August 18, 2015 – NATIONAL ICE CREAM PIE DAY – NATIONAL MAIL ORDER CATALOG DAY

                               NATIONAL ICE CREAM PIE DAY

National Ice Cream Pie Day is observed annually on August 18th.  This food holiday honors this refreshing frozen desert that comes in many delicious flavors.

CELEBRATE

Please enjoy these “tried and true” recipes that we found for you. 

Lemonade Ice Cream PieChocolate Crunch Ice Cream PiePeanut Butter Ice Cream PieBanana Split Ice Cream Pie

Use #IceCreamPieDay to post on social media.

HISTORY

Our research was unable to find the creator of National Ice Cream Pie Day, an “unofficial” national holiday.

National Mail Order Catalog Day – August 18

NATIONAL MAIL ORDER CATALOG DAY 

What was once one of the most popular ways of shopping is remembered each year on August 18th as it is National Mail Order Catalog Day.

Today marks the anniversary of when, in August of 1872,  Aaron Montgomery Ward, of Chicago, produced the very first Montgomery Wards mail order catalog.   It was by buying the goods and then reselling them directly to the customers that Aaron Montgomery Ward was consequently removing the middlemen at the general store and to the benefit of the customers was able to drastically lower the prices.

• The very first catalog consisted of an 8 by 12 inch single sheet of paper which included the merchandise for sale, the price list and ordering instructions.   Montgomery Wards single page list of products grew into a 540 page illustrated book selling over 20,000 items. 

It was soon after that the Montgomery Wards catalog was copied by other enterprising merchants, most notably Richard Warren Sears.  The first general Sears catalog was mailed in 1896  Many others entered the field and catalog sales grew.  By 1971, catalog sales of major United States firms exceeded more than $250 million in postal revenue.

• According to the National Mail Order Association, Benjamin Franklin is believed to have been the very first cataloger in the United States.  He formulated the basic mail order concept when he produced the first catalog, which sold scientific and academic books.  Franklin also receives credit for offering the first mail order guarantee: “Those persons who live remote, by sending their orders and money to B. Franklin may depend on the same justice as if present”.

Today, mail order catalogs have been replaced with websites on the internet and the term “mail order” has been replaced with the term “online shopping”.

CELEBRATE

Use #MailOrderCatalogDay to post on social media.