How to conduct a small mail order business — Text and Context

Starting with the Right Article

Skinner devotes early pages to the fundamental choice between staples and novelties. Staple goods, he argues, are already available from local retailers, so customers rarely mail-order them unless they are branded specialties like "Plymouth Rock Pants" or "Douglas’ Shoes." Even then, manufacturers told him there is "no profit in the mail orders"—such sales merely popularize the brand. The exception is watches, silverware, and jewelry, which remain strong mail-order sellers. Novelties, by contrast, offer hundreds of possibilities: books, toys, games, photographs, and perfumery. The key is to select items that are light, hard to break, and timed for seasonal demand.

The Role of Advertising and Presentation

While the excerpts do not reproduce the full advertising advice, the pamphlet repeatedly stresses that "the advertisement must be properly arranged." Skinner implies that even a good product will fail without an eye-catching description and proper placement. The guide's own title page—priced at five cents and part of the "Multum in Parvo Library"—models the concise, value-oriented pitch he recommends. Readers are urged to study successful catalog copy and to test small ads before committing larger sums.

Humor as a Window into 1890s Commerce

The later excerpts shift abruptly to jokes and anecdotes, such as the Irish stablehand who hitched the wrong horse, or the mother who whipped her child at the photographer's for not smiling. These appear to fill space but also reflect the era's expectation that a business pamphlet should entertain. The jokes are not directly about mail order, but they reveal the cultural context: a readership comfortable with dialect humor, domestic scenes, and mild social satire. Skinner likely included them to keep the booklet light and memorable.

Structure and Limitations of the Text

At roughly 6,000 words, the pamphlet is a concise primer, not a comprehensive manual. The excerpts show that after the initial advice on product selection and advertising, the text becomes a miscellany of filler material—jokes, transcribed jokes, and possibly reprinted filler from periodicals. The transcriber's notes indicate that two words were illegible in the original print, suggesting the source was a cheaply produced booklet. Readers should therefore treat the later sections as period flavor rather than actionable business guidance.

Skinner's pamphlet is best read as a historical artifact of 1890s small-enterprise culture. Its core advice—choose novelties over staples, advertise seasonally, and keep packaging light—remains sensible, but the humorous filler and lack of detailed financial planning limit its practical use today. Approach it as a snapshot of how mail-order pioneers thought about their trade, not as a step-by-step manual.

I remember that little mail-order handbook, so certain that attractive wares would find their buyers. Yet years later, my eye fell upon Progress and Poverty, Volumes I and II An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth — Text and Context, and I thought how even the cleverest catalog must answer to the deeper, silent economics between folks.