ABSTRACT
To appreciate the remoteness of the 1890s, one needs only to flip through the 1897 Sears, Roebuck Catalogue, which was reissued several years ago as a novelty item. The pages of the 1897 volume abound with illustrations of artifacts alien to the twenty-first century—merchandise such as dog-powered cream separators, Queen Victoria perfumes, coal-burning laundry stoves, abdominal corsets, arsenic complexion wafers, horse-drawn carriages, and Pink Pills for Pale People.
