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Sears Catalog Homes (sold under the Sears Modern Homes name) were catalog and kit houses sold primarily through mail order by Sears, Roebuck and Company, an American retailer. Sears reported that more than 70,000 of these homes were sold in North America between 1908 and 1940.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Sears Archives )〕 More than 370 different home designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes were offered over the program's 32-year history. Sears homes can be found across the continental United States with homes as far south as Florida as far north as Alaska and as far west as California. A handful of Sears homes have been identified in Canada 〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Did Sears, Roebuck Sell Homes in Canada? )〕 Elgin, Illinois (a city approximately 35 miles WNW of Chicago) has the largest known collection of Sears homes in one community with more than 200 identified houses from Sears.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Elgin, Illinois Sears House Research Project )〕 Sears Modern Homes offered the latest technology available to house buyers in the early part of the twentieth century. Central heating, indoor plumbing, and electricity were all new developments in house design that "Modern Homes" incorporated, although not all of the houses were designed with these conveniences. Primarily shipped via railroad boxcars, these kits included most of the materials needed to build a house. Once delivered, many of these houses were assembled by the new homeowner, relatives, friends and neighbors, in a fashion similar to the traditional barn-raisings of farming families.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Sears mail order homes )〕 Other homeowners relied on local carpenters or contractors to assemble the houses. In some cases, Sears provided construction services to assemble the homes. Some builders and companies purchased homes directly from Sears to build as model homes, speculative homes or homes for customers. Sears stopped issuing its Modern Homes catalog after 1940. A few years later, all sales records were destroyed during a corporate house cleaning. As only a small percentage of these homes were documented when built, finding these houses today often requires detailed research to properly identify them. Because the various kit home companies often copied plan elements or designs from each other, there are a number of catalog and kit models from different manufacturers that look similar or identical to models offered by Sears. Determining which company manufactured a particular catalog and kit home may require additional research to determine the origin of that home. National and regional competitors in the catalog and kit home market included Aladdin, Gordon-Van Tine, Harris Brothers, Lewis, Pacific Ready Cut Homes, Sterling and Wardway Homes. == Sears Modern Homes 1908–1940 == In 1906, Frank W. Kushel, a Sears manager, was given responsibility for the catalog company's unwieldy, unprofitable building materials department. Sales were down, and there was excess inventory languishing in warehouses. He is credited with suggesting to Richard Sears that the company assemble kits of all the parts needed and sell ''entire houses'' through mail order. In the same year, the Aladdin Company of Bay City, Michigan, offered the first mail order kit homes. In 1908, Sears issued its first specialty catalog for houses, ''Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans'', featuring 44 styles ranging in price from US $360–$2,890. The first mail order for a house was filled in 1908. As Sears mail-order catalogs were in millions of homes, large numbers of potential homeowners were able to open a catalog, see different house designs, visualize their new home and then purchase it directly from Sears. As sales grew, Sears expanded its production, shipping and sales offices to regional sites across the US. To provide the materials needed for the Modern Homes division, Sears first purchased a lumber mill in Cairo, Illinois. Later, Sears acquired a second mill in Port Newark, New Jersey and the Norwood Sash and Door Company in Norwood, Ohio. The ability to mass-produce the materials used in Sears homes lessened manufacturing costs, which lowered purchase costs for customers. Precut and fitted lumber, an innovation pioneered by Aladdin, was first offered by Sears in 1916. Prior to 1916, the prospective home builder had to cut their Sears-supplied lumber to appropriate lengths. These pre-1916 houses are not generally considered to be "kit houses" but do fall under the definition of a "catalog house". Construction of a house with pre-cut lumber reduced construction time by up to 40% according to Sears. Sears's use of "balloon style" framing systems did not require a team of skilled carpenters, as did previous methods. Balloon frames were built faster and generally only required one carpenter. This system used precut timber of mostly standard sizes (2"x4" and 2"x8") for framing. Shipped by railroad boxcar, and then usually trucked to a home site, the average Sears Modern Home kit had approximately 25 tons of materials, with over 30,000 parts.〔("Bill of Materials for Sears Modern Home" )〕 Plumbing, electrical fixtures and heating systems were not included in the base price of the kit house but could be included, at an additional cost, with the house order. The Modern Homes features of central heating, indoor plumbing, and electrical wiring were the first steps for many families to modern HVAC systems, kitchens, and bathrooms. During the Modern Homes program, large quantities of asphalt shingles became available. Asphalt shingles were cheap to manufacture and ship, and easy and inexpensive to install. A later feature was the use of drywall instead of the plaster and lath wall-building techniques which required skilled carpenters and plasterers. Drywall offered the advantages of low price, ease of installation, and added fire protection. Local building requirements sometimes dictated that certain elements of the house construction be done professionally and varied to meet requirements of each area of the country. For example, foundation depth requirements varied by climate and terrain. Sears began offering financing plans in 1912. 〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Two Italian Families and their Neighboring Sears Houses )〕 Early mortgage loans were typically for 5 – 15 years at 6% – 7% interest. Sales peaked in 1929, just before the Great Depression. By then, the least expensive model was under US $1,000; the highest priced was under US $4,400 ($13,687 and $60,225 in 2013 dollars respectively).〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=US Inflation Calculator )〕 While financing through Sears helped many homeowners purchase homes, the Great Depression led to rising payment defaults, resulting in increasing strain on the catalog house program. Sears stopped offering mortgages in 1934 after the company was forced to liquidate $11 million in defaulted debt. Sears stopped selling homes for a short time in 1934. Sales slowly recovered as the United States emerged from the Great Depression but the decision was made in 1940 to wind down the Sears Modern Homes division. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sears Catalog Home」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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