Alvah Curtis Roebuck

Alvah Curtis Roebuck (born June 9, 1864 in Lafayette , Indiana , † June 18, 1948 in Chicago , Illinois ) was an American mechanic and co-founder of the company Sears & Roebuck (1887-1895). From 1897 to 1909 he was President of the Enterprise Optical Equipment Manufacturing Company and from 1909 to 1924 President of the Woodstock Typewriter Company.

Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck

Roebuck worked as a watchmaker in a jewelry store in Hammond, Indiana. On April 1, 1887, an advertisement from Chicago seeking a watchmaker caught his attention. Roebuck had always dreamed of moving west, but the north was just as good with the ad. Richard Warren Sears had placed this ad . Roebuck brought all his knowledge of clock repair and a love of mechanics with him. Sears had opened a store on Dearborn Street, Chicago on March 1, 1887, with 3 employees; 1 bookkeeper and two stenographers for the correspondence, which operated under the name RW Sears Watch Company.

In 1888, the company published the first of its famous mail order catalogs. It had 80 pages and mainly advertised watches and jewelry. As a print shop capable of printing a catalog, Roebuck found WB Conkey in Hammond, Indiana. At various times between 1888 and 1891, Sears got bored with the business and sold Roebuck his stake. At the age of 25, Sears withdrew from the company and sold his half of the company to Roebuck, who then founded the company AC Roebuck. But Sears soon got bored and came back. After a year as a silent partner, they adopted the name Sears and Roebuck.

Within two years, the catalog grew to 322 pages, filled with clothing, jewelry, and durable goods such as sewing machines, bicycles, and even musical instruments. Sears was a shrewd and aggressive salesman - a colleague once said of him, "He could probably sell a breath of air" - Sears undercut its competition by buying out discontinued inventory and returns from manufacturers, and giving discounts to customers. In 1894, the Sears Catalog proclaimed that Sears was "the cheapest utility house in the world".

As the business grew, so too did Roebuck's fears of obligations to their suppliers. He asked Sears for his share to be paid out. As soon as this new partner found in Aron Nusbaum and Julius Rosenwald , he paid Roebuck a severance payment of $ 25,000 in 1895.

Sears did not just let Roebuck go, but entrusted him with the supervision of various subsidiaries that manufactured various products as subcontractors.

Enterprise Optical Company

The Enterprise Optical Company, founded by Alvah C. Roebuck in Chicago in 1896, began its work in 1898 with the sale of the first Roebuck-designed Optigraph projector , based on a forerunner model Laterna magica , which was sold through the Sears Roebuck and Company catalog. It is therefore the forerunner of modern slide and film projection . It was considered to be one of the most robust and in practice most reliable projector models and was the forerunner of the Motiograph Model No. 1, which the company introduced in 1908 (registered as a brand name in 1909). The Maltese cross was replaceable and could be removed from the device for repairs without having to dismantle the projector.

The successor model from 1913 provided double flywheels for better synchronization and a three-wing aperture for a significant reduction in flicker. The Model E followed in 1916; It contained a motor and a new lens mount that allowed the demonstrator to change optics without touching the lenses. Other models - u. a. for wide film formats, later for sound film - followed. The reliability of the motiograph was legend. In 1936 the company was renamed Motiograph, Inc.

The Emerson (later Woodstock) typewriter

According to Roebuck's notes, he became the managing director of the Emerson Typewriter Company in 1909 and learned a great deal over the next few years about how it worked. In 1912 he tried a Harris model. He seemed to know what was wrong with the machine. In 1914 it was reopened as the Woodstock Typewriter Company and was immediately successful. In 1922 it was found that an experienced typist could write 120 words per minute on a Woodstock; the world record was 125 words / minute on an Underwood model.

When Roebuck was enjoying his retirement in Florida at age 65, the stock market suddenly collapsed on October 29, 1929. So severe were Roebuck's financial losses that he went back to Sears, Roebuck & Co. and asked Julius Rosenwald for employment. Rosenwald asked him to look into the company's history. In September 1934, one of the department store tenants wanted to appear in person. It was such a great success that Roebuck had to visit branches all over America by the early 1940s and report on the beginnings of the company.

literature

• Richard Koszarski: An Evening's Entertainment. The Age of the Silent Feature Picture, 1915-1928 . ISBN 978-0-5200-8535-0
• Nancy L. Baker: Woodstock . Publisher: Arcadia Publishing, 2006. ISBN 978-0-7385-4080-1

Web links

• Hammond, Indiana
• Alvah Curtis Roebuck in the database of Find a Grave (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ WB Conkey company in Hammond
2. ↑ Optigraph ( Memento of the original from November 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ^ Optical Movie Projector
4. ↑ Woodstock / Emerson Typewriter ( Memento of the original from February 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ↑ US Patent 1,115,311, filed April 1912 by De Witt C. Harris, assignor to the Harris Typewriter Manufacturing Company, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin ( Memento of the original from December 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still Not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.