Mail order business Although his idea was generally considered to border on lunacy and his first inventory was destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire, Ward persevered. In August 1872, with two fellow employees and a total capital of $1,600, he formed Montgomery Ward & Company. He rented a small shipping room on North Clark Street and published the world’s first general merchandise mail-order catalog with 163 products listed. Ward’s catalog soon was copied by other enterprising merchants, most notably Richard Warren Sears, who mailed his first general catalog in 1896
Home / Questions / The 19th century American businessman Aaron Montgomery Ward is credited with the invention of what type of business that would have made the postal service happy?