The gaggle of ragged boys looked carefully for the parents, and when the coast was clear, in they swooped: first one living room, then the next, and finally they'd scooped up the contraband from each boy's home, and collect quite a profit from the local store owners. And they spent their ill-gotten booty on bubble gum with "sample" razor blades, wrapped in heavy paper, printed with "give this to your dad" -- and so began this early American "outsourcing" drama. And it would be followed soon by dozens of subsequent chapters of classic economic fable.
 
Local stores despised the "invasion" of mail-order catalogues in the early 20th century, and cursed the day Congress authorized the U.S. Post Office to commence "Rural Free Delivery" to farms outside the normal city/town delivery zone.  Thus began an economic empire [of multiple, competing catalogue brand names], and a Hatfield-McCoy battle royale. Suddenly, folks could order the finest, and most fashionable, dresses and shirts and trousers, at a much lower cost, from the distant Sears and Ward's order centers, all without ‘patronizing’ the higher-priced local store. With the savings in their meager home budget, they could then afford a new contraption, perhaps the "thresher" that made their farm more efficient. [more]