Bravo! I wish credit was given to the student that produced this. My dad was a career Ward’s employee, moving us all over the country as he got promoted and transferred. My brothers and I all worked in MW stores in high school. Brick and mortar stores and online retailers of today are standing on the shoulders of giants like Montgomery Ward and Sears.
I followed the UA-cam white rabbit just a few steps down the rabbit hole and was led to this delightful, informative, and wonderfully-produced video. Bravo!
Some great memories watching this...brought a tear to my eye. I started working at Montomery Wards Chicago corporate office part time when I was 17. When I graduated from high school I was full time. I was in the offices of department 86 Housewares. Great people, great environment. Was sorry to leave for personal reasons. Hope there`s someone out there from department 86. Peace and love. Kathy P
7/24/21 We need those to keep coming in the mail (postal), privacy from invasive internet online hackers etc. It's easier to secure personal mail & orders without everyone nosing in on privacy of individuals. Fast growing trees can be planted for the supply and demand as well environmental issues. While those fast growing trees are planted plant one for the slower growing trees and forests to replace the ones burn (expecially) the ones that burnt from arson, clear cutting due to hoggish corporations, etc. Would be good for economy I e. Jobs, homes, wild life, ozone layer, etc
I'm age 56 n I have memories of my aunt bringing me to a store downtown chicago n we'd eat way up high in a restaurant looking down at the city. This was about 1970 when we'd go there. Was there a big restaurant there like this?
Very amazing documentary. It's amazing how the retail industry played such a role in the development of our country. Not something were taught in school history.
We had the seal and beach ball at our store too. The vacuum department was at the bottom of the down escalator at the Pontiac Mall (later Summit Place) in Pontiac/Waterford, Michigan. Montgomery Ward and Hudson’s were the two original anchor stores.
I remember this iconic department store back in 1981-82. It was at the Brickyard Mall in Chicago. And I believe there was one in Yorktown Mall in Lombard, Illinois in the early/mid-90s. I remember getting my first kiddie record player at the first one.
Just imagine these companies also sold house kits. You could order a sorta prefabricated home and automobiles. Both SR&C and M.Wards. great American institutions.
7/24/21 We need those to keep coming in the mail (postal), privacy from invasive internet online hackers etc. It's easier to secure personal mail & orders without everyone nosing in on privacy of individuals. Fast growing trees can be planted for the supply and demand as well environmental issues. While those fast growing trees are planted plant one for the slower growing trees and forests to replace the ones burn (expecially) the ones that burnt from arson, clear cutting due to hoggish corporations, etc. Would be good for economy I e. Jobs, homes, wild life, ozone layer, etc
stores that had cafeteria's were just so great, sure miss them and wish the stores of today would follow their example and put cafeteria's in their stores
We had a Montgomery Ward as an anchor store in our town's old mall. I still have an RCA Colortrak TV my late grandmother bought from there in 1984 and it still works superbly. Even well after the store was closed for good, the Ward sign out by the road stood defiantly for another 10 or so years. Now the sizable plot that they used to occupy is split up between a discount grocery store, a locally-owned restaurant, and a beer distributor.
They ARE on the internet now. After they went belly up, another company bought their intellectual property rights and has been operating an all-web retailer with the Montgomery Ward name since 2004.
Wanetta Renay I think at that time, the internet was still pretty new as far as retail & why would a consumer pay all those shipping costs when the could just go to their local Walmart or Target & purchase it there.
By Nineteen Ninety Seven, MW was pretty much ALREADY Bankrupt and even had its Main Shareholder GE Capital attempt to Bail it out, but MW who was a IPO Entity rejected and outright M&A bid on the Chain, and GE Capital decided to ditch them, leaving them to die. Montgomery Ward got liquidated in the Late Spring of 2001. I remember very fondly "MONTGOMERY WARD IS GOING OUT OF BUSINESS" flyers all over the place. MW simply failed because they were stubborn,stuck in their old ways and REFUSED to consolidate. Wal-Mart and Target didn't drive them out of business, they drove THEMSELVES out of business.
