Related with the invention of the printing press.
Nobody knows who invented the first printing press, but the first printed document was found in China in the city of Dunhuang (Gangsu province). It was a Buddhist book called “The Diamond Sutra” and was printed around 868 A.D. during the Tang Dynasty. The printing method was based on woodblock printing in reverse. Currently, we were very far from the concept of catalog yet, but the main tool for producing them was already there.
The Gutenberg press was developed in Strasbourg, France in 1440 and perfected 10 years later in Mainz, Germany. The technology was much more advanced but still limited to text only. Then the inventor Johannes Gutenberg started to print calendar, bibles and pamphlets. We were getting there…
The first catalog ever…
Now having the technology available, the Italian publisher and humanist Aldus Manutius decided to make a list of books he published in the end of his life. It was just a list of pocketbooks meant to be introduced to Venice in 1498.
And so, Aldus Manutius was the inventor of what we consider the first catalog in history. The first regularly published catalog started in 1667. It was a seed catalog mainly for colonial America. Well, this was just a list with no illustrations of the products whatsoever. So, who started to put illustrations on a catalog?
The mail order era.
Around 1830 mail order catalogs started to be popular. The printing press technology was advanced enough to produce high quantity of good quality printing for an affordable price. And in 1861, Pryce Jones based in Newtown, Wales was starting to sell in very large amount to rich customers. The catalogs started to have illustrations of their products with text to describe them. As the catalog was also sent to America, colonial new rich people were crazy about ordering nice things from Europe.
In 1871, a French department store called Au Bon Marché launched the first catalog for the general public. The catalogs were printed every year with two versions. One for the domestic market, and one for Europe and North Africa.
In 1872, the first Montgomery Ward national mail catalog was produced. This is the first order mail catalog produced for the general public in America. And then, the modern mail order industry as we know it has started.
What happened since then?
The Sears catalog in 1897 started to show a colored page for some fashion items as the company started to cut on the catalog payment for orders more than 10 dollars. The catalogs also started to be bigger in format size since.
The R.W. Sears Watch Co. was originally selling watches and jewelry via mail order since 1888. Then catalogs started to be produced twice a year (Spring and Fall). The Sears catalog was innovative and very popular through America and the competition followed. After the success of mail order, manufacturers started to publish their own catalog of their own products available for free in shopping malls.
In conclusion.
The catalog as we know it comes from a very long way from medieval times. Closely related to printing press technology, catalogs started to promote products and making them more and more desirable with illustrations and later with photos. Catalogs from manufacturers that we mostly have in the Catalogism.com database just started to appear in shopping malls. They started to be free as mass production makers made more profit with a better distribution of their products, better mailing and delivery services. Nowadays, catalogs are powerful marketing tools to promote a brand and build trust between the consumer and the manufacturer. To the point that manufacturers would be ashamed not having a regularly updated catalog every year.
