Roebuck, Alvah C.

Roebuck, Alvah C. (Curtis) (1864–1948) watch repairman, businessman; born near Lafayette, Ind. He began repairing watches as a child and helped support his family at age 12 after his father died. He repaired watches for Richard Sears in Chicago until Sears sold the R. W. Sears Watch Company and moved to Iowa. Under the agreement, Sears was to refrain from selling watches in the Chicago area for a specific number of years, so he enticed Roebuck to form A. C. Roebuck & Company, a mail order watch business based in Minneapolis (1891), which Sears then bought back and moved to Chicago as the Sears and Roebuck Company (1893). Roebuck reunited with Sears in 1909 when Sears asked him to modernize the Emerson typewriter; after Roebuck did so, it was renamed the Woodstock and became a great money-earner for Sears and Roebuck Company. Roebuck continued to work on entertainment devices, including a magic lantern. He developed a motion picture company that he sold in 1924. He moved to Florida, lost all his money in real estate speculation, and in 1930 returned to Sears and Roebuck Company as a correspondent and promoter. He retired to California in 1940.