I am ordering my second copy of this excellent reprint because my old one has finally fallen apart. The reader will become a nuisance in snooty antique stores (no, it isn't French Provincial, it came from Sears.) You'll get a feel for all of the early technologies, and in some detail: gas marine engines, early motion picture and magic lantern shows, phonographs (with discographies,) the first flashlights, the first spark plugs. Here's how horses were harnessed, diseases of animal and man treated, and life lived. The jewelry department abounds with badges of the fraternal organizations that every man belonged to back then. The tombstones feature those for children. Building a school or church? Here's where you buy a bell (please specify size.)
The social aspects of life are there, if you look sharp. There's a 'trade watch,' which has a fancy-looking movement and case, but is mostly imitation; designed for sharpster salesmen. There are cheap revolvers for the frontiersman, leftover Civil War muskets, and the overpriced hats and uniforms required of railroad employees. Dog fur coats were acceptable, there are several listed. But life was hardly grim: there are two pages of mandolins and a fine assortment of German band instruments, several selections of hammocks, and perhaps the most tempting assortment of food I've ever gotten hungry over.
The descriptions of more expensive items are clearly worded to be read and re-read while money is saved for the purchase: the sewing machine, the bicycle, the boy's rifle, the cream separator, the improved kitchen stove. The advertising copy here has been imitated ever since.
There are details: the brass corners to be placed on oil-cloth kitchen floors. Oil cloth? That's what they used before linoleum.
Read through the book selection, especially the descriptions of the joke books (which _are_ pretty grim.)
Learn about the ultimate yuppie profession: telegraphy. Or, buy an entire rural telephone system. They're in there. Read the tutorials on windmills and home water systems and wells. Read through the description of straight and safety razors, and how every boy can run his own shooting range for profit. Or how anyone can run his own movie theater. Wanna be in show business? there's a magic-lantern-slide show kit, complete with handbills and a roll of tickets.
And finally, try to figure out the prices. The workingman's wage was around two dollars a day (look in the description of the concrete block machine.)
When you emerge from 1908 into the glaring light of the 21st century, you'll have become an amateur historian of sorts; with the understanding that while people's stuff has changed, people have not. Enjoy this book; I hope it stays in print forever.
