Bullock Ward & Co

Bullock, Ward & Co. of Chicago was founded in 1899 by Thomas H. Bullock and Phillip T. Ward as a mail-order business specializing in soaps, perfumes, pure food flavoring extracts, toilet articles, and household specialties. Beginning with only $2,000 in capital, the company initially operated out of a modest 20-by-30-foot room with a staff consisting solely of Bullock, Ward, and an office boy. Despite these humble beginnings, the business expanded rapidly through aggressive advertising and a carefully structured mail-order system that appealed particularly to people in small towns and villages. 

Within only a few years, the company had grown into one of Chicago’s most notable mail-order houses, occupying an entire seven-story building with more than 30,000 square feet of floor space and employing between 100 and 150 workers. Annual sales reportedly approached $1.5 million, with the company receiving nearly 500 orders every working day. Their advertising budget alone exceeded $100,000 annually, while postage costs surpassed $30,000 per year. Several years after the founding of the company, Phillip T. Ward purchased Thomas Bullock’s interest and became the sole owner and executive head of the enterprise.

The company’s success was deeply rooted in the expanding American mail-order trade of the early twentieth century. Unlike the enormous Chicago mail-order houses that sold virtually every imaginable consumer product strictly for cash, Bullock, Ward & Co. concentrated on a narrower line of staple household goods such as soaps, flavoring extracts, baking powders, teas, coffees, spices, perfumes, and toilet preparations. Their business model was based upon a modified form of the popular “trust” or premium-selling system. 

Rather than relying primarily on children to sell novelty goods in exchange for prizes, Bullock, Ward & Co. recruited adult men and women as local sales agents who could establish long-term customer relationships within their communities. The company promised substantial household premiums and furniture in exchange for sales, promoting the enticing slogan “Furnish your home without cost.” Credit was liberally extended to prospective agents after correspondence and the submission of references from responsible members of the applicant’s local community. Ward emphasized that the company’s success did not arise from inventing a new business idea, but from expanding and refining an existing one while remaining persistent during the difficult early years when advertising costs consumed nearly all profits.

Advertising formed the backbone of the company’s expansion. Ward strongly believed that consistent, large-scale advertising in mail-order publications was essential to maintaining a constant stream of new customers and agents. He credited much of the firm’s prosperity to “consistent and persistent” advertising in mail-order journals, insisting that these publications reached the precise audience his company sought. 

The company experimented with mainstream magazines such as McClure’s, Everybody’s, and Cosmopolitan, as well as farm journals and religious publications, but Ward concluded that mail-order papers generated replies at a far lower cost. He explained that magazines primarily circulated in cities while agricultural papers reached farms, whereas Bullock, Ward & Co.’s ideal clientele consisted mainly of women living in villages and small towns who had “more time than money” and were willing to act as local agents. According to Ward, nearly nine-tenths of the company’s business came from east of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio River, while inquiries from the South were viewed with some caution because canvassing was considered less successful there.

Ward also discussed the practical realities of mail-order advertising and sales. He noted that inquiries had become more expensive due to growing competition and stressed that large mail-order businesses depended not on novelty items but on repeat orders for everyday staple goods. Novelties, he explained, might attract attention initially, but lasting profits came from developing ongoing relationships with customers. He further emphasized the importance of maintaining honest dealings and reputable advertising environments, carefully avoiding publications associated with fraudulent schemes. 

Bullock, Ward & Co. built its reputation around two guiding mottos prominently printed in its catalogs and promotional material: “The greatest possible value always for the least amount of money,” and “We never consider a transaction settled till our customer is fully satisfied.” Ward also expressed admiration for President Theodore Roosevelt’s philosophy of “a square deal for every man,” presenting the company as one grounded in fair dealing and customer satisfaction.

The company’s advertising campaigns were highly seasonal. Ward explained that advertisements were more effective during the winter months, when people spent more time indoors reading. During the summer, when potential customers were occupied with gardens and outdoor activities, advertising costs increased substantially because fewer advertisements were read carefully. Nevertheless, once a solid network of agents had been established during the winter, those agents continued generating sales year-round. Although the company accepted some financial losses from dishonest agents because of its liberal credit practices, Ward claimed these losses were minimal due to the company’s policy of requiring references. He maintained that most people were fundamentally honest and that long-term business relationships were far more profitable than deceptive schemes.

