Remember When You Could Buy a Monkey in the Mail?
Dating is wild. When you choose to open your heart to another, you never know what you are going to get, especially when you start learning your sweetie’s family history. When I started dating my partner, he shared with me that his grandmother used to have a monkey as a pet. I was instantly intrigued.
The more I dug into this, the more I realized we needed more information on how his family ended up with a pet monkey. That brings us to this call with my soon-to-be sister-in-law. She gives us a little more insight.
Now that we had confirmation of the family monkey, I needed more. Were monkeys a common pet back in the day? How does one lay hands on such a pet. What? Well, after a little internet sleuthing, turns out was as simple as placing a mail order request to Sears.
According to investigativepress.com ” Years ago, most people didn’t have a brooks-and-mortar store, shopping center or mall to go to where they could buy the things they needed. They also couldn’t go to any of them to buy the things they didn’t need, either. Sure, major superstores did exist, but only local populations could shop at them, and there simply weren’t enough of them for most shoppers. So it’s worth remembering the very first superstore, Sears and Roebuck, which started as a mail-order catalog for watches, and then also for pretty much everything anyone could want to buy. And yes, that included buying a small monkey, for delivery by mail. That seems very strange today. Order a small monkey from a catalog? And have it delivered in the mail? Well, yes. At one time, there was a section in the catalog titled, “Pets the whole family can enjoy.”
However, there is some debate on where the family monkey came from in this instance, as his grandma was a circus performer herself. Ah, love. You’ll never know were it’ll lead you.
Monkeys weren’t the only exotic pet on the list, you could also order an alligator for $3.99! Check out this 1959 Sears Fall Winter Catalog to see all the vintage mail order madness.