What Is The Origin of The Garage Sale?

The garage sale: our favorite national tradition to stand the test of time. From what seems like the dawn of time, people have been setting up antiques and dusty items outside of their homes, happy to trade their used items for some neighborly interactions and some useful stacks of cash. Except, of course, for one thing: garage sales haven’t been around since the dawn of time. They had to start somewhere.

If you’ve ever referred to garage sales as “rummage sales,” this will ring familiar to you. Just like when we order things from Amazon, cargo from cargo ships doesn’t always make it to the intended destination. Way back in the 1800’s, shipyards would host discount sales of unclaimed cargo called rommages. These kinds of sales eventually extended further onto land and became popular in churches and other social spaces. Slowly but surely, and especially during the 50’s and 60’s, these sales became more commonplace in family and neighborhood settings, coming closer to the beautiful community-based events we know and love today.

Still, however, there are missing pieces to the garage sale puzzle: namely, garages. While it also seems that suburban streets have been lined with driveways leading to garages since the beginning of time, the suburban neighborhood is actually a pretty recent concept. It wasn’t until around the 70’s or 80’s that house architecture began to regularly feature garages at the front of the house—a necessary precursor to the modern garage sale.

Finally, and also around this time, US consumerism started to boom. This meant people began to buy more and more stuff, which also meant that people began to need more space for their new stuff—a tale we’re all familiar with. All of these things put together bring us to the tried-and-true tradition that we all love: the almighty garage sale.

Decades later, garage sales are regular events that we look forward to every spring, summer, and whenever else we get a chance to enjoy these neighborhood events. Who would’ve thought that our favorite community event began with cargo ships? Long live the garage sale!