Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 56. Chapters: Burroughs Corporation, General Electric Company plc, Mergenthaler Linotype Company, Avon Products, Johnson & Johnson, Sears, Alcoa, Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company, Sunoco, Arthur D. Little, Westinghouse Electric, Longfellow, Alden & Harlow, Hawthorn Leslie and Company, Gilpin Railroad, Smith Corona, S. C. Johnson & Son, Omaha and Council Bluffs Railway and Bridge Company, Parke-Davis, William Grant & Sons, Thomas Luce & Company, Ladbrokes, Maas Brothers, The BOC Group, Standard Oil of Kentucky, GAF Materials Corporation, Edison International, Consumers Energy, Channellock, Prapopoulos Bros s.a., Charles H. Kerr Company Publishers, A. Reyrolle & Company, National Carbon Company, The Wharf, Upjohn, Whittard of Chelsea, Penton Media, Schmidt Baking Company, American Water, Royal Niger Company, Central National-Gottesman, Chuokoron-Shinsha, Bama Gruppen, Goerz, Cattaraugus Cutlery Company, Berwind Corporation, S. Fischer Verlag, De Cecco, D. L. Clark Company, Hunsfos Fabrikker, C. L. Barnhouse Company, A H Wheeler & Co, Whitworths, Chas A. Stevens, American Seating, White Rose. Excerpt: Sears, officially named Sears, Roebuck and Co., is an American chain of department stores which was founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in the late 19th century. Formerly a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Sears merged with Kmart in early 2005, creating the Sears Holdings Corporation. From its mail order beginnings, the company grew to become the largest retailer in the United States by the mid-20th century, and its catalogs became famous. Competition and changes in the demographics of its customer base challenged the company after World War II as its rural and inner city strongholds shrank and the suburban markets grew. Eventually its catalog program was largely discontinued. Richard SearsRichard Warren Sears was a railroad station agent in North Redwood, Minnesota when he received an impressive shipment of watches from a Chicago jeweler which were unwanted by a local jeweler. Sears purchased them himself, sold the watches for a tidy profit to other station agents up and down the line, and then ordered more for resale. Soon he started a business selling watches through mail order catalogs. The next year, he moved to Chicago, Illinois where he met Alvah C. Roebuck, who joined him in the business. In 1893, the corporate business name became Sears, Roebuck and Co. Richard Sears knew that farmers often brought their crops to town, where they could be sold and shipped. Before the Sears catalog, farmers typically bought supplies (often at very high prices) from local general stores. Sears took advantage of this by publishing his catalog with clearly stated prices, so that consumers could know what he was selling and at what price, and order and obtain them conveniently. The catalog business grew quickly. The first Sears catalog was published in 1888. By 1894, the Sears catalog had grown to 322 pages, featuring sewing machines, bicycles, sporting goods, automobiles (produced from 1905-1915 by Lincoln Motor Car Works of Chicago, not relat