List of known perfumes:

• Carnation
• Chypre
• Crab Apple Blossom
• Fairie Queen Florida Water
• Fairie Queen Rose
• Heliotrope
• Jasmine
• Jockey Club
• Lavender
• Lilac
• Lily of the Valley
• Musk
• New Mown Hay
• Parisian Bouquet
• Violet
• White Rose

 

The perfume line produced by Bullock, Ward & Co. reflected the tastes and fragrance preferences popular in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their catalog emphasized familiar floral soliflores, romantic bouquet compositions, fashionable European-inspired scents, and classic Victorian perfumery accords designed to appeal to middle-class consumers purchasing through mail-order catalogs. Because the company specialized in affordable household and toilet goods distributed nationwide through agents and correspondence sales, the perfumes were likely marketed as accessible luxuries that allowed customers in small towns and rural communities to enjoy fashionable fragrances associated with larger urban department stores and European perfumeries.

Many of the fragrances in the line were centered around single floral themes, a style extremely popular during the period. Carnation perfume would have recreated the spicy, clove-like aroma of dianthus blossoms, a favorite note in Victorian perfumery for its warm, peppery sweetness. Chypre represented one of the era’s most fashionable perfume styles, inspired by Mediterranean landscapes and built around mossy, woody, citrusy accords that later became one of the most influential perfume families in modern fragrance history. Crab Apple Blossom likely captured the delicate honeyed and slightly green floral scent of spring orchard blossoms, evoking freshness and rural romanticism. Heliotrope would have featured the soft almond-vanilla aroma associated with heliotrope flowers, a comforting powdery scent widely used in cosmetics and perfumes of the period. Jasmine perfume recreated the rich, narcotic white floral fragrance long associated with luxury and sensuality, while Lavender offered a cleaner aromatic scent valued for both elegance and hygienic associations.

Several fragrances focused on beloved garden flowers traditionally associated with femininity and refinement. Lilac perfume imitated the fresh, airy scent of spring lilac blossoms, while Lily of the Valley reproduced the cool, green, dewy floral note cherished in Victorian bouquets and wedding flowers. Violet perfume, one of the most fashionable floral scents of the late nineteenth century, would have emphasized powdery, sweet, slightly earthy floral notes often associated with refinement and nostalgia. White Rose represented a softer and more delicate interpretation of the classic rose fragrance, emphasizing pale fresh petals rather than the deeper honeyed richness of darker rose varieties. Fairie Queen Rose likely combined rose with sweeter romantic nuances intended to suggest fantasy, femininity, and delicate beauty.

The line also included fragrances inspired by established perfume styles and social fashions. Jockey Club was a famous nineteenth-century perfume type originally associated with elite European gentlemen’s clubs and horse-racing society, typically blending floral notes with musk, amber, and aromatic herbs to create a refined unisex scent. Parisian Bouquet likely attempted to evoke the sophistication of fashionable French perfumery through a blended floral composition suggestive of elegant Parisian flower arrangements. Musk perfume centered around the warm, sensual, animalic aroma that had long been prized in perfumery for depth and longevity, although by this period it was often recreated through synthetic materials or softened interpretations. New Mown Hay was especially characteristic of Victorian taste, reproducing the sweet dry grassy scent of freshly cut hay, a pastoral fragrance strongly associated with countryside nostalgia and summer landscapes.

Among the more distinctive offerings were the Florida Water variations, particularly Fairie Queen Florida Water. Florida Water was an immensely popular American toilet water during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, typically composed of citrus oils, lavender, neroli, clove, and herbal ingredients. It was used not only as perfume, but also as a refreshing splash, skin tonic, and household toiletry. The addition of the “Fairie Queen” name suggests Bullock, Ward & Co. attempted to market a more whimsical and feminine interpretation of the traditional Florida Water formula. Fairie Queen Rose likely followed a similar strategy, combining romantic rose notes with decorative fantasy-inspired branding intended to appeal to women purchasing through illustrated mail-order catalogs.

Taken together, the perfume list reveals a company carefully balancing practicality, affordability, and fashionable aspiration. Rather than emphasizing rare exotic materials or avant-garde artistic compositions, Bullock, Ward & Co.’s perfumes focused on recognizable, comforting, and socially fashionable scents that ordinary Americans would immediately understand and desire. The selection mirrored the broader mail-order philosophy of the company itself: offering respectable luxury, personal refinement, and a touch of elegance to customers far beyond the major urban perfume counters of Chicago and the great European capitals.