture in just about every house — a miscellany of toys and clothes and furnishings and hardware that induced longing for this or that dream purchase. The Sears brand loomed as large over the corporate landscape as its 108-story basalt-like headquarters did over the Chicago skyline. Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday, with plans to shutter 142 unprofitable stores in the hopes that it can stay in business

By APOct 16, 2018 11:37:10 AM IST (Published)

An American flag flies above a Sears department store sign in Hackensack, N.J., Monday, Oct. 15, 2018. Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday, buckling under its massive debt load and staggering losses. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

A Sears department store, in Brooklyn, N.Y. Sears Holdings Corp. is adding a restructuring expert to its board, suggesting the ailing retailer may be preparing to take significant actions to survive or to protect its remaining assets. Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2018 (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

In this 1930s photo, General Robert E. Wood, president of Sears, Roebuck & Co., and Julius Rosenwald, chairman of the board, posing for a photo next to an All State tire, outside of the Sears Distribution Center, in Atlanta. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File)

Shopper Arlene Hardt, right, is shown drapery samples by clerk Lucille Jagusch at the Golf-Mill Sears Roebuck department store in Niles, Ill. The company once dominated the American landscape, but whether a smaller Sears can be viable remains in question. Aug. 23, 1961 (AP Photo, File)

A Sears building in downtown Houston.March 1, 1959 (Houston Chronicle via AP, File)

A person shops at the Sears store in Berlin, Vt. Nov. 29, 2007. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot, File)

A view of the Chicago skyline including the Sears Tower from the media helicopter in transit with President Barack Obama in Marine One in Chicago.June 1, 2012 (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

People watch the Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket launch on multiple TV's at a Sears department store in White Plains, N.Y. July 16, 1969 (AP Photo/Ron Frehm, File)

The topping ceremonies taking place atop the Sears Tower to mark the building reaching 1,454 feet in Chicago, from the view of from a helicopter looking northeast. May 3, 1973. (AP Photo, File)

A worker repairs a sign outside the Sears Grand store in Solon, Ohio. Feb. 13, 2012 (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta, File)

A woman and child ride the escalator at a Sears store in St. Paul, Minn. March 22, 2017. (AP Photo/Jim Mone, File)

People walk into a Sears store slated for closing that is next to a mall that is being torn down in Overland Park, Kan.July 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

Anna Kane, 5, of Alton, Ill. looks down from "The Ledge," at the Sears Tower in Chicago. July 1, 2009 (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File)

Women's hats are pictured in a 1907 Sears Roebuck catalog from the shelves of the Chicago Public Library, in Chicago. Aug. 26, 1948. (AP Photo/Edward Kitch, File)

Ruth Parrington, librarian in the art department of the Chicago Public Library, studies early Sears Roebuck catalogs in the library's collection in Chicago. The catalog Parrington is holding features women's fashion from 1902. Undated.(AP Photo/File)