Eaton's Spring and Summer Catalogue 1942

The Eaton's catalogue was a mail-order catalogue published by

Eaton's The T. Eaton Company Limited, later known as Eaton's, was a Canadian department store chain that was once the largest in the country. It was founded in 1869 in Toronto by Timothy Eaton, an immigrant from what is now Northern Ireland. Eaton's grew ...

from 1884 to 1976. It was "one of the first to be distributed by a Canadian retail store". The first version of the catalogue was a 32-page booklet handed out at the Industrial Exhibition (now the

Canadian National Exhibition The Canadian National Exhibition (CNE), also known as The Exhibition or The Ex, is an annual event that takes place at Exhibition Place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on the third Friday of August leading up to and including Canadian Labour Day ...

). Within twelve years, the company's mail-order department was filling over 200,000 orders per year. Eaton's actively sought out new subscribers, particularly in rural areas, by employing such tactics as offering gifts for the contact information of non-subscribers. There was initially only an English version of the catalogue; the first French version was published in 1910, and began to be regularly distributed in 1927. However, customers could place orders in French as of 1902, though they could not use the provided forms to do so. Additions to the earliest versions of the catalogue included illustrations in 1887 (the first catalogues were text-only), colour in 1915, and photographs in 1919. The first mail-order office was in Toronto, but additional offices were opened in

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749 ...

in 1905 and

Moncton Moncton (; ) is the most populous city in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Situated in the Petitcodiac River Valley, Moncton lies at the geographic centre of the Maritime Provinces. The city has earned the nickname "Hub City" because of ...

in 1918. Early catalogues sold clothing almost exclusively, though operations gradually expanded to include such products as pharmaceuticals, books, furniture, china, farm tools, and whole pre-fabricated houses. The Eaton's catalogue has been featured in multiple works of Canadian literature, including '' The Hockey Sweater'' and ''

Anne's House of Dreams ''Anne's House of Dreams'' is a novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. It was first published in 1917 by McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart. The novel is from a series of books written primarily for girls and young women, about a girl n ...

''. The publication itself was used to teach literacy in some classrooms. In

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada� ...

, the catalogue was dubbed the "Homesteader's Bible" or the "Family Bible". This "Canadian symbol" was used for such diverse purposes as shin pads, home insulation, and

outhouse An outhouse is a small structure, separate from a main building, which covers a toilet. This is typically either a pit latrine or a bucket toilet, but other forms of dry (non-flushing) toilets may be encountered. The term may also be use ...

toilet paper. The catalogue ceased publication in January 1976.

References

External links

1899-1900 Fall and Winter Catalogue
{{Authority control Eaton's Mail-order retailers Publications established in 1884