These mail-order dwellings democratized homebuying, one kit at a time Last fall, e-commerce behemoth Amazon elicited bemused reactions when it started selling shipping container homes online. Beyond obvious jokes?was the Prime program simply finding a more straightforward way to ship you everything in your home?it was impressive that the company?s deliver-anything-to-your doorstep ethos now applied to homes, not just household goods. `
While Amazon?s logistics empire and same-day delivery service is perhaps its crowning achievement, sending homes through the mail isn?t new or novel. More than a century ago, Sears, Roebuck & Co. sent and shipped entire home kits across the country, a then-revolutionary service that would impact not just retailing, but home design and construction.
reading about Sears house kits they'd ship to you by train & you built it yourself. Pretty into The Greenview myself https://t.co/EB47wiqRj5 pic.twitter.com/8o2JQjiqf7? jon klassen (@burstofbeaden) August 24, 2017

The retail chain?s bankruptcy filing this week, after decades of slow decline, obscures just how disruptive Sears was in its early 20th century heyday. While the business page obituaries will continue to position Sears as the Amazon of its day?and there?s some truth to that?the physical footprint left by Sears, especially via its kit home program and Modern Homes catalog, is wholly different than anything Amazon has yet to achieve.
Consider this: In an era before com...