Too Bad the Brennans didn't put as much effort into preserving the legacy of Arron Ward. Back in the Late 70's Mobil Oil bought controlling interest in Montgomery Ward and in 1979 my wife and I purchased a franchise. Little did we know that the new president (Bernie Brennan) who was allegedly a high level employee of Mobil was actually one of the partners of the parent company; Maxxon Holding which owned Mobil, Sears, Whirlpool and Greenwood Federal Bank. Their plan in 1976 was to start closing stores in 1985 in lieu of Direct Marketing Catalogs, "800" telephone numbers and credit cards. The Federal Class Action suit brought by the 850 privately owned Catalog Agencies really upset the apple cart for the Brennan Brothers. They pimped out their investors and all of their customers.
Sounds like Maxxon Holdings tried to destroy Montgomery Ward the same way CSK Holdings/Gulf Western tried to destroy SEGA Enterprises(Now SEGA Holdings/SEGA Group Corp and on April 1st this year will launch its FIRST IPO in the company's history in attempt to grow capital to reenter the Home Console Business) in the 90s by its owner Isao Okawa interfering,sabotaging the Chairboard, forcing POOR investments and capital into non Gaming Ventures that failed yearly and then appointing himself CEO of SEGA in 2000 attempting to shutter all of SEGA's profitable Video Game Divisions and sell off IPs, dying in 2001 before he could(Thankfully they failed, and CSK was delisted and dissolved in 2002 by the NIKKEI). And also sounds like what Viacom succeeded in doing to MTV Networks in the Mid 1990s by sabotaging MTV Networks,Inc's long standing successful IPO Venture by having Nickelodeon split up from MTV in December 1993 and conned into operating into an IPO in 1994 so they be snatched up by Viacom in '95 hostile taking 100% ownership and outbidding MCA Universal Television, and then preyed on MTV's other properties like Comedy Central Partners Television in 1996, VH1 Communications,Inc in 1997 and then finally beating CBS Television to the punch to devour what was left of MTV Networks,Inc in Early 1999, to add insult to injury, Viacom International intentionally dissolved the MTV Networks brand in 2002 after buying out TNN and renaming it Spike TV. That was a drawback to IPOs back in the day. Large, GREEDY, and pure Evil Corporations and extremely crooked and avarice filled Parent Company Owners would buy IPOs or Entities, run them into the ground and try to sell their IPs off for a Quick Profit.
I worked at Montgomery Wards in their cafeteria back.in the 80's. Met some nice people there. Just want to give a shout out to everyone who worked in the cafeteria in the 80's. Have a great day everyone.
Was this cafeteria way up high n had a nice view of downtown chicago by chance? I'm in my 50s n used to eat in a place like that. Not positive if it was wards though?
I bought my first PC at Montgomery Wards. It was a state-of-the-art Packard-Bell 486 "multimedia", with a whopping 210mb Bigfoot hard drive. Sadly, they went out of business not long after my purchase.
When we were kids, my siblings and I enjoyed combining through the Big 3 Holiday wish books for Christmas…Wards, Sears and JC Penny’s. From there we’d create our wish list for our parents to share with Santa. End of an Era. 🥀💔
@@shamrocm it's judgment days for superpower which has been bigotry, bullied, baloney and bitchy, bias, bomb, burn n blast hell others around the world to enrich themselves at the cost of others for centuries now.
There's that refrain "closed their catalog offering to concentrate on their retail stores" that doomed them all. As I remember the catalog/mail-order business was quite hot at the time with specialty businesses, like Lands End and even Speigel revitalizing its business thru catalogs to a then prosperous US economy. A deadhead way of revitalizing a department store was to refresh/remodel (whitewash) the store and hope customers would respond with short-term and long-term patronage. The retail mix in a defined space was always a juggle to have stock on hand to sell NOW, but in the catalog world those limits still do not apply. You can still sell what you don't have, both from an inventory standpoint and a cash flow standpoint. A merchant's dream to have the customer buy before the sale and even perhaps the manufacturer ship to the customer, using shipping/mailing as the fudge point to conclude the sale. The internet aside, that advantage works with a phone and snail-mail as well!
I have a Montgomery Wards Garden Mark Roto Tiller that I purchased from the original owner at a yard sale. The tiller was purchased new in 1969 from a Wards store in Harvey Illinois as per the store receipt.
I remember the wish book, I used to make a dream board and try to see my future with all my new stuff. I was not good at the future. I will keep wishing and dreaming though...
It's kinda funny when you think about it. Most if not all department stores started as mail-order business. Now zipping into the future they are back where they started mail-order. The catalog is online now so mush differents when you think about it.
In the mid 70's Montgomery Ward was slowly taken over by Mobil Oil. Mobil appointed Bernie Brennan to the office of President and CEO. Just by co instance, Bernie's brother Edward was the President and CEO of another company called SEARS. Hum-m-m-m-m, how 'bout that? At their demise, Wards was selling merchandise at or below cost in hopes that customers would use (and make monthly payments) the Charge-All Card. Most of these details were revealed in a Writ of Discovery issued by The Honorable Clifford Greene in the US District Court in Philadelphia in 1986.The 850 Catalog Sales Agents, as a class, filed a Federal Class Action Suit in US District but before the jury was charged, the case was settled "Out of Court" and behind the backs of the plaintiffs for a mere $25 million in lieu of commissions to be divided among the class.
Do you really think Wards built those huge buildings they inhabited in Chicago? Or did Montgomery Ward inherit and repurpose them because they were they already there?
A vapid grade school kid's book report, set to ol' timey pioneer music. I'd much rather hear about Ralphie and his Red Rider bee bee gun. Honestly Mr. Bunker you didn't even bother to mention FDR's seizer of Monkey Wards from Sewell Avery in 1944; a must! HINT: People come to UA-cam to learn from people like The History Guy, not watered down drivel you can get on TV. Your better than this.
Bravo! I wish credit was given to the student that produced this. My dad was a career Ward’s employee, moving us all over the country as he got promoted and transferred. My brothers and I all worked in MW stores in high school. Brick and mortar stores and online retailers of today are standing on the shoulders of giants like Montgomery Ward and Sears.
I noticed as they started to hire blacks...the stores were on a decline.
@@dwightpowell6673 Same what my father said, the Montgomery Ward was at its best in the mid 50s and 60s before black employees
I worked for Montgomery Ward for 20 years. Thank you for sharing this. Seeing those buildings again brought back a lot of good memories.
I followed the UA-cam white rabbit just a few steps down the rabbit hole and was led to this delightful, informative, and wonderfully-produced video. Bravo!
Thank you for those kind words.
Every year I still plow and till my 1/2 acre garden with my 1975 Montgomery Ward 6 horse tiller. Going strong with only one overhaul.
Some great memories watching this...brought a tear to my eye. I started working at Montomery Wards Chicago corporate office part time when I was 17. When I graduated from high school I was full time. I was in the offices of department 86 Housewares. Great people, great environment. Was sorry to leave for personal reasons. Hope there`s someone out there from department 86. Peace and love. Kathy P
7/24/21
We need those to keep coming in the mail (postal), privacy from invasive internet online hackers etc. It's easier to secure personal mail & orders without everyone nosing in on privacy of individuals. Fast growing trees can be planted for the supply and demand as well environmental issues. While those fast growing trees are planted plant one for the slower growing trees and forests to replace the ones burn (expecially) the ones that burnt from arson, clear cutting due to hoggish corporations, etc. Would be good for economy I e. Jobs, homes, wild life, ozone layer, etc
I'm age 56 n I have memories of my aunt bringing me to a store downtown chicago n we'd eat way up high in a restaurant looking down at the city. This was about 1970 when we'd go there. Was there a big restaurant there like this?
Very amazing documentary. It's amazing how the retail industry played such a role in the development of our country. Not something were taught in school history.
Well-done video. Elena Bunker, wherever she is, tell her she did a wonderful job on the commentary. 5 STARS!!!!
Thank you so much. Elena is my daughter, and she did this as a school project a couple years ago. I agree she did a great job!
Tell her thank you.
My favorite thing about Wards as a kid was seeing the Seal blowing a beach ball in the vacuum section!
We had the vacuum blowing the beach ball too. No seal though. In Denver. I also remember they had a coin shop that had a 1955 double die penny.
We had the seal and beach ball at our store too. The vacuum department was at the bottom of the down escalator at the Pontiac Mall (later Summit Place) in Pontiac/Waterford, Michigan. Montgomery Ward and Hudson’s were the two original anchor stores.
@@voiceofraisin241 No seal just a vacuum?
@@cjlunn8469 Yes for a while that is where the one I went to was located as well. It did get moved around a lot though
@@robertpreston2220 that is correct just a vacuum. This was the store in Denver Co.
It feels that when Wards went out of business a lot of other big names stores started going out of business.
I remember this iconic department store back in 1981-82. It was at the Brickyard Mall in Chicago. And I believe there was one in Yorktown Mall in Lombard, Illinois in the early/mid-90s. I remember getting my first kiddie record player at the first one.
yep Yorktown had one. I loved it as it had the seal blowing a beach ball in the vacuum section
I worked for the roofing company that re-roofed large sections of the old Montgomery Ward building. Dozens of businesses still call it home.
Fond memories of Montgomery Ward's when they were an anchor store in san diego's mission valley mall. Also on virginia beach blvd, virginia beach va!
Just imagine these companies also sold house kits. You could order a sorta prefabricated home and automobiles. Both SR&C and M.Wards. great American institutions.
7/24/21
We need those to keep coming in the mail (postal), privacy from invasive internet online hackers etc. It's easier to secure personal mail & orders without everyone nosing in on privacy of individuals. Fast growing trees can be planted for the supply and demand as well environmental issues. While those fast growing trees are planted plant one for the slower growing trees and forests to replace the ones burn (expecially) the ones that burnt from arson, clear cutting due to hoggish corporations, etc. Would be good for economy I e. Jobs, homes, wild life, ozone layer, etc
Spread the word, we all need this from a to z, all countries, all people's!
Enjoyed your video. Very informative. Ty
Pity all the big huge stores are closed
I blame the democrats and all their unessary taxation!
In 1969 I worked at Wards on Chicago Ave.
stores that had cafeteria's were just so great, sure miss them and wish the stores of today would follow their example and put cafeteria's in their stores
We used to use their auto service in Denver a lot and they were always the most trustworthy.
We had a Montgomery Ward as an anchor store in our town's old mall. I still have an RCA Colortrak TV my late grandmother bought from there in 1984 and it still works superbly. Even well after the store was closed for good, the Ward sign out by the road stood defiantly for another 10 or so years. Now the sizable plot that they used to occupy is split up between a discount grocery store, a locally-owned restaurant, and a beer distributor.
well produced. I have to wonder why wards did not go back to mail order alone when the stores failed, they would kick ass on the internet
+Wanetta Renay Thanks for the comment.
They ARE on the internet now. After they went belly up, another company bought their intellectual property rights and has been operating an all-web retailer with the Montgomery Ward name since 2004.
Wanetta Renay I think at that time, the internet was still pretty new as far as retail & why would a consumer pay all those shipping costs when the could just go to their local Walmart or Target & purchase it there.
The Brennan Group, Mobil Oil and Sears, prostituted Wards in favor of the Credit Card.
By Nineteen Ninety Seven, MW was pretty much ALREADY Bankrupt and even had its Main Shareholder GE Capital attempt to Bail it out, but MW who was a IPO Entity rejected and outright M&A bid on the Chain, and GE Capital decided to ditch them, leaving them to die.
Montgomery Ward got liquidated in the Late Spring of 2001. I remember very fondly "MONTGOMERY WARD IS GOING OUT OF BUSINESS" flyers all over the place.
MW simply failed because they were stubborn,stuck in their old ways and REFUSED to consolidate. Wal-Mart and Target didn't drive them out of business, they drove THEMSELVES out of business.
Too Bad the Brennans didn't put as much effort into preserving the legacy of Arron Ward. Back in the Late 70's Mobil Oil bought controlling interest in Montgomery Ward and in 1979 my wife and I purchased a franchise. Little did we know that the new president (Bernie Brennan) who was allegedly a high level employee of Mobil was actually one of the partners of the parent company; Maxxon Holding which owned Mobil, Sears, Whirlpool and Greenwood Federal Bank. Their plan in 1976 was to start closing stores in 1985 in lieu of Direct Marketing Catalogs, "800" telephone numbers and credit cards. The Federal Class Action suit brought by the 850 privately owned Catalog Agencies really upset the apple cart for the Brennan Brothers. They pimped out their investors and all of their customers.
Sounds like Maxxon Holdings tried to destroy Montgomery Ward the same way CSK Holdings/Gulf Western tried to destroy SEGA Enterprises(Now SEGA Holdings/SEGA Group Corp and on April 1st this year will launch its FIRST IPO in the company's history in attempt to grow capital to reenter the Home Console Business) in the 90s by its owner Isao Okawa interfering,sabotaging the Chairboard, forcing POOR investments and capital into non Gaming Ventures that failed yearly and then appointing himself CEO of SEGA in 2000 attempting to shutter all of SEGA's profitable Video Game Divisions and sell off IPs, dying in 2001 before he could(Thankfully they failed, and CSK was delisted and dissolved in 2002 by the NIKKEI). And also sounds like what Viacom succeeded in doing to MTV Networks in the Mid 1990s by sabotaging MTV Networks,Inc's long standing successful IPO Venture by having Nickelodeon split up from MTV in December 1993 and conned into operating into an IPO in 1994 so they be snatched up by Viacom in '95 hostile taking 100% ownership and outbidding MCA Universal Television, and then preyed on MTV's other properties like Comedy Central Partners Television in 1996, VH1 Communications,Inc in 1997 and then finally beating CBS Television to the punch to devour what was left of MTV Networks,Inc in Early 1999, to add insult to injury, Viacom International intentionally dissolved the MTV Networks brand in 2002 after buying out TNN and renaming it Spike TV.
That was a drawback to IPOs back in the day. Large, GREEDY, and pure Evil Corporations and extremely crooked and avarice filled Parent Company Owners would buy IPOs or Entities, run them into the ground and try to sell their IPs off for a Quick Profit.
@@Tornado1994Today it is Amazon and Disney, among others
Sad state we are forced to live in
We are almost out of options.............
I worked at Montgomery Wards in their cafeteria back.in the 80's. Met some nice people there. Just want to give a shout out to everyone who worked in the cafeteria in the 80's. Have a great day everyone.
Was this cafeteria way up high n had a nice view of downtown chicago by chance? I'm in my 50s n used to eat in a place like that. Not positive if it was wards though?
I bought my first PC at Montgomery Wards. It was a state-of-the-art Packard-Bell 486 "multimedia", with a whopping 210mb Bigfoot hard drive. Sadly, they went out of business not long after my purchase.
Very sad
When we were kids, my siblings and I enjoyed combining through the Big 3 Holiday wish books for Christmas…Wards, Sears and JC Penny’s. From there we’d create our wish list for our parents to share with Santa. End of an Era. 🥀💔
And to think that sears is heading down the tubes, Its a shame.
No... It's called Karma.
@@shamrocm it's judgment days for superpower which has been bigotry, bullied, baloney and bitchy, bias, bomb, burn n blast hell others around the world to enrich themselves at the cost of others for centuries now.
@@trinhcuong-ie1gv Ya got that right...
MUSIC: Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, "Ashokan Farewell." The tune was used in Ken Burns's documentary, 'The Civil War.'
I worked for Montgomery Wards, they still have a catologe business.
There's that refrain "closed their catalog offering to concentrate on their retail stores" that doomed them all. As I remember the catalog/mail-order business was quite hot at the time with specialty businesses, like Lands End and even Speigel revitalizing its business thru catalogs to a then prosperous US economy. A deadhead way of revitalizing a department store was to refresh/remodel (whitewash) the store and hope customers would respond with short-term and long-term patronage. The retail mix in a defined space was always a juggle to have stock on hand to sell NOW, but in the catalog world those limits still do not apply. You can still sell what you don't have, both from an inventory standpoint and a cash flow standpoint. A merchant's dream to have the customer buy before the sale and even perhaps the manufacturer ship to the customer, using shipping/mailing as the fudge point to conclude the sale. The internet aside, that advantage works with a phone and snail-mail as well!
I have a Montgomery Wards Garden Mark Roto Tiller that I purchased from the original owner at a yard sale.
The tiller was purchased new in 1969 from a Wards store in Harvey Illinois as per the store receipt.
Very nice report. I hope your daughter received an A.
I remember the wish book, I used to make a dream board and try to see my future with all my new stuff. I was not good at the future. I will keep wishing and dreaming though...
Montgomery Ward is still around, they sell on the internet now
It's kinda funny when you think about it. Most if not all department stores started as mail-order business. Now zipping into the future they are back where they started mail-order. The catalog is online now so mush differents when you think about it.
It's Fingerhut using Montgomery Ward's name.
In the mid 70's Montgomery Ward was slowly taken over by Mobil Oil. Mobil appointed Bernie Brennan to the office of President and CEO. Just by co instance, Bernie's brother Edward was the President and CEO of another company called SEARS. Hum-m-m-m-m, how 'bout that? At their demise, Wards was selling merchandise at or below cost in hopes that customers would use (and make monthly payments) the Charge-All Card. Most of these details were revealed in a Writ of Discovery issued by The Honorable Clifford Greene in the US District Court in Philadelphia in 1986.The 850 Catalog Sales Agents, as a class, filed a Federal Class Action Suit in US District but before the jury was charged, the case was settled "Out of Court" and behind the backs of the plaintiffs for a mere $25 million in lieu of commissions to be divided among the class.
nice job!! i worked at corporate HQ til its demise.
Yes, great job.I met a Mr. Ward in Lafayette,CA and will never forget him.
worked at both Sears and Montgomery Wards... miss this time in history...
Well done.
My country Grand Forks always had their catalog at home when I was growing up
Montgomery ward used to sell colouring books for during the Winter Holiday season (with compliments of Robert L May)
Montgomery Ward in Towson MD, employee for 2 years
My grandpa used to buy their tires.
Do you really think Wards built those huge buildings they inhabited in Chicago?
Or did Montgomery Ward inherit and repurpose them because they were they already there?
My grandfather use to call it Monkey Wards
Great Music .
Who remembers the big Monkey Wards in (NW) Portland Oregon in the 60's? :)
We use to call it monkey wards lol loved shopping there!
True.
So Sears is Montgomery Ward 2.0
Yes
Without the mail order guns and Heroin!!!!
It will not be too long before there will be no Sears.
Ripping of The Civil War. Nice.
What the hell happened to Chicago ?
Actually it's a constitutional republic
And Wards still grow...Wards supported Wonder woman as he called his wife 5:27;
Actual story starts at 2:30
the online now like amazon
Amazon 1.0
Not a fan of this 5th Grade book report presentation style but, still an interesting piece of American history.
like you can do better
A vapid grade school kid's book report, set to ol' timey pioneer music. I'd much rather hear about Ralphie and his Red Rider bee bee gun.
Honestly Mr. Bunker you didn't even bother to mention FDR's seizer of Monkey Wards from Sewell Avery in 1944; a must!
HINT: People come to UA-cam to learn from people like The History Guy, not watered down drivel you can get on TV. Your better than this.
From a guy who can’t spell. You’re not better than this. Stay